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  14 septembre 2023 | International, C4ISR

  Estonian robotics firm offers new variant to help in Ukraine

  Estonia’s Milrem Robotics has developed a variant of its unmanned ground vehicle that comes fitted with a loitering ammunition launcher.

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  11 décembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Terrestre

  Army preps for competition limited to Bell and Sikorsky for long-range assault helicopter

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Army is taking its final steps before starting a competition to acquire a Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, and has done so by issuing an intent to solicit bids using means “other than full and open competition,” according to a Dec. 9 post on on the government contracts website Beta.Sam.Gov. This step means that unless a surprise vendor can meet all of the Army's technical and production requirements for FLRAA in the next two weeks, the future aircraft will be supplied by either Bell or Lockheed Martin's Sikorsky. Bell and a Sikorsky-Boeing team have been pitted against one another for years to build and fly technology demonstrators to inform requirements ahead of the FLRAA competition and both are part of a competitive demonstration and risk reduction phase. Bell's V-280 Valor tiltrotor had it's first flight nearly three years ago and Sikorsky and Boeing's SB-1 Defiant coaxial helicopter flew for the first time in March 2019. The draft request for proposals is expected to be released by the end of the year with a final solicitations expected in fiscal 2021. Modernizing its vertical lift fleet is the Army's third highest priority behind Long-Range Precision Fires and Next-Generation Combat Vehicle development. The Army intends to field both a FLRAA and Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft by roughly FY30. Bell and Lockheed Martin are also competing against each other in the FARA competition. Bell's offering is the 360 Invictus and Lockheed's entry is the Raider X. In the case of FLRAA, the winner must build eight production aircraft for the first unit equipped by FY30. The plan is to award a contract to a winner in FY22. The winner will proceed to deliver a preliminary design review roughly eight months following the award. According to the pre-solicitation, “the Army has determined through extensive market research, including a July 2020 sources sought, that only two sources exist in the market space that have the capability and capacity of developing, manufacturing, testing and delivering both prototype and initial production FLRAA in the time allocated to achieve the Army's goal of an FUE in FY 2030.” The Army stated that Bell and Sikorsky are those two sources, but notes that “any other responsible, qualified sources, ... that can develop and produce the FLRAA weapon system to achieve First Unit Equipped (FUE) no later than 2030 are encouraged to full identify their interest and capabilities in accordance with the requirements,” within 15 days after publication of the pre-solicitation. Such a vendor would need to deliver a preliminary design review in FY22, start building prototype aircraft in the third quarter of FY23 and eight production aircraft by 2030. Vendors must also prove they are able to build 24 aircraft per year at full-rate production. Those aircraft must be able to fly at 2,000 feet pressure altitude in 85 degree heat with a full payload that consists of 12 troops at 290 lbs each and four crew at 281 lbs each. When the draft RFP drops, it is likely to contain a schedule to deliver air vehicle prototypes and mission systems. The Army was debating between two schedule options to deliver prototypes by roughly mid-2026. The FLRAA program has strong support from Congress. This year's annual defense policy bill authorized $5 million in increased investment in FLRAA advanced component development and prototyping on top of the Army's nearly $648 million request. The FY21 spending bill has yet to go through conference committee, but both the House and Senate proposed additional funding for FLRAA. The House Appropriations Committee proposed a $20 million increase while the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee proposed a $79 million addition. Lawmakers added $76 million in funding to FLRAA's top line in FY20 to drive down technical risk and speed up delivery through the competitive demonstration and risk reduction effort. In FY20, Congress cut $34 million from the Army's other future vertical lift effort — the FARA program — which threatened the service's ability to provide some of its government-furnished equipment to competitors chosen to build and fly prototypes. The Army is supplying its new Improved Turbine Engine Program engine, a 20mm gun, an integrated munitions launcher and its modular open-systems architecture. The Army has since shored up that funding, according to service aviation leadership. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/12/10/army-preps-for-competition-limited-to-bell-and-sikorsky-for-long-range-assault-helicopter/

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  16 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre

  General Dynamics Griffin Takes Lead To Replace M2 Bradley

  By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. BAE System's CV90 Mark IV is the latest upgrade of a 25-year-old vehicle widely used in Europe; the Rheinmetall-Raytheon Lynx is an all-new design, although individual components have a good track record; but the General Dynamics Griffin III is in the middle, combining a new gun and new electronics with the time-tested chassis from the European ASCOD family. AUSA: General Dynamics looks like the early favorite to replace the Army's 1980s-vintage M2 Bradley troop carrier. That's my personal assessment after talking at length to officers and contractors at last week's Association of the US Army conference, where months of uncertainty finally gave way to some real clarity about both what the Army wants and what industry can offer. In brief, GD's Griffin III demonstrator seems to hit the sweet spot between innovative and proven technologies that the Army wants to start fielding a Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) as soon as 2026. Of the three vehicles on display at AUSA, BAE System's CV90 Mark IV is the latest upgrade of a 25-year-old vehicle widely used in Europe; the Rheinmetall-Raytheon Lynx is an all-new design, although individual components have a good track record; but the General Dynamics Griffin III is in the middle, combining a new gun and new electronics with the time-tested chassis from the European ASCOD family. The competitors do have a lot in common. All offer tracked vehicles with diesel engines — even BAE, which once touted its hybrid-electric drives as a key selling point. All three boast open-architecture electronics to ease future upgrades, an integrated Active Protection System to shoot down incoming anti-tank warheads, modular armor that can be layered on or stripped down depending on the mission, and a turret capable of mounting a 50 mm gun, the Army's preferred caliber. Only the Griffin actually has a 50mm installed right now, however. The others currently have 35mm cannon. It's also the only vehicle that can point its gun almost straight up, at an 85 degree angle, to hit rooftop targets in urban combat, something the Army has worried about extensively. Details like this suggest that General Dynamics has been listening more closely to the Army than its competitors. In fact, even where the Griffin III underperforms its competitors, most notably by carrying fewer infantry, it does so in areas where the Army is willing to make tradeoffs. The End of the Beginning Now, it's still early in the NGCV race. While we only saw three contenders on the floor at AUSA, it's still entirely possible a fourth player could jump in. My money's on the team of SAIC and Singapore-based STK, which is already offering a modified Singaporean army vehicle for the US Army's Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) light tank. The other MPF competitors are BAE, with an update of the Armored Gun Systemcancelled in 1996, and GD, offering a version of the Griffin. By November, the Army will award two of the three companies contracts to build prototypes. If either GD or the SAIC-ST team wins, they'll have at least a slight advantage for NGCV, since buying related vehicles for both roles will simplify training, maintenance, and supply. (BAE's AGS is totally unrelated to its CV90, so an MPF win wouldn't help it on NGCV). By contrast to MPF, the competition for NGCV is only at the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. The Army's still refining its requirements, in part based on discussions with industry at AUSA. What's the timeline? Col. James Schirmer, the program manager, said at the conference that “we are within weeks of having that requirement finalized.” Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman, the Army's director of armored vehicle modernization, said a formal Request For Proposal (RFP) based on those requirements will come out no later than January. So there'll be time for the competitors to revise their NGCV designs before submitting them. Even after that, more than one company will get a contract to build prototypes for Army testing. What's the objective that drives both this pace and the technological tradeoffs the Army is willing to make? Fielding the first operational unit in 2026 — nine years earlier than the original plan — to help deter Russian aggression. Deadline 2026 “All options are on the table, but the schedule will be the schedule,” Brig. Gen. Coffman told reporters at AUSA. “We would like to field this vehicle by 2026.” “If someone could develop a clean sheet design that could meet that timeline,” he said, “it'd be great, but I don't know that's doable.” (By contrast, the potential replacement for the M1 Abrams tank is coming later, so the service is looking for radical innovation). Schirmer offered more specifics. “We have a pretty challenging test schedule... very similar to MPF, (so) we really can't afford a clean sheet design,” he said. The more mature the component technologies, the better, he said, but what's best is that those individual components have been proven as an integrated system. Specifically, Schirmer said, “for the Bradley replacement, we are going to be buying vehicles that are based on a mature architecture — powertrain, track, suspension — that's already in service somewhere in the world.” While these remarks leave the door open for the Lynx, or at least ajar, they're not particularly encouraging. By contrast, the CV90 series entered service with Sweden in 1993, with variants now serving in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Holland, Norway, and Switzerland. The Griffin III is the latest member of the ASCOD family — the Spanish Pizzaro, Austrian Ulan, and British Ajax — which debuted in Spain in 2002. While the Army wants a proven hull, however, Schirmer says there is one area where technology is advancing fast enough for it be worth taking some risk: lethality, i.e. the gun and sensors. In particular, while the Bradley has a 25mm chaingun, the Army really wants NGCV to have a 50mm cannon — firing shells about four times as big — that's now in development at the service's Ammunition Research, Development, & Engineering Center (ARDEC). That gun, the XM913, is currently integrated on just one competitor, the Griffin, although both the Lynx and CV90 turrets could accommodate it. All three vehicles, like the Bradley, also have room in the turret to mount anti-tank missiles of various types. The Griffin on the show floor also mounts a launcher for AeroVironment Shrike mini-drones, while the Lynx will have the option to launch Raytheon's Coyote: Both mini-drones can be configured either with sensors to scout or with warheads to destroy. Even on weaponry, however, the Army is willing to make compromises to speed fielding, just as it introduced the original M1 Abrams with a 105 mm gun but with room to upgrade to the desired 120mm when it was ready a few years later. For NGCV, Schirmer said, they want the vehicle to have the 50mm gun eventually but “may settle on the 30 in the near term, just to meet schedule.” Armor & Passengers Besides gun caliber, the other easily measured aspect of an armored vehicle is its weight, which is very much a two-edged sword. There's been no breakthrough in armor materials since the 1980s and none on the horizon, so the only way to get better armor is to make it thicker. So a heavier vehicle is probably better protected, but it also burns more fuel, wears out more spare parts, and has more trouble getting places: Bridges and transport aircraft in particular can only take so much weight. Full article: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/10/general-dynamics-griffin-takes-lead-to-replace-m2-bradley