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29 Mar 24. Hanwha begins assembly of first Australian Huntsman howitzer. Hanwha Aerospace has officially begun assembly of Australia’s first AS9 self-propelled howitzer (SPH) and AS10 armored ammunition resupply vehicle at the company’s facility in Changwon, South Korea.
The howitzer, designated Huntsman, began its “mate” process, where the major components are joined to form the full combat vehicle on March 28 at Hanwha Aerospace’s Plant 3, according to the company statement.
A ceremony held at the production line marked the commencement of production, with key figures including production managers and engineers from Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Defence Australia (HDA), as well as representatives from the Australian Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) in attendance.
The AS9 and AS10, based on the Australian variant of the K9 Thunder, represent a cutting-edge addition to the ADF’s arsenal. These tracked self-propelled howitzers boast enhanced armored protection and firing capability, positioning them among the most modernized artillery systems in the world.
Under the Land 8116 phase 1 contract signed in 2021, the ADF is slated to deploy 30 AS9 ‘Huntsman’ SPHs and 15 AS10 Armoured Ammunition Resupply Vehicles. The commencement of production marks a crucial step towards fulfilling this contract and bolstering Australia’s defense capabilities.
Initial production of 2 AS9s and 1 AS10 at the Changwon facility will pave the way for further manufacturing at the Hanwha Armoured Vehicle Center of Excellence (H-ACE) in Geelong, Victoria. This strategic move not only contributes to meeting the ADF’s operational requirements but also serves to stimulate economic and industrial growth in the region.
(Source: Google/https://defence-blog.com/)
29 Mar 24. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) successfully launched a ballistic missile target vehicle to support the Missile Defense Agency’s Flight Test Aegis Weapon System 32 (FTM-32), in cooperation with the U.S. Navy.
- Northrop Grumman launched the Medium-Range Ballistic Missile Type 3 Configuration 2 (MRBM T3c2) Target Vehicle, a threat-representative two-stage, solid rocket-fueled ballistic missile, from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, located on Kauai in Hawaii.
- The successful test demonstrated the capability of a ballistic missile defense-configured Aegis ship to detect, track, engage and intercept an advanced MRBM in the terminal phase of flight, utilizing the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) Dual II missile.
- Northrop Grumman developed and produced three MRBM T3c2s as intercept test targets for the Aegis SM-6 and has delivered and successfully launched all three target vehicles.
Robin Heard, director of targets, Northrop Grumman: “This program capitalizes on our proven history of innovative rocket designs, executed with speed and discipline. We continue to invest in technology that delivers these vital capabilities our customers need to respond to growing threats. T3c2 is a highly complex target providing the realistic scenario needed to test and verify the Aegis Weapon System.”
Northrop Grumman is a leading provider of threat representative target vehicles used in the test and verification of the nation’s missile defense systems.
Built on over 60 years of mission-proven missile defense experience, Northrop Grumman provides full scope missile defense capabilities to include missile interceptors and test targets, coupled with secure communications, missile warning and advanced space domain awareness.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global aerospace and defense technology company. Our pioneering solutions equip our customers with the capabilities they need to connect and protect the world, and push the boundaries of human exploration across the universe. Driven by a shared purpose to solve our customers’ toughest problems, our employees define possible every day.
28 Mar 24. UVISION USA AND SAIC TO COLLABORATE ON LOITERING MUNITIONS. UVision USA and SAIC to collaborate on loitering munition systems manufacturing in the USA, initiating production of Hero 120 in South Carolina.
UVision Inc. and SAIC (Science Applications International Corp). are proud to announce a landmark collaboration agreement for the manufacturing of the Hero 120 Loitering Munition system.
This cutting-edge defence solution will be produced in Charleston, South Carolina, USA, significantly enhancing rapid response capabilities for all UVision USA clients in the United States. The collaboration with SAIC is aimed at establishing a fully independent domestic supply chain, ensuring that UVision’s USA clients benefit from reduced dependency on international supply chains, faster delivery times, local training by expert teams, and comprehensive post-sale support and maintenance.
Major General (Ret.) Avi Mizrachi, Chairman of the BOD of UVision USA, stated “UVision USA Inc.’s business activity has expanded significantly in the second half of 2023, with several new contracts signed with the US military and other government bodies. Our collaboration with SAIC stems from the need to provide a complete solution to our US clients, independent of the international supply chain. We are proud to announce that the manufacturing facility itself will commence operations in March 2024”.
The Hero 120 Loitering Munition System is a state-of-the-art, mid-range, anti-tank system designed to address the complexities of the modern battlefield. It offers high-precision strikes against anti-armour, anti-material, and anti-personnel targets, including tanks, vehicles, and soft targets in urban environments. With its ability to cause minimal collateral damage and equipped with a range of multi-purpose warheads, the Hero 120 provides operational users with an unparalleled effective engagement solution. (Source: www.joint-forces.com)
26 Mar 24. Northrop says Air Force design changes drove higher Sentinel ICBM cost. A Northrop Grumman official on Monday attributed the explosive projected cost growth of the U.S. Air Force’s next intercontinental ballistic missile to the service’s design changes, including to the nuclear missile’s silo and connecting cables.
The Air Force’s original plan for modernizing its ICBM enterprise included keeping nearly all its existing copper cabling in place to be reused for the upcoming LGM-35A Sentinel. That’s roughly 7,500 miles’ worth of copper cabling, connecting 450 half-century-old Minuteman III ICBM silos scattered through the Great Plains region with launch control centers and other facilities.
