Submission of bids delayed again on Canadian Surface Combatant program

Sur le même sujet

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  12 décembre 2024 | Local, Terrestre

  This new tool lets brigades ‘see’ their electronic warfare footprint

  A handful of operational U.S. Army brigades now have a tool to “see” how they and enemy forces look in the otherwise invisible electromagnetic spectrum.

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  5 mars 2018 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Federal budget shores up cyber defences but is silent on new jets and warships

  By Murray Brewster, CBC News The new federal budget focuses on ones and zeros over tanks and troops by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into new and improved cyber and national security defences. Several federal departments will not only see upfront cash but promises of long-term spending to counter both the threat of hackers — state-sponsored and otherwise — and cyber-criminals. National Defence, by comparison, is seeing virtually nothing in terms of new spending on the nuts and bolts of the military, other than initiatives outlined in the recently tabled national defence policy. The 2018 budget is, on the surface, a tacit acknowledgement that the nature of threats to national security — the nature of modern warfare itself — is changing. The budget recycles the government's $3.6 billion pledge last December to provide veterans with the option of a pension for life and better services. But cyber-security was, by far, the headline national security measure in the budget. Finance Minister Bill Morneau's fiscal plan sets aside $750 million in different envelopes — much of it to be spent over five years — to improve cyber security and better prepare the federal government to fend off online attacks and track down cyber-criminals. More for CSE It also promises an additional $225 million, beginning in 2020-21, to improve the capacity of the country's lead electronic intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment, to gather foreign signals intelligence. The Liberals will soon pass new national security legislation — C-59 — and CSE will receive important new powers and responsibilities to disrupt global cyber threats. "These are brand new tools. They're going to need lots of resources — technological resources, personnel resources — to engage in those kinds of operations," said Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa professor and one of the country's leading experts on cybersecurity and intelligence, in an interview prior to the budget. The sense of urgency about getting the country's cyber-security house in order is being driven in part by the fallout from Russian hacking and meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, said a former assistant parliamentary budget officer. "With what we've seen south of the border, I think cyber-security and cyber-threat has been elevated in this budget to a high-priority item," said Sahir Khan, now the executive vice president of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy. The budget creates two new entities to deal with online threats. The first, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, will assemble all of the federal government's cyber expertise under one roof — a plan that will require new legislation. The second organization will be run by the RCMP and be known as the National Cybercrime Coordination Unit. It will coordinate all cybercrime investigations and act as a central agency to which the public can report incidents. The budget also includes cash for Public Safety's National Cyber Strategy, which not only aims to protect federal government networks but is meant to collaborate with the corporate financial and energy sectors to boost their defences. Military procurement a work in progress The budget's dearth of new spending on the real-world military — at a time of significant global insecurity — is due to reasons that are partly political and partly organizational, said Khan. The former Conservative government's inability to deliver on promises of new equipment during its nine-year tenure was a political "albatross around its neck," he said. The Liberals may have produced a clear defence policy but they have yet to straighten out the procurement system, he added. The Trudeau government has promised a lot of military capital spending down the road. Khan said it seems determined to keep the issue out of the spotlight in the meantime. What's missing from the new budget is a clear commitment that National Defence will get the cash it needs as those needs arise. "I think there was a lot of clarity in the policy direction coming out of the government [defence] white paper," said Khan. "What a lot of us are trying to understand is whether the money ... is accompanying that change in direction ... so that DND has a stable footing to meet its needs." He said he still has questions about whether promised future spending on fighter jets and warships has been baked into the federal government's long-term fiscal plans. A senior federal official, speaking on background prior to the release of the budget, insisted that military capital spending is welded into fiscal plans going forward into the 2030s. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has said repeatedly, since the strategy was released last June, that the defence plan was "fully costed" into the future. Up until 2016, National Defence produced an annual list of planned defence purchases. The Liberals promised to produce their own list of planned acquisitions and table it this year. Khan said it "needs to be presented to Parliament and the public." Training and retaining? The cyber initiatives in Monday's budget drew a mixed response from the high-tech sector. On the one hand, the Council of Canadian Innovators praised budget signals that suggest the Liberals are open to dealing with home-grown companies rather than buying off-the-shelf from major U.S. firms. "The imperative to build domestic cyber capacity is not just economic. It's existential," said Benjamin Bergen, the council's executive director. "Without a domestic capacity in cyber we risk becoming a client state. Innovators welcome the announcement of a new Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, which will allow for information sharing between the public and private sector." What the budget didn't offer was a clear commitment to training and retaining highly-skilled software engineers and IT professionals. "We would have liked to have seen a retention strategy. There wasn't one," said Bergen. "We know Canada produces amazing graduates but we're struggling to keep that talent here." The council estimates there will be up to 200,000 job openings in high-tech by 2020, which will put pressure on the industry and on the federal government as it bulks up its cyber capability. Adam Froman, CEO of the Toronto-based data collection firm Delvinia, was blunt when asked if the federal government will be able to fill all of the cyber-security job openings created by this budget. "They're not going to be able to. Plain and simple," he said. "Or they're going to have to outsource those jobs to foreign companies." http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-budget-2018-cybersecurity-1.4552967

