Harpoon in flight

The sub-sonic, wave-skimming *GM-84 Harpoon is the US Navy’s sole anti-shipping missile, with the minor exception of small AGM-119B Penguin missiles and anti-tank Hellfires carried on some H-60 helicopters. The Harpoon has been adapted into several variants, and exported to many navies around the world. At present, the Harpoon family includes air, sea/land, and submarine-launched versions of the GM-84. Variants such as the land attack SLAM variant and the modern AGM-84K Joint Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER) will also be covered in this DID FOCUS Article, which describes the missiles themselves, and covers global contracts involving this family.

The Harpoon family’s best known competitor is the French/MBDA *M38/39/40 Exocet, but recent years have witnessed a growing competitive roster at both the subsonic (Israel’s Gabriel family, Russia’s SS-N-27 Klub family, Saab’s RBS15, Kongsberg’s stealthy NSM, China’s YJ-82/C-802 used by Hezbollah in Lebanon), and supersonic (Russia’s SS-N-22 Sunburn/Moskit, SS-N-26 Yakhont, and some SS-N-27 Klub variants, India’s SS-N-26 derived PJ-10 BrahMos) tiers.

• GM-84 Harpoon Family: The Missiles [updated]
• GM-84 Harpoon Family: Contracts & Key Events, FY 2007 – Present [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources
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Chinook at Night

South Korea intends to spend more than 2 billion dollars over the next 5 years on missiles according to Yonhap. The Chosunilbo reports that this sum will translate into 500+ Hyunmu-2 and Hyunmu-3 missiles. They’re also adding to their minesweeping capabilities.

Type 26 concept

Britain’s “Future Surface Combatant” program is slated to replace the existing fleet of Type 22 Broadsword Class and Type 23 Duke Class frigates with 2 new ship classes. Outside attention often focuses on big-ticket ships like aircraft carriers, submarines, and advanced destroyers – but the frigate is the real backbone of most modern navies.

Lord Nelson loved his HMS Victory and her fellow first-rate ships of the line, but he asked the admiralty for more cruisers because he knew their versatile value as the “eyes of the fleet.” Modern multi-role frigates that can engage threats on the water, under water, and in the air fill that same role today, protecting other navy ships or undertaking independent action away from their task group. The Type 26 multi-role frigate will have to fill that niche – but first, its requirements and design must be defined.

• Britain’s Future Surface Combatants
• Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings
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• NATO and Pakistan have not found an agreement on reopening transport routes out of Afghanistan. The fact Pakistan tried to increase the price per truck by a factor of 20 might have something to do with it. If allied combat troops are to withdraw by mid-2013 and don’t want to leave most of their equipment behind or ship it back at an outrageous cost, this will need to be resolved.

• Five years after Estonia’s cyber attacks: any lessons learned for NATO? [PDF]

• The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) gathered a lot of force composition data [PDF] in the Gulf.
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The British Ministry of Defence published a “core equipment programme” shopping list [PDF] worth 152 billion pounds (about $244B) over 10 years that they say is sustainable because they have now balanced their books. This includes 2 Queen Elizabeth carriers, Type 45 destroyers and Type 26 frigates, new helicopters, armored fighting vehicles and “continued investment in Typhoon and JSF.” Overall, this sounds like a balanced, sensible plan – don’t look for dramatic changes in it. The next step is a 10-Year Equipment Plan for more details to be assessed by the National Audit Office (NAO). Philip Hammond’s book balancing relies on future defense equipment budget growth that may prove challenging to stick to.

IAF Hawk

The induction of advanced jet trainers into India’s Air Force has been a long and difficult process. After a number of false starts, and indigenous efforts like HAL’s Ajeet that didn’t quite live up to expectations, a 20-year procurement process came to an end in 2004, when India selected BAE’s Hawk as its future advanced jet trainer. The 66-plane order was worth about $1.2 billion, and included options for another 40 aircraft. The first 24 Hawk Mk.132 AJTs have already been delivered by BAE; the other 42 are being license-built by Hindustan Aeronautics, Ltd. in India, who have been behind on the delivery schedule.

Those difficulties had consequences. In March 2009, the Press Trust of India reported that India’s Air Force had elected not to pick up the Hawk’s follow-on option. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual, was a follow-on competition for advanced jet trainers that was thrown open to international firms, via a February 2009 RFP. In the end, BAE’s Hawk won again…

AEHF concept

The USA’s new Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites will support twice as many tactical networks as the current Milstar II satellites, while providing 10-12 times the bandwidth capacity and 6 times the data rate transfer speed. With the cancellation of the higher-capacity TSAT program, AEHF will form the secure, hardened backbone of the Pentagon’s future Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) architecture, with a mission set that includes nuclear command and control. Its companion Family of Advanced Beyond-line-of-sight Terminals (FAB-T) program will give the US military more modern, higher-bandwidth receiving capabilities, and add more flexibility on the front lines. The program has international components, and partners currently include Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands.

