Northrop expands team for program to replace US Air Force ICBMs

Sur le même sujet

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  6 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Killing programs is ‘like working out,’ says acting US Army secretary

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army's program-killing project known as “night court” will continue and become more aggressive in the coming years as demands for the service's modernization effort increase, the Army's acting secretary said Wednesday. Named after the 1980s-era sitcom and a nod to the long hours worked by staff to pull it off, night court in 2018 identified $25 billion in savings and scrapped modernization efforts that the Army plans to use to finance new technologies. Acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy announced another $10 billion of savings in May. But keeping night court alive will require a deliberate effort until it becomes routine, McCarthy told the audience at the third annual Defense News Conference. “Night court is kind of like working out: You've got to get up, you've got to get after it,” McCarthy said. “It's hard. It wears you out. You think: ‘Boy, it would be easier to just stay in bed.' But it's necessary to keep the institution strong. We believe it has been institutionalized. ... But we've got to keep up the repetitions, and over time it will become a behavior, like a reflex.” McCarthy, who is expected to face a confirmation hearing to become Army secretary later this month, said as Army Futures Command's cross-functional teams identify requirements for the next generation of Army systems, the effort must become more aggressive. “What we've done in the cross-functional teams, those efforts have been successful,” McCarthy said. "So as we continue to go down the development pipe, they are going to come back with a requirement we are going to need X numbers of systems to lay in across our formations. And as we scale that out over time, that will cost more money. “So, when you look at where are the opportunities, you have to make choices — divestiture. Legacy systems that we have enjoyed for decades that have performed for us in combat operations for going on 18 years now, some of them will have to go away.” Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who formerly served as the Army secretary and championed the service's effort, signaled he will continue night court Pentagon-wide, something that will test his political clout as services are often loathed to give up reliable legacy systems, and lawmakers is even less willing to give up jobs in their districts that would be threatened by program cuts. But, McCarthy said, the effort is necessary to finance the new technologies the Pentagon needs to gain an advantage over China and Russia. “Night court will continue. In fact, night court is going prime time with Secretary Esper down the hall,” he said. “It's necessary to find as much trade space within that [$741 billion] in the '20 and '21 budgets to find every penny we can to finance our ambitions. Every investment program has a divestiture.” https://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2019/09/05/killing-programs-is-like-working-out-acting-army-secretary-says

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  16 septembre 2019 | International, C4ISR

  Publication du rapport du ministère des Armées sur l’intelligence artificielle

  En avril 2019, la ministre des Armées Florence Parly énonçait les grandes priorités et l'ambition de la France en matière d'intelligence artificielle. La ministre chargeait alors une équipe dédiée au sein du ministère des Armées de rédiger un rapport exhaustif sur le sujet. Rendu en juillet, le ministère des Armées décide aujourd'hui d'en diffuser une version publique. https://www.decideo.fr/Publication-du-rapport-du-ministere-des-Armees-sur-l-intelligence-artificielle_a11313.html

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  20 septembre 2019 | International, Terrestre

  Tank-killing missile tests ‘Europe First’ weapons policy

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — The defense chiefs of France, Belgium and Cyprus have signed an agreement to pursue a common anti-tank missile meant for wider adoption in Europe — an effort that puts the spotlight once again on accusations of protectionism in defense programs here. The three defense ministers inked the cooperation deal for the Beyond-Line-of-Sight Land Battlefield missile project on the sidelines of a meeting of European defense chiefs in Helsinki, Finland, in late August. The goal is to develop a new “family” of missiles for integration on an “extensive variety of platforms,” according to the official project description. It would be operated by a “dedicated users' club” under a common European doctrine for such weapons. Pan-European missile company MBDA has claimed the project as its own since officials announced it under the Permanent Structured Cooperation framework, or PESCO, in fall 2018. The vendor wants to sell its Missile Moyenne Portée, or MMP, to other armies besides the French, eyeing a far-reaching partnership with Belgium on ground vehicles as a potential avenue. Aside from being handed a potentially lucrative market on the continent, products or concepts picked as PESCO leads can win sizable funding contributions from common coffers like the envisioned €13 billion (U.S. $14 billion) European Defence Fund, or EDF. MBDA executives have danced around the question of how they came to be the quasi-incumbent for the missile project, arguing that the company is the only eligible manufacturer because the weapon is wholly developed and made in Europe. At the same time, company officials coyly painted the selection of the MMP weapon as a decision still up in the air. That is because there is a formal solicitation process under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme with a closing date of Sept. 20. The process envisions weapons trials sometime in 2020 or 2021 funded by the European Union, according to an MBDA spokesman. “The next step is that we hope to achieve this trial campaign and demonstrate the capability to inform future acquisitions from European nations,” the spokesman told Defense News. The problem is, however, that several other European nations already have a different weapon in their arsenals: a variant of the Spike missile, made by Israel's Rafael and sold in Europe by Germany-based Eurospike. Over the summer, Estonia moved to buy the weapon under a €40 million deal, becoming what Rafael said is the 19th user within NATO and the EU. Germany, which seeks to drive Europe's new defense posture alongside France, also relies on Spike — both the man-portable and the vehicle-mounted variants. Eurospike officials at the DSEI defense trade expo in London, England, last week complained about being left out of the nascent European missile program. While the Spike weapon is entirely produced in Germany, it is based on Israeli technology, resulting in what one company executive in London estimated to be an overall ratio of roughly 70 percent European and 30 percent Israeli. According to still-emerging rules for access to European defense projects, only members of the European Economic Area are eligible for EDF funding and collaboration-inducing mechanisms promised by PESCO. As it stands, Britain — after it leaves the EU — and its wares likely would be in, but the Israel connection means the Spike missile is out. For now, Eurospike officials said they are closely watching the process. “I can't imagine that they will just take the market by storm,” one executive said of MBDA and its missile offering. With its industrial infighting, the anti-tank weapons serve as something of a test case for whether common projects set up under EU auspices can truly serve the purpose of increasing collaboration among member states. Industry insiders suggest that the raft of existing PESCO efforts — covering everything from battlefield communications to future naval platforms to ground vehicles — comes with a built-in potential for turf battles. In the end, it seems a good number of PESCO projects come with a vendor team pushing a specific product under the banner or European unity. And as the dust of Euro enthusiasm settles, insiders say, vendors that weren't part of the initial project considerations are bound to find out that defense cooperation on the continent is also about winners and losers. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/09/19/tank-killing-missile-tests-europe-first-weapons-policy/