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11 Sep 23. Sweden to boost defence spending next year by almost 30%.
Stockholm rapidly increases budget to meet Nato’s 2% of GDP target
Pål Jonson, Sweden’s defence minister, said on Monday that defence spending would increase by almost 30 per cent to SKr119bn ($11bn) next year in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Sweden finds itself in the most serious security situation since the end of the second world war, which requires Sweden to have a defence that is ready to protect Swedish territory,” said the agreement between the centre-right government and the nationalist Sweden Democrats.
Sweden has promised Ukraine military support amounting to SKr19bn in total, and said other big investments for next year included new artillery systems, transport planes as well as continued purchases of fighter jets and submarines.
Sweden and neighbouring Finland responded to Russia’s invasion by seeking to join Nato and its promise of collective defence. While Finland became Nato’s 31st member in April, Sweden’s membership application has been held up by Turkey.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised in July that his country’s parliament would examine it in the autumn and that he would “work closely with the assembly to ensure ratification”.
But Erdoğan has sharply criticised a series of Koran burnings in Sweden and Denmark — including in front of the Turkish embassies — and has hinted at further delays in the ratification, which has been pending for more than a year.
Turkey’s president lashed out at his US counterpart Joe Biden at the weekend at the G20 meeting in India. He said that Biden’s attempts to link a sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey with Ankara’s ratification of Sweden’s Nato bid “seriously upsets us”.
Sweden’s centre-right government has sought to mollify Turkey by passing a new anti-terror law and looking at ways to limit the Koran burnings.
Sweden took advantage of the “peace dividend” following the end of the cold war to cut its defence spending while Finland, which neighbours Russia, did not. Sweden has doubled its defence budget since 2020 under both left- and right-wing governments, which originally included reaching 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2025 and 2 per cent by 2030.
The new coalition in Stockholm has sped up those plans significantly as well as strengthened bilateral ties to Finland and the US alongside its focus on the Nato bid following Russia’s aggression.
Jonson said that the increased spending was due to Sweden’s pending Nato membership and the changes that would require; boosting its own total defence capabilities; and increased military support to Ukraine.
“We are facing historic tasks in defence policy. We will intensify the work on the biggest build-up of total defence since the 1950s,” he added.
(Source: FT.com)
11 Sep 23. UK armaments director Andy Start readies ‘massive’ acquisition changes. Critics complain Britain’s defense procurement effort is broken. Andy Start, the CEO of the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) arm of the Ministry of Defence, says the performance data proves otherwise.
Whoever is closer to the truth, Start, who has been in the job for 12 months having moved from a senior position in industry, is at the heart of major changes to procurement and the wider defense acquisition cycle pushed by the MoD.
Driven in part by lessons from the war in the Ukraine and the rapidly evolving nature global threats, the DE&S boss pinpoints areas where the ministry can do better, including accelerating the delivery of equipment into the hands of the military.
Philip Hammond, the former defense secretary, used to talk about making procurement match fit during his tenure. Are you match fit ?
Having read a lot about [the problems of] DE&S before joining I expected to find one thing. When I got inside the organization I found the data told me quite a different story. In summary, the organization is good today if you compare it to its global peers and in terms of delivery of what is asked of it. We deliver about 98% of key user requirements, and 89 % of our strategic milestones on time. We don’t get everything right and there are big complex, particularly international programs, that run very long. We need to do better on that, but more generally we need to do better because the threats are changing, not because we are not delivering today.
Why is there such a divide between MoDs perception on procurement performance and the poor marks given by politicians, analysts and industry executives?
Part of the reason you get the disconnect is that DE&S only owns part of the acquisition cycle today. The issues we have, particularly the speed of decision making prior to contract award, are features of the wider acquisition system, not the DE&S part of it.
Poor accountability, broken and ponderous – those were some of the unflattering terms used by the Parliamentary Defence Committee to describe DS&E in a recent report. What’s your response?
We welcomed their decision to look at procurement. It allowed us to give them real data about DE&S performance. Whilst the report was not without criticism the things they focused on in their recommendations are the things we are already working on, or have already done. Also, I was delighted they recognized the work we have done for the Ukraine, which is spectacular.
So the Committee report was a fair assessment of where you are?
