6 juillet 2023 | International, C4ISR
The SMART L MM/F will contribute to maintaining Swedish airspace sovereignty and will provide superior situational awareness at all times.
7 décembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
Kyiv has agreed with two American firms to jointly manufacture vital 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine, a Ukrainian minister said on Thursday, although production will not start for at least two years.
13 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre
By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — As the last portions of the altered Defender 2020 exercise kick into gear, the U.S. Army is beginning to plan its 2021 edition, a top general said Thursday. Speaking at a Defense News virtual panel on trans-Atlantic alliances Brig. Gen. Sean Bernabe, deputy commander of U.S. Army Europe, expressed confidence that Defender 2021 will be able to happen despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “We've been continuing to look forward now that we've gained some confidence that we can train large-scale, collective [military exercises] in this environment,” Bernabe said. “We've been looking further and further forward. As we speak, we're planning exercise Defender Europe 2021, to take place in the late spring, early summer of 2021, focused in the Black Sea and Balkans.” Planning “is underway, again informed by our experiences between March and June. Having validated that we can do it, we're confident that we'll figure it out in partnership with our allies,” he added. “I feel confident that we will [be able to] maintain readiness and interoperability across Europe, despite COVID, regardless of how long it may be a part of our operating environment.” Bernabe predicted the 2021 exercise will likely be smaller than 2020′s planned version, which should be no surprise. Defender 2020 was billed as the third-largest military exercise in Europe since the end of the Cold War, a major test of the United States' ability to move stateside forces to locations across Europe, including Poland, the Baltics, some Nordic nations and Germany. A total of 20,000 soldiers were expected to participate. However, the COVID-19 outbreak forced the Army to hit pause on the exercise in March just as it was starting. Several smaller, related drills were canceled outright, and U.S. forces were sent back home. A smaller associated exercise picked up again in June. Bernabe's comments came just hours before the Army announced that a combined arms battalion would deploy to Europe between July 14 and Aug. 22 as part of the “final phase” of the modified Defender 2020 exercise. The deployment will involve 550 soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas, with the 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters in Poznan, Poland, serving as mission command. Approximately 55 Abrams tanks and Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles will take part. The tanks will be equipped with the Trophy active protection system so the Army can “assess and experience the dynamics of moving and installing the system in a field environment.” At the end of June, the European Union put citizens of the United States on a list of countries barred from traveling to EU member states due to the continued spread of COVID-19. However, military movements are exempt from that rule, and Bernabe believes the Army has a good plan in place for the intake of forces into Europe. “To be good neighbors, we are using some very, I'd say, aggressive approaches to make sure that we are screening and testing for COVID as personnel arrive,” he said. “Make sure that we're putting in the mandatory 14 days' [quarantine], making sure that we continue screening, we wear masks, we practice physical distancing to make sure that we're not bringing infection into Europe while we focus on maintaining the military readiness. “So thankfully we've worked with our host nations to continue to flow personnel into and out of Europe.” https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-army/2020/07/10/as-defender-2020-winds-down-army-planning-for-2021-underway/
10 juillet 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Autre défense
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is looking to transfer $50 million within its fiscal 2019 budget to cover the cost of the design and development of a prototype mobile launcher for its Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW. The Defense Department submitted an omnibus reprogramming requestto Capitol Hill on June 25, which congressional defense committees must approve. The department wants the additional funding for the mobile launch capability in order to reach “residual” operational capability by FY23. Developing hypersonic weapons, capable of flying five times the speed of sound, is a part of the Army's top modernization priority — Long-Range Precision Fires —because of the added capability it would bring in eliminating enemy systems in contested battlespace. There is also a need in the U.S> to develop an offensive hypersonic capability to stay ahead of similar weapon development underway by Russia and China. The mobile LRHW will bring online “a new class of ultra-fast, maneuverable, long-range missiles to neutralize enemy defensive weapons with rockets launched from trucks with Transporter Erector Launchers (TELs),” the reprogramming document states. Follow-on efforts will be funded through the Army's research, development, test and evaluation account in future budget years, the document adds. The Army is leading the Pentagon's effort — Conventional Prompt Strike — but is teamed with the Navy to develop a booster for the hypersonic missile and is building a common glide body internally with both the Navy and Air Force. The service is finishing design work for the prototypes and plans to conduct flight tests focused on range, environmental factors and contested environments. The plan is to field a battery-sized hypersonic weapon to soldiers by 2023. The service will use the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System and M870 trailers to make the system road-mobile. The Army still needs to build a transporter-erector-launcher to simultaneously accommodate two hypersonic missiles, which is where the extra $50 million comes in. The service plans to spend $1.2 billion over the next five years beginning in FY20 on its hypersonic effort. In FY20 alone, the Army has budgeted $228 million. A total of $181 million is requested in FY21 to move through the preliminary design review, which will end in the first quarter of FY22. In FY22, the Army will conduct a critical design review and then begin testing all-up rounds at the end of the fiscal year into FY23. The service has budgeted $137 million in FY22 to accomplish those tasks. The Army will then move into full-system flight tests in FY23 using a $359 million budget. The service plans to outfit the Multi-Domain Operations Task Force's strategic fires battalion with the battery to field early combat capability to the force, but to also learn how to use the equipment; to develop possible tactics, techniques and procedures that might be used in combat; and to learn how to train to use the weapons. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/07/09/to-get-hypersonic-launcher-off-ground-dod-seeks-funding-transfer/