Defence`s Feeds

While another meeting between the Taliban and officials from Kabul took place in Doha on 30 April and the US

The Information Fusion Centre in Singapore, a maritime intelligence-sharing hub hosted by the Singaporean navy, could soon find itself at

The accounts filed at the end of April show that Keith Hunter's small high-end investigation company, Animus Associates, survived the

The impact of Brexit has rippled out to Iraq, where, according to Intelligence Online's sources, the European External Action Service

Americas

Sikorsky won a $17.3 million contract modification, that adds scope to provide production system engineering and program management support in support of CH-53K aircraft low-rate initial production. The CH-53K is the United States Marine Corps’ (USMC) heavy lift replacement for the CH-53E. The CH-53K is a new-build helicopter that will expand the fleet’s ability to move more material, more rapidly throughout the area of responsibility using proven and mature technologies. Work will take place in Stratford, Connecticut and is expected to be finished in June 2022.

The US Navy issued Northrop Grumman with a prototype and risk reduction contract for the development of a sense-and-avoid (SAA) capability for the MQ-4C Triton high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAV. SAA is geared at enabling the Triton to operate in controlled airspace and is a focus of the next developmental increment of the co-operative development programme for the USN and RAAF.

Middle East & Africa

According to Africa News, the defense ministers of Burkina Faso and neighbouring Ivory Coast said they would step up their fight against Islamists ravaging the region. A jihadist conflict in the Sahel nations of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has left vast swathes of territory outside of state control, and thousands of people dead. More than 1,300 people have been killed in Burkina Faso and one million have fled violence since 2015, when jihadists emerged in the formerly tranquil West African nation.

Europe

According to a notice by the Ministry of Defense, it is launching a competition that aims to develop alternative future concepts for the Early Warning systems currently deployed in Maritime Task Groups. Current early warning maritime capabilities are delivered by sensors mounted aboard airborne platforms, with the current assumption for a follow-on for Crowsnest (an airborne early warning system fitted to the Merlin Mk2 helicopter) being a singular large radar sensor mounted on an uncrewed air platform. According to the notice, the Defense and Security Accelerator (DASA) “welcomes alternatives that are not based on this approach and match or exceed current airborne capabilities. We are seeking a potential successor to Crowsnest, which has a planned out-of-service date of 2029.”

Asia-Pacific

Japanese ground troops joined American and French counterparts in their first three-way exercise on Japanese land, as they seek to strengthen military ties amid growing Chinese assertiveness in the region. The “ARC21” exercise started on May 11 at the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Ainoura base in Nagasaki prefecture. Japan is seeking to expand its military ties beyond its alliance with the United States to include “like-minded” countries such as France, Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters.

Chengdu J-10 jets powered by indigenous engines have entered operational service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. This represents China’s confidence in the local technology to equip the single-engine, multirole aircraft. According to Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation officials the J-10 uses a multi-mode fire-control radar designed in China. The radar has a mechanically scanned planar array antenna and is capable of tracking 10 targets.

Today’s Video

Watch: CH 53E Super Stallion Big Helicopter in Action at Japan • Hagåtña Fury 21

The European Defence Agency will organise next week (17-25 May) the first virtual event of the Technology Foresight Exercise in which will participate more than 160 experts from EDA Member States (and the countries associated with the Agency) as well as from governmental and international organisations, research centres, academia, and industry. The event is part of a wider defence technology foresight exercise which was launched by the Agency in January and will run until the end of this year. The results and findings will inform the future revision of the European research and capability development priorities as well as the work on the EU’s Strategic Compass.

The discussions and activities of next week’s exercise will build on ‘Futures Narratives’, produced by EDA with a core team of experts, so-called ‘Future Tellers’, and on a new emerging technologies report EDA has produced in collaboration with the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The event will include online meetings, discussions, speeches and brainstorming sessions.

The exercise is innovative in that it will combine different methodologies and processes, along with best practices and lessons learned gather from the wider EDA community of foresight practitioners. In addition, the ‘Future Tellers’ have been appointed to facilitate the outside-the-box thinking this exercise will need to be successful. The Future Tellers are experts from a diverse set of technological and non-technological domains, with civil and military background.

