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North Dakota National Air Guard to receive two unmanned Aircraft

The North Dakota National Air Guard’s 119th Wing will receive two unmanned aircraft this summer.

That was reported by

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The National Guard says the move part of the U.S. Air Force’s larger plan to upgrade its remotely piloted capability.

The aircraft is the MQ-9 Reaper, a multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance precision attack and reconnaissance aircraft. It will be used for training purposes.

The MQ-9 Reaper is an armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that is employed primarily against dynamic execution targets and secondarily as an intelligence collection asset.

Given its significant loiter time, wide-range sensors, multi-mode communications suite, and precision weapons – it provides a unique capability to perform strike, coordination, and reconnaissance against high-value, fleeting, and time-sensitive targets.

The Reaper has a 950-shaft-horsepower (712 kW) turboprop engine (compared to the Predator’s 115 hp (86 kW) piston engine). The greater power allows the Reaper to carry 15 times more ordnance payload and cruise at about three times the speed of the MQ-1.[6] The aircraft is monitored and controlled by aircrew in the Ground Control Station (GCS), including weapons employment.

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CORONADO

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in

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exercises Thursday in the South

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Sea with Singapore's INTREPID , Thailand's NARESUAN

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Saab has unveiled a modified A26 submarine fitted with vertical launched land attack cruise missiles at the IMDEX Asia maritime and defense exhibition in Singapore, the first time such a system has been fitted on a conventionally powered boat.

The model on display at Saab’s stand at IMDEX Asia showed three cylinders with six vertical launch cells each in the lengthened midships section of a model of an A26 submarine. Saab says the lengthened section adds 33 feet and about 400 to 500 tons to the displacement of the A26.

According to Gunnar Öhlund, head of marketing at Kockums, which is part of Saab, the lengthened module “shows the flexibility in performing different missions” of the A26, which he says can also be used for stowing and deploying unmanned underwater vehicles and even special forces or naval divers.

Saab says that the lengthened module can be fitted on newly built submarines or retrofitted onto existing boats as part of a Mid-Life Upgrade program. The company has had experience in the latter for Singapore’s Archer class submarines, which were former Swedish Västergötland class submarines with a 40-foot section added for an air-independent propulsion unit.

When asked by Defense News about the effect the addition of the segment will have on the A26’s performance, Öhlund said that Saab’s previous experience with similar work on other submarines has shown that any effects on their overall performance.

Defense News understands that the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, or TLAM, is being proposed by Saab for a potential European customer’s ongoing submarine program. The fact that the company can come up with a firm proposal like this would indicate that it already secured approval from the United States to integrate Tomahawks onto the A26.

Saab has declined to reveal who that customer is, although there aren’t very many European countries that have a submarine acquisition program of record and is close enough to the U.S. to be able to acquire Tomahawks for one to make an educated guess as to the identity of the interested party.

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US Navy awards Northrop Grumman $303M for MQ-4C Triton UAS procurement

The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman Systems a $303,9 million contract for the procurement of three low-rate initial production Lot 2 MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft.

In addition to the three UAVs, the $303 million contract also covers the acquisition of one main operation control station, one forward operation control station, trade studies, and tooling.

Triton UAS is an unmanned, unarmed, remotely controlled aircraft employed to enhance maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data collection to the fleet, providing both tactical and strategic mission capabilities as part of the U.S. Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance force.

The multiple-sensor unmanned aircraft is 48 feet long with a wingspan of 131 feet. The MQ-4C Triton UAS will conduct operations over water, with most operations occurring over international waters 12 miles or more offshore.

Triton UAS uses a “remote split” operational concept, where mission crews are located at a main operating base (MOB), while air vehicles and maintenance personnel are located at a FOB. The East Coast Triton UAS squadron (VUP-19) MOB is based at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville. U.S. Naval Station Mayport serves as the FOB.

Northrop Grumman is expected to deliver the three UAS by April 2021.

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Jura said:

Mar 26, 2017
while
Boeing Defense CEO ‘Not Thrilled’ With Tanker Progress
May 3, 2017

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is forging ahead with

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Pegasus

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airworthiness certification in the hopes of getting the aircraft certified for delivery to the U.S. Air Force by year’s end.