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  10 juillet 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

  Les Alpha-Jet de la Défense vendus à la société canadienne Top Aces

  Les Alpha-Jet de la Défense vendus à la société canadienne Top Aces. La Défense belge a revendu 25 de ses anciens avions d'entraînement Alpha-Jet à une société canadienne, Top Aces, spécialisée dans l'entraînement au combat aérien au profit de différentes forces aériennes. Depuis la fermeture de l'école franco-belge de pilotes de chasse de Cazaux en France le 11 octobre 2018, les Alpha-Jet ont été retirés du service. Ils sont encore restés un an en France à disposition de l'Armée de l'Air française le temps de solder les comptes de l'AJeTS. Depuis leur retour en Belgique, ils sont stockés sur la base de Beauchevain. La société canadienne Top Aces serait responsable du démontage et du transport des appareils selon l'agence Belga. Le dossier de la vente des Alpha-Jet a été lancé en 2018. Neuf candidats avaient été retenus par la Défense en décembre 2019 et devaient soumettre une nouvelle offre. La société canadienne Top Aces possède déjà une vingtaine d'Alpha-Jet utilisée par la Luftwaffe, l'armée de l'air allemande, plus 7 A-4 Skyhawk et les 3 Learjet 35 (sans compter d'autres appareils civils en plus petites quantités). Des F-16 devraient bientôt les rejoindre pour compléter l'offre. Selon le blog français Lignes de Défense, cet achat n'est pas surprenant car Top Aces fait partie des sociétés choisies par l'USAF, l'armée de l'air américaine, pour le gros contrat d'externalisation des services ADAIR (adversary air). Top Aces se doit donc d'augmenter sa flotte d'Alpha-Jet. D'autres armées de l'air font appel à ses services pour l'entrainement de leurs pilotes (la Luftwaffe, la Royal Canadian Air Force et la Royal Australian Air Force). Ces programmes comprennent tant le combat air-air qu'air-sol (formation de JTAC), la défense anti-aérienne à partir de navire ou encore la réalisation de mission ISR. L'entreprise emploie une quarantaine de pilotes issu des armées de l'air américaine, canadienne, allemande et australienne (dont une grande partie est diplômée de l'école Top Gun). L'Alpha-Jet est un appareil de conception franco-allemande qui a effectué son premier vol en 1973 et qui est entré en service dans différentes armées de l'air en 1979. Il a été un réel succès de l'aéronautique avec plus de 500 appareils construits et une carrière loin d'être terminée. Conçu en deux versions (entrainement et attaque au sol), 12 armées de l'air à travers le monde y ont ou y ont eu recours. La Belgique a commandé 33 appareils, assemblés par la SABCA, et livrés entre 1978 et 1980. Quatre d'entre eux ont été perdus durant leur carrière. Durant presque quinze ans et jusqu'en 2018, 165 pilotes de chasse de la Composante Air ont été formés à Cazaux en France au sein de l'école franco-belge de pilotes de chasse sur l'Alpha-Jet. Avec la décision de ne pas remplacer les Alpha-Jet, la Défense s'est tournée vers l'Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT), une école installée sur la base aérienne Sheppard, dans le nord du Texas, pour former ses pilotes de chasse. La formation est moins coûteuse pour la Défense belge. En 2017, le ministre de la Défense Steven Vandeput estimait à environ 1,3 millions de dollars la formation de 18 mois aux USA. « L'économie pour la Défense est difficile à chiffrer mais, étant donné qu'il n'y aura pas d'investissement dans un nouvel avion d'instruction (le life cycle cost étalé sur 20 ans pour une flotte d'environ 15 avions est estimé à +/- 750 millions d'euros) et qu'on pourra aussi épargner sur les coûts d'infrastructure et de personnel, on peut présumer que celle-ci sera importante », expliquait-il dans une réponse écrite à la député Karolien Grosemans (N-VA). Le personnel détaché est aussi moins important passant de 40 personnes (pilotes, personnel administratif et techniciens) à 10 personnes. En plus d'économies de coût et personnel, le ministre Steven Vandeput défendait ce choix par l'absence de solution alternative au niveau européen, l'Armée de l'Air française n'ayant à cette époque pas encore de solution pour son Fast Jet Training. Actuellement, les élèves pilotes suivent un tronc commun de formation sur les Marchetti à Beauchevain avant de se séparer dans leur filière spécifique. Mais le ministère de la Défense envisage aussi de recourir à l'outsourcing au lieu de remplacer les Marchetti, qui arrivent en fin de vie. Les pilotes d'avions de transport ou d'hélicoptères sont toujours formés en France. Article co-écrit avec Pierre Brassart https://defencebelgium.com/2020/07/09/les-alpha-jet-de-la-defense-vendus-a-la-societe-canadienne-top-aces/