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EUROPE
21 Apr 22. Croatia places priority on procuring air-defence systems. The procurement of short- and medium-range air-defence systems is a priority of the Croatian Army, Defence Minister Mario Banožić told parliament on 20 April. He placed this in the context of the crash of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Zagreb on 10 March. More generally, Banožić stressed the need to improve the conditions of Croatian soldiers, as well as for modernisation, equipment, and investment, to maintain existing and develop additional capabilities for all three armed services. Croatia‘s defence budget in 2021 was HRK7.2 bn (USD1.03 bn), which Banožić claimed represented 2.16% of GDP, with 30% of the Croatian defence budget spent on equipment. This compares with the NATO goals for members to spend 2% of GDP on defence and 20% of their defence budgets on equipment. Banožić said the increased defence spending was going into the purchase of Rafale combat aircraft from France for the Croatian Air Force, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and other vehicles and weapons for a medium infantry brigade, and coastal patrol and other vessels. (Source: Janes)
23 Apr 22. Greek Navy to upgrade four frigates for €500m. The Ministry of Defense has apparently decided to spend €500m to upgrade its four Hydra-Class MEKO frigates. The upgrade will allow the 3200-ton frigates, commissioned in the 1990s, to remain operational for 15 more years.
If the decision stands, it will be a departure from the Greek Navy’s plans to upgrade two of the four frigates. But it fits with the plans of the National Defense General Staff to have a deployable fleet of 12 frigates and 6 corvettes in the period to 2034, capable of countering Turkey’s Navy in the Aegean Sea; Turkey, will, by the end of the period, be able to deploy about 30 such units.
Spending €500m on an upgrade means that the Navy has about €1.5bn – the sum could be raised to €1.7 m, according to officials – to spend on buying corvettes. A decision on the acquisition will be taken before the end of summer, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said.
France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and the US have already expressed interest in Greece’s corvette procurement program. Recently, Germany and Israel have joined in, offering the Sa’ar 6-class corvette, ordered by Israel 2015, built in German shipyards; the 4 units were delivered in 2020 and 2021 and have been fitted with Israeli weapons systems.
Not all of the systems offered are corvettes; for example, the UK proposes a large (5,600-ton) frigate, the Type 31, also known as Arrowhead 140, built by British company Babcock International. The Greek government will choose what types of ships it wants for the Navy.
Since these proposals involve ships yet to be built, some Navy officers have also raised the possibility of buying Littoral Combat Ships that will be decommissioned by the US Navy in order to achieve the goal of 18 surface ships by 2034. It should be noted that the Greek Navy is at an advanced stage of negotiation with the US Coast Guard for the transfer of four Island-class patrol boats that currently operate in the Persian Gulf.
The cost remains a major concern for the corvette program. It is a fairly large expenditure item for Greece’s defense budget, although a small amount for the firms that have submitted the proposals. The second issue concerns the government’s desire to have them built in Greece, as was done with three of the four Hydra-class frigates (the first was built in Germany). (Source: https://www.ekathimerini.com/)
23 Apr 22. Germany to buy 60 heavy transport helicopters from Boeing -Bild am Sonntag. Germany will buy 60 CH-47F Chinook heavy transport helicopters from Boeing worth around 5bn euros ($5.40bn)as it upgrades its military armour, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday, citing government sources. The helicopters will be financed from the 100bn euros planned special fund for the military which Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the paper said.
The helicopters could be delivered in 2025/26 at the earliest and would replace the roughly 50-year-old CH-53G helicopters made by the Sikorsky unit of U.S. arms makers Lockheed Martin, it said. Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht will inform the parliament of the decision next week, the newspaper said. Competitors for the deal included Lockheed Martin’s CH-53K King Stallion. But the cheaper Boeing model and the fact that many NATO allies also fly the Chinook were the reasons for deciding on the CH-47F, Bild said. A spokesperson for the Defence Ministry said no decision on helicopter purchases has been made yet. ($1 = 0.9264 euros) (Source: Google/Reuters)
27 Apr 22. Germany Axes Joint Project, Ends Psychodrama. At the beginning of April, two major procurement cases were processed, increasing the future capabilities of the Bundeswehr while axing a joint project with France and ending a psychodrama in Germany.
The end of a joint project:
On April 4, the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee approved the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) project to supply the German Air Force with five Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft at a cost of $1.77bn. (The Budget Committee of the Bundestag had approved a budget envelope of 1.43bn euros on June 23, 2021).