But the company official, who spoke with reporters on the condition that he be identified only as an official familiar with the Sentinel program, said the Air Force concluded it is necessary to upgrade the copper cables with a higher-performing fiber-optic network. That decision apparently came after the service awarded the engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop Grumman in 2020, and during the company’s work on the program’s early design phase.
The Air Force also realized that the original designs for Sentinel’s launch facilities — the massive concrete-encased silos from which the missiles would launch — would not work and had to be changed, the Northrop official said. Those original concepts were drawn up during the technology maturation and risk-reduction phase as well as the early engineering and manufacturing development step.
And with hundreds of launch facilities dotting the Great Plains region, often in 1-acre plots, and thousands of miles of cable stretching across farmland and other privately held property that now must be dug up, the cost of these changes swiftly added up, the Northrop official said.
“As we’ve worked through those changes. That’s led to a design that’s different than the one that they [the Air Force] started with,” the official explained. “When you multiply that by 450, if every silo is a little bit bigger or has an extra component, that actually drives a lot of cost because of the sheer number of them that are being updated.”
In a statement to Defense News, the Air Force said the Pentagon is still studying what exactly caused the severe cost overruns, which triggered a review process known as a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach.
“In accordance with statute, [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] will determine what factors caused the cost growth that led to a critical breach via the Nunn-McCurdy process, which is currently underway,” an Air Force spokesperson said. “Early estimates indicate that a large portion of the Sentinel program’s cost growth is in the command and launch segment, which is the most complex segment of the Sentinel program.”
‘Unknown unknowns’ on $96bnprogram
Sentinel is a massive program to replace the Air Force’s aging LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBMs, which now make up the land-based portion of the U.S. military’s nuclear triad. In 2020, Northrop Grumman received a $13.3 billion cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for Sentinel’s engineering and manufacturing development phase.
The program was expected to run about $96 billion, with the total per-unit cost amounting to $118 million when its most recent cost, schedule and performance goals were set in 2020. But the price tag has skyrocketed at least 37%, and the per-unit cost is now about $162 million.
In a congressional hearing this month, Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., pegged Sentinel’s current cost at more than $130 billion.
That triggered the Nunn-McCurdy breach, and the Pentagon is now reviewing Sentinel to figure out how to get it back on track as well as where to find funds to keep it going. Top Air Force officials have publicly said that with Minuteman III well past its originally expected life span, the service has no choice but to replace it with a new, more reliable model — and will find money to pay for it.
Sentinel, which was originally supposed to reach initial operational capability in 2029, is now expected to fall two years behind schedule. The nuclear missile’s first flight test, which had been expected to take place in 2024, is now likely to come in February 2026, according to the Air Force’s budget documents.
The Air Force said in an email to Defense News that the Sentinel’s first flight was pushed back due to longer lead times for components in its guidance computer. But the delayed flight test is not a factor in the program’s Nunn-McCurdy breach, the service said.
In a March hearing held by the House Armed Services Committee’s sea power and projection forces panel, Garamendi voiced his displeasure to Air Force officials over the Sentinel’s cost overruns, as well as the service’s inability to explain potential “trade-offs” to keep the program alive.
Garamendi questioned the need for the United States to spend vast sums of money on Sentinel, arguing the belief that the nation must maintain a triad of nuclear weapons has become a “religious issue, having very little to do with the world in which we’re now living.”
The Northrop Grumman official told reporters Monday that the company’s work on Sentinel continues, despite the Nunn-McCurdy breach and ensuing review process.
“We don’t have a pause on our EMD [engineering and manufacturing development] work,” the official said. “We’re continuing to make progress on developing the missile and iterating the designs for all the facilities.”
In a discussion last fall, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said given it’s been so long since the service created an ICBM, early cost estimates for Sentinel were based on “a huge uncertainty.”
“There are unknown unknowns that are surfacing, that are affecting the program,” Kendall said during a November 2023 event with Center for a New American Security think tank. Kendall also said the Sentinel program was “struggling.”
The Northrop Grumman official highlighted such comments — including Kendall’s about the uncertainty that went into the program’s cost estimates — and said some estimates that went into the 2020 baseline review turned out to be incorrect.
Mock-up silo
Northrop also said the company’s effort to game out how a conversion process might work also showed problems with the original plan.
Before it received the Sentinel contract in September 2020, the firm started building a full-scale mock-up of a Minuteman III silo in Promontory, Utah, which it completed in spring 2021. The project was a major undertaking, and on Northrop Grumman’s dime. But the company saw it as a worthwhile investment in its bid to win the lucrative Ground Based Strategic Deterrent contract, as the program was then known.
Northrop didn’t have direct access to the Minuteman III silos — and likely won’t until the government hands them over for conversion into Sentinel silos — since the missiles must remain ready for launch at all times. And so the company considered its construction project the best way to understand how the massive retrofitting process might work — and to find where the biggest risks might lie.
The company’s team, alongside the Air Force, pored through the nonoperational mock-up and started to lay out components akin to what Sentinel would require. But as they did so, the Northrop official said, the group found some of the original conversion plans weren’t going to work.
Other design processes, including computer-aided design work, also helped the Sentinel team map out how much square footage various configurations would take up. In the process, some of the unknown factors that led to the original shaky estimates were cleared up. Still, it became clearer that the costs would be much higher than originally believed.
