10 juin 2022 | International, Aérospatial
Turkey starts mass production of miniature drone missile
Engineers have has extended the Bozok's range from an original 9 km to 15 km, and they are working on a more effective warhead.
30 juillet 2020 | International, Naval
To keep up with our competitors, America must boost shipbuilding
By: Sen. David Perdue
Right now, the world is more dangerous than any time in my lifetime. The United States faces five major threats: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and terrorism. We face those threats across five domains: air, land, sea, cyberspace and space.
The U.S. Navy is one of the most effective tools we as a country have to maintain peace and stability around the world. Today, however, the Navy is in danger of being surpassed in capability by our near-peer competitors. On top of that, our competitors are becoming even more brazen in their attempts to challenge our Navy every day.
To address this, the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act called for a 355-ship Navy to be built as soon as possible. This effort is extremely expensive: $31 billion per year for 30 years. This can't be funded by new debt. We must reallocate resources to fund this priority.
It is unclear at this time whether we will be able to achieve this goal, however, because Washington politicians have failed to provide consistent funding to our shipbuilding enterprise over the years.
The last two Democratic presidents reduced military spending by 25 percent. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did it. Also, since 1975, Congress has only funded the government on time on four occasions due to our broken budget process. As a result, Congress forces the military in most years to operate under continuing resolutions, which further restricts the Navy's efforts to rebuild.
These shortsighted decisions by Washington have had draconian effects on our military readiness. They have decimated our industrial supplier base and severely damaged critical supply chains.
According to a 2018 report from the Pentagon, the entire Department of Defense lost over 20,000 U.S.-based industrial suppliers from 2000 to 2018.
This means that, today, many shipbuilding components have just one U.S.-based supplier, and others are entirely outsourced to other countries.
This is one of the reasons why it is doubtful that we can reach 355 ships unless major changes are made immediately. If we don't strengthen our industrial supplier base, there is simply no way to scale up ship production and maintenance capabilities to meet the requirements of a 355-ship fleet.
The Department of Defense has not yet released this year's 30-year shipbuilding plan as required by law, and time is running out to reach the Navy's most recent projection of a 355-ship fleet by 2034.
However, even if the Department of Defense has a solid, achievable plan to only reach 355 ships, I am skeptical that it will be enough. I am skeptical because America's biggest long-term challenge, China, is already running laps around us on shipbuilding.
The Chinese Navy has 350 ships today, compared to our 300. By 2034, China is projected to have more than 425 ships. Even if we reached 355 ships, we would still have a 70-ship disadvantage, at the least.
On top of that, because of the range restrictions in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which just ended in 2019, China has surpassed, or “out-sticked,” us in some missile capabilities as well.
There are several steps we can take to respond to these developments. For starters, we need to place greater emphasis on funding our shipbuilding enterprise. Also, we need to rebuild our industrial supply chains through consistent, robust funding and by eliminating continuing resolutions.
This year's NDAA takes critical steps to ensure we can keep up with our near-peer competitors and keep our country safe. It authorizes an increase of more than $1 billion for the construction of new submarines, destroyers and amphibious dock ships. It invests hundreds of millions of dollars to support our industrial supplier base.
However, more work remains to be done in the coming years. We need to dramatically build up our Navy beyond 355 ships to ensure that the American-led free world can continue.
President Teddy Roosevelt once said that “a good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guarantee of peace.” If we don't continue ramping up our shipbuilding enterprise right now, the world that we will be passing on to our children and grandchildren will only continue to grow more dangerous.
Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., is the chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sur le même sujet
-
-
21 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
With artificial intelligence, every soldier is a counter-drone operator
Todd South With the addition of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the aim is to make every soldier, regardless of job specialty, capable of identifying and knocking down threatening drones. While much of that mission used to reside mostly in the air defense community, those attacks can strike any infantry squad or tank battalion. The goal is to reduce cognitive burden and operator stress when dealing with an array of aerial threats that now plague units of any size, in any theater. “Everyone is counter-UAS,” said Col. Marc Pelini, division chief for capabilities and requirements at the Joint Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, or JCO. Pelini and Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, JCO director, who spoke Thursday at the virtual Association of the U.S. Army conference, told reporters that the original focus was on smaller Tier I and II threats. But that has now extended to Tier III threats, traditionally covered by the Army's air defense community, such as Avenger and Patriot missile batteries. Some of that work includes linking the larger threat detection to the smaller drones that now dot conflicts across the world, including the hot zone of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. In June, the Department of Defense conducted a “down select” of existing or in-the-pipeline counter-drone systems from 40 to eight, as Military Times sister publication C4ISRNET reported at the time. That was an effort to reduce redundancy in the flood of counter drone programs taken on in the wake of a $700 million funding push in 2017 to get after problems posed by commercially available drones being used more frequently by violent extremist organizations such as the Islamic State to harass, attack and surveil U.S. and allied forces. Those choices, in the down select, included the following, also reported by C4ISRNET: Fixed/Semi-Fixed Systems * Fixed Site-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System Integrated Defeat System (FS-LIDS), sponsored by the Army * Negation of Improvised Non-State Joint Aerial-Threats (NINJA), sponsored by the Air Force * Counter-Remote Control Model Aircraft Integrated Air Defense Network (CORIAN), sponsored by the Navy Mounted/Mobile System * Light-Mobile Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS), sponsored by the Marine Corps Dismounted/Handheld Systems * Bal Chatri, sponsored by Special Operations Command * Dronebuster, no sponsor, commercial off-the-shelf capability * Smart Shooter, no sponsor, commercial off-the-shelf capability * Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAAD-C2), sponsored by the Army (includes FAAD-C2 interoperable systems like the Air Force's Air Defense System Integrator (ADSI) and the Marine Corps' Multi-Environmental Domain Unmanned Systems Application Command and Control (MEDUSA C2)) The four areas evaluated to determine which systems stuck around for use or further development were effectiveness, integration, usability and sustainment, Gainey said Thursday. A kind of virtual open house with industry is planned for Oct. 30, in which JCO will evaluate what options are out there. Some of what they're learning is being gathered through a consortium, of sorts, that involves regular meetings between service branch representatives during monthly sessions at the two-star level, Gainey said. That goes into a real-time, updated “common threat library” that helps those in the field identify trends and changes that can be met across forces. They use those sessions to share what each component is seeing in theater as far as drone use and changes. But it's more than simple intelligence gathering, he said. They also form rapid response teams. "My operations team works with the warfighters, [the] intelligence community” and others, he said. They “triangulate” common problems with drones and send the rapid response teams to the area of operations most affected. https://www.armytimes.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2020/10/17/with-artificial-intelligence-every-soldier-is-a-counter-drone-operator/
-
10 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial
L’armée de l’Air et de l’Espace lance AsterX, son premier exercice militaire spatial
La France mène cette semaine son premier exercice militaire spatial afin d'évaluer ses capacités à protéger ses satellites, dans un espace de plus en plus militarisé. « Notre but est de montrer que la stratégie spatiale de défense n'est pas qu'un document, mais qu'on passe de la parole aux actes », a expliqué, mardi 9 mars, lors d'une conférence de presse, le général Michel Friedling, en charge du Commandement de l'Espace. L'ensemble de l'exercice, qui a lieu au CNES à Toulouse, reste virtuel : aucune véritable modification de la trajectoire des satellites français ne sera opérée. 60 militaires du commandement de l'espace y participent. La « Space Force » américaine et le Centre de situation spatiale allemand ont été invités à s'y joindre. Le CNES, l'ONERA, Safran, ArianeGroup et CS Group sont aussi mobilisés. La stratégie spatiale de défense a prévu un investissement de 3,6 milliards pour le renouvellement des capacités satellitaires de l'armée française, avec les nouveaux satellites CSO de surveillance optique, Ceres de renseignement électromagnétique, et Syracuse de communications militaires, rappellent Les Echos. En juillet 2019, la ministre des Armées, Florence Parly, a aussi annoncé un nouveau programme d'armement nommé « Maîtrise de l'Espace », pour intégrer deux volets : la surveillance de l'espace et la défense active dans l'espace. Ensemble de la presse du 10 mars