Despite all the rhetoric deployed by the Bundestag, by personalities from the government coalition or from the Union, this FMS case finally torpedoed the final chance of developing a Maritime Airborne Warfare System (MAWS) with France.
To be honest, this project was ill-starred from its very inception.
Instead of hiring the most capable prime contractors for this kind of maritime patrol aircraft, (Dassault Aviation and Thales), the decision-makers in both Germany and in France decided instead to ask Thales to form a consortium with three German companies, Hensoldt, ESG (Elektroniksystem) and Diehl to develop the mission system. Dassault Aviation and Airbus would have come into play only later, during the second stage of the project, to develop a new aerial platform for the new, jointly-designed mission payload.
Since 1958, Dassault has designed and produced several generations of French maritime patrol aircraft, from the ‘Atlantique 1’ (via Bréguet), then the ‘Atlantique 2’, followed by the ATL2 upgrade, its OCEAN (Continued optimization of the maintenance of the Atlantic 2, i.e, the vertical support of maritime patrol aircraft) follow-on up to the Falcon 10X, not to mention the Falcon 200 MSA, sold to demanding export customers such as Japan…Yet, it’s decided that Dassault should be kept outside the MAWS project.
For Germany, the decision to buy the P-8 Poseidon is a deliberate choice, both for diplomatic and for schedule reasons.
The P-3 Orion was certainly outdated, but other European solutions existed, all of which would have allowed the German Navy to wait for the MAWS, including the lease of three upgraded ‘Atlantique 2’ from France. This was a strong political gesture from Paris, given the sacrifice required of the French Navy to give up three aircraft.
Yet, Germany’s defense procurement agency, the BAAiNBw, pushed for a quick solution, which also allowed it to make a strong push for extended capabilities, and so transforming a technical decision in a diplomatic one.
By claiming that it could resume co-operation with France at a later date, Germany wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Having its cake is buying off-the-shelf, and eating it by picking up technological bricks from France (Thales) and developing its own system: the perfect solution viewed from Berlin…
End of a psychodrama
The Bundestag’s Defence Committee also approved a budget of €152.6m for arming the Bundeswehr’s five Heron TP unmanned aircraft (three armed out of five, in practice) with 80 missiles (€38.17m) and 60 training missiles (€27.5m), already leased and stored at Tel-Nof air base in Israel.
This being a complex political issue in Germany, approval was given only subject to the following restrictions & regulations:
- The use of armed drones will only be allowed if the Bundestag has previously “explicitly” approved it in the deployment mandate. The Bundestag can also fix “limits to the mission, the field of operation and the powers to be used;”
- The deployment must also be carried out with strict respect for the protection of civilians. The draft states: “Combating legitimate military targets in armed conflicts with armed UAS (drones) should be avoided if it is expected to result in loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects or combine into a plurality of such consequences disproportionate to the concrete and immediate military advantage anticipated.” It was considered that these guarantees poorly masked the new government coalition’s distrust of the Bundeswehr, which was obliged to submit in practice to the operational control of the Bundestag on its future deployments.
At first sight, these restrictions seem to be less demanding than those expressed by Ms. Hertha Däubler-Gmelin, an MP who, in an internal report for the SPD leadership dated October 12th, 2021, accepted the arming of drones only under the following conditions:
- The express prohibition of extrajudicial executions in order to ensure strict respect for international law and the Basic Law, and to differentiate expressly from the practice of other States;
- The categorical rejection of fully automated drones and other lethal autonomous weapon systems. The decision to use weapons can only be taken by people who, through their personal involvement in the area of operations, are able to assess the risk for the military, but also and above all for the affected civilian population;
- The development of a binding deployment doctrine for armed drones by the Federal government in order to ensure the highest level of transparency in the use of armed drones vis-à-vis the Bundestag and the public. It must also be ensured that the Bundestag is immediately informed in the event of changes to the general rules of engagement;
- The use of armed drones only if explicitly provided for in the Bundestag mandate for the foreign deployment of the Bundeswehr, in order to achieve a high degree of transparency and control;
- UAV command, tracking and control units should be stationed in the mandated operational area; there should therefore be no decision at a distance. This is the only way to realistically assess the situation in the area of operation: danger for the German military and the civilian population, and to make a decision without other considerations;
- The best possible training, care, support and follow-up must be provided for soldiers who must make immediate decisions in the operational area;
- The necessary adherence to international rules for the deployment of armed drones and their operational uses;
- Enacting arms export laws that restrictively regulate the export of armed drones. Arms exports should in principle only be possible to the EU, NATO and equivalent countries and, in absolute exceptions, only in individual cases justified in accordance with the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT);
- The SPD undertakes that the future federal government, when supporting European armament projects such as the “Future Combat Air System” (FCAS), will make binding the principle of strengthening “meaningful human control” from the initial development of the systems in question;
- The strengthening of the powers of the Bundestag in the field of export controls.
