U.S. Army Awards Boeing $160 Million to Continue Chinook Rotor Blade Support

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  18 août 2020 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR

  Lockheed develops electronic warfare tools with eye toward multinational interoperability

  Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — As Lockheed Martin works on the U.S. Army's first ground-based integrated signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber system, the company is placing a heavy focus on coalition interoperability. The Army awarded Lockheed a $6 million other transaction authority contract — a highly flexible contracting tool — in May to build the first phase of the Terrestrial Layer System-Large. Boeing subsidiary Digital Receiver Technology also won an award for the program for $7.6 million. The two companies will build and outfit their systems to Stryker vehicles during the 16-month-long phase one, while also participating in operational assessments, after which the Army will choose one company to move on. John Wojnar, director for cyber and electronic warfare strategy at Lockheed, told C4ISRNET in a July interview that the company had a keen eye toward integrating its system with international partners as well as the Army, given the U.S. military doesn't fight alone. “Being able to bring in our coalition partners, maybe starting with the Five Eyes first and in particular the U.K., and aligning the architecture that we provided ... really drove us to the architecture that we came up with,” he said. He added that Lockheed examined the building blocks of the U.K.'s cyber and electromagnetic activities to help inform the offering. Being in close partnership with coalition members is key, he said, so whatever architectures the company designs should be interoperable with partners to maximize effectiveness on the battlefield. Lockheed's system was an internal research and development project that is a companion of sorts to its aerial cyber/electronic warfare system Silent Crow, which the Army awarded a year ago for its Multi-Function Electronic Warfare-Air Large system. Wojnar said the ground system went through testing in September at the Army's Cyber Blitz event, which helps the service understand how to mature cyber and electronic warfare operations with traditional units through actual experimentation with emerging technologies and soldiers at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. “Based on lessons learned from those tests as well as the other activities that have been underway tied to Silent Crow IRAD, we were able to leverage the best of the best to then come up with our TLS-Large system offering,” he said. The work that will be ongoing between now and next summer when the first phase of TLS wraps up, Wojnar added, includes ensuring all the component parts developed internally and externally have been acquired and integrated into the ground vehicles, as well as conducting a variety of software drops. https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2020/08/17/lockheed-develops-electronic-warfare-tools-with-eye-toward-multinational-interoperability/

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  5 février 2024 | International, C4ISR

  Here’s how to help solve Ukraine’s drone shortage problem

  Opinion: While the Ukrainians adopted FPV drones first, Russia now has the edge thanks to its advantage in production capacity.

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  13 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre

  As Defender 2020 drill winds down, US Army plans for 2021 edition

  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/