Thales Alenia Space signs contract with European Commission and announces kickoff of EuroHAPS Project for demonstration of stratospheric platform

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  25 juin 2019 | International, Naval

  Leidos awarded $72.8M for Navy's TRAPS sub detection system

  By Ed Adamczyk June 24 (UPI) -- Leidos Inc. was awarded a $72.8 million contract for work on submarine detection sonar for the U.S. Navy, the Defense Department announced. The company, based in Reston, Va., will perform work on the Transformational Reliable Acoustic Path System, or TRAPS, one of two prototypes developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Department agency responsible for the development of emerging technologies military applications. Leidos' Leidos' work on TRAPS comes under an indefinite quantity, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with a three-year ordering period and no options, the Defense Department announced on Friday. The TRAPS system uses a fixed sonar mode placed on the ocean floor, exploiting advantages of operating from the seafloor, to achieve large-area surveillance of the area surrounding the submarine. Each node communicates back to a floating "stationary surface node" through a wireless acoustic modem when the ocean floor node detects a sound. The other prototype, called Submarine Hold at Risk [SHARK], has an unmanned underwater vehicle as a mobile platform to track enemy submarines. Both are part of DARPA's Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting [DASH] program. Leidos' work on the contract will be done at the company's Long Beach, Miss., facility, with an expected completion date of June 2022. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/06/24/Leidos-awarded-728M-for-Navys-TRAPS-sub-detection-system/9201561393132/

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  15 juillet 2019 | International, Autre défense

  Army researchers building ‘smart’ landmines for future combat

  By: Todd South FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – Army leaders see a future battlefield with networked minefields a commander can see from across the globe through satellite communications and that can be scattered in minutes but also retrieved and reused when needed. The push is an effort to keep landmines of various types in the weapons portfolio while still meeting the agreements made to get out of the old school “dumb” landmine use. Smart mines being developed now are a way to replace some of the aging stocks in the “Family of Scatterable Mines” run by the Army's Program Manager Close Combat Systems. The program actually runs nearly half of all munitions from non-lethals to hand grenades to shoulder-fired rockets and counter explosives equipment. The portfolio, its challenges and what's happening now were laid out for attendees at the annual National Defense Industrial Association's Armament Systems Forum in June. Top of the priority lists are some simple munitions needs — more hand-grenade fuzes and better shoulder-fired weapons. But the big ticket items that need problem solving are how to use “terrain shaping obstacles,” or landmines, that can be delivered to close, middle and deep distances and then controlled to avoid the problems of scattering mines across war zones and then leaving them for an innocent passerby to trigger years or decades later. Small options such as the remote activation system used for current mine emplacements relies on radio frequency transmissions. But, as Pelino noted, in a near peer fight it's likely that adversaries will do RF jamming. The Army has a host of terrain-shaping obstacles, everything from the trusty standby Claymore mine which came online in the late 1950s and saw extensive use in the Vietnam War to the Gator system, which can be air dropped to take out everything from an individual soldier to a tank. They're also the anti-personnel area denial artillery munition, or ADAM, mine that can be launched using a 155mm round from artillery. Its cousin, the remote anti-armor munition, or RAAM, packs a bit more of a punch but also can be delivered from anything that fires a 155mm shell. Both are fired to the area of the threat and then roll out multiple mines that detonate when the appropriate level of vibration triggers them. Pelino described the Modular Pack Mine System, or MOPMS, like a minefield in a suitcase. Though coming in at 165 pounds, that's a very heavy suitcase. A single radio-control unit can run up to 15 MOPMS on the battlefield. They can also be hardwired to a controller. An upside to the MOPMS is it can be recovered and reused. On the lighter side is the M86 pursuit deterrent munition. It was designed for special operations forces to use when being pursued by an enemy. Think classic films where the character scatters nails or an oil slick to slow down their chaser, except with a lot more boom. Only instead of firing from a cannon, the soldier has to arm the device and deploy tripwires for bad guys to stumble upon. The Volcano mine system takes more of an industrial approach. Allowing a UH-60 Black Hawk to create a 1,000-foot minefield in less than a minute, Pelino said. The problem with all of those systems is they don't currently meet treaty obligations and many that had about a 20-year shelf life are pushing past 30 years now. Most will still be in stock at 2035, as the Army uses updates to keep them serviceable, Pelino said. The newer Spider System is one that allows soldiers to put in a porcupine-looking system that gives 360-degree coverage to deny enemy access to an area while also networking with other systems and a common controller. Future systems will look a lot more like Spider and a lot less like pressure plate mines of the World War II era or the venerable Claymore. The future minefield systems must have a 2 to 300km communications capability, an ability to be switched on and off, remotely modified self-destruct or deactivate mechanisms, self-report status so that users will know if they've been tampered with or if a mine went off. The Army also wants the mines to be able to not just blow up when something rumbles by but also detect, track and engage threat vehicles for everything from tanks to engineer equipment. Oh, and it must work in all terrain and weather conditions, be easily trained and employed, recoverable, reusable and affordable. The standard kit will include between half and a full brigade's worth of mines to block off areas for maneuver and prevent enemy flanking. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/07/12/army-researchers-building-smart-landmines-for-future-combat/

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  16 janvier 2020 | International, Terrestre