“They learned, along with us, things that needed to be potentially different or changed from the design,” the official said.
Five programs in one
In January, top Air Force official Kristyn Jones compared the Sentinel project to five major acquisition programs rolled into one. But the nuclear missile itself “is not an area of concern,” said Jones, who is performing the duties of undersecretary of the Air Force.
The Northrop official said the Sentinel missile will not just be a new iteration of the Minuteman series of ICBMs — “it’s not a Minuteman IV,” the official said — but a brand-new weapon top to bottom.
Its solid-rocket motors will be made of composite materials instead of the steel used on the Minuteman III, he explained, and it will have a more advanced guidance system.
Its design also includes modular components that allow the Air Force and Northrop Grumman to more easily add new technology as it becomes available.
And airmen are expected to be able to more easily maintain the Sentinel than its predecessor, with key components accessible without the need to delve too deeply into the missile and bring along a massive security detail while it is opened up.
Sentinel will be slightly larger and lighter than the Minuteman III, which will allow it to carry more propellant and payload, he said. And it is being designed to last until at least 2075 — far longer than the decade Minuteman III was originally supposed to last.
The infrastructure for Sentinel — including the silos themselves, the launch control centers where airmen control the ICBMs, and supporting infrastructure — will also be refurbished.
That portion — which Jones called “essentially a civil works program” — is especially challenging, particularly with issues such as inflation, the supply chain and labor force shortages.
The service and Northrop Grumman plan to reuse the existing Minuteman III silos as much as possible. But that will require a great deal of new construction and equipment updates to ensure the Sentinel silos can keep operating through disruptions such as power outages.
Old computers in launch centers — some of them 1980s-era terminals with green screens — will receive updates with modern equipment.
But not all Minuteman III silos were built in the same configuration, the Northrop official said, which will further complicate their conversions.
With the nation’s roughly 400 Minuteman IIIs spread out across nearly 32,000 square miles in Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado and Nebraska, that makes the Sentinel program a massive real estate project, requiring the government to negotiate easements and, in some cases, property purchases with numerous landowners.
All of that adds up to “one of the most large, complex programs I’ve ever seen,” Kendall said of Sentinel in November 2023. “It’s probably the biggest thing, in some ways, that the Air Force has ever taken on.”
There’s also another factor at play: What happens if the Air Force and Northrop Grumman look deeper within the existing Minuteman III silos and find they’re in worse shape than expected?
The condition of the silos is a potentially high-risk area for the program, the Northrop official acknowledged, but the program still expects to be able to reuse existing ones. A “handful” of LiDAR — or light detection and ranging — scans of current ICBM sites already took place, he said, and there have been reviews of silos decommissioned in the 2000s.
But deeper, destructive testing — “breaking apart the concrete to see what’s behind it and what the conditions are” — has not occurred on existing silos, the official said, since they have to remain operational.
Minuteman III silos have concrete liners as well as mechanical launch tubes and missile suspension systems that hold the current ICBMs. The tubes and suspension systems will be replaced, the official said, and the concrete liners underneath will undergo inspection to determine if repairs need done and what is reusable.
The government has contingency plans if the silos’ foundations prove to be seriously cracked or damaged, the official said. That could include remediation work such as patching cracks or replacing portions of the concrete.
If a site is too far gone to fix, however, drilling may have to take place for an entirely new silo.
“There’s currently no plan to dig new holes,” the official said. “But given the site conditions of the land, [there is] certainly the potential that when they get to investigating more of the silos, they may find that [reusing] some of them might not be possible.”
Though the Nunn-McCurdy review process is still underway, the Northrop official said the company is talking to the Air Force about ways to bring down costs. One idea under discussion, he noted, is potentially changing the way mechanical rooms are constructed to build them in a more modular way, which could lower expenses.
But no matter how difficult or expensive Sentinel becomes, or what trade-offs are made to pay for it, the Air Force is adamant it must happen.
Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the service’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said at the January appearance alongside Jones that extending the Minuteman III missile significantly longer is “not a viable option.”
“We will find the money,” Moore said. “Sentinel is going to be funded. We’ll make the trades to make that happen.”
(Source: Defense News Early Bird/Defense News)
28 Mar 24. BAE Systems Develops XM1155-SC Artillery Ammunition Able to Double Fire Range of Standard Rounds. BAE Systems is advancing artillery technology with its development of the XM1155-SC, a next-generation artillery projectile designed to significantly enhance the U.S. Army’s long-range precision fire capabilities. This cutting-edge, cannon-launched, precision-guided munition is part of the Hypervelocity Projectile (HVP) family and aims to defeat both stationary and mobile targets in contested environments. The XM1155-SC artillery munition is being developed under the U.S. Army’s Extended Range Artillery Projectile (ERAP) program, with the goal of extending the range of 155mm artillery rounds to more than double the range of current precision-guided munitions, aiming beyond 110 kilometers. (Source: News Now/https://www.armyrecognition.com/)
28 Mar 24. US Navy preps hypersonic weapon test this spring, with Army watching. The U.S. Navy is heading into a major test of a hypersonic weapon that will help determine the way ahead for a joint development program with the U.S. Army, according to the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office director.
“The Navy is moving forward on their test, which isn’t a launch out of ground support equipment, but just off a stool launch, so we get another look at the missile,” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch told Defense News in a March 27 interview here at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium.
The Navy’s test of the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body will lead into an Army test of the missile in the summer from a ground-based launcher, he said. “Right now, if things go as planned, we’ll be out at the range this summer.”