There were some assessments I wouldn’t make in terms of their perception of where we are, but I’m very comfortable with their recommendations, even if I wouldn’t characterize the current state of DE&S the way they would. They picked three problem programs, but you have to look at that in the context of the scale of what we deliver. Which isn’t to say we can’t do a lot better.
What will change at DE&S look like?
A.We are doing an awful lot in terms of changing our strategy, restructuring DE&S and the wider MoD to adapt the U.K.’s acquisition model in a way which recognizes the fact we want to deliver more, and deliver it more quickly. We have traditionally delivered acquisition focused on lowest cost, not necessarily focusing on time, it is something that has to shift.
An MoD Command Paper released in July talked about allowing a maximum of five years for delivery of regular acquisition programs and three years for digital programs. How will it work?
Over the two years to December 2022, our data indicates that the average time to front-line delivery across the MoD portfolio reduced by a year. We need to go further; all DE&S programs will now actively look for opportunities to take time out across the whole program lifecycle.
They will seek to reduce the time taken from approval to proceed with a particular solution through to delivery to the users. We will be proportionate in our approach with our most complex programs likely to take longer. Industry has a critical part to play in delivering at greater pace and our contracting approaches need to incentivize them accordingly. The new strategy really puts pressure on the system to accelerate the pace of decision making pre-contract award and to ensure they don’t overreach in terms of the technology readiness of the equipment they are selecting.
What are some of the key elements of the new DE&S restructuring?
Put simply, the mission can be termed “Today, tomorrow, together.” Today we need to drive up the availability of the current assets. For example we have doubled the number of flying hours on Typhoon over the last 12 months.
We have backed that up by developing a unit called the Defence Availability Control Center which has a control room in our HQ in Abbeywood allowing us to track the availability of all our assets globally from a single room.
Tomorrow, it’s about spinning in technology with greater speed. In terms of spiral development we have done some amazing work, a lot of it for Ukraine, including the attack drone you have heard the prime minister talk about (in May 2023). Also we have done a lot in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance space.
The together bit is recognition that we need to treat industry as a fundamental part of the defense ecosystem. We have shifted to involving industry at highly classified levels very early in the requirements process to make sure we are specifying the next generation of technology we want.
How will this impact the DE&S operating model?
The big shift we have made in the operating model is for the first time to include all of defense, industry and a bunch of academics, more than 1,000 people, in the process of redesigning our defense acquisition requirements. We have produced an outline shape of what the new end-to-end acquisition model might look like, which we call the Infinity Loop. It’s a revised way of thinking about acquisition that starts from recognition that the most important thing is current operational delivery and how you spiral up from equipment delivery, rather than thinking of acquisitions as a green field site that happens in isolation.
The result will be a restructure in the way DE&S operates and a move away from a structure of operating in silos of land, sea, air and strategic enablers to an operating model which is much more integrated.
We are still in the design process for that, it will take us through to next summer to implement because it’s a massive change. We have defined the four major blocks of the new organization and we have done the design work for the first of those called the Defense Gateway which is the bit that will manage the interface between DE&S the front line commands, industry and our allies.
The bit I’m talking about is DE&S, but there is recognition that the whole acquisition cycle in the U.K. needs to change and the wider defense operating model needs to change too.
The timing of the proposed changes takes you very close to a general election expected in 2024. Will that pose difficulties?
A lot of this restructuring is about recognizing that in the context of the new threat any government would want to make these changes. Some of it may involve political decisions, so we may not get it all done prior to an election, but this work is absolutely necessary. The stuff we are doing in DE&S, any government would ask us to do.
People talk about Ukraine being a game changer. How is it changing the game for DE&S?
The first lesson is the focus on delivering to a max price within a max time and then varying the capability that you get later. This gave us a real feel that you can get 80% of the capability really quickly and then spiral up. That lesson is definitely learnt in terms of the underlying acquisition process.
The MoD has talked about 80% being good enough for decades, with little result. Why should it work this time?
I completely agree, it requires strong governance. If you asked any end user in any environment what they want they will always specify the Ferrari whereas a Ford Focus might have been good enough. So you need strong governance and you need strong balance of investment processes that sit over the top of that. What the command paper recognizes is that where threat levels and the pace of innovation is, accelerating very long programs seeking high levels of requirement are not the way to do it.
What changes in-house did you make to manage Ukraine’s urgent requirements?
