31 juillet 2023 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense
Army Futures Command drafting next operating concept
What's after Multidomain Operations? Army Futures Command is beginning to work on an operational concept for 2040 and beyond.
10 août 2020 | International, Naval
PBO to examine $60 billion price tag of new warships and compare to other less expensive foreign programs
David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, Postmedia News (dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com)
Published: Aug 07 at 6:31 p.m.
Updated: a day ago
The $60 billion price tag of Canada's proposed new fleet of warships will come under the scrutiny of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who will also examine other less costly similar projects underway in other countries.
The House of Commons government operations committee requested that Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux examine the cost of the Canadian Surface Combatant project and take a look at the cost of two other types of warships: the FREMM and the Type 31.
PBO spokeswoman Sloane Mask said the analysis would be presented to the committee by Oct. 22. “The analytical work is currently underway,” she added.
Last year the Liberal government signed an initial deal that is expected to lead to the eventual construction of 15 warships in the largest single government purchase in Canadian history. Lockheed Martin offered Canada the Type 26 warship designed by BAE in the United Kingdom. Irving is the prime contractor and the vessels will be built at its east coast shipyard.
Construction of the first ship isn't expected to begin until the early 2020s.
But the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program has already faced rising costs. In 2008, the then-Conservative government estimated the project would cost roughly $26 billion. But in 2015, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, then commander of the navy, voiced concern that taxpayers may not have been given all the information about the program, publicly predicting the cost for the warships alone would approach $30 billion.
The overall project is currently estimated to cost around $60 billion. “Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving) Halifax yard and materials,” according to federal government documents obtained by this newspaper through the Access to Information law.
But some members of parliament and industry representatives have privately questioned whether the CSC cost is too high. There have been suggestions that Canada could dump the Type 26 design and go for a cheaper alternative since the CSC project is still in early stages and costs to withdraw could be covered by savings from a less expensive ship.
Canada had already been pitched on alternatives. In December 2017, the French and Italian governments proposed a plan in which Canada could build the FREMM frigate at Irving. Those governments offered to guarantee the cost of the 15 ships at a fixed $30 billion, but that was rejected by the Canadian government.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy selected the FREMM design for its newest fleet of warships. The estimated cost is around $1.3 billion per ship.
The other type of warship the PBO will look at is the Type 31, which is to be built for the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Those ships are to cost less than $500 million each.
In 2017, then Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette estimated the CSC program would cost $61.82 billion.
The entry of the BAE Type 26 warship in the Canadian competition was controversial from the start and sparked complaints that the procurement process was skewed to favour that vessel. Previously the Liberal government had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service with other navies would be accepted on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky. Unproven designs can face challenges if problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating.
But the criteria was changed and the government and Irving accepted the BAE design, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain's Royal Navy.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
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11 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
The Marine Corps wants to protect its Hornets from GPS jammers
By: Shawn Snow The Corps is looking to install antennas in its F/A-18 C/D Hornets to help the aircraft defeat GPS jammers. In a request for information posted in early June by Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, the Corps wants to install the anti-jam antennas known as the Air Navigation Warfare Program, or NAVWAR, in 120 of the legacy Hornets. The anti-jamming antenna “provides Global Positioning System (GPS) protection for Naval Air platforms by allowing for continued access to GPS through the use of Anti-Jam (AJ) Antenna Systems designed to counter GPS Electronic Warfare threats from intentional and unintentional interference,” Michael Land, a spokesman for NAVAIR, told Marine Corps Times in an emailed statement Tuesday. The development comes as U.S. aircraft have faced mounting electronic warfare attacks against aircraft in Syria. Army Gen. Tony Thomas, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told audience members at a conference in April that adversaries were trying to bring down AC-130 gunships in Syria using electronic warfare, or EW. “Right now in Syria, we're in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet, from our adversaries,” Thomas said. “They're testing us every day, knocking our communications down, disabling our AC-130s, et cetera.” The Corps is amid an overhaul of its forces and equipment to prepare for a potential fight with near-peer adversaries like Russia and China. Both countries boast an impressive array of electronic warfare capabilities. Russia has been using the Syrian battlefield to hone its EW skills. The top Marine has oft repeated the threats posed to GPS systems from rising adversaries and says the Corps needs to be prepared to fight in GPS denied environments. The F/A-18 is the Corps' bridging aircraft as it moves to the new high-tech F-35. As the Corps transitions the older legacy Hornets are undergoing a service life extension, meaning the aircraft are being updated to handle the modern battlefield. “Installation in F/A-18 A-D helps ensure continued mission capability as the service life of the aircraft is extended and facilitates supportability by using more common equipment,” Land said. The Navy and the Marine Corps already use the anti-jamming GPS antenna in a number of airframes, according to Land. “Typical installations replace a platform's existing GPS antenna with a NAVWAR antenna and separate antenna electronics, while leaving a platform's GPS receiver in place,” Land added. The Corps expects the F/A-18 to be in sunset by 2030. As the Corps moves to the F-35 and phases out its Hornets, the legacy fighters will consolidate on the West Coast by 2018 with the exception of VMFA (AW)‐242, which will remain aboard the Corps' air station at Iwakuni, Japan until it transitions to the F-35 in 2028, according to the Corp's 2018 aviation plan. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/07/10/the-corps-wants-to-protect-its-hornets-from-gps-jammers/
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2 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial
Advanced Avionics Computer Introduced for Unmanned Vehicles
Mike Rees GE Aviation has announced the introduction of a new advanced avionics computer specifically built for military and commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This new computer provides an open architecture design that integrates vehicle management and advanced mission processing into a compact, lightweight design. “Our customers have told us that they require an integrated vehicle and mission processing solution that is secure, rugged, low size, weight and power and capable of meeting the needs of demanding autonomous platforms,” said Alan Caslavka, president of Avionics for GE Aviation. “This new system hits it out of the park in this regard and then builds from there in terms of bringing new capabilities to the next generation of unmanned systems.” This new system incorporates the processing power required for mission functions such as sensor processing at the edge and hosting autonomy enabling algorithms and then also embeds an inertial/GPS package, software defined radio, datalink and an optional solid-state storage device. Caslavka added, “The new system incorporates diverse processing that's capable of performing safety critical and non-critical functions while bringing a new level of security to legacy and future platforms.” The system integrates the functionality traditionally provided by up to six separate electronic units into a single package which drives out weight, power, and cost while meeting the security, exportability, ruggedness and processing needs of customers. GE's advanced avionics computer has undergone flight testing and is in use by a number of military and civil customers. The computer incorporates a hardware and software open architecture approach that offers flexibility and scalability. This design also provides the capability to host GE, customer and third-party software applications to maximize its versatility. https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/2019/05/advanced-avionics-computer-introduced-for-unmanned-vehicles/