The Budget Committee finally validated the entire project on April 6, thereby putting an end to a major national psychodrama that dates back to 2014, and which could have been resolved long ago, given the solution that was finally adopted. (Source: https://www.defense-aerospace.com/)
USA
27 Apr 22. Northrop Grumman to compete for FVL (MS) requirement for US Navy. Northrop Grumman is to compete for the US Navy (USN) Future Vertical Lift (FVL) (Maritime Strike [MS]) requirement to replace the service’s fleet of Sikorsky MH-60R/S Seahawk and Northrop Grumman MQ-8C Fire Scout platforms in the 2030s.
A company spokesperson told Janes on 26 April that it had responded to the request for information (RFI) in 2021, noting that it has yet to decide if it will bid on its own or in a partnership.
“We are definitely heavily engaged in FVL (Maritime Strike),” Richard Sullivan, vice-president of future programmes for Northrop Grumman said.
As the current provider of the MQ-8C, which the USN is looking to replace via its FVL (MS) effort, Northrop Grumman told Janes. (Source: Janes)
26 Apr 22. Pentagon wants at least $377m over five years for new rapid experimentation fund. The Pentagon is seeking $377m over five years to fund high-profile rapid experimentation projects, including initial efforts to close capability gaps in support of the Joint Warfighting Concept and improve Joint All Domain Operations in U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, budget details released Tuesday show.
The defense-wide request includes $70m for the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve in fiscal 2023, $48.5m of which would support JWC experiments in the areas of command and control, information advantage, contested logistics and advanced fires.
“This will provide funding for certain individual capability experiments and experimentation series that support capabilities to enable the JWC supporting concepts, also known as the ‘functional battles,’” according to the budget documents.
Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, has hyped RDER as a mechanism for addressing critical capability gaps across the Department of Defense, though she’s offered few details about what projects RDER will fund. Last year, her team received more than 200 proposals from the military services and selected 32 to execute as part of its initial sprint.
Speaking during an April 20 National Defense Industrial Association webinar, Shyu said the department is working to identify its second slate of RDER projects, noting that the process is open to industry as well as federally funded research and development centers.
Shyu’s office released its detailed budget request for defense-wide research and development programs April 26, offering more insight on early RDER efforts. Along with the defense-wide request, RDER projects are embedded within the services’ funding plans. It’s not immediately clear how much funding each service has received through RDER, but it’s likely the overall number is significantly higher than what is laid out in the defense-wide request.
The documents don’t say how many JWC experiments will occur in fiscal 2023. The Air Force’s budget includes $64m for four RDER projects tied to the JWC experimentation sprint. Three of the projects will mature sensing and electromagnetic spectrum prototypes, commercial space integration software and advanced satellite communication terminals. The fourth effort is classified.
Of the remaining funding request, $2.5 m would fund one or more experimentation sprints in INDOPACOM. According to Army budget documents, the funding is linked to an effort the service proposed for RDER called Olympus, which would mature capabilities for Joint All Domain Operations, including advanced sensing, target identification and command and control. The service’s budget request includes $86 m for the Olympus project.
“The Olympus portfolio will initiate prototyping, integration and risk-reduction activities to facilitate integrated and interoperable capabilities that leverage layered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and autonomy with advanced communication and architectures to enable AI-infused analytics and layered effects,” the Army’s documents state.
The request also includes $10m to establish a RDER coordination and execution cell. The cell will include planners embedded within the combatant commands to report on results and lessons learned and work with the military services to transition capabilities into programs of record.
Another $9m would provide intelligence and end-to-end analysis support to ensure that RDER capabilities explored during experimentation sprints are informed by near-peer threats and are aligned with the Joint Warfighting Concept.