One of the things I’m most proud of at DE&S is the way we restructured to create an operations directorate led by a two-star major general that focused on ensuring we were responding to Ukraine’s needs at pace as well as considering our own operational changes.
As a consequence we got first orders out to Ukraine in 48 hours, which led to DE&S contributing £1.3bn ($1.6bn) of aid to Ukraine in the financial year 2022/23, out of a total U.K. contribution of £2.3bn.
AUKUS will be one of the most complex multi-national procurement deals in decades. What’s your role going to be?
We are part of AUKUS Pillar 2 which covers all of the advanced technologies outside of the nuclear submarine sector covered by Pillar 1.
At the moment, most of the Pillar 2 discussions are in the area of military capability. At the DSEI exhibition in London this month I will be meeting my Australian and U.S. counterparts to talk about how we will put in place the practical operational structures around delivery of Pillar 2.
If we can demonstrate the partners’ industries can undertake collaborative development at high levels of classification, and we can also agree a shared understanding of the threat and the changes of threat together it will be a major step forward. If we can make that work from a policy perspective and collaborative perspective we have the opportunity to change how we think about pooling our development monies and intellectual property to get a win for all parties.
Does the F-35 program offer a template for AUKUS collaboration?
There are some really positive lessons out of Joint Strike Fighter in terms of what’s possible with collaborative development. We can do better with AUKUS if we can agree the right policy instruments and the right amount of sharing. With JSF there are still complications in the way design data moves around the system. I would like us to move to a place where we can freely share data within those industry players that are operating on AUKUS-specific programs. I’d like to be in a place where U.S., British and Australian design teams can share information amongst industry separately from sharing with government. Today it all has to go up through government and back down again. There is an opportunity for us all to become more efficient.
F-35 required hard yards to get where we are. The question is how do we take the best of that but remove some of the friction out of the system. There is a real commitment by the nations to do that and there has been really good progress in terms of creating the right mechanism for data sharing and so on. (Source: Defense News)
11 Sep 23. NATO prepares industry plan to boost arms production. NATO nations have agreed to a new action plan for bolstering the alliance’s industrial base, as governments scramble to restock their weapon arsenals while simultaneously sending military aid to Ukraine.
Nestled in the recent Vilnius, Lithuania, summit’s communique as line item 36, the document describes the Defence Production Action Plan as a way to leverage NATO’s role as “a convener, standard-setter, requirement setter and aggregator, and delivery enabler to promote sustainable defense industrial capacity.”
The plan will initially focus on land munitions, the communique states, and serve to help understand the inner workings of the alliance’s vast defense industry, including small- and medium-size enterprises.
Beginning last fall, one of the most immediate lessons identified from the war in Ukraine was the realization that NATO didn’t have sufficient ammunition stocks for the nation, said Wendy Gilmour, NATO assistant secretary general for defense investment.
“The firing rates … were far beyond anything that had been anticipated,” she said in an exclusive interview with Defense News last month.
Last September, the alliance’s Conference of National Armaments Directors, or CNAD, held a special meeting to examine the needs for land warfare equipment and battle-decisive munitions, she said. The stakeholders agreed that a new type of industrial base — or at least a different scope and organization for the post-Cold War industrial base — was required.
The procurement chiefs studied how the alliance could collectively work to increase production and determine the level of risk that might be acceptable while drawing from existing stockpiles.
Between the CNAD meeting in September 2022 and the February 2023 NATO defense ministerial in Brussels, the armaments community was given a mandate to brainstorm how NATO could address bottlenecks, which is how the Defence Production Action Plan emerged, Gilmour explained.
A public version of the document should be available in the fall, she noted.
‘Activity buckets’
The new plan includes three main “activity buckets,” Gilmour said. The first bucket involves looking for efficiencies in the acquisition and delivery of defense equipment, as well as supporting and encouraging multinational procurements.
The second bucket will examine how to more effectively match NATO’s defense planning processes with the production capability of its members’ defense-industrial bases. Gilmour said the alliance will set up a “planning board” where leaders can discuss issues such as appropriate levels of supplies for a given requirement. The idea is to better manage supply chain risks both as an alliance and as individual member nations, depending on how badly certain defense goods are expected to be needed over time, she explained.
The third bucket aims to address “fundamental challenges inherent to defense industrial cooperation,” Gilmour said. That includes reexamining the policies, procedures and contracting approaches related to intellectual property, and developing best practices so that a contractual mechanism won’t somehow prevent two nations in a battlegroup with the same equipment from simply exchanging spare parts when deployed.
