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  13 juillet 2023 | International, Aérospatial

  New NDAA amendment would add two more F-15EXs for Air Guard in 2025

  House lawmakers want to boost the Air Force's F-15EX purchases in 2025 by eight, and have added more than $122 million to the NDAA to pay for them.

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  7 octobre 2019 | International, Terrestre

  A New NATO Buyer For JLTV; More Buyers On The Way?

  The sale to Montenegro might be small, but the US push into the Balkans will not make Moscow happy. By PAUL MCLEARY WASHINGTON: In a sign the floodgates may be opening for allies to buy the Army's newest tactical vehicle, the US appears to be finalizing a $36 million agreement with Montenegro to sell them dozens of brand-new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles. The tipoff came this morning when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is visiting the country, said the US “offered an agreement to Montenegro for the largest sale of military equipment in the history between our two nations. The United States looks forward to delivering $36 million worth of light tactical vehicles to our NATO ally once this agreement is finalized.” A defense official confirmed the deal is for 67 Oshkosh-made JLTVs. If the deal goes through, Montenegro would become the fourth NATO ally to express interest or actually buy into the program, though so far Lithuania is the only country to receive US approval after the State Department signed off on a $170 million deal with the Baltic nation for 500 JLTVs in August. Mike Ivy, Oshkosh's senior VP for international programs, wouldn't comment on the Montenegro deal, but told me via email the “JLTV was intended from the beginning to be an international program,” pointing out the common systems on the vehicle make it easier for allies to work together in the field. A vastly larger sale is in the works with the UK, which is considering buying 2,747 JLTVs as part of its Multi Role Vehicle-Protected program. British Army officials acknowledged for the first time earlier this month that Oshkosh has been working on a UK variant. In October 2018, Slovenia also signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance for 38 JLTVs, though no deal has been finalized. Montenegro joined NATO in 2017, and is a critical part of the Balkan region's slow turn away from their Russian-dominated past, which Washington and NATO have taken pains to nurture. “It is of strategic importance for Montenegro to have US and EU presence in the Balkans so there would be no space for those countries who do not share the same values,” Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic said alongside Pompeo Friday. Like so many DoD programs, the JLTV has had an exceptionally long and checkered past. The effort kicked off in 2006, eventually enduring a series of fits and starts before being forced to undergo a full requirements overhaul in 2011 after the Army realized the design would need to change to meet demands beyond those of counterinsurgency warfare. In 2015, Oshkosh was awarded a $6.7 billion contract for the initial 16,901 vehicles. In June the Army declared the JLTV was finally ready for full production, clearing the way for the sale of the truck to allies. Although the program spent 13 years churning through the development cycle, the JLTV has recently come under fire from the Army for being built for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not the potential conflicts of tomorrow against peer adversaries like China and Russia. In April, then-Army Secretary and now Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the JLTV, like the Chinook helicopter, was “designed for a different conflict,” but could still play a role on the battlefield. That shot came around the same time that the service slashed $800 million from its planned JLTV purchases, which translates to at least 1,500 vehicles over the next five years. The cut is only a dent in the massive program's armor, however. The Army has not backed off plans to acquire almost 50,000 JLTVs over the life of the program, which will run into the 2030s. The Marine Corps is also slated to buy about 9,100 JLTVs in the coming years. The Army and Marine Corps are planning to buy four versions of the truck, a general purpose model, a turreted gun truck, a TOW anti-tank missile launcher and a two-door utility variant, basically a militarized pickup truck. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/10/a-new-nato-buyer-for-jltv-more-buyers-on-the-way

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  14 janvier 2019 | International, Terrestre