The company is on the hook to deliver 18 combat-ready aircraft to the service’s first operational and training bases by “early 2018,” a revised timeline set down by the government in late 2016 when the program entered low-rate initial production.

The program is running about one year behind its original delivery schedule because of various technical setbacks during development. Boeing continued building tankers on its own dime at the planned rate and now has six test aircraft built and flying, plus 20 more in various stages of assembly. But the Air Force won’t accept any deliveries of aircraft before the airworthiness certification process is complete.

Mike Gibbons, Boeing’s KC-46 vice president and program manager, says he is confident the aircraft will be certified by year’s end, and at that point Boeing will deliver the aircraft as fast as the Air Force can accept them.

The KC-46 is based on a heavily modified

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commercial aircraft, redesignated as the 767-2C. To verify its flight worthiness, the FAA, Air Force and Boeing are working to produce an amended type certification (ATC) and supplemental type certificate (STC) for the tanker type and its wing-mounted aerial refueling pods. Gibbons says the ATC is 90% complete and the STC is 60% done.

Meanwhile, all of the aircraft already built are being modified to account for new technical discoveries and design changes as flight testing continues so they will be ready for quick delivery.

By year’s end, KC-46s should start flying to the first operational squadron at McConnell AFB, Kansas, and the tanker schoolhouse at Altus AFB in Oklahoma.

“The aircraft right now is performing well,” Gibbons says. “It’s projected to meet or exceed all performance requirements.”

The company has taken more than $2 billion in pre-tax adjusted charges related to KC-46 development. But Boeing has secured three low-rate production contracts totaling 34 aircraft and booked its first international customer, Japan.

The aircraft is desperately needed to begin replacing the Air Force’s oldest KC-135 Stratotankers, which have been flying for more than six decades. The service also wants to retire the KC-10, if possible.

U.S. Transportation Command has expressed interest in getting more tankers sooner through higher annual production rates, above the planned rate of 15. But Boeing and the Air Force have been cool to the prospect of going above 15 per year as they concentrate on completing testing, believing those decisions can wait for another day, after the first 18 operation aircraft are in place. The KC-X/KC-46 program will deliver 179 aircraft.

The flight test program is about 60-70% complete and Boeing is on contract to certify the first tranche of aircraft for refueling behind the KC-46. That includes the

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,

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, AV-8B,

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, and A-10, among others, which together represent 70% of the

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’s air fleet.

Those aircraft already have gassed up behind the KC-46 to qualify the aircraft for low-rate production, but must still be formally certified to refuel with the tanker. A total of 64 different military aircraft types, U.S. and allied, from fast jets to turboprops and the slow-moving A-10 “Warthog,” will be certified. The

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Joint Strike Fighter, the Western world’s future stealth fighter, will be certified to refuel sometime after 2018. To date, the KC-46 test fleet has completed 1,600 flight hours and 1,200 refueling contacts.

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Jura said:

until I got to the sentence

"The fact that the company can come up with a firm proposal like this would indicate that it already secured approval from the United States to integrate Tomahawks onto the A26."

I had been thinking like 'who would sell them Tomahawks hahaha' but it seems they'll have the last laugh

Saab A26 submarine gets vertical launched Tomahawks

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Sweden’s Saab is displaying a model of its

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(SSK) fitted with vertical launch missile tubes at

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.

This version of the boat is designed to emphasise the modular capability of the submarine with the installation of a 10m section containing three launchers, each containing six missiles.

It is the first time that a conventional diesel-electric-powered submarine has been designed with the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile capability (TLAM). Existing boats that have TLAM – the US Navy and UK Royal Navy submarines – are all nuclear-powered (SSN).

The only other land attack capability that is fitted to conventional submarines has had to be through missiles fired through the torpedo tubes.

It is no small feat to install a vertical launch land attack capability onto an SSK, but the modular design means that a 10m section can be relatively easily installed. The modular section could also instead contain more batteries or AIP depending on the customer requirements.

Saab has received interest from customers that want a land attack capability in a smaller conventional submarine, but would not disclose what countries.

Naturally, the country would have to be a close US ally due to the restrictions in the sale of cruise missiles. Most countries that could procure an A26 of this type either would not be allowed to buy TLAM or have already selected other submarine designs for their sub-surface capability.