It will also analyze policies surrounding mutual logistics assurances as well as examine export control regimes and sanctions from across member nations. “We are all very aware these are sovereign decisions on the part of all alliance members, but the operational impact needs to be understood so that the decisions can be made consciously,” Gilmour said.
Wait and see
The plan, as envisioned, is “long overdue” for the alliance, said Nicholas Nelson, a nonresident senior fellow for emerging technology at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
But what has yet to emerge is a mechanism for how NATO will guide its members in harnessing their defense-industrial bases, he told Defense News.
“NATO itself is not going to be the purchaser of last resort for [these procurements]; it’s going to be the member states under NATO’s direction,” he added. “So how do you incentivize them to engage better with the industry?”
Expediting contract awards will be “the central challenge” for the Defence Production Action Plan, said Rob Murray, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council think tank. Murray spent nearly a decade at NATO before leaving in September 2022. While working for the alliance, he served as its inaugural head of innovation.
In a June article for the Atlantic Council, Murray laid out three options for NATO to help speed up government contracts, urging more adaptable sourcing strategies and better coordination among allies.
Gold standards?
Another priority area for the Defence Production Action Plan includes NATO’s extensive standards portfolio. The goal is to identify whether the alliance needs to revisit some material standards, the bedrock of many Western weapons projects, to keep pace with technological change.
“We’re never going to get every nation in NATO buying the same kit, nor would we necessarily want to,” Gilmour said. “There would be risks associated with that. But we do want all of the kits to be interoperable with one another and adhere to the same standards.”
Wendy Gilmour, NATO’s sssistant secretary general for defense investment, gives a keynote speech at the SecD-Day conference in Helsinki, Finland, on Feb. 8, 2023. (Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images)
The current standards development process typically spans about 36 months, according to Murray, and often leads to “broad compromises due to competing national interests, limiting interoperability and, ultimately, deterrence.”
He has advocated for NATO’s new industrial plan to involve companies more directly in the standards development process, to shorten the time frame to establish new standards, and to adopt “civil, open standards” for new and emerging technologies.
Getting it right
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, NATO’s rhetoric surrounding defense procurement has amped up, with the most senior political leaders now more frequently discussing ways to improve procurement practices and ensure capability deliveries, Gilmour said.
“There is absolutely an understanding on the part of our political leaders that this is not a portfolio that they can afford to do badly, that they have to get this right,” she said.
Before arriving at her current post in November, Gilmour spent more than three decades in Canada’s foreign affairs and defense departments, and served as the country’s deputy national armaments director from 2011 to 2015.
Artillery shells are inspected in the production shop at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant on April 12, 2023, in Scranton, Pa. (Hannah Beier/Getty Images)
“Being in the armaments community, I can say that there’s always been this sense of ‘rhetoric is great, but show me the money,’ ” she said.
“Every country is now trying to ensure their defense equipment, their processes, their spare parts and supply chains are ready for whatever the eventuality may be. And that means everything is being done at once,” she added. “Decision-making processes and collective cooperative program processes are not necessarily geared to producing things quickly. We’re taking a look right now internally to see how we can make that better.”
Time is of the essence for NATO to enact its new Defence Production Action Plan, Nelson noted. In two years, the momentum prompted by Russia’s war in Ukraine could dissipate as member nations pivot to other security priorities.
“Is NATO going to be responsive enough to real-world challenges which are underpinning why this action plan was needed?” he wondered. (Source: Defense News)
11 Sep 23. ADS Group report finds defence adds £9.8bn to UK economy. The UK trade association for the defence industry found that the sector had contributed £9.8bn to the national economy.
In the week of the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2023, beginning 11 September, the ADS Group have published a Defence Outlook report examining the contribution of Defence to the UK national economy, finding that the sector’s importance has grown as global threats and volatility have increased.
The defence sector has added £9.8bn to the UK economy this year, with a three-year average of £7.4bn in exports, the report finds, adding that on a ten-year rolling basis the UK remains the second largest defence exporter, globally. Highlighted business opportunities helping to drive the £22.8bn turnover include the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) and AUKUS.