Hypersonic weapons are capable of flying faster than Mach 5 — or more than 3,836 miles per hour — and can maneuver between varying altitudes, making them difficult to detect. The C-HGB is made up of the weapon’s warhead, guidance system, cabling and thermal protection shield.
The U.S. is in a race to field the capability as well as develop systems to defend against hypersonic missiles. China and Russia are actively developing and testing hypersonic weapons.
The test in the spring is focused solely on missile performance and is conducted using a test stand that eliminates ground support equipment, canister and launcher.
“It’s more of a command to the missile to ignite and watch the missile go through stage one, stage two, payload adapter, hypersonic glide body separating and do its thing,” Rasch said.
The test is to ensure the services understand the missile performs as intended, he said.
The Army, at the same time, is ensuring that the ground support equipment for its Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW, works correctly and will then marry up the missile and launcher in the later test, Rasch explained.
If the Navy test is successful, “that is a decision point for the Army to allow the vendor to begin putting those tactical rounds together. We’ve got them lined up, ready to go, in different stages of completeness. I’ve been holding them because I want to see the end-to-end performance,” Rasch said.
The Army has spent several years working with Leidos’ Dynetics to build the industrial base for the hypersonic weapon glide body that will be used by both the ground service and the Navy because the domestic private sector had never built a hypersonic weapon.
The service also separately produced launchers, trucks, trailers and the battle operations center necessary to put together the first weapon battery. Lockheed Martin is the weapon system integrator for the Army’s hypersonic capability that will be launched from a mobile truck.
If the Army test is successful, Rasch said, the rounds will be ready to go to the first unit equipped with the capability.
The service completed its delivery of the first hypersonic weapon capability, minus the all-up rounds, to I Corps’ 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade unit at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state two days ahead of its end-of-FY21 fielding deadline.
The original plan was to train on the equipment and receive those rounds in the fall of 2023, but based on a series of failed or aborted tests, that timeline has slid further down the road.
The Army and Navy last year had to abort flight tests in March, October and November due to “challenges at the range,” Rasch said.
“Every time we do these tests, even if it’s a no-test, obviously, we learn,” Rasch said. “But in this case, the round had to go back and get a little work done on it. These challenges weren’t with the round, but just the process of firing those up, it takes some work.”
The pause in testing while the rounds were evaluated, “gave us a little time to stop and kind of reflect on where we had not done enough developmental testing. Obviously a program that’s moving as fast as RCCTO has on hypersonics, there’s risk involved in going fast,” Rasch said. “You’re doing acquisition and running with scissors at the same time.”
The Army looked at earlier component level testing and figured out where the service may have missed things, he added.
“And we’ve done a series of walk-ups over the last several months to try to make sure we understood exactly what is going on, what’s the phenomena going on and how do we replicate that repeatedly so we know that’s the error,” Rash said.
Even this week, Rasch said, the Army is conducting high-fidelity testing with the ground support equipment, simulating every aspect of the shot to make sure it’s captured “all the phenomena to allow us to get back out to the range.”
While the program is delayed, the speed at which the Navy and the Army are moving is extremely fast for a program of this nature, Rasch noted.
The service went from a blank piece of paper in March 2019 to delivering hardware in just over two years, including an operations center, four transporter-erector-launchers and modified trucks and trailers that make up the ground equipment of the LRHW.
“This is a hard problem. If you look at the history of missile programs, most of them in this space are 10 to 12 years in duration,” he said. “Not only is this a new missile, it’s a new technology of missile and, oh by the way, we had to build new ground support equipment, we had to build new command-and-control capabilities within it. So that was a monumental task.” (Source: Defense News)
28 Mar 24. New Chinese attack helicopter in development. China is developing a new attack helicopter that appears to be in the same weight class as the US Boeing AH-64 Apache and the Russian Mil Mi-28 Havoc. Images of the new helicopter, which emerged on Chinese social media in March 2024, show an aircraft that is larger than the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) in-service AVIC (Aviation Industry Corporation of China) Changhe Aircraft Industries Group (CHAIG) Z-10 attack helicopter, and with a wider central fuselage that is comparable with the Apache. The fuselage includes cheek fairings similar to the AH-64 Apache and a nose configuration similar to the Mi-28. The AH-64E and the Mi-28N have a maximum operating weight of 10–12 tons. The new helicopter (tentatively designated as Z-21 by Chinese military observers) also appears to incorporate some of the PLA’s latest combat helicopter features such as upward-facing engine exhausts to reduce its infrared signature. (Source: Janes)
18 Mar 24. Bangladesh Army test-fires CS/AA3 anti-aircraft guns. The Bangladesh Army’s Adhoc 57 Air Defence (AD) Regiment Artillery test-fired two CS/AA3 twin-barrel anti-aircraft gun systems for the first time during a firing exercise held in mid-March at Inanistha AD Firing Range in Cox’s Bazar. According to a press release by Bangladesh Armed Forces’ media and public relations wing Inter Services Public Relation Directorate (ISPR) in mid-March, the system is capable of hitting ground and air targets at a maximum strike range of 4 km. The test fire confirms the induction of the systems – manufactured by China North Industries Group Corporation Limited (Norinco) – in the Bangladesh Army. The ISPR imagery suggests the induction of at least three CS/AA3 systems into the service. The CS/AA3 – known as PG99 in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) service – is intended to intercept low and slow-flying threats such as close air support aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). (Source: Janes)
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27 Mar 24. US Army artillery needs more range, mobility and autonomy, study finds. The Army canceled its Extended Range Cannon Artillery, or ERCA, in favor of munitions with improved range. The U.S. Army’s recently completed conventional fires study determined the service should focus on more autonomous artillery systems with greater range and improved mobility, the Army Futures Command chief said Wednesday.