This article offers a look at the AEHF system’s rationale and capabilities, while offering insight into some of the program’s problems, and an updated timeline covering over $5 billion worth of contracts since the program’s inception.

• The AEHF Program [updated]
• The AEHF Satellites
• The AEHF Satellites: Contracts & Key Events, full history [updated]
• FAB-T Terminals and Ground Control
• FAB-T & Ground Control: Contracts and Key Events, full history
• Additional Readings
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RN CVF Concept

Britain’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) announced a big leap forward for the Royal Navy: plans to replace the current set of 3 Invincible Class 22,000t escort carriers with 2 larger, more capable Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF) ships that could operate a more powerful force. These new carriers would be joint-service platforms, operating F-35B aircraft, plus helicopters and UAVs from all 3 services. Roles could include ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance), force projection and logistics support, close air support, anti-submarine/ anti-surface naval warfare, and land attack.

The scale of the CVF effort relative to Britain’s past experiences means that the program structure is rather complex. It has passed through several stages already, and is being run and conducted within an industrial alliance framework. There is also a parallel international framework, involving cooperation with France on its PA2 carrier as a derivative of the CVF design. This DID FOCUS article covers that structure and framework, ongoing developments, and the ships themselves as they move slowly through construction, and eventual fielding:

• The CVF Queen Elizabeth Class [updated]
• Program Team: The Aircraft Carrier Alliance
• The CVF Program: Contracts and Key Events [updated]
• Other CVF-Related Contracts and Events
• Additional Readings & Sources
• Appendix A: CVF Program Management
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KC-135: Old as the hills…

DID’s FOCUS articles cover major weapons acquisition programs – and no program is more important to the USAF than its aerial tanker fleet renewal. In January 2007, the big question was whether there would be a competition for the USA’s KC-X proposal, covering 175 production aircraft and 4 test platforms. The total cost for this first phase alone will exceed $25 billion, but America’s aerial tanker fleet demands new planes to replace its KC-135s, whose most recent new delivery was in 1965. Otherwise, unpredictable age or fatigue issues, like the ones that grounded its F-15A-D fighters in 2008, could ground its aerial tankers – and with them, a substantial slice of the USA’s total airpower.

KC-Y and KC-Z contracts may follow in subsequent decades, in order to replace all 530 (195 active; ANG 251; Reserve 84) active tankers, as well as the USAF’s 59 heavy KC-10 tankers that were delivered from 1979-1987. Then again, fiscal and demographic realities may mean that the 179 plane KC-X buy is “it” for the USAF. Either way, the stakes were huge for all concerned.

In the end, it was Team Boeing’s KC-767 NexGen/ KC-46A (767 derivative) vs. EADS North America’s KC-45A (Airbus KC-30/A330-200 derivative), both within the Pentagon and in the halls of Congress. The financial and employment stakes guaranteed a huge political fight no matter which side won. A fight that ended up sinking, and restarting, the entire program, after Airbus won in February 2008. Three years later, Boeing won the recompete. Now, it has to deliver.

• KC-X: The Program
  • The KC-X Competitions
  • The KC-46A Development Phase
  • The KC-46A Production Phase
• Boeing’s KC-46A, and Its Team [updated]
• KC-X RFP: Contracts & Key Developments [updated]
• Appendix A: KC-X RFP v2.0 – The New Structure
• Appendix B: The Contenders and The Cargo Factor – KC-30B, KC-767… KC-777?
• Appendix C: Airbus KC-30/ KC-45A Team
• Additional Readings
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• Who says you cannot make a U-turn with an aircraft carrier? Early media reports were right (it happens!), the UK officially confirmed [PDF] that it will switch its JSF order from the F-35C to the STOVL flavor:

“We expect HMS Queen Elizabeth to be handed over to the Navy in early 2017 for sea trials. We expect to take delivery of our first test aircraft in July of this year, and we expect the first production aircraft to be delivered to us in 2016, with flying from the Queen Elizabeth to begin in 2018, after her sea trials are complete.”

• Canada released its Report on Plans and Priorities 2012-13. It shows total expenses down 10.3% from last year to CAN $19.6B. Planned spending allocates 17.9% to land readiness, 11.6% to joint efforts, 11.4% to maritime readiness and 9.5% to aerospace. Land readiness is almost cut in half but is planned to go back above CAN $3.3B by 2013-14.

• DoD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) FY11 report [PDF] dates from February but was only released publicly earlier this week. Though the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is exempt from DFARS regulations, CAPE has started independently assessing the cost of their programs. They have focused so far on regular major programs (MDAPs) while they have worked mostly on the IT programs (MAIS) deemed to be in the worst shape. Also of note:
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