As part of the Integrated Review Refresh in 2023, an update to the UK’s premier strategic policy document, £5bn in additional public monies were guaranteed towards defences, with £3bn of the additional funds allocated to nuclear deterrent for AUKUS and the remaining £2bn used to address requirements in the UK for stockpiling and strengthening supply chains.
Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine have driven attention towards stockpiling and supply chains, with a additional investment in this area totalling of £2.5bn across 2023. While ADS recognises that this was welcomed by the industry it notes that “more substantive decisions on long-term defence investment await a future spending review.”
More promisingly, ADS highlight the $41.3bn intended to be invested in land equipment and support over the next ten years, as part of the Land industrial Strategy announced in 2022.
Without publishing findings about individual platforms or the nations in receipt of these exports, ADS find that the market sector of exports for each domain breaks out with a 77% share for air domain purchases, 10% for land, and 13% for sea.
The report also states that the sector has 147,500 direct employees, and provides placement for 6,900 apprentices. Data in the report suggest that half of these direct employees are in London or the South of England, totalling 73,750 staff.
Of the regions, Scotland is the next largest employer, with 13,250 working in defence. Wales is the next largest country in the union in terms of its defence industry staff, with 6,500 direct employees. In Northern Ireland, 900 people are employed directly in the defence sector.
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Each defence worker contributes £66,000 to the national economy, the report finds, adding that this is 3% higher than the national average.
The ADS Group is the UK trade association for the aerospace, defence, security and space sector with a membership of over 1200 people from the defence engineering and services workforce. (Source: naval-technology.com)
11 Sep 23. UK Defence Committee: MoD will not balance platform retirement with procurement. The UK Defence Committee published its findings that aircraft procurement is falling behind the required force structure needed to offset retiring platforms.
The UK Defence Committee’s latest report Aviation Procurement: Winging It?, published on 10 September, suggests that the size of the Royal Air Force (RAF) is undergoing a period of terminal decline in which the reduced induction of new aircraft does not offset for the growing number of platforms due to retire from service.
In his resignation letter, the former UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace implored British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, warning him that “We must not return to the days where defence was viewed as a discretionary spend by government and savings achieved by hollowing out.”
The Committee, in its report published only 12 days later, is under the impression that “the RAF has not been immune from the hollowing out of the Armed Forces.”
“We have been particularly struck by the MoD’s [UK Ministry of Defence] apparent willingness to accept capability gaps as a way of balancing the budget,” the report continued.
Committee perspective on a dwindling force structure
The report reminds us that “there is a fine balance to be struck between reliance on Nato and sovereign capability.”
When it comes to combat air, the Committee notes that the MoD will retire its 30 Tranche 1 Typhoon fighter jets by the end 2025, shortened in the Defence Command Paper Refresh from its original retirement year in 2030.
Simultaneously, GlobalData intelligence tells us that the RAF operates 23 F-35B units. The Committee report also suggests that the “Force growth rate of the UK’s F-35 fleet has so far been slower than planned.”
Similarly, the retirement of the E-3D Sentry has left the UK without a land-based fixed-wing Airborne Early Warning And Control capability. The MoD has already extended this capability gap as the in-service date for the Sentry’s replacement, the E-7A Wedgetail, has slipped by a year.
Moreover, when the Wedgetail does eventually enter service, it will be as a reduced fleet of just three aircraft rather than the five originally ordered.
Is the UK MoD on the right path?
The MoD is prioritising integration and organised military planning when acting as a joint force. Compared with how the MoD usually operates, this is a much-needed change of culture.
“Well, I don’t think it’s just about having more planes than the other side, I don’t think it necessarily means being more technologically advanced than the other side, although very obviously both of those things help,” the Minister of the Armed Forces, James Heappey stated at the Chief of the Air Staff’s Air and Space Power Conference in July.
“Because in Ukraine what we have seen is this amazing ability where if you apply military planning, and you bring together these systems and things, some of which are third generation, some fourth, some might be touching on fifth, highly complex weapons while along less sophisticated platforms… But all wrapped up in highly sophisticated decoys… actually, what you see is that the sum of the system is often greater than its parts.
“Our tendency, I fear, when we look at procurement policy, certainly in the UK MoD, is the shopping list that comes up is all about individual platforms. Very, very rarely is it about the thing, the glue, the grease that makes the system work and brings together all those platforms because that’s where the overwhelming effect comes.”
