14 décembre 2022 | International, C4ISR
Established in December 2021, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office hit its first full strides in June.
20 novembre 2024 | International, Terrestre
Under the MCSKS contract, BAE Systems will further develop its laser-based Stormcrow™ and TERRA RAVEN™ countermeasure systems, advancing the Army’s EW-based APS work
1 août 2018 | International, Naval
By: Ben Werner The Navy has exercised options adding several million dollars to the future guided-missile frigate (FFG(X)) conceptual design work being performed by five shipbuilders in contention for the final hull design. The Navy expects bids from the following shipbuilders – Austal USA, Huntington Ingalls Industries, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Lockheed Martin and Fincantieri Marinette Marine. A final request for proposal is expected in 2019, with the Navy planning to award a single source design and construction contract in 2020, according to the Navy. Ultimately, the Navy plans to build a fleet of 20 frigates Each company was awarded initial contracts of $15 million in February to start design work. The latest contract modification, announced Monday, sends between $6.4 million and $8 million in additional funding to each company to be used fleshing out their designs. “Each company is maturing their proposed ship design to meet the FFG(X) System Specification. The Conceptual Design effort will inform the final specifications that will be used for the Detail Design and Construction Request for Proposal that will deliver the required capability for FFG(X),” Alan Baribeau, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman, said in an email to USNI News. Each design for the future frigate competition is based on existing designs the shipbuilders are already producing. The Navy expects to spend between $800 million and $950 million on each hull, which will follow the Littoral Combat Ship. In terms of combat and communications systems, the Navy plans to use what is already deployed on LCS platforms. USNI News understands the new frigates will use the COMBATSS-21 Combat Management System, which uses software from the same common source library as the Aegis Combat System on large surface combatants. Missile systems for the frigate include the canister-launched over-the-horizon missile; the surface-to-surface Longbow Hellfire missile; the Mk53 Nulka decoy launching system and the Surface Electron Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block 2 program with SLQ-32(V)6. The ships would also require an unspecified number of vertical launch cells. The frigate design also is expected to include the SeaRAM anti-ship missile defense system and several undersea warfare tools. The complete list of companies awarded contract options on their respective contracts include: Austal USA LLC (Austal), Mobile, Alabama – $6,399,053; initial contract award – $14,999,969 General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine – $7,950,000; initial contract award – $14,950,000 Huntington Ingalls Inc., Pascagoula, Mississippi – $7,997,406; initial contract award – $14,999,924 Lockheed Martin Inc., Baltimore, Maryland – $6,972,741; initial contract award – $14,999,889 Marinette Marine Corp., doing business as Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Marinette, Wisconsin – $7,982,991 initial contract award – $14,994,626 https://news.usni.org/2018/07/31/35430
17 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial
By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — NATO members in Europe should band together and sharpen their focus on short- to medium-range air defense, with Germany taking the lead in forging a coalition, analysts on the continent argue. The call by the German Council on Foreign Relations is based on the assumption that air superiority can no longer be taken for granted in future conflicts. Researchers argue that the playing field of air warfare has leveled out in recent years, with more countries deploying aircraft, missiles and drones capable of threatening NATO from the skies. At the same time, European nations have divested sizable chunks of their air defense capabilities with the idea that shooting down enemy planes or missiles would be more of a tactical requirement in the future rather than a permanent, strategic one, according to Christian Mölling, a senior analyst at the think tank who co-authored a study on the issue. “Air defense is a huge headache for NATO,” he told Defense News, adding that the situation is especially dire in the Baltic nations. Germany already holds the designation of a so-called framework nation when it comes to missile defense within the alliance. And while defense officials in Berlin are fond of touting that responsibility in arguing for the ambitious TLVS program to replace the legacy Patriot air and missile defense fleet, there is little to show for, in a practical sense, until the new weapon is actually fielded. That is especially the case when it comes to short-range air defense, which covers threats up to about 8 kilometers away. Within the alliance, those weapons were “largely dismantled” over the last two decades, according to the study. “Building a multi-layered, integrated air defense is a common challenge for all European countries in terms of procurement and operation,” the study says. “Effective defense is only possible if threats can be identified early and jointly. National systems are not sufficient.” On the longer-range side, Germany is holding out hope that the TLVS project can attract buy-in from within Europe over the coming years. In Italy, for example, the military brass appears interested in the technology, but the preferences of politicians in the government are harder to predict. The idea of a European-wide, short-range air defense initiative has been on the table since officials at the European Defence Agency in Brussels concluded the inaugural Coordinated Annual Review on Defence of 2017 and 2018. Member states included the capability in their top priorities for future collaboration. In that sense, there is reason to believe that the idea of a new PESCO project, as proposed by the German Council on Foreign Relations, could get traction. And if European Union officials are to be believed, whatever actual capabilities come out of that intra-continental process will also benefit the NATO alliance as a whole. PESCO is short for Permanent Structured Cooperation, a key policy in the EU's quest for greater defensive capabilities. A new round of collaboration proposals is expected to take shape over the summer to be approved by member states later this year. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/06/16/calls-grow-louder-for-a-fresh-european-air-defense-push/