Romania awards $321 million contract for Turkish TB2 combat drones

Sur le même sujet

• 

  27 décembre 2018 | International, Naval

  The US Navy’s surface fleet: Here’s what’s ahead in 2019

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — The U.S. surface fleet has a big year in store for 2019, and we're going to start getting more details very soon on what the future has in store for surface warriors. But surface leadership has been dropping clues on where things are going. Here's a handy reference guide for heading into January's Surface Navy Association annual symposium and for what the fleet has up its sleeve for the coming months. Robot wars The Chief of Naval Operations' Surface Navy Director Rear Adm. Ron Boxall forecast what was on his mind at a recent training and simulation conference in Orlando. The focus for Boxall and the N96 shop will be to get more sensors and weapons into the battlespace, distributed and networked, so that a smaller number of larger warships can act as command and control for smaller units. “If you think about what we are trying to do with the surface force, we have large and small surface combatants that will [ultimately make up part of the 355-ship Navy] but we have no requirement for unmanned surface vessels right now, which I see as an absolutely critical part of distributed lethality, distributed maritime operations environment that we are moving into,” Boxall said. “Ultimately I need more nodes out there.” N96 is looking closely at what might be needed for a large unmanned surface vessel, much like the Sea Hunter drone developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “I think these are what you need to go in the water and carry large things and be more places at less cost,” Boxall said. “So, in that nodal structure, we are looking at them becoming large sensors or large shooters, but we are still working out the requirement.” Developing unmanned vessels for military use was a key component of a recent agreement with NATO forged during the July summit. Future frigate Next year is the crucial year for FFG(X), the year when the Navy finalizes its requirements and puts the first hull out to bid for a 2020 detailed design and construction award. Look for news to creep out on this ship throughout the year but Boxall had some remarks on how it will fit into the fleet now in development. Boxall hinted that the planned 20 hulls may be a low-ball figure, and that he's looking to maybe keep the program going beyond that. “It will be a very capable ship, but it won't have a lot of capacity,” he said. “But it will be able to both sense and shoot and do command and control at a smaller level. It will be a much less expensive platform and I can have more of them.” Training Training is a major focus of Surface Navy boss Vice Adm. Richard Brown, and some ongoing efforts will start to bear fruit in 2019. Earlier in 2018, the Navy reprogrammed $24 million to build a Maritime Skills Training Program, which will be heavily reliant on simulators to bring together officer and enlisted watchstanders from both the bridge and the combat information center to train on equipment and work as a unit. “We've secured the funding for the maritime skills training centers, which is going to do two things: individual officer training through the [officer of the deck training],” Brown said earlier this year. “So that, in conjunction with building out the navigation, seamanship and ship-handling trainers in the fleet concentration areas, will give us integrated bridge and [combat information center] training at the high end. That's my No. 1 priority.” Those facilities will be ready for use by the waterfront in the 2021 time frame, Brown said. Upgrades to existing simulators are being rolled out this month. DDG-1000 Look for news on the future of DDG-1000. The first of the class, the Zumwalt, is wrapping up its combat systems installation in San Diego and will start the process of integrating the three-ship class into the fleet. We're going to find out more about its new mission – surface strike – and how the Navy plans to employ its behemoth new surface combatant. The Navy has pivoted away from its long odyssey to find a use for its advanced gun system, with requirements boss Vice Adm. William Merz saying in testimony in April that the Sisyphean task of getting a working gun on Zumwalt was holding the ship back. “Even at the high cost, we still weren't really getting what we had asked for,” he said. “So what we've elected to do is to separate the gun effort from the ship effort because we really got to the point where now we're holding up the ship.” Instead, efforts are going to focus on getting Zumwalt into the fleet and on the hunt for ships to kill. Large surface combatant Last up, the Large Surface Combatant should start getting some meat on its bones in 2019. Boxall and company are aiming to put the fleet on a course to buy its cruiser and destroyer replacement in 2023 or 2024, which means a request for information from industry could be in the near future. What we know is that, like the small surface combatant, the Navy wants commonality with other nodes in the network. That means a similar radar as on FFG(X), the same combat system and as much overlapping equipment as the fleet can manage to tamp down on compatibility issues and on how much specialized training sailors need to be on one platform or another. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/12/26/the-us-navys-surface-fleet-heres-whats-ahead-in-2019/

• 

  9 décembre 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Rafael offers its next-gen combat vehicle suite to South Korea

  by Yaakov Lappin Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has offered South Korea its Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Suite (NGCV-S) as the Republic of Korea Army (RoKA) prepares to upgrade its K1A2 main battle tanks (MBTs) and procure some 600 Hyundai-made armoured personnel carriers (APCs) as part of its Tiger 4.0 modernisation programme. Rafael has submitted requests for information from South Korea on both the MBT and APC programmes Udi N, head of marketing at Rafael's land manoeuvre systems directorate, told Janes that the NGCV-S offers several capabilities for armoured vehicles to boost their lethality, survivability, and ability to engage multiple targets simultaneously. He said the suite includes the company's Armor Shield P passive add-on armour and the Trophy active protection system (APS), the latter of which is used on US Army MBTs as well as on the Israeli military's Namer heavy APCs. Other offers as part of the suite include reactive armour kits and the Samson medium-calibre remote weapon station (RWS). The station is designed to mount a 30 mm or 40 mm gun and co-axial 7.62 mm machine gun that be integrated with Rafael's Spike missile launcher as well as the fifth-generation Spike anti-tank guided electro-optical missile for mid- and long-range attacks. “Combining the Spike missile system with the Samson Integrated 30 mm RWS and its combat management systems transforms the remote-controlled weapon station and the vehicle into a versatile fighting machine – able to simultaneously neutralise targets at multiple ranges, with the pinpoint accuracy required in the urban arena as well as in GPS-denied zones,” said Rafael in a statement. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/rafael-offers-its-next-gen-combat-vehicle-suite-to-south-korea

