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  1 octobre 2019 | International, Naval

  Kongsberg unveils Vanguard warship design that could ‘rock the market’

  By: Andrew Chuter OSLO, Norway — Are you a navy looking to spend less when buying and operating warships? Norwegian defense company Kongsberg reckons it may have the answer. Kongsberg has taken the wraps off a new multirole warship design that the company says extensively uses commercial systems and can be built in commercial yards for substantially less money and in less time than traditional warships. With warship procurement becoming eye-wateringly expensive, Kongsberg's defense and aerospace arm is pitching its Vanguard design as a way to save money via a 50 percent life-cycle cost reduction. Vanguard will have what is effectively a plug-and-play capability, enabling the multipurpose vessel to pack containers — that meet this International Organization for Standardization's guidelines — with equipment to swap missions as diverse as hydrographic survey to anti-submarine, area-denial and other roles in a matter of hours. Kongsberg doesn't traditionally build or design warships. The Norweigian company is better known in the defense sector for pioneering the use of remote weapons for land vehicles and development of the surface-to-surface Joint Strike Missile for use on the F-35 fighter jet. Design work on the platform was led by Norwegian maritime consultancy Salt Ship Design. It's the company's first major military program, having previously focused on complex commercial ship design work in the offshore energy sector, among other markets. Kongsberg and Salt have been collaborating on the project for more than two years. Salt executives said conceptual work was more or less finished, and they are now engaged in initial design work. Vanguard has been fitted out with Kongsberg equipment like a commercial bridge system overlaid with military specifications. But company officials said the flexibility to install other systems to meet customer requirements is a key element of the program. Baseline ship equipment is predominantly supplied by Kongsberg Defence Systems. Its sister operation, Kongsberg Maritime, is a major player in the commercial maritime sector and earlier this year acquired Britain's Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine. Frank Tveiten , Kongsberg's vice president of naval integrated defense systems, said Vanguard has sparked the interest of potential customers and shipyards. “We have tested it in the market with very positive reactions. The baseline warship fitted with Kongsberg systems and sensors is substantially cheaper than other warships. It's going to rock the market a little bit,“ he said. Tveiten said the economies stretched beyond procurement with manning levels as low as 16-20 people, and a speed requirement that results in very low fuel consumption. Build time for a Vanguard in a commercial yard could be as little as two years, according to the Salt executives. Kongsberg executives said Vanguard would suit emerging navies as well as interest some larger navies looking to increase offshore patrol, corvette and frigate numbers without breaking the bank. Senior Norwegian naval officers at a Kongsberg briefing in Oslo on Sept. 26 said they are interested in the concept but were guarded about whether Vanguard could be a contender to replace the Navy's Helge Ingstad frigate, which was written off after a collision with an oil tanker last year. Chief of the Navy Rear Adm. Nils-Andreas Stensones said there is a gradual move to the use of commercial systems onboard warships, and that Norway's experience with Coast Guard vessels and other ships using similar systems had been positive. “We have had a very good experience when it comes to the Coast Guard over the last 30 years. Also, our new supply ship is built to civilian standards with some military adaptions, and the experience so far is good,” Stensones said. “We see that in many areas we can use civilian technology to great benefit. We see [the use of] commercial equipment sliding gradually to the more high-end applications, but how far [one[ can go with that we don't know yet." “The cost of building military-specified platforms today is becoming prohibitively expensive. If you can reduce the cost of the platform, you can invest more in weapons and sensors. It's finding the best balance,” he added. “Whether we will end up with this concept [Vanguard], I don't know. The hardest part is the training. If you have a mission module onboard, you also need a trained crew — that may be the biggest challenge.” https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2019/09/30/kongsberg-unveils-vanguard-warship-design-that-could-rock-the-market

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  8 mai 2020 | International, Naval

  Here’s the DARPA project it says could pull the Navy a decade forward in unmanned technology