As realistic as this position may be in the long-term, when the MoD will look to integrate new emerging technologies and systems, such as when the quantum revolution hits, the RAF still faces the problematic question: what about the here and now?
At the same conference another panelist, Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Research fellow in Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute warned of a tight timeframe that places the UK in a precarious position in the short-term.
With the US military desperately stretched against the Chinese threat in the Indo-Pacific, they will be less able to defend their allies in the 2026 to 2028 timeframe.
“[The US] are going to be pulling [equipment] out of Europe not putting it back in.” (Source: airforce-technology.com)
11 Sep 23. L3Harris bolsters defence commitments as it expands in Poland. L3Harris Technologies and PGZ signed an MOU for defence collaboration, whilst L3Harris is to open an Advanced EO/IR sensor manufacturing facility in Poland.
In a strategic move following the MSPO conference, L3Harris Technologies and Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa S.A. (PGZ) joined forces to strengthen Poland’s defence capabilities.
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Simultaneously, L3Harris announced plans to establish an electro-optical/infrared sensor manufacturing facility in Poland, reaffirming their commitment to the nation’s security and growth.
Expanding Poland presence
L3Harris Technologies is making strides in enhancing Poland’s defence capabilities and local industry growth. Following the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with PGZ, the two companies are poised to change communication systems integration and sustainment for the Polish Armed Forces.
The MOU solidifies the partnership between L3Harris and PGZ, envisioning a swift response to Polish defence needs, from system development to in-country field maintenance.
PGZ have been busy in August, following the awarding of a $292.9m contract for 400 light reconnaissance vehicles and the announcement of a framework agreement between UK defence prime Babcock and PGZ on the Miecznik frigate programme, which will deliver three new frigates from 2026 in a deal thought to be worth around $2bn.
Under this agreement, PGZ subsidiaries Wojskowe Zakłady Łączności Nr 2 SA (WZŁ 2) and PIT Radwar S.A. will renew their status as authorised in-country maintenance facilities for L3Harris tactical radio products. Additionally, L3Harris intends to designate WZŁ 2 and PIT RADWAR as preferred in-country installation and integration providers.
Rick Dickson, L3Harris regional managing director for Central and Eastern Europe, emphasised their commitment, stating, “This MOU represents a great step toward providing our customers with the highest level of support and service for our resilient and interoperable communications solutions.”
Furthermore, L3Harris plans to extend its presence in Poland by inaugurating an advanced electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) engineering and manufacturing facility in 2024. This 2,800-square-metre facility will serve European and international customers with EO/IR sensor systems.
Dave Johnson, vice president of international at L3Harris, expressed the significance of this expansion, stating, “Our advanced EO/IR manufacturing facility and increased business presence in the heart of Europe will enable our customers to remain operationally ready while we continue to strengthen our local partnerships.”
Poland’s defence investment
Questions are asked as to why L3Harris is expanding its presence in Poland. In GlobalData’s analyst briefing, “Poland and its neighbours may be shifting the centre of gravity in European defence & security“, James Marques provides his insights into Poland’s growing military position in Europe as the country’s defence posture has taken a turn following the invasion of Russian soldiers into neighbouring Ukraine.
“Poland’s Homeland Defence Act passed on March 11, 2022, committed to increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of 2023 – but defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak has stated a longer-term goal may even reach 5% of GDP.
If the pledges made by Poland since February 2022 are to be realised, the country will be on track to field the largest force in the EU by the end of 2023 with an array of modern and capable platforms.”
In August, Polish defence announcements amounted to 50% of the nation’s planned 2023 spend, showing Poland’s desire to spend big in defence to recapitalise its military following donations of its defence inventory to neighbouring Ukraine.
This facility will facilitate research and development and offer advanced repair services and product support, contributing to local job creation.
In a joint statement, both companies affirmed their dedication to “Polonization,” enhancing technological capabilities and contributing to the growth and advancement of the Polish defence sector. This collaboration represents a commitment to support and strengthen Poland’s defence capabilities, enhancing the nation’s security and development.
With L3Harris’s history of supporting the Polish Armed Forces and these recent developments, Poland’s defence capabilities are set to be impacted for the better. (Source: army-technology.com)
09 Sep 23. Royal Navy flagship sails to lead international carrier strike group deployment. Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth sails from Portsmouth for her autumn deployment.
