31 décembre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
Chinese APT Exploits BeyondTrust API Key to Access U.S. Treasury Systems and Documents
U.S. Treasury breached by Chinese APT actors via BeyondTrust API key; critical CVE-2024-12356 exploited.
14 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
By PAUL MCLEARY and THERESA HITCHENSon May 13, 2020 at 4:32 PM
WASHINGTON: Like the rest of the Defense Department, Special Operations Command is preparing for flat to declining budgets in the coming years as the national debt spirals to $25 trillion and the economy flattens due to COVID-19 related shutdowns.
At the moment, the command that trains, equips and sustains the nation's elite covert operators boasts a $13 billion budget, $7 billion of which goes directly into buying and repairing new gear, with another $800 million pumped into research and development. And that's the unclassified part of the budget.
The command wants to protect those investments, Jim Smith, SOCOM's top acquisition executive, told reporters this morning. But fiscal realities being what they are, “right now, our planning assumptions are based on a flat budget out through the next seven years or so,” he said. “And then, if you take into account inflation, you might even have a slightly downward pressure on our overall budget.”
Just recently, Defense Secretary Mark Esper suggested that the budget pressure might force his hand in cutting older, legacy systems earlier than planned to pull savings toward priority modernization programs like the $500 billion the DoD plans to spend on the refurbishment of the nuclear triad over the next decade.
Earlier this month Esper declared, “we need to move away from the legacy, and we need to invest those dollars in the future. And we have a lot of legacy programs out there right now — I could pick dozens out from all branches of the services” that could be cut or curtailed.
Asked by Breaking Defense if pressure on SOCOM budgets could lead to the command walking away from bigger and older systems, Smith said “SOF is a little different. There is a propensity for us to accept a near-[commercial] solution and get it into the fight very quickly. And for that reason, we tend not to sustain equipment or the 20-year, 30-year life cycles that you see in the services.”
That's not to say “we don't have the same pressures,” as the services in finding savings, he added. “We're trying to divest in a force that you know likes to hold on to things. And so we have very rich dialogue at the command level, I can assure you, about trying to divest over some of our larger programs going on.”
One area commanders want to grow is close air support and ISR in areas without large, improved landing strips via the Armed Overwatch program. Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, said in February at the Air Force Association's annual meeting that the aircraft would replace AFSOC's U-28s — and focus more on plane's close air support, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
Smith today explained that effort is standing on the shoulders of the Air Force's defunct Light Attack Aircraft effort.
“We are on the backs of the Air Force's effort. We're using the same program managers and engineers,” Smith said. “Everything that was learned by the Air Force in their light attack experiment is being leveraged into ours.”
The Air Force's long-running light attack aircraft saga — that at one point was expected to involve procurement of up to 300 airplanes — began way back in 2011, when the Air Force initiated a program to procure what it then called “light air-support” aircraft for use in insurgencies.
In 2017, the program morphed into what the service called the Light Attack Experiment, aimed at developing a concept of operations that involved US allies as well as fleshing out an overall acquisition strategy. In 2018, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said the service had set aside $2.4 billion in the fiscal year 2019 budget's five-year cycle to acquire agile, armed reconnaissance aircraft — once it had tested out its chosen competitors: Textron's AT-6 and the Sierra Nevada-Embraer team's A-29.
In October 2019, facing a threat from Congress to strip the program from its control, the Air Force issued a request for proposal to Textron and Sierra Nevada to buy “two or three of both” companies' turboprops. Finally, in February this year, the Air Force threw up its collective hands and gave up the quest to buy light attack aircraft in quantity — purchasing only two each of the AT-6 Wolverine and A-29 Tucanos for continued experimentation.
Several of the companies who originally fought it out way back in the day under the Air Force effort, as well as Textron and Sierra Nevada, are now throwing their hats in the SOCOM ring. Spokespeople for Air Tractor (which had formally protested the Air Force's contract award in the light attack competition), Sierra Nevada and Textron confirmed to Breaking Defense today that they are all in for the live-fly demonstration expected in November.
The plan is for SOCOM to buy up to 75 of the aircraft over seven years, beginning with a $106 million request in the 2021 budget to kick things off.
The Special Operations community is as interested in what it can put on one of these planes as it is in the aircraft itself.