Poland, however, is one country that may fit the bill as it is still looking for a submarine capability, has close relations with Sweden, and is also a close ally of the US being a part of NATO.

As a part of a wider naval expansion programme Poland wants to acquire three submarines from 2023 and Saab is bidding alongside European rivals, DCNS and TKMS.

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The informally named “Iron Man” suit that U.S. Special Operations has been developing will start to come together over the next 18 months with a first prototype expected to be fully built by the end of 2018.

Formally known as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, Special Operations Command has spent the past four years tackling complicated technical hurdles to try to revolutionize the performance of a dismounted operator by developing the armored exoskeleton.

“It’s getting very real right now,” Col. James Miller, the director of the Joint Acquisition Task Force TALOS, said Wednesday at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference.

The team of around 35 vendors, labs and academic institutions are diving deeper on systems engineering, he said, adding, “We are going to start building parts and snapping them together” while testing for functionality and safety.

Some skeptics have said the project is moving too slowly or that it's a waste of money to try to develop something only a reality in comic books and movies, akin to the Pentagon building a "Star Wars" Death Star. A few years ago, the suit even made its way into then-Sen. Tom Coburn's, R-Okla., famous "wastebook" among 100 federal programs he called wasteful.

But for Miller, getting TALOS right would be a revolutionary leap ahead achievement for the future special operator, not meant to be fielded in just a few years. “We are trying to redefine in many respects science and engineering,” he said.

“We are putting a human inside of a robot,” Miller said, which “has to emulate the human itself.”

The program isn’t tackling how to give back capability to someone who is impaired; it’s trying to take an elite athlete and super empower someone with that capability, James “Hondo” Geurts, USSOCOM acquisition executive told Defense News in an interview at SOFIC.

While SOCOM is trying to push the bounds with a full suit, there have already been “great spin-offs both in technology and in business practices,” along the way, he said.

TALOS program officials sat down with industry representatives by appointment for nearly 12 non-consecutive hours over the course of three-and-a-half day conference.

Each layer of the suit presents complicated technical challenges, and integrating all the layers is yet another challenge. Miller sees it as a "system of systems," like an aircraft or other major weapons platform.

Miller said the base layer of the suit needs to be capable of regulating the operator’s temperature and will have tubes incorporated into the layer delivering chilled water to keep an operator’s core from overheating. Also “junctional fragmentation” will be woven into the fabric to protect the operator where armor pieces won’t cover.

The exoskeleton’s purpose is to displace hundreds of pounds of weight and enhance body movement. It has to be perfectly form-fitting, “kinematically seamless with the body,” Miller said. The individual wearing it shouldn’t notice it’s there.

“If we get that right, then we are good,” he said, adding exoskeletons have been attempted in the past several decades, but some were so big they couldn’t fit through a door. That won’t work for special operators engaging in close-quarter combat, Miller added.

The 800-part exoskeleton is currently being built using carbon fiber plastics, which is strong enough to replicate and prove design, but not enough to be encumbering or too expensive, Miller said.

The program has used rapid 3-D prototyping as it refines the exoskeleton and has managed to cut what was expected to be a billion-dollar project “way back,” Miller said.

For now, the first prototype will be made of titanium, he said, which is lighter and stronger.

Building on the exoskeleton will be an electric actuation system to emulate muscles. The program will develop both upper- and lower-body actuation, Miler said, which is very hard to do, but both are needed.

The final layer of the suit is the armor. The military has mastered ballistic protection on the chest, back and head, but the legs, arms and face continue to lack appropriate protection, Miller said.

The suit can’t be completely armored head to toe because it would hinder movement too much, so positioning the armor is crucial. The current suit would likely have 26 pieces of armor.

The program is entertaining the idea of a removable mandible to cover the lower half of the face and is experimenting with ways to protect the entire face.

“The thing we haven’t gotten to yet is transparent ballistic material glass … that is not so thick you get [dizzy] and want to throw up all over the place,” Miller said.

The entire suit will be powered through a system on the back that is currently configured to use commercially available batteries. That method of power is limiting, but at least it’s not a suit that requires being plugged into the wall like experimental robotic suits of the past, Miller noted.