Speaking at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Symposium here, Gen. James Rainey said the Army will achieve these improvements by incorporating robotics into systems, improving artillery rounds and pursuing readily available mobile howitzer options.
The service began working last year on a conventional fires study intended to lead to a new strategy. Rainey said at the time the review would consider the existing capability and capacity and future Army needs. It was also going to assess new technology to enhance conventional fires on the battlefield, such as advances in propellant that make it possible for midrange cannons to shoot as far as longer-range systems.
The study has already influenced one program. The Army, after also conducting a prototyping effort for an Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, concluded the platform was not the right approach.
The service plans to focus instead on extending the range of current artillery systems with innovative munitions still under development as part of the ERCA program, Rainey said.
“We are in a resource constrained environment,” he added. “You can go after an exquisite system or you can take a more holistic approach.”
The Army was able to conduct a variety of successful tests with ERCA prototypes, including hitting a target 70 kilometers, or 43 miles, away at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, in December 2020 using an Excalibur extended-range guided artillery shell.
The problems with the cannon were mostly related to the length of the gun tube and its ability to withstand a large number of projectiles without excessive wear.
The Army is planning to deliver a better armored howitzer, Rainey said. “There are some great capabilities out there.”
However, towed howitzers may not have a clear future with the Army, he said, adding “the future is not bright for towed artillery.”
Rainey said he’s “very interested in autonomous and robotic cannon solutions” for joint forcible entry formations like the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions.
The Army is pursuing mobile, indirect fires capabilities for light infantry and Stryker formations as well, he noted. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
28 Mar 24. BAE demos platform that gives Army AMPVs turret system options. BAE Systems showed off a universal top plate that allows the Army’s Armored Multipurpose Vehicle to easily swap turrets for different mission roles.
The company brought an AMPV complete with a 30mm unmanned turret from Elbit Systems to the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium being held this week in Huntsville, Alabama, to demonstrate the capability.
BAE took the original top off the AMPV and put on its own internally funded and developed top plate to create the External Mission Equipment Package, or ExMEP. The design is based off of a study of turrets “of all kinds, all over the world,” Megan Mitchell, BAE’s business development director for Army combat systems, said in an interview at the event.
The ExMEP “enables [the AMPV] to be able to accept over 30 different sized turrets,” she added. “The idea behind this is it allows the Army to basically widen their scope of what they’re able to do with the AMPV.”
The Army’s AMPV, designed to replace the M113 armored personnel carrier and which reached full-rate production in 2023, comes in five variants either being fielded or planned: General purpose; medical evacuation; medical treatment; mission command; and mortar carrier.
“We’re now in full-rate production with the first five variants and that allows us a little bit more latitude to be able to see what it can do next,” Mitchell said. “This is an extremely versatile platform and it’s already doing five very different mission roles, and to be able to expand that capability … there’s a lot more M113s out there than just what the five variants can do.
“What we really wanted to look at is where is the Army’s need and what could we possibly create that will allow us to work with the Army, to say, ‘Oh, if you need a counter-UAS, we can integrate that. If you need this kind of turret, we can integrate that,’” she said.
The company last year demonstrated it could rapidly integrate a Moog-developed counter-unmanned aircraft system turret onto the AMPV and successfully tested the capability in a live-fire event in Arizona. BAE said it hit both ground and air targets in the November 2023 test just 15 months after beginning the ExMEP development effort.
In cooperation with the Army, where both BAE and the Army funded a portion of the effort, the company integrated Patria’s 120mm unmanned turreted mortar capability using its ExMEP, Mitchell said. BAE turned over the vehicle to the Army in January for testing that will take place at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona in the spring and summer. More testing will continue into the fall.
A flexible top plate enabling integration of a wide array of turrets is not just targeted toward the U.S. Army, Mitchell noted, but creates options for potential foreign customers who might have specific requirements that go beyond the U.S. Army’s AMPV variants. (Source: Defense News)
27 Mar 24. Hungarian Air Force A319 VIP jets likely fitted with Bird AeroSystems DIRCM. Bird AeroSystems has fitted its aircraft defensive aids system (DAS) for an undisclosed European A319 operator, likely the Hungarian Air Force (HuAF).
The Israeli company said on 27 March that its Self Protection Radar Electro-Optic System (SPREOS) directed infrared countermeasure (DIRCM) and Aeroshield Missile Protection System (AMPS) had been fitted to multiple A319 aircraft for an undisclosed customer to protect against surface-to-air missile threats.
“At the core of this project is the SPREOS, a patented DIRCM system for missile approach verification, tracking, and laser jamming,” the company said. “The installation also included Bird’s versatile AMPS solution, designed for both military and civilian markets, providing complete protection against ground-to-air threats, including [manportable air-defence system] MANPADS attacks, for helicopters and VVIP aircraft for heads of states. Additionally, the installation of the AeroShield pod solution on the Airbus A319 aircraft was expanded to be installed also for Dassault Falcon 7X aircraft,” it added. (Source: Janes)
26 Mar 24. US Army opens ammunition plant for Next-Gen Squad Weapon.
A new contract was awarded to support the modernisation of activities for a Missouri-based ammunition plant in support of next-generation small arms. As part of its transition from its existing small arms to the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) the US Army has awarded a contract to build a new ammunition facility in Missouri.