“At the end of the day, I'm going to deliver a weapon system,” Smith said. “And so what's really important to me is what the vendor brings to the table, in terms of their ability to integrate weapons onto a non-developmental platform. I think the Air Force, you know, there was a lot of focus on the actual platforms. I don't think you'll see that from SOCOM. We are far more interested in the integration capability of our eventual industry partners on the platform.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/special-ops-budget-crunch-looms-but-new-aircraft-demo-coming
31 décembre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
U.S. Treasury breached by Chinese APT actors via BeyondTrust API key; critical CVE-2024-12356 exploited.
8 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial
U.S. Special Operations Command is looking at Reaper drones for the new Armed Overwatch role. But although the Reaper may be uncrewed, it takes a lot of people on the ground to keep it flying -- maybe too many to be viable.
20 novembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
The MOD has awarded a contract worth £160m to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to deliver infrastructure to ready RAF Lakenheath for two squadrons of US F-35s. The Suffolk airbase will be the first permanent international site for US Air Force F-35s in Europe and continues the base's long and proud history of supporting US Air Force capability in the UK. Co-locating US and UK F-35 capability in the UK will help strengthen the historic military ties between the two nations as well as the partnership between the RAF and US Air Forces The contract awarded to Kier VolkerFitzpatrick includes the construction of a flight simulator facility, a maintenance unit, new hangars and storage facilities. The flight simulator will have the capacity to link to other simulators used pilots across the UK and beyond, allowing expertise to be shared and pilots from the UK and US to train together on a regular basis. At the height of construction, it is expected that there will be up to 700 contractors on site. The investment will also provide wider benefits to the local economy with over 1,000 personnel and family members living at the base. MOD is also working closely with Forest Heath District Council and Kier VolkerFitzpatrick to ensure that the opportunities to create employment and training are maximised to ensure they last beyond the end of construction. A ceremony, attended by representatives from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, US Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa (USAFE- AFAFRICA), Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC), Kier VolkerFitzpatrick and Forest Heath District Council, was held at the base to celebrate the award of the contract. Minister for Defence People and Veterans, Tobias Ellwood, said: For more than one hundred years now our armed forces have fought in defence of our common values and interests. Our two countries have developed the deepest, broadest and most advanced relationship of any two nations. Today marks another step towards reinforcing the strong partnership between our two nations and an exciting milestone for RAF Lakenheath. This investment will see substantial benefits to local economy, bringing 1,000 new personnel with their families and we will work hard to ensure that the benefits will last long after construction ends. USAF 48th Fighter Wing Commander, Colonel Will Marshall, said: This is an exciting milestone for the 48th Fighter Wing and for all our partners. We're transforming RAF Lakenheath together, and the work we do today is critical to the future security of the United States, the United Kingdom and the NATO Alliance. DIO Commercial Director, Jacqui Rock, said: We welcome this investment into RAF Lakenheath. This is an incredible opportunity for UK Defence and for the local area and DIO is pleased to be able to support the development of this key infrastructure which will make the beddown of the US F-35s possible. Managing director of aviation and defence at Kier, James Hindes, said: We're extremely proud to have been appointed to deliver another prestigious defence project for DIO. It builds on our extensive expertise in the defence sector delivering first-class projects within secure environments including facilities at MoD Lyneham and RAF Shawbury. We look forward to working closely with the DIO and our local supply chain to provide this crucial infrastructure and deliver this exciting opportunity ready for the arrival of the two permanent squadrons. Managing director of VolkerFitzpatrick's Civils division, Chris Evans, said: We are delighted to have been awarded this highly significant project with DIO. VolkerFitzpatrick has been working with the United States Air Force at RAF Lakenheath for over ten years and we look forward to bringing the knowledge we have gained to this new contract. The project will allow us to build on our substantial experience within the civil airports and defence sector, to deliver the highest quality infrastructure for the new F-35 Fighter Jet. The contract has been designed so that the enabling work can begin immediately on the award. Building work is programmed to start in the summer next year so that the base can welcome the first of the new aircraft in 2021. The contract award is the first in a wider programme of work to support US Air Force operations in the UK, with more than US$1bn expected to be in invested in the UK over the next seven to ten years. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mod-awards-160m-contract-to-prepare-raf-lakenheath-for-us-f-35s