Beyond fiscal 2023, RDER’s proposed defense-wide funding profile shows a slow-but-steady increase, rising to $71m in fiscal 2024, $75m in fiscal 2025, $79m in fiscal 2026 and $82m in fiscal 2027. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
27 Apr 22. US Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems National Action Plan. On April 25th., the Biden Administration released the first whole-of-government plan to address UAS threats in the Homeland. Through the Domestic Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems National Action Plan, the Administration is working to expand where we can protect against nefarious UAS activity, who is authorized to take action, and how it can be accomplished lawfully. The Plan seeks to achieve this legitimate expansion while safeguarding the airspace, communications spectrums, individual privacy, civil liberties and civil rights. To achieve this balance, the Administration is calling on Congress to adopt legislation to close critical gaps in existing law and policy that currently impede government and law enforcement from protecting the American people and our vital security interests. Over the last decade, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS or “drones”) have become a regular feature of American life. We use them for recreation, for research, and for commerce. But the proliferation of this new technology has also introduced new risks to public safety, privacy, and homeland security. Malicious actors have increasingly used UAS domestically to commit crimes, conduct illegal surveillance and industrial espionage, and thwart law enforcement efforts at the local, state and Federal level. UAS serve many beneficial commercial and recreational purposes. As has been the case with many technological advances, they can also be exploited for pernicious purposes. To protect our Homeland and prevent their growing use from threatening the safety and security of our people, our communities, and our institutions, this Counter-UAS National Action Plan will set new ground rules for the expanding uses of UAS and improve our defenses against the exploitation of UAS for inappropriate or dangerous purposes.
Recommendations
The Plan provides eight key recommendations for action:
- Work with Congress to enact a new legislative proposal to expand the set of tools and actors who can protect against UAS by reauthorizing and expanding existing counter‑UAS authorities for the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, State, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency and NASA in limited situations. The proposal also seeks to expand UAS detection authorities for state, local, territorial and Tribal (SLTT) law enforcement agencies and critical infrastructure owners and operators. The proposal would also create a Federally-sponsored pilot program for selected SLTT law enforcement agency participants to perform UAS mitigation activities and permit critical infrastructure owners and operators to purchase authorized equipment to be used by appropriate Federal or SLTT law enforcement agencies to protect their facilities;
- Establish a list of U.S. Government authorized detection equipment, approved by Federal security and regulatory agencies, to guide authorized entities in purchasing UAS detection systems in order to avoid the risks of inadvertent disruption to airspace or the communications spectrum;
- Establish oversight and enablement mechanisms to support critical infrastructure owners and operators in purchasing counter-UAS equipment for use by authorized Federal entities or SLTT law enforcement agencies;
- Establish a National Counter-UAS Training Center to increase training accessibility and promote interagency cross-training and collaboration;
- Create a Federal UAS incident tracking database as a government-wide repository for departments and agencies to have a better understanding of the overall domestic threat;
- Establish a mechanism to coordinate research, development, testing, and evaluation on UAS detection and mitigation technology across the Federal government;
- Work with Congress to enact a comprehensive criminal statute that sets clear standards for legal and illegal uses, closes loopholes in existing Federal law, and establishes adequate penalties to deter the most serious UAS-related crimes; and
- Enhance cooperation with the international community on counter‑UAS technologies, as well as the systems designed to defeat them. (Source: UAS VISION)
26 Apr 22. US Army to launch light robotic combat vehicle competition in FY23. The Army will launch a competition in fiscal 2023 for a light robotic combat vehicle and plans to spend nearly three-quarters of a bn dollars over the next five years on the effort, according to the Army’s FY23 budget justification documents.
The Army will continue a phased surrogate prototype program for Robotic Combat Vehicle-Light (RCV-L) with QinetiQ North America, which won a contract in early 2020. The service plans to flow data and lessons learned into its full-system prototype competition.
From FY23 through FY27, the Army plans to spend $698.2 m on both the surrogate and full-system prototype efforts and a software acquisition pathway integral to the functionality of the robotic combat vehicles.
The Army on Feb. 10 approved the rapid prototyping program for RCV-L.
The surrogate prototypes built by QinetiQ will go through three “design-upgrade-test” cycles to include operational pilots, during which soldiers will provide feedback and improved capabilities will be demonstrated “related to autonomous software, system safety, and cyber and spectrum resiliency,” the budget justification documents say.