The power will not only control the suit but also a computer that processes a network of communications systems integrated into the helmet that feeds audio and imagery into some kind of head-up display, possibly at cheek-level, Miller said.

Much is left to be contemplated after the first prototype is built, and Miller stressed this is the first of many.

Questions have yet to be answered, such as how the suit could be employed operationally, how to get it to fit a variety of body types and how an operator would quickly get out of the suit if it broke down. Those would likely be answered once the science and technology piece ended and the program moved into an official program of record, according to Miller.

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FORBIN said:

US Navy awards Northrop Grumman $303M for MQ-4C Triton UAS procurement

The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman Systems a $303,9 million contract for the procurement of three low-rate initial production Lot 2 MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft.

In addition to the three UAVs, the $303 million contract also covers the acquisition of one main operation control station, one forward operation control station, trade studies, and tooling.

Triton UAS is an unmanned, unarmed, remotely controlled aircraft employed to enhance maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data collection to the fleet, providing both tactical and strategic mission capabilities as part of the U.S. Navy’s maritime patrol and reconnaissance force.

The multiple-sensor unmanned aircraft is 48 feet long with a wingspan of 131 feet. The MQ-4C Triton UAS will conduct operations over water, with most operations occurring over international waters 12 miles or more offshore.

Triton UAS uses a “remote split” operational concept, where mission crews are located at a main operating base (MOB), while air vehicles and maintenance personnel are located at a FOB. The East Coast Triton UAS squadron (VUP-19) MOB is based at Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville. U.S. Naval Station Mayport serves as the FOB.

Northrop Grumman is expected to deliver the three UAS by April 2021.

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Navy Orders Second Batch of Triton UAVs

The Navy has ordered a second lot of MQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) plus some control equipment.

On May16, Naval Air Systems Command awarded to Northrop Grumman a contract modification of $304 million for Low-Rate Initial Production Lot 2 (LRIP-2), which will include three MQ-4Cs, one main control station, one forward operation control station, trade studies and tooling.

LRIP advanced procurement was approved February 2015. Operational Assessment was completed in February 2016. The full contract for LRIP-1 was awarded on Sept. 27 for three MQ-4Cs, one main operating base and one forward operating base.

The MQ-4C is a long-awaited addition to the Navy’s maritime patrol community that also is modernizing with the Boeing-built P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in place of the Lockheed P-3C Orion. The P-8A and MQ-4C will be the basis for a family of systems that will patrol the oceans.

The MQ-4C is designed to conduct maritime surveillance for the fleet. Its endurance provides a long-dwell capability to monitor its assigned track. Its multifunction radar, electro-optical cameras, electronic surveillance measures sensor and Automatic Information System will allow it to search, detect and track shipping and other targets, and relay the data back to a ground- or ship-based mission control station or to another maritime patrol aircraft.

The Navy plans to procure 68 MQ-4Cs in addition to two prototypes in the System Development and Demonstration Program. Two operational squadrons together will field five orbits, for a total requirement of 20 Tritons. The remaining 38 aircraft would sustain the program for attrition, training and depot-level maintenance. Although less than 30 MQ-4Cs will be in service at any one time when the system reaches full operational capability, the production run will be able to sustain the orbits as the service life of the aircraft expire over time.

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Army's 2018 budget request: stockpiles munitions, modernizes armored brigades
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The Army has 20 ABCT equipment sets, but five of the sets haven’t seen updates to its tanks or Bradley Fighting Vehicles since Desert Storm. The service in 2018 will invest heavily in the V3 Abrams tank, the A4 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and the Paladin Integrated Management howitzers.

Funding for the ABCT modernization will come from the base, ERI and OCO funding, the official said.

One of the brigade sets will go to Europe for prepositioned stock. The Army’s pre-positioned stocks — known as APS — are set up in each combatant command to be used in a contingency operation for rapid response.

Another set will go to Fort Stewart, Georgia, to supply the Army’s 15th ABCT. The service announced late last year that it would convert the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart to an ABCT.

Full modernization of those two ABCTs will take place over 2018 and 2019.

Should the Army get more money, three sets of ABCTs in the National Guard will get modernized, but not until 2020 or 2021, the official said. All of the vehicles for the modernized ABCTs are ready for production, so they will move off the assembly lines very rapidly.

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