Expected exercise outcome

The expected outcome of the 2021 Technology Foresight Exercise is to provide a high-level, long-term vision on all possible future technologies which could have an impact or become relevant for defence by 2040+. This, in turn, will then help inform the next revision of EDA’s Capability Development Plan (CDP), which defines the European capability development priorities, as well as the Overall Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA) which contains EDA Member States’ jointly agreed defence research priorities. In addition to that, the outcome of the Agency’s technology foresight activities this year will also flow into the ongoing preparations for the EU’s Strategic Compass, supporting resilience-building and strategic autonomy.

Workshop held in April

 As part of the Agency’s initiatives on this domain, the 8th Annual Workshop on Technology Watch and Foresight took place remotely on 29 April, bringing together 56 experts and professionals from 16 participating Member States’ Ministries of Defence, the European Commission and its Joint Research Centre, EISMEA, Frontex, NATO ACT and STO, as well as public and private entities. An intense exchange and discussion on new methodologies, best practices and lessons learned took place within the community of practitioners.

New website page

Meanwhile, a new section on Technology Watch and Foresight activities has been published on EDA website. It offers plenty of information about EDA’s activities in this domain, as part of the Agency’s R&T planning process, the Overarching Strategic Research Agenda (OSRA) tool chain, and in support of the CapTechs.

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Australia’s defence budget for the 2021–22 financial year will rise by 4.4% to AUD44.61 billion (USD34.84 billion), including AUD1 billion for the Australian Signals...

Israel Shipyards announced on 12 May that it has won a tender to supply Shaldag Mk V fast patrol boats to the navy of an East Asian country, which Janes understands to...

National governments, the EU, and NATO are considering how to expand their individual and joint military mobility (MM) efforts across Europe during the next decade, with...

The Czech Republic has received an additional Airbus Defence and Space (DS) C295 airlifter, bringing its total fleet up to five.

Japan’s biggest defence contractors have all reported sharp declines in group revenues and earnings for fiscal year (FY) 2020–21, although defence-sector sales have...

Operational Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets arrived in France for the first time on 10 May, the US Air Force (USAF) announced.

The Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA – the French Procurement Agency), in association with MBDA and Nexter, has conducted the first lock-on-before launch (LOBL)...

The Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO), a division of the Directorate of Defense Research and Development within the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD), on 16...

Three Spanish companies are joining forces to work on developing missile systems and other high-performance guided munitions for home and export markets.

The US Air Force (USAF) on 11 May completed the Project Strike Rodeo (PSR) munitions proof-of-concept that validated loading five Lockheed Martin AGM-158 Joint...

EA is increasingly seen as the ‘must have’ capability for aircraft to operate in heavily contested and defended environments. Gareth Jennings explores some of the primary systems being developed and earmarked for the near future, and the latest procurement programmes that have placed EA at the centre of requirements

China has emerged as a leading supplier of armed UAVs to countries that are unable to acquire Western-made systems due to cost or political inhibitions. Major Chinese UAV suppliers, therefore, are now offering solutions that are fully integrated UAV reconnaissance and strike packages. Kelvin Wong's report follows - shortlisted for 'Best Unmanned Systems Submission' at the 2021 Aerospace Media Awards...

 The export of weaponised, multirole, medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been a consistent and prominent feature in China’s efforts to increase its footprint in the global defence market. At least 14 countries – including advanced and developing economies in Africa, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East – have ordered or taken delivery of a range of armed MALE UAV platforms in the past decade alone, with the list expected to grow in tandem with Beijing’s economic and military influence.

 The surge of export activity within this industry segment is being led by subsidiaries of state-owned defence primes such as the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which have developed successful MALE-class strike reconnaissance (chá dǎ yītǐ) UAVs such as the Rainbow (Cǎihóng, or CH) 4 and 5 and Wing Loong/Pterodactyl (Yì lóng) I and II UAVs that have entered service with the armed forces of Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The proliferation of Chinese-made armed MALE UAVs in these countries has also attracted the attention of the US Department of Defense (DoD), which noted in its 2019 annual report on China’s military and security developments that these UAVs have emerged as one of the key engines of growth for the country’s defence exports. This has enabled Chinese UAV manufacturers to seize a significant share in one of the defence industry’s frontier market segments.

This is an extract - Janes customers can login to read the full report here. For more about Janes interconnected insights and analysis, see What we do.