The three test cycles will begin in the first quarter of FY23 and end in the fourth quarter of FY25. Each cycle will also determine capabilities ready for incorporation into the full-system prototype.
The surrogate prototype — a diesel-electric hybrid — to be built by QinetiQ will include an integrated camera and radar perception sensors and payloads such as the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station-Javelin and tethered unmanned aircraft systems.
The vehicle has a gross weight of no more than 8,500 pounds and a maximum payload of no more than 7,000 pounds with a top speed of about 40 miles per hour, according to the Army.
The service plans to spend roughly $40m in FY23 to build and test up to eight surrogate prototypes. The Army intends to run an initial six-month operational pilot with the surrogate prototypes.
The Army will then select up to five vendors to provide two bid samples for evaluation for full-system prototypes. The service will release a request for proposals in the third quarter of FY23, according to the documents, and make contract awards to vendors in the fourth quarter of FY23.
A total of about $15m will be spent in FY23 to award contracts and evaluate those platforms, the documents note.
In the fourth quarter of FY24, the Army plans to choose a single vendor to build the full-system prototype. Testing on that prototype will begin in the first quarter of FY26 and wrap up in the final quarter of that fiscal year.
The service will decide on its next steps in the second quarter of FY27.
Simultaneously, the Army will work toward delivery of the software capability for the RCV platforms.
The service signed an acquisition decision memorandum in August 2021 directing it to use a draft capabilities needs statement as the base user capabilities document for the RCV software acquisition pathway, according to the justification documents.
The Army plans to use a hybrid government-contractor development approach to mature, integrate and secure the software capabilities.
Development and testing for the software pathway begins in the fourth quarter of FY22 and will continue through the fourth quarter of FY27.
A total of about $20m in FY23 would go toward the software development line of effort.
The Army expects to reach a minimum viability capability release in the first quarter of FY24 followed by three capability releases at the beginning of the first quarter of each subsequent fiscal year through FY27.
The service has been working on concept and technology development for RCVs in the light, medium and heavy categories for several years. This summer, it will put both medium and light RCV surrogate prototypes through a company-level soldier assessment at Fort Hood, Texas.
A Textron, Howe & Howe and FLIR team is providing RCV-Medium prototypes to the evaluation.
RCV-M is also a diesel-electric hybrid vehicle with a gross weight of 25,000 lbs. The vehicle is equipped with a remotely operated 30 mm cannon and has a top speed of over 25 miles per hour.
The service already conducted an RCV assessment at Fort Carson, Colorado, in 2020, but it was focused on heavy vehicles using surrogates.
(Source: Defense News)
25 Apr 22. DARPA Seeks Ionospheric Insights to Improve Communication Across Domains In-space Measurements Could Enhance HF Radio Capabilities.
- In-space measurements could enhance high-frequency radio capabilities
Warfighters depend on high-frequency (HF) radio transmissions to operate military systems across the space, air, ground, and maritime domains. Current understanding of how HF waves propagate through the electromagnetically noisy ionosphere typically depends on ground-based methods. To more accurately understand HF propagation in space requires scientific measurements taken from within the ionosphere itself.
DARPA’s new Ouija program aims to use sensors on low-orbiting satellites to provide new insights into HF radio wave propagation in the ionosphere, which spans the upper edges of the Earth’s atmosphere to the lower regions of space. The program seeks to quantify the space HF noise environment and improve characterization of the ionosphere to support warfighter capabilities.
“Ouija will augment ground-based measurements with in-situ measurements from space, in very low- Earth orbit (VLEO), to develop and validate accurate, near real-time HF propagation predictions,” said Jeff Rogers, Ouija program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office. “The VLEO altitude regime, approximately 200 km – 300 km above Earth, is of particular interest due to its information-rich environment where ionospheric electron density is at a maximum. Fine-grained knowledge of the spatial-temporal characteristics of electron density at these altitudes is required for accurate HF propagation prediction.”
The program includes two technical areas. The first technical area, announced in a solicitation issued April 21, 2022, seeks to develop, qualify, launch, and operate multiple small satellites carrying scientific and mission instrumentation. The Ouija scientific payload will measure electron density by both direct sampling and indirectly via radio occultation using navigation satellites. It is anticipated that the scientific payload will use or adapt commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components, but innovative instrumentation proposals that enhance the functionality of the scientific payload over a COTS baseline are welcome.