  David B. Larter WASHINGTON – A project inside the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has the potential to pull the Navy's unmanned surface vessel aspirations forward a decade, a senior DARPA official said Wednesday at the annual C4ISR Conference. DARPA's effort to develop a ship designed from the keel up to operate without humans, known as “NOMARS” for “no mariners,” is a separate effort from the Navy's quest to develop a family of large and medium unmanned surface vessels. But the benefits of that program, if successful, could be a giant leap forward for the concept the Navy is developing, said Mike Leahy, who heads the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA. The Navy “will only be able to go so far with where the technology has matured,” Leahy said. “What we're able to do is link to that group [developing USVs for the Navy], get information about what missions they are trying to accomplish, the sizing and other constraints, feed that into NOMARS project so that we can take the same class of ship – looking at the same ideas in terms of a hull form – and when we are successful we can dump that right into their tranche and pull that forward a decade from where it might have been on a traditional path.” The Navy and DARPA have been closely linked in efforts to develop unmanned platforms but DARPA's NOMARs will remain an independent effort, Leahy said. The Navy has “been involved in the source selection, they're involved in the testing we're doing, so that we can make sure that information is flowing,” Leahy said. “But we will reserve the right to take risks that may not be in the direction they want to go. Because sometimes learning what does not work is even more valuable than what does. “The physics is going to tell you what you need to know, and you can't cheat it.” Maintaining separate lines of effort is important because DARPA has the freedom to fail whereas failure in an acquisition program has higher stakes, he said. “NOMARS is going and looking at ‘Can I take people completely off ships,'” he explained. “That's a risky endeavor. We don't know if we're going to be able to do that. We don't know if that's going to pan out. You would not want to link an acquisition program directly to that.” Another Option The Navy is currently pursuing both a large and medium unmanned surface vessel that can perform missions for the surface Navy as a means of increasing aggregate naval power without wrapping a $2 billion hull around 96 missile tubes, as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday has said publicly, referencing the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. Maintaining separate lines of effort is important because DARPA has the freedom to fail whereas failure in an acquisition program has higher stakes, he said. “NOMARS is going and looking at ‘Can I take people completely off ships,'” he explained. “That's a risky endeavor. We don't know if we're going to be able to do that. We don't know if that's going to pan out. You would not want to link an acquisition program directly to that.” Another Option The Navy is currently pursuing both a large and medium unmanned surface vessel that can perform missions for the surface Navy as a means of increasing aggregate naval power without wrapping a $2 billion hull around 96 missile tubes, as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday has said publicly, referencing the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. https://www.c4isrnet.com/2020/05/06/heres-the-darpa-project-it-says-could-pull-the-navy-a-decade-forward-in-unmanned-technology/

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  4 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre

  US Navy, Marine Corps order dozens of Osprey aircraft in $4.2B deal

  By: Andrew C. Jarocki WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps continue to invest in vertical takeoff aircraft, announcing a $4.2 billion contract with the Bell-Boeing Joint Program Office for dozens of new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. The agreement provides for the manufacture and delivery of 39 CMV-22B aircraft for the Navy and 14 MV-22B aircraft for the Marines. The delivery is expected to be completed by November 2024. The Navy will use the new tilt rotors for transporting personnel and cargo from shore to aircraft carriers. The Osprey is also used in infiltration/exfiltration operations. The V-22 and its variations have seen use by the U.S. Air Force for resupply operations, and by the Marines in Syria. The Army is also interested in developing vertical lift capabilities for deploying strike teams. The contract included a sale of four MV-22B aircraft for the government of Japan, where five American Ospreys arrived this spring to begin a deployment based in Tokyo. The purchase “enables the U.S. Navy to begin advancing its carrier onboard delivery fleet with modern tiltrotor aircraft” Kristin Houston, vice president for Boeing tilt-rotor programs and director of the Bell-Boeing V-22 program, said in a news release. The Air Force will also receive one new CV-22B from the contract. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/07/03/us-navy-marine-corps-order-dozens-of-osprey-aircraft-in-42b-deal/