7 octobre 2022 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
Seven questions with the US Army's counter-drone boss
Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey spoke with C4ISRNET about what it takes to protect American interests against drone warfare.
26 juin 2018 | International, Terrestre
Tank makers steel themselves for Europe’s next big land-weapon contest
PARIS ― European manufacturers of armored vehicles are jockeying for position in what looks to be the most expensive land program for the continent in decades.
The industry activity follows plans by France and Germany, reiterated this month, to build a Main Ground Combat System that would replace the current fleet of Leopard 2 and Leclerc tanks. While conceived as a two-country project for now, the hope is to develop a weapon that other European land forces will also pick up.
Details remain murky about exactly what the new vehicles must be able to do, though the job description includes something about manned-unmanned teaming. Perhaps that's why officials chose an amorphous name for the project, as it could be anything from a nimble, autonomous fighter to the type of human-driven steel beast of today's armies.
The target date for introducing the new platform is set at 2035, and Germany has picked up the lead role for the project both on the government and the industry side.
KNDS, the Franco-German joint venture of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter, put the program on the radar of visitors of the Eurosatory trade show in Paris earlier this month. The companies mated the chassis of a Leopard 2 tank to a Leclerc turret ― and voila, a European Main Battle Tank was born.
Company officials stressed that the hybrid behemoth is only a stepping stone on the way toward a full-blown European tank offering under the Main Ground Combat System banner. But the product might interest Eastern European nations looking to divest their Russian legacy fleets for a good-enough, Western-made tank that ― presumably ― doesn't break the bank.
The marriage of KMW and Nexter saves the two companies from having to compete against one another for the next-generation tank. It also creates the appearance that Paris' and Berlin's love for a future tank is happily echoed by their industries.
“Let's assume we wouldn't have joined forces,” said Frank Haun, the CEO of KMW. Both he and his Nexter counterpart, Stephane Mayer, would have had to lobby their respective governments for a purely national solution, pulling the old argument of keeping jobs in the country, Haun said.
The two companies hailed an announcement last week about a new Franco-German deal aimed at examining possible program options for the future tank.
“The Letter Of Intent signed yesterday is a significant step forward in the defense cooperation between the two countries and in Europe,” reads a June 20 statement. “This close cooperation was the key motivation for the foundation of KNDS in 2015, where Nexter and KMW cooperate as national system houses for land systems.”
But the binational industry team is far from the only game in town.
Take Rheinmetall, for example, which is KMW's partner in the Leopard program. Company executives at the Paris weapons expo were tight-lipped about their strategy toward the Main Ground Combat System, or MGCS. But it's probably a safe bet to presume the Düsseldorf, Germany-based firm won't cede a market of tens of billions of dollars without a fight.
“Come back and see me in December in Unterlüß,” Ben Hudson, head of the company's vehicle systems division, told Defense News during an interview in Paris. He was referring to a small German town one hour south of Hamburg where Rheinmetall runs a manufacturing plant.
Hudson declined to say more about what the company would roll out at that time. “I can't mention it just yet,” he said. “Expect more surprises in the future. We're already working on some other things in the secret laboratories of Rheinmetall.”
Either way, officials were eager to note that KNDS, despite its industrial alignment alongside the two governments in charge, is only one bidder in a field that has to fully emerge.
“I think there is still a lot of water to flow under the bridge on this program, as it is only in its early days. However, with the technology in the Rheinmetall Group, we have a significant interest in playing a key role in MGCS,” Hudson said.
He argued that developing the next-generation tank must begin with considering the “threat” out there, namely the Russian T-14 and T-15 tanks, which are based on a common chassis dubbed Armata. Those vehicles' characteristics, or at least what is known about them, dictate “high lethality” be built into the future European tank, according to Hudson.
“How do you defeat a tank that has four active defense systems on it?” he asked.
And then there is General Dynamics European Land Systems, the Old World's offspring of the U.S. maker of the Abrams tank and Stryker vehicle.
The company is careful to note its European roots: a consolidated mishmash of formerly independent armored-vehicle makers from across the continent.
Manuel Lineros, vice president of engineering, told Defense News that the company's Ascot vehicle will be the GDELS offering for the European next-gen tank. Advertised for its mobility and weighing in at roughly 45 tons, the tracked vehicle falls in the class of infantry fighting vehicles, putting it one notch below the heaviest battle tank category.
“I understand the battlefield has changed,” Lineros said in an interview at Eurosatory. “We have to abandon the ideas of a combat vehicle versus a classic main battle tank. Everything is so mixed up now.”
Whatever the Ascot lacks in sheer mass against projectiles aimed at its shell could be compensated with an active protection system and the ability to move quickly on the battlefield, argued Lineros. “We have to be flexible in this way of interpreting the requirements.”
That includes defending against drone swarms, which could become the peer-to-peer equivalent of improvised explosive devices designed to rip open the underbellies of vehicles, he said. Unlike the recent countermine vehicle architecture, that type of aerial threat could mean the top surface of future vehicles will be a weak point requiring special protection, he added.
Though adding armor plates remains the industry's first instinct in responding to new threats, Lineros said there is a limit to what he called an “addiction” to steel. “More and more we'll be moving out of this sport.”