The operating contractor for the state-owned Lake City Army Ammunition Plant (LCAAP), Olin Winchester, will receive support in constructing a building for ammunition production.
The production building and process support systems are designed to accommodate best-practice manufacturing methodologies, processes and equipment that provide flexible, sustainable and maintainable operations and ensure manufacturing readiness to meet future requirements.
Following an 18-month-long design activity, this contract is led by the Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition and Olin Winchester.
After construction, the facility will house modern manufacturing systems designed for large scale production of all aspects of the NGSW’s ammunition, including metal parts manufacturing, energetic operations for loading and charging ammunition, product packaging, process quality controls and testing laboratories, maintenance operations, and general-use administrative areas.
NGSW programme
The US Army is currently transitioning from the M4/16 rifle and the 249 light machine gun to the XM5 and XM250 weapons, which it has designated the NGSW programme.
The new weapon system will use the 6.8-millimetre (mm) family of ammunition instead of the 5.56mm ammunition the M4/M16 uses. The 6.8mm has proven to outperform most modern 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammunition against a full array of targets.
In April 2022, the New Hampshire-based weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer was awarded the contract over a ten-year period. This followed a rigorous 27-month prototyping and evaluation effort that included numerous technical tests and Soldier touch points of three competing prototype systems.
The new ammunition facility will position the US Army with additional capacity in small arms ammunition – a major issue amid the tense global security environment in which militaries around the world struggle to meet demand.
For the first time, the EU Commission and the European Defence Agency unveiled their Defence Industrial Strategy in which it has put forward longer term objectives to improve European competitiveness in the global defence industry.
This will expand the continent’s defence consumer base beyond the shorter-term policies and investment seen since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, such as the Act in Support of Ammunition Production, which mobilised a €500m ($545.4m) stockpiling ammunition for Member States. (Source: army-technology.com)
26 Mar 24. US Army inks Iron Fist buy for Bradley fleet, after years of budget delays.
“We were able to find some efficiencies [in the supplemental] that allowed us to buy small quantities of Iron Fist,” Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the service’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Combat Systems told Breaking Defense.
The US Army quietly inked a deal for a new active protection system for M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, despite having previously saying it was unable to afford them, a two-star general told Breaking Defense today.
Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the service’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Combat Systems, said that the Army managed to move money around that will allow the service to finally equip the Elbit Systems-produced Iron Fist Light Decoupled (IF-LD) onto a handful of Bradleys, but cautioned that the total procurement is more in the “dozens” than fleet-wide.
“I can say that we have gone into production on APS for Bradley in limited quantities,” Dean said in a brief interview from the show floor of the AUSA Global Force conference. “We were able to find some efficiencies [in the supplemental] that allowed us to buy small quantities of Iron Fist.
The service is still nailing down the fielding plan but as it buys new Bradleys to replace those sent to Ukraine, they will come off the production line ready to accept Iron Fist APS. What isn’t clear yet, according to Dean, is if the APS will be integrated immediately or if it will be kept in reserve until a unit deploys, an avenue the Army is using for its Abrams fleet.
For years the service has been hunting for APS’ to integrate onto M1 Abrams main battle tanks, Bradleys and Strykers to protect soldiers inside from incoming threats like rocket propelled grenades and one-way attack drones.
It eventually selected two systems from Israeli firms: Buying Rafael’s Trophy APS for the M1A2 Abrams System Enhancement Package version 3 (SEPv3) and picking Elbit Systems’ Iron Fist Light Decoupled for its Bradley line. While service leaders began purchasing the Trophy systems, funding shortfalls prevented them from acquiring Iron Fist (a position they reasserted as recently as December 2023).
But at a time when the wars inside Ukraine and Gaza showcase combat vehicle vulnerabilities to such aerial threats, something shifted for the Army, and in late-January the service posted a presolicitation notice seeking qualified sources that could provide Iron Fist to the Army as part of an eight-year deal for its Bradley vehicle upgrade initiative.
Although some Abrams and, soon, some Bradleys will have APS protection, Strykers remain without a candidate. Last year the service completed limited characterization testing with a possible candidate called StrikeShield, a hybrid hard-kill and armor solution by Rheinmetall and its US partner Unified Business Technologies, but that didn’t prove to be the right solution.
“We don’t have a suitable solution,” Dean said today. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Breaking Defense.com)
26 Mar 24. Sweden’s Saab plans new US munitions facility to strengthen supply chain. Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab plans to build a new facility for weapon systems in the United States to boost munitions production capacity and strengthen its global supply chain, the Swedish defense equipment maker said on Tuesday.
The site will support the engineering and production of missile weapon systems for the U.S. military. This includes components for the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) system, along with close combat weapons.
The U.S. Department of Defense struck a deal with Saab in 2019 enabling the purchase of Saab’s close combat solution, which includes AT4 anti-armour systems and Carl-Gustaf ammunition for up to $422m.
Saab expects to finalize the location and break ground on the facility by this year, with production commencing in 2026. (Source: Reuters)
18 Mar 24. Indonesia to restart procurement process for more Exocet missiles. Indonesia will have to restart a process to replenish the country’s stock of MBDA Exocet MM40 Block 3 anti-ship missiles after an earlier attempt failed because of licensing non-conformity issues.