Britain’s flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth sails this week from Portsmouth as she heads north to lead a Carrier Strike Group deployment alongside ships from partner nations.
The aircraft carrier, crewed by up to 900 sailors, with her F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters and Merlin helicopters will lead a mixed group of warships from various nations as they head to the Norwegian Sea and waters of northern Europe.
The UK Carrier Strike Group deployment comes just days after HMS Prince of Wales departed Portsmouth for the United States, where she will undergo trials and operate a multitude of aircraft and drones.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said: “The UK leadership of this international strike group shows the strength of our commitment to working with Allies to promote security in Europe and demonstrate our resolve against any threat from potential adversaries.”
With both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales deployed simultaneously, the Royal Navy sends a strong message that the UK’s capability for carrier operations is among the strongest in the world.
The first phase of the deployment will see the carrier’s F35 fighter jets taking part in Exercise Cobra Warrior, the RAF’s largest bi-annual exercise, which will see aircraft from the Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, and the UK taking part in joint exercises.
The 18-day exercise will involve RAF Typhoon and F35 jets, A400M and C17 transport aircraft, and Voyager air tankers, developing interoperability alongside allied aircraft and practicing integration between fourth and fifth generation fighter aircraft across air, sea, and land.
Commodore James Blackmore, Commander of the Carrier Strike Group, said: “It is with much eagerness that the UK Carrier Strike Group is now assembling for deployed operations – the first time the UK CSG will be under my command. This autumn’s deployment showcases the UK’s capability to operate at range from the UK and demonstrates our continued commitment to North Atlantic security.”
The Carrier Strike Group is an agile and highly capable force and we are excited to be heading to the North Sea and North Atlantic along with our International Partner Nations to reinforce security across the region.
The following phases involve HMS Queen Elizabeth and the Carrier Strike Group conducting activities alongside international partners, including through the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) framework – highlighting the utility and strength of JEF.
A series of sorties will also be carried out by 617 Squadron – the Dambusters, the joint RAF-RN Lightning stealth fighter formation from RAF Marham – and the strike group will take part in various port visits and defence engagement events.
Captain Will King, HMS Queen Elizabeth’s Commanding Officer, said: “It is an extraordinary privilege to have command of one of the Royal Navy’s most capable ships and to lead a dedicated and highly skilled crew on operations. As we sail to the north leading a coalition of nations in our unwavering commitment to peace and security in Northern Europe, we stand together as a formidable force for stability in these waters.”
The 65,000-tonne carrier and her Strike Group will also join NATO allies for exercises and training in the North Atlantic.
The deployment will mark the second time the Royal Navy flagship has led an international carrier strike group, after her deployment to the Indo-Pacific in 2021.
HMS Prince of Wales will lead a further Carrier Strike Group deployment to the Indo-Pacific in 2025, further strengthening the UK’s defence ties in the region. (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
08 Sep 23. Kongsberg expects launch customer for Vanguard multrole ship imminently. Testing and qualification of the Vanguard multirole ship by designer Kongsberg has been completed and the company expects a launch customer shortly. The vessel is optimised to be a ‘mothership’ for uncrewed systems.
Arild Skoge, business development manager at Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace, told Shephard ahead of DSEI 2023 that the company had worked through pricing for ship construction with five different Norwegian shipyards during mid-2023.
‘What we are trying to promote with Vanguard is the ability to break the cost curve in the naval domain,’ he explained, adding that the pricing exercises were to assure that the cost of delivering the vessel is remains low.
‘It is full speed for the Vanguard now to try and get the first launch customer, that is the main focus and highest priority,’ Skoge added,
(Source: Google/Shephard)
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Founded in 1987, Exensor Technology is a world leading supplier of Networked Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) Systems providing tailored sensor solutions to customers all over the world. From our Headquarters in Lund Sweden, our centre of expertise in Network Communications at Communications Research Lab in Kalmar Sweden and our Production site outside of Basingstoke UK, we design, develop and produce latest state of the art rugged UGS solutions at the highest quality to meet the most stringent demands of our customers. Our systems are in operation and used in a wide number of Military as well as Home land Security applications worldwide. The modular nature of the system ensures any external sensor can be integrated, providing the user with a fully meshed “silent” network capable of self-healing. Exensor Technology will continue to lead the field in UGS technology, provide our customers with excellent customer service and a bespoke package able to meet every need. A CNIM Group Company
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