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6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Space Force walks back stimulus contracts for small launch providers
Nathan Strout Less than two weeks after the U.S. Space Force invoked the Defense Production Act to prop up six small launch providers, those awards have been withdrawn. On June 16, the Space and Missile Systems Center announced in a beta.SAM.gov post that it was awarding rideshare contracts to six companies approved by the Industrial Base Council: Aevum, Astra, X-BOW, Rocket Lab USA, Space Vector and VOX Space. Each company was to be awarded two rideshare missions to be conducted over the next 24 months. The value of those contracts was not revealed. But as first reported by SpaceNews, SMC has withdrawn those awards. A new statement on beta.SAM.gov notes that the government “is re-evaluating its strategy on how best to proceed with this action” after receiving several responses to its decision. As a result, the contracts will not be awarded at this time. A Justification and Approval document was supposed to be made public within 14 days of contract award, but the withdrawal of the awards occurred before that deadline. While Space Force officials haven't spoken publicly about the Defense Production Act awards since they were announced online, the Pentagon was vocal in expressing concern about COVID-19 impacts on the small launch market in the months leading up to the announcement. On April 20, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord stated that the small launch market was one of three sectors she was most worried about. The Space and Missile Systems Center elaborated on her remarks in a statement to C4ISRNET. “There is concern that the current financial and market constraints resulting from the COVID-19 have reduced funding sources necessary to continue development and operations for the nascent small launch industry,” said Col. Rob Bongiovi, director of SMC's launch enterprise directorate. “Much of the industry have limited flight capability or are in the critical transition from development to flight and this funding restriction may prevent or delay these systems. The Space and Missile Systems Center is evaluating the impacts to the small launch industrial base to consider actions to enable a robust U.S. launch industrial base.” Shortly thereafter, the Space Force Acquisition Council held an emergency meeting to discuss how they could support industry partners negatively impacted by COVID-19. The council ultimately sent out a survey to members of the Space Enterprise Consortium to see what industry needed from the Department of Defense. Finally on June 16, the same day the announcement went live, SMC Commander Lt. Gen. John “JT” Thompson suggested that the Space Force would use Defense Production Act awards to support the small launch market. “In the small launch environment, Secretary Lord and [U.S. Space Force Service Acquisition Executive Will] Roper have both commented about how important small launch is to our enterprise, and I can't give you the details right now but I would anticipate here very shortly some very critical Defense Production Act awards to our small launch providers to keep that industry going,” Thompson said https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/07/02/space-force-walks-back-stimulus-contracts-for-small-launch-providers/
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11 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre
Here’s how many bombs the US plans to buy in the next year
By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's fiscal 2021 budget request seeks to buy fewer munitions needed for the fights in Afghanistan and Iraq as it attempts to pivot towards investments in the kind of weapons that will be used in a high-end fight against China or Russia. The DoD has requested $21.3 billion in munitions, including $6 billion for conventional ammunition, $4 billion for strategic missiles and $11.3 billion for tactical missiles. Munitions and missiles make up 8.8 percent of overall procurement in the budget request. The department is pursuing a two-pronged approach, according to a budget summary provided by the Pentagon. The first is to make sure “U.S. worldwide munition inventories are sufficiently stocked” for ongoing needs. The second is to ensure “sufficient procurement of more advanced high-end weapon systems, which provide increases standoff, enhanced lethality and autonomous targeting for employment against near-peer threats in more contested environment.” Examples of that kind of high-end munition includes the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), both of which have enhanced procurement in the budget request. Major munitions buys in the budget include: 20,338 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) - $533 million. That is down 8,050 units from the FY20 enacted. 7,360 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) - $1.2 billion. That is down 1,163 units from FY20 enacted. 2,462 Small Diameter Bomb 1 (SDB 1) – $95.9 million. That is down 4,616 units from FY20 enacted. 1,490 Small Diameter Bomb II (SDB II) - $432 million. That is down 197 units from FY20 enacted. 8,150 Hellfire missiles - $517 million. That is down 640 units from FY20 enacted. 601 AIM-9X sidewinders - $316.6 million. That is down 119 units from FY20 enacted. 125 Standard Missile-6 - $816 million. That is the same amount as purchased in FY20 enacted. 400 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) - $577 million. That is up 10 units from FY20 enacted. 53 Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) - $224 million. That is up 36 units from FY20 enacted. The slowdown of procurement for munitions comes as the U.S. dropped 7,423 munitions onto Afghanistan in 2019 —the highest number of bombs released in nearly a decade. “For munitions, we continue to carefully manage production and stockpiles," Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker said Monday. "The JADM stockpile is healthier due to our last four years of increased procurements. The SM-6 is being procured at the maximum rate of production, continuing a five-year, multi-year procurement contract.” Keeping the munitions industrial base humming is important for the Pentagon. A May 2018 report identified major gaps in the munitions industrial base, warning that key components for America's weapons could disappear entirely if a small handful of suppliers were to close up shop. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2020/02/10/heres-how-many-bombs-the-us-plans-to-buy-in-the-next-year