  US Army cancels current effort to replace Bradley vehicle

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is taking a step back on its effort to replace its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle after receiving only one bid in its competitive prototyping program, but this does not mean the end of the road for the future optionally manned fighting vehicle, service leaders told reporters Jan. 16 at the Pentagon. Until now, the Army has been tight-lipped ever since it appeared the competitive effort was no longer competitive, as the service had received only one prototype submission. “Today the U.S. Army will cancel the current solicitation for the Section 804 Middle Tier acquisition rapid prototyping phase of the [optionally manned fighting vehicle]. Based on feedback and proposals received from industry, we have determined it is necessary to revisit the requirements, acquisition strategy and schedule moving forward,” said Bruce Jette, the Army's acquisition chief. “Since its inception, the OMFV program has represented an innovative approach to Army acquisition by focusing on delivering an essentially new capability to armored brigade combat teams under a significantly reduced timeline compared to traditional acquisition efforts. The Army asked for a great deal of capability on a very aggressive schedule and, despite an unprecedented number of industry days and engagements to include a draft request for proposals over a course of nearly two years, all of which allowed industry to help shape the competition, it is clear a combination of requirements and schedule overwhelmed industry's ability to respond within the Army's timeline,” Jette said. “The need remains clear. OMFV is a critical capability for the Army, and we will be pressing forward after revision." In October, the Army ended up with only one bidder in the OMFV competition — General Dynamics Land Systems. The service had planned to hold a prototyping competition, selecting two winning teams to build prototypes with a downselect to one at the end of an evaluation period. Defense News broke the news that another expected competitor — a Raytheon and Rheinmetall team — had been disqualified from the competition because it had failed to deliver a bid sample to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, by the deadline. A bellwether for what was to come in the prototyping competition happened earlier in the year when BAE Systems, which manufactures the Bradley, decided not compete, Defense News first reported. And, according to several sources, Hanwha also considered competing but decided against the opportunity. The CEO of BAE Systems' U.S.-based business, Jerry DeMuro, told Defense News in a recent interview that the company didn't regret its decision not to pursue OMFV as the requirements and schedule were previously laid out, but said it continues to talk to the Army about future opportunities. “It was a very challenging program,” DeMuro said. “It always comes down to three things: requirements, schedule and funding. The schedule was very, very aggressive, especially early on, and at the same time trying to get leap-ahead technologies. There's a little bit of dichotomy there. “The requirements that were being asked for was going to require, in our estimation, significantly more development that could not be done in that time frame and significantly more capital than the Army was willing to apply.” Jette said the Army had a large number of vendors interested in the effort, hosted 11 industry days and had a number of draft requests for proposals on the street, but, he said, “it's always a challenge for industry. I was on the outside two years ago, and you get an RFP in after the discussions — it still cannot align with what you thought, and that is what you have to respond to is the RFP.” The acquisition chief believes what happened in this case is there was “a large number interested, they started paring down, which started causing us some uncertainty about the competition, but we still had viable vendors in. And when you get out to actually delivering on those requirements, we had one vendor who had challenges meeting compliance issues with delivery, and the second vendor had difficulty meeting responsive issues, critical issues within the requirement — not knowing how to fulfill that.” When pressed as to whether GDLS met the requirements with its bid sample, the Army's program executive officer for ground combat systems, Brig. Gen. Brian Cummings, who was present at the media roundtable along with the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team leader Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, said the Army could not discuss results and findings regarding the company's submission. Several sources confirmed a letter was circulating around Capitol Hill from GDLS to the Army secretary that strongly urged the service to continue with the program without delay. So now it's back to the drawing board to ensure the Army gets the prototyping program right. Jette took pains to stress that the OMFV effort is not a failed program with the likes of Comanche, Future Combat Systems, Crusader or the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter. “This is a continuing program. This is an initial effort at trying to get to a programmatic solution yielded, input that we needed to evaluate, which said we needed to revise our approach, not abandon the program or that it was a failure.” Some major failed programs in the past, Jette noted, were canceled after spending large amounts of money and still moving along even though problems were identified as the service proceeded. Crusader cost about $2 billion, Comanche about $6.9 billion and Future Combat Systems about $19 billion, Jette said. “We've spent a very small amount of money in trying to get to where we are, and in fact a good bit of the technology development that was part of the assessment phase is still totally recoverable," he added. Army Futures Command chief Gen. Mike Murray told the same group of reporters he is hesitant to call OMFV a program because it's a prototyping program, not a program of record. “We are still committed to this. This is like a tactical pause,” he said. The effort so far “gave us a great deal of clarity in understanding what is truly doable,” Jette noted. Army leaders said they would be unable to estimate how long its renewed analysis on the program might take before proceeding with a new solicitation to industry, or what that would mean for the program's schedule in its entirety. The original plan was to field OMFV in 2026. Last month, Congress hacked funding for the OMFV prototyping program, providing $205.6 million in fiscal 2020, a reduction of $172.8 million, which would have made it impossible to conduct a competitive prototyping effort. What happens to that funding or congressional support for the overall program is unclear. While sources confirmed to Defense News in early October that the failure with the OMFV prototyping effort revealed rifts between the acquisition community and the Army's new modernization command, Army Futures Command, Jette said while there is a bit of “scuffing here and there" the two organizations are working together “much better.” Murray added it is his view that the acquisition community and Army Futures Command is moving forward as “one team” with “one goal in mind.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/01/16/army-takes-step-back-on-bradley-replacement-prototyping-effort/