• 

  25 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Former Symantec boss takes over the Defense Innovation Unit

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — Michael Brown spent two decades running companies in Silicon Valley, eventually rising to CEO of Symantec, one of the largest software companies in the world, with annual revenues of $4 billion and more than 10,000 employees. On Sept. 24, he starts a new job as the next leader of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit. While it comes with a much smaller budget, in the range of $40 million, it's a job Brown believes he's stepping into at a critical time. “My fundamental view is we are in a technology race. We didn't ask to be in this, but we're in it,” Brown said in an exclusive interview with Defense News. “I'm concerned that if we don't recognize that we're in a race and take appropriate action, then we let China move forward and we don't put our best foot forward in terms of leading in these key technology areas.” Brown spent the last two years as a White House presidential innovation fellow with the Pentagon, meaning he's not coming into the world of defense cold with the DIU job. During that period he met Raj Shah, the previous DIU leader, as well as Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, who now will be Brown's boss. Brown also co-authored a Pentagon study on China's influence in the U.S. tech scene, an experience that has influenced his views as he prepares to take over DIU. “One of the things I carry with me is I understand the motivation of companies, CEOs, investors because I've been working with these folks my whole life,” he said of his qualifications. Created in 2015 to be the Pentagon's outreach effort to Silicon Valley, DIU — until recentlyknown as the Defense innovation Unit Experimental — has gone through several high-profile iterations. It opened offices in Austin, Texas, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, but also worked through two leaders. It went from reporting directly to the secretary of defense to the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. The group has also faced questions about its future from skeptical members of Congress, and resistance inside the building. The hiring of Mike Madsen to handle the office's Washington operations is expected to ease those concerns, but Brown acknowledged he would be spending time in Washington every few weeks to shore up internal and external support. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Griffin wanted a leader for the agency with a large commercial background, Brown said, “because that's the community we need to access.” Brown wants to create “the ideal exchange where we have access to all the leading technologies from whatever companies we want to work with on the supply side — and on the demand side we have the effective relationships with the Pentagon, throughout the military, so we can be select about what are the most interesting problems to work on in national security that have the greatest impact.” The China problem Brown's comments on China put him in line with the broader Trump administration, whose officials have repeatedly pointed to China as a competitor, and the Mattis-led Pentagon, which has warned of risk from China both as a military competitor and in influencing American supply chains. DIU, to Brown, has a specific role to play in that race: getting the Pentagon the best commercially available technology, and hence freeing up funding to invest in the military-only capabilities, such as hypersonics, needed to check Chinese ambitions. More nebulous but just as important for Brown is a new mission for DIU: doing outreach into the commercial tech community to explain the Pentagon's views on China, and why contributing to the departments efforts are worthwhile. Or as Brown puts it, “making sure the companies in these innovation hubs are aware of the technology race that is going on, so that they're not only viewing China as an economic opportunity but also seeing the geopolitical consequences. Being part of that debate is going to be an important role for DIU.” Brown said some of DIU's top priorities will include human systems engineering, information technology, cyber or advanced computing, autonomy, and artificial intelligence. He is also ordering a look at the various processes DIU uses to see if areas can be sped up, and whether other transaction authorities are being used to their full potential. He said he did not expect a significant restructuring of the office, but one priority is getting a human resources leader and new general counsel to smooth the transition of future hires. Capt. Sean Heritage, who has been acting as DIU interim head, will return to being the Navy lead for the office. The former CEO acknowledged that his background and high-level ties to the tech community may open doors that would be otherwise be shut (Brown was reportedly forced out by Symantec's board in 2016 due to company numbers, making him the third CEO to be removed by the company in the space of four years). He also envisions working with academic institutions located near the three DIU hubs to encourage a debate on the issue. Part of DIU's role is explaining to companies why they should support the department's efforts. Silicon Valley has a reputation as being hostile to the military — a reputation that has only increased in recent months following an employee-led pullout by Google of the department's Project Maven, an effort to incorporate AI into analyzing drone footage. Brown, however, said those concerns are largely “overblown,” noting the office is already in discussions with well over 500 different tech firms. “We haven't found there's a reluctance on the part of companies developing the technologies we're interested in working with the Pentagon,” he said. “They are interested in how DIU can help make that process easier for them.” Brown thinks he is the man to make that happen. “Contrary to what a lot of folks read or talk about with government, my experience is if you have good ideas and have persistence, you can make that happen.” https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/09/24/former-symantec-boss-takes-over-the-defense-innovation-unit