Singapore moves to buy four F-35s, possibly eight more afterward

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  4 décembre 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Army taps industry for Gray Eagle payloads for joint ops against high-end threats

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Army wants its Joint All Domain Operations (JADO) Gray Eagles to have synthetic aperture radars, moving target indicators, electronic intelligence and communications intelligence capability as well as air-launched effects and radar warning receivers, according to a new market survey. Now, the Army wants help from industry with those payloads for its Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems. Specifically, the service is looking for systems that are capable of helping with joint operations across all warfighting domains against high-end threats from adversaries such as China and Russia, according to a solicitation published Dec. 2 to a government contracting website. The service's Aerial Enhanced Radar, Optics and Sensors (AEROS) product manager wants industry to “identify potential existing sources capable of providing Aerial Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (AISR) payloads for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Unmanned Aircraft System platform that meet the JADO environment,” the solicitation posted to Beta.Sam.Gov states. These Gray Eagles payloads must be capable of increased ranges and resolutions “to support target location and Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF) without the use of traditional line of site visual equipment to include Electro Optical, Infrared (EO/IR) and Full Motion Video (FMV) required for today's Counter Insurgency (COIN) mission,” the request for information stresses. Traditional COIN payloads won't hold up against peer and near-peer adversaries, the Army noted, as they will “employ anti-access, area denial strategies, posing a significant challenge to the current AISR fleet,” the solicitation states. Gray Eagles must survive against an “Integrated Air Defense System (IADS)-rich environment,” the request notes. This means the Gray Eagle would fly “racetrack patterns tangential to the IADS threat at 80 km distance” and would be capable of deploying Air-Launched Effects (ALE) forward into enemy territory to detect, identify and locate targets and take out or disrupt threats, according to the request. The Gray Eagle would also have payloads that could detect IADS threats, locate them and transfer the information to other sensor systems capable of recognizing targets and coordinating long-range fires, the solicitation describes. The Army is conducting the survey ahead of a Gray Eagle sensor payload JADO demonstration that could potentially take place in fiscal 2022 where systems will be “quantitatively compared” to find the highest performing and best value payloads based on technology readiness and production cost, the request lays out. The solicitation for more advanced payloads for Gray Eagle comes at a time when the Army is trying to design a complex architecture of helicopters and unmanned aircraft systems that would be part of tight-knit kill chain to include space and ground assets underpinned by an advanced network. The Army experimented with the kill chain to include air assets at Project Convergence at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, over the summer. The effort brings together future weapons and capabilities envisioned for a 2030s battlefield against near-peer adversaries such as Russia and China. It includes using a machine learning and artificial intelligence-enabled battle management system that is in development. Gray Eagle represented a Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) surrogate. During the first mission thread at Project Convergence, which focused on the penetration phase laid out in the Army's Multidomain Operations warfighting concept, Gray Eagles and ALE partnered with space-based assets, APNT, and LRPF capabilities to locate, then degrade and destroy enemy assets modeled after the Russian Pantsir air defense systems and other weapons. The ALE pushed ingested data forward through the network to get it to the right shooters, whether that would be an Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) system on the ground or a Gray Eagle or another ALE. The Army was able to extend the ALE capability out to almost 62 kilometers, which would provide deep standoff for manned aircraft like FARA. The ALEs performed both the reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting acquisition mission and worked as a mesh network to extend the battlefield. Two ALEs were truck launched and four were air launched. Also during the final shot of the entire campaign at Project Convergence, a soldier on the ground took control of a LRPF munition surrogate (a Hellfire missile in this case) on a Gray Eagle and fired on the target. The Gray Eagle at Convergence was able to route around and avoid threat weapon systems and also fired a live Dynetics-made GBU-69 small glide munition. Previewing the future, the Army also used an open system architecture that was flexible enough for payloads and capabilities to be swapped in out of its Gray Eagles without having to rely on the original equipment manufacturer to do it. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/12/02/army-taps-industry-for-gray-eagle-payloads-for-joint-ops-against-high-end-threats/

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  30 janvier 2019 | International, Terrestre

  With shutdown over, Japan cleared to spend $2.15 billion on Aegis Ashore

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced Tuesday that Japan has been cleared to buy a pair of land-based Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the first Foreign Military Sales announcement since the end of a government shutdown that stalled the FMS process. The sale, worth an estimated $2.15 billion, would bolster Japan's existing sea-based Aegis capabilities. The island nation is in the process of increasing its missile defense capabilities, both through additional Aegis buys and through the co-development of the SM-3 missile with the U.S. Although not specified in the DSCA announcement, a government official confirmed these two systems are for Japan's planned Aegis Ashore sites, which are expected to be operational by 2023. Included in the potential package: two Aegis weapon systems, two multimission signal processors, and two command-and-control processor refreshes, alongside radio navigation equipment, ordnance, identification friend or foe systems, and construction services for six vertical launch system launcher module enclosures. Tuesday's announcement is the first DSCA notification to be posted since Dec. 18, just days before the longest government shutdown in U.S. history began. Speaking to reporters last week, Andrea Thompson, the U.S. State Department official who oversees the FMS process, said the shutdown was slowing down the process of clearing sales requests from foreign customers — notable, as the Trump administration has made increasing weapon sales abroad a key part of both its foreign policy and economic growth strategy. “There will be a bit of a bump — a gap, if you will — just because we haven't had the engagement with [Capitol] Hill” normally seen in the process, Thompson said then. “We'll be able to make up some ground, but I am a realist. We have to work harder if we are going to have the numbers we had last year.” Japan has recently spent heavily on American defense items. In September, the nation was cleared to spend $3.14 billion on nine E2-D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, and in October it agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars for SM-3 missiles. In the recently released Missile Defense Review, the U.S. Department of Defense identified that working with partners in the Pacific — notably Japan and South Korea — is the “cornerstone” of American security in the region. “Japan is one of our strongest missile defense partners, and works together with the United States to strengthen cooperative missile defenses against regional missile threats,” the review states. “Going forward, DoD will work with allies and partners to prioritize these types of missile defense integration opportunities that contribute to more effective protection of the United States, its allies and deployed forces.” DSCA announcements do not mean sales are final. The announcement serves as notification to Congress about the potential sale, which can be vetoed by the Senate; once cleared, negotiations between the customer and contractor can lead to changed quantities or dollar figures from the original announcement. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2019/01/29/with-shutdown-over-japan-cleared-to-spend-215-billion-on-aegis-ashore

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  15 mai 2024 | International, Sécurité

  FBI Seizes BreachForums Again, Urges Users to Report Criminal Activity

  BreachForums, a notorious online bazaar for stolen data, has been seized by law enforcement agencies for the second time in a year.