A 24 February letter from the Indonesian Ministry of Finance’s (MoF’s) Directorate General of Budget Financing and Risk Management sent to various departments at the country’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed that a previously granted permission to procure the missiles with foreign loans has now lapsed. A copy of the letter was provided to Janes on 18 March by sources close to the procurement process. In the letter, the MoF advised the respective MoD departments to resubmit a request for a total of three programmes for which the permission to take on foreign loans has lapsed, including the Exocet missile procurement. (Source: Janes)
22 Mar 24. Indian Army outlines loiter munition procurement programme. The Indian Army has outlined a programme to procure canister-launched anti-armour loiter munition (CALM) systems and associated accessories to enhance the operational efficiency of the mechanised infantry. According to an initial procurement notice issued by the Indian Army on 21 March, the service seeks to procure CALM systems to integrate them on T-72 and T-90 main battle tanks (MBTs), BMP-2 armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), carrier mortar tracked vehicles, and reconnaissance vehicles. The Indian Army seeks to procure 180 CALM systems to provide remote-controlled beyond-visual-line-of-sight capability to the mechanised infantry and armoured units at stand-off ranges of up to 15 km to destroy enemy AFVs with a high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead. (Source: Janes)
24 Mar 24. Brahmos Missile Makes Big Impact. India has been aiming to enhance its defense capabilities through the development of a more compact and efficient version of the BrahMos missile. BrahMos Aerospace, a defense corporation with Indo-Russian roots, is set to begin drop and dummy trials of the lighter and more compact Next Generation (NG) BrahMos missile around the middle of 2025, with plans for flight testing to follow by the year’s end.
“Atul Dinkar Rane, the CEO and managing director of BrahMos Aerospace as well as the director general of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), announced to the press that the missile is expected to be incorporated into the Indian Air Force (IAF) by 2026.”
Speaking at the NDTV Defence Summit in Delhi on March 7, Rane commented that BrahMos Aerospace is progressing from the blueprint phase to the metal fabrication stage, as they await financing from sales of the NG. He noted, “The blueprint phase is complete, and we’re moving to metal cutting. The new missile will be one- third of the size and half the weight of the current model, allowing for the deployment of two missiles on a single aircraft.”
Rane highlighted, “Currently, a single BrahMos mounted on the underbelly of a Su-30 constitutes its heaviest weaponry.” He further mentioned plans to equip the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft with the NG version and noted its compatibility with Western platforms as well. Rane assured that the NG version of the BrahMos will retain the same speed, precision, and destructive power as its larger counterpart.
Although a commitment from the Indian Air Force is yet to be finalized, a contract valued at $2.3bn for 200 BrahMos Extended Range (ER) supersonic cruise missiles, intended for warships, was secured in March 2024.Admiral R Hari Kumar, the Chief of the Navy, recently informed the news agency ANI that the BrahMos missile is set to become the main surface-to-surface missile of the Indian Navy, taking over from the older missile systems.
Rane pointed out that the BrahMos missile has undergone significant transformation from its original design as an anti-cruise missile. Instead of covering a distance of 300km to target a single ship, it has evolved into a system capable of launching a salvo from one missile at multiple ships. In simpler terms, its having the ability to fire multiple missiles or projectiles simultaneously or in rapid succession at one or more targets.
Rane commented on the necessity for future naval operations to approach closer to shorelines, referencing the recent incident where Houthi rebels in Yemen reportedly executed 37 drone strikes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, targeting US Navy vessels and a commercial ship.
He suggested that the surface drones ought to have been neutralized before leaving the harbour, indicating this would require a missile launched from a ship. He also noted, “The same type of missile can target both naval and land-based objectives.”
BrahMos Aerospace was created through a collaborative effort between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s military-industrial consortium NPO Mashinostroyeniya, following an agreement between the two governments. Rane mentioned that the proportion of domestic components in the BrahMos missile has increased from 10% to 65% since its debut twenty years ago.
Rane asserted that current defense systems are incapable of consistently intercepting it, highlighting that the innovation extends beyond just the seeker technology being indigenized by India. He praised the advanced liquid ramjet engine developed by the Russians and shared with India, describing it as a masterpiece.
India’s enhancements in the BrahMos missile surpass merely localizing its guidance system (seeker technology) production. The innovations cover crucial technological advancements and collaborations, like the development and exchange of an advanced liquid ramjet engine with Russia. This showcases a wider spectrum of technological progress and self-sufficiency in the missile’s manufacture.
Rane mentioned that the DRDO, in collaboration with its design partner NPO Mashinostroyeniya, is developing the BrahMos hypersonic cruise missile, to be named BrahMos 2. This missile will share characteristics with the Russian hypersonic Zircon missile.
In the early 1990s, India recognized the necessity for cruise missiles—guided strategic missiles designed to fly at a nearly consistent speed throughout their flight path to deliver warheads with precise accuracy.
Subsequently, a formal agreement was established between Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, who was the chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at the time, and NV Mikhailov, the Russian deputy defence minister, in Moscow during February 1998. The name BrahMos originates from the Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers. Following the agreement in 1998, BrahMos Aerospace was established.
The inaugural test launch of the BrahMos missile from a land-based launcher took place on 12 June 2001 at Chandipur in Odisha. Since that initial launch, the missile has undergone several upgrades, leading to the development and deployment of multiple versions.