“The HF mission payload will require a high sensitivity, high dynamic range, low noise HF measurement subsystem,” Rogers said. “The antenna for this subsystem is a particular challenge, as efficient HF antennas that operate at the lower end of the frequency band are long, presenting deployment and space vehicle drag challenges.”
The second technical area, which will be fully detailed in a separate solicitation at a later date, aims to develop assimilative models that ingest direct, in-situ, measurements of electron density from a satellite in VLEO. The derived electron density models will be fed into HF propagation code then validated with data measured on-orbit. The goal is to improve fidelity over current state-of-the-art assimilative models by incorporating high resolution (in time and space) local measures with low latency updates. Ouija employs a simplified Other Transactions (OT) process aimed at lowering the bureaucratic barrier for companies to make proposals, especially those seeking to work with DoD or DARPA for the first time. (Source: ASD Network)
22 Apr 22. DARPA seeks proposals on improving satellite imagery technology. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will accept proposals next month for three initiatives aimed at improving synthetic aperture radar technology in satellites.
Governments and industry are increasing investments in satellite imagery and SAR, in particular. Because SAR sensors rely on radar, they can produce images of the Earth at night and in all-weather conditions, unlike traditional electro-optical systems. The capability is especially useful for tracking movements or changes on the ground and has been in high demand during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
DARPA issued broad agency announcements for the efforts in February and March focused on improving SAR technology in three areas: automated object recognition; distributed radar image formation; and digital signal processing. Responses for all three are due in May.
The automated object recognition project, which DARPA has dubbed “Fiddler,” is focused on using machine learning and computer vision methods to create training data that can be used to improve existing ML algorithms.
“Performer methods will learn from real SAR images to generate or render synthetic SAR images at new imaging geometries or configurations,” the Fiddler notice states. “Performers will then demonstrate the generation of diverse training data from a few real examples to rapidly train robust SAR object detection methods.”
DARPA is interested in maritime applications for Fiddler, noting that while SAR object detection in coastal regions has improved significantly, there is a need for better methods to classify objects that are moving.
“For stationary objects, such as many terrestrial objects-of-interest, large training sets can be acquire over time to cover as many of the possible imaging variations,” the notice states. “Maritime environments are much more challenging because most objects-of-interest and the background scene are always in motion.”
The effort will include three phases and span more than three years, and DARPA plans to award multiple contracts, though the notice doesn’t mention how much funding is available for the effort.
The second project, Digital Radar Image Formation Technology, is part of DARPA’s broader vision for so-called mosaic warfare, which is focused on creating highly complex networks composed of smaller systems. Through DRIFT, DARPA wants to use clusters of SAR satellites and develop novel algorithms that “enable revolutionary advances in science, devices or systems.”
DARPA expects to make awards to multiple vendors for the program, which will have three phases over three years.
For the third effort, called Massive Cross-Correlation, DARPA seeks proposals to improve digital signal processing for SAR systems using hybrid architectures. At the end of the four-year effort, which will include multiple vendors with varied technical solutions, DARPA hopes to demonstrate the ability to process larger amounts of data and improve power efficiency. (Source: glstrade.com/Defense News)
REST OF THE WORLD
26 Apr 22. India updates defence procurement rules again. The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced additional updates to its procurement regulations in line with ongoing efforts to simplify defence trade and spur local manufacturing. The MoD said on 25 April that new changes to the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 provide a commitment to local sourcing over imports; reduce the financial burden on Indian bidders; encourage wider industrial participation in research, development, and production; and accelerate equipment trials. The MoD said the changes will “promote ‘Make in India’ in defence and enable ease of doing business”. It added that a significant element of the updated DAC 2020 is the priority to procure from local sources unless a requirement to import is outlined by the MoD’s principal procurement authority, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), which is headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. (Source: Janes)
28 Apr 22. India scraps Russian helicopter buy and looks at more Rudras. As part of its indigenisation push, India is turning away from a planned purchase of Russian Mi-17 helicopters. India’s MoD has abandoned the planned $1.1bn procurement of 48 Mi-17V-5 helicopters for the Indian Air Force (IAF), paramilitaries and federal interior ministry, in favour of acquiring indigenously-developed rotary-winged platforms. Approved in 2018, these Mi-17V-5s were to supplement 151 similar platforms that India acquired from 2008-16 for $2.87bn. Of these, 139 were weaponised versions for the IAF, and the remainder for paramilitary forces and interior ministry. (Source: Shephard)
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