  Why the British army tested robots in muddy fields

  By: Grant Turnbull Senior British army officers have signaled their intent to accelerate the fielding of several unmanned — and increasingly autonomous systems — following successful army trials at the end of 2018, but much like other forces around the world the United Kingdom faces challenges from how to modify archaic acquisition processes, to overcoming technical issues. In December, the British army concluded its landmark experimentation exercise known as Autonomous Warrior, in which the service evaluated more than 50 unmanned systems from industry over a month-long period in the south of England. The exercise, which put the robotic systems through grueling trials in muddy fields and a purpose-built facility for urban fighting, was the first attempt by the British army, as well as industry, to determine how the technology will work in a combat environment. Much like other forces around the world, the service hopes to use robots to carry out the dangerous, and often tedious, elements of combat. Over 200 troops — made up of infantry, marines, engineers, airmen as well as U.S. Army personnel — were equipped with a variety of robotic and autonomous systems with the aim of improving areas such as combat mass, soldier lethality and overall information gathering. For example, in one scenario, soldiers used robotic engineering vehicles to clear an obstacle, while a small quadcopter flew overhead to provide infrared imagery before armored infantry rolled in to take an enemy position. Robotic systems with varying levels of autonomy were a key part of the exercise, ranging from radar-equipped drones for detecting buried IEDs, to small two-wheeled robots that are thrown into buildings to search for enemy fighters. The head of the British army, Gen. Mark Carleton-Smith, has directed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to speed up the fielding of technology used during the exercise. “His direction to me is very clear,” said Maj. Gen. Chris Tickell, director of capability for the British army. “He wants to see some of this kit in the hands of the field army in 12 to 18 months. “Success or failure will absolutely hinge on what happens after the experiment,” he added. “And that is about the exploitation and proving to industry that we are as good as our word and we are going to take some of these ideas and put them into the hands of the user.” For Tickell, an equipment budget of £22 billion ($28 billion) over the next decade will allow the MoD to purchase new unmanned technologies, but the “trick is to turn the ideas that you see here into tangible capability.” This may require the MoD “to adjust and even devise new acquisition processes to enable rapid acquisition”, said Trevor Taylor, an expert in defense acquisition at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “How will requirements, business cases, competitive tendering or ‘partnering,' testing and safety cases be addressed?” A related challenge continues to be the British army's lack of experience using unmanned and autonomous systems, with commanders using the Autonomous Warrior exercise to better understand capability enhancements as well as the inevitable shortfalls. The officer responsible for coordinating the exercise, Lt Col Nick Serle, told C4ISRNET that while the British army has worked with industry on new technologies it had not previously focused on robots and autonomous systems. “That's why this year we decided to spend a month on Salisbury Plain just focusing on robotics and autonomous systems,” Serle said. He also commands the British army's experimentation unit, known as the Infantry Trials and Development Unit. “This is a real opportunity to bring stuff into the field and really see if it does what industry thinks it's going to do, but also to see if military users will use it the way [industry] thinks they will use it,” Serle said. “There's no one single piece of kit that will solve all our problems, it's a combination of something in the air such as a surveillance asset, something on the ground, perhaps with a weapon on it or just doing logistics, but then it all links through an information system where you can pass that data and make better decisions to generate tempo.” An issue highlighted by Serle was an increasingly crowded radiofrequency spectrum, especially as several unmanned systems jostle for space to beam back high-resolution data from onboard sensors. “The problem is when they start cutting each other out, we are dealing with physics here, if we want to have great high definition video passing across the battlefield we need to trade somewhere else.” Taylor noted that not only will there be a need to ensure that the control systems do not interfere with each other, but also that army leaders “will have to be convinced that new systems are not simply too vulnerable to jamming and other disruptive techniques by an adversary.” A promising development from the exercise is the ability to optionally man a standard vehicle using applique kits that can be fitted within a few hours. Several examples were on display when we visited the exercise in December, including a remote-controlled Warrior infantry fighting vehicle and a lightweight MRZR tactical vehicle. As part of the experimentation, troops used the vehicles in unintended ways. One U.S. Army soldier noting that the MRZR had been a helpful surveillance tool because of its onboard camera. Squads were also keen to use the UGVs to help in entering buildings and also as modern-day pack horses to carry supplies or people. “What we have found is that when troops are using these [UGVs], naturally they just want to jump on the vehicle because it goes faster than they can, and you can move groups very quickly on them,” Serle said. He added that for safety reasons the soldiers were not allowed to hop on board during the exercise. “Optionally manned is good, but whether it needs to be optionally manned with a steering wheel and a seat I don't know, I think you could do it more like a Segway. But there's no doubt people want to get on them.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2019/01/11/why-the-british-army-tested-robots-in-muddy-fields/