The BrahMos Aerospace website describes BrahMos as a “two-stage missile, with the first stage being a solid propellant booster and the second stage a liquid ramjet.”Cruise missiles, including BrahMos, are categorized as ‘standoff range weapons.’ This classification implies that they can be launched from a distance far enough to evade defensive measures from the target.
Initially, the BrahMos missile had a flight range of 290 kilometres. According to the Indian Express, tests are being conducted on versions of the missile to extend its range to approximately 400 kilometres, with plans to develop versions capable of reaching up to 800 kilometres. The Indian Army, Navy, and Air Force routinely conduct tests on various versions of the missile.
The BrahMos missile is characterized by its low radar detectability and maintains supersonic speed for the duration of its flight. It operates on a “fire and forget” principle, capable of reaching a cruise altitude of up to 15 km and descending to a terminal altitude of as low as 10 metres.
BrahMos outperforms subsonic cruise missiles with a speed that is triple and a flight range that is 2.5 times greater. Variants of the BrahMos missile capable of being launched from land, warships, submarines, and Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft have been developed, allowing them to target both land and maritime objectives.
The BrahMos missile is increasingly attracting interest in global markets, particularly in Southeast Asia and Africa. There are reports that several nations in West Asia have also expressed a keen interest in it.
In a conversation with Sputnik India regarding the rising international interest in BrahMos, Indian Navy veteran Seshadri Vasan described the missile as the world’s “Supersonic Darling.” He highlighted its advantage, noting, “When BrahMos achieves supersonic speeds of Mach-3, it leaves the enemy with minimal time to respond or defend against the missile’s attack.” (Source: Google/https://www.dailyexcelsior.com/)
25 Mar 24. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is expanding the Naval Industrial Reserve Ordnance Plant at the Allegany Ballistics Laboratory (ABL) in West Virginia. The company was recently awarded a $178m contract from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to support the expansion. The investment will help to expand the site’s capacity through the construction of a new modular energetics facility.
- The investment will increase rocket motor energetics and inert processing and builds on Northrop Grumman’s proven performance to quickly scale using advanced manufacturing techniques and digital transformation.
- This state-of-the-art facility will use advanced manufacturing processes to configure production for multiple products and consolidate operations to minimize travel, movement of materials and overall downtime.
- The expansion will add to Northrop Grumman’s own investment in rocket motors and increase resiliency by doubling the capacity of the defense supply chain and ensure production capacity to meet the growing demand of solid rocket motors and warheads on time and at affordable scale.
Experts:
Frank DeMauro, sector vice president and general manager, weapon systems, Northrop Grumman: “The Navy’s decision to entrust Northrop Grumman with expansion operations at ABL in support of critical missile components such as rocket motors, warheads and fuzes, will bolster critical national security infrastructure. The investments we’re making, and our mature production capabilities, will allow us to double our energetics capacity by fall of 2026, meeting recent customer demand and maintaining our signature commitment to quality.”
U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia: “Expanding our capacity to produce critical munitions and their components, such as solid rocket motors and energetic materials, is critical to ensuring that our men and women in uniform have the tools they need to deter aggression and win. The Allegany Ballistics Laboratory is a critical piece of our defense industrial base, and I’m proud that such important components of our nation’s advanced weapons are built right here at home in West Virginia. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, I look forward to seeing the positive impacts of this expansion project on U.S. national security and the state of West Virginia.”
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia: “This announcement is continued evidence of ABL’s critical importance in advancing our national security capabilities. ABL is one of only two sites in the entire country that can produce rocket motor energetics and the only one that is a public-private partnership. This taxpayer-owned facility is building the missiles that keep our forces safe.”
Details on ABL:
The NAVSEA funding provides ABL the ability to expand its capacity which is increasingly critical to national security as the defense industry experiences a surge in demand for energetic capabilities in response to worldwide events. The expansion will enable the facility to increase the output of critical energetic materials needed to replenish stockpiles that support the U.S. and its allies.
Northrop Grumman is a leading provider of advanced weapons systems including hypersonic propulsion, armaments, components, missiles, electronics and interceptors. The company operates ABL, a national asset that has produced tactical rocket motors, medium and large caliber ammunition, composite structure, mechanical and electronic fuzes and advanced weapons for the U.S. and its allies since the 1940s.
Northrop Grumman is a leading global aerospace and defense technology company. Our pioneering solutions equip our customers with the capabilities they need to connect and protect the world, and push the boundaries of human exploration across the universe. Driven by a shared purpose to solve our customers’ toughest problems, our employees define possible every day.
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About Galvion:
Galvion designs, develops, and delivers mission critical head, face, and torso protective solutions as well as intelligent power and data management systems for the world’s most demanding military and tactical teams. Founded in 2002 as Revision Military, a foundational belief in calculated investment and capability expansion led to a strategic refocus, resulting in the divestiture of the protective eyewear business, along with the Revision name, in 2019. Rebranded as Galvion, the company’s products and technology continue to evolve beyond purely passive protection, focusing instead on active systems that enhance performance and survivability, with an eye to the ever-changing demands of the modern battlefield. Through advanced design, keen end-user insight and intelligent integration, Galvion engineers uniquely customized solutions that go beyond what was once thought possible.
Privately owned with ISO 9001:2015 certified facilities in Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire in the US, Montreal in Canada and Bristol in the UK, Galvion’s team of 400+ employees work proactively to solve the problems left unsolved by others.
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