4 janvier 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Kyle Rempfer
A growing cohort of Air Force researchers are arguing that the service needs to undergo a munitions revolution if it is to take on a peer-level adversary in open conflict.
“We're developing a range of technologies to enable next-generation and improve precision effects on the battlefield,” Col. Garry Haase, who helms the Air Force Research Lab Munitions Directorate, told an audience at the Air Force Association Annual Conference this fall.
In some instances, that will mean more powerful munitions to breach and destroy Russian and Chinese structures in the event of war.
“There is now a shift in emphasis away from minimizing to maximizing effects in a high-end fight,” said John Wilcox, vice president of advanced programs and technology at Northrop Grumman, at the conference.
“Requirements from our missions directorate say we continue to have to deal with the whole spectrum of threats as we shift to more of a near-peer threat focus,” Wilcox added. “We are looking at larger munitions with bigger effects.”
And while neither members of the AFA panel named Russia or China specifically, a recent study by the Mitchell Institute, which is aligned with the Air Force Association, certainly did.
In the document, titled “The Munition Effects Revolution," several retired senior Air Force officers argue that the U.S. munitions arsenal is overdue for a shakeup.
“The bomb body, a steel shell filled with explosive material, is relatively unchanged across the past 100 years," the study reads. "But some elements of modern munitions have significantly evolved—particularly guidance elements. Munition effects—the destructive envelope of heat, blast, and fragmentation—remain essentially unchanged.”
High demand for combat aircraft is a key driver behind the need for enhanced munitions options, according to the Mitchell Institute.
“The Air Force is currently operating the smallest and oldest aircraft force in its history,” the study reads. “Additionally, current mission capable rates are low and pilots are in increasingly short supply. To best meet combatant command requirements amidst these constraints, it is crucial to ensure each sortie flown and every bomb dropped yields maximum potential.”
24 avril 2023 | International, Autre défense
Global military spending rose to a record last year as Russia's war in Ukraine drove the biggest annual increase in expenditure in Europe since the end of the Cold War three decades ago, a leading conflict and armaments think tank said on Monday.
3 septembre 2019 | International, Naval
By: Ben Werner Only one of the Navy's 18 dry docks used for maintaining the nuclear-powered carrier fleet can support a Ford-class carrier, Navy officials told USNI News. Dry Dock 8 at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard can handle a Ford-class carrier, but only after a temporary cooling water systems is set up. A permanent cooling water system and other upgrades to Dry Dock 8 are scheduled to occur before USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) enters its first planned dry dock availability, Anna Taylor, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokeswoman, told USNI News in an email. The Navy also plans to upgrade a West Coast dry dock to handle the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), Taylor added. Mike Petters, chief executive of Huntington Ingalls Industries, whose Newport News Shipbuilding yard is the sole builder of aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy, said in a conference call with analysts earlier this month that the fixes required were not complicated. The hull size of the new class is roughly the same as the Nimitz-class carriers that make up the rest of the fleet, so Petters said the shipyards do not need to do many physical changes to piers and docks. “There are clearly differences between Ford and Nimitz,” Petters said of the carrier classes. “The power requirements, those kinds of things. I think those are all things that can be addressed and will be addressed by the government shipyards, so I don't really see a major fundamental change in the way the Ford-class is going to be supported from the industry.” The Navy is also planning improvements to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility's dry dock infrastructure before the future USS Kennedy (CVN-79) is expected to enter its first availability, Taylor said. Doing so will give the Navy two dry docks – one on each coast – capable of supporting Ford-class carriers. Kennedy is expected to be christened later this year and is still years away from joining the fleet. The need to upgrade dry docks to support the new class of carriers comes amid both a push to modernize and optimize the four public shipyards that work on carriers and submarines, as well as a realization that the need for maintenance facilities is far greater than what's available at public and private yards. The Navy's long-range ship maintenance and modernization plan, released in March, details the mismatch and suggests some strategies to fix the problem. The Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) is a 20-year, $21-billion program to modernize the Navy's four public shipyards and is a major part of the solution laid out in the long-range plan, Taylor said. With a renewed focus on readiness, there's an opportunity for private shipyards willing to make investments in their facilities, too, to pick up some more Navy maintenance business, Petters told analysts during the conference call. The Navy's long-range ship maintenance and modernization plan also states that the Navy needs private sector help. “Sustaining the 355-ship fleet will require changes to both public and private industrial capability and capacity. Current infrastructure will require update and refurbishment to support modern classes of ships and repair. Likewise, additional dry docks will be needed to address the growing fleet size,” the plan states. Petters cited the Navy's work improving readiness among its aviation community as a good sign the Navy can translate this experience to the ship repair business. However, the Navy needs private shipyards to address its backlog of repair and maintenance work. “The Navy has taken a hard turn on how do you do readiness in a more efficient way, and that's being led from the secretary's office,” Petters said. “We've talked about readiness in my career for a long time. This is a no-kidding effort to go get it sorted out.” Predictability in contracting, though, is critical if the private sector is going to invest in upgrading its yards, Petters said. “I think we're on the front end of that to see whether we can actually create more efficiency there,” Petters said. “We certainly want to participate in that, and so far we've kind of got our toe in the water with the Virginia-class (submarine maintenance) support. And we'll see what other opportunities it presents. So little early for us to try to predict how that's all going to shake out.” https://news.usni.org/2019/08/30/navy-to-update-2-dry-docks-to-accommodate-ford-class-carriers
24 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR
Nathan Strout WASHINGTON - The Department of Defense wants better batteries for its war fighters, and it's partnering with NanoGraf to develop them. “Just like we civilians are increasingly relying on cell phones and tablets and everything else, the modern soldier is also transitioning towards these really power heavy devices in the field, [like] night vision goggles, weapon optics, all of the communications devices, GPS,” said Chip Breitenkamp, NanoGraf vice president of business development. “All of those things require more and more power. “If you take a look at what the soldier has to bring on the field already, between guns, ammunition, water, food, right now the best estimate that I've seen [...] is that every soldier for ever mission goes out with somewhere between 15 and 25 pounds of batteries just to power all of this stuff,” he continued. NanoGraf wants to build energy dense batteries that reduce that weight while allowing war fighters to operate longer without replacing or recharging their batteries. The company recently announced that DoD had awarded the company a $1.65 million Small Business Innovation Research grant to develop silicon anode-based lithion-ion portable batteries to replace the graphite anode lithium-ion batteries currently used by the military. The goal is to develop batteries with a 50-100 percent increase in runtime. “The technology that we have can be applied to any lithium-ion battery, and what it does is it basically gives the soldier more energy, longer runtime, less weight,” said Breitenkamp. He added that better batteries could enable emerging technologies like small drones and augmented reality devices. He noted that the company can currently get about 30 percent more energy density out of their batteries, and their technology is about 12 months away from being available commercially. Under their contract, NanoGraf will be working directly with the U.S. Army over the next two years to improve their technology and prepare to begin manufacturing batteries for use by soldiers. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2020/07/22/the-department-of-defense-wants-better-batteries/