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Archives by category > Warfare – Lessons (RSS)

The US Navy’s Mobile Landing Platform Ships (MLP)

Feb 01, 2015 00:27 UTC

Latest updates[?]: The U.S. Navy reports that the first mobile landing platform, the NSNS Montford Point, ran through a series of purpose-proving evolutions, including the loading of vehicles onto landing crafts air cushion (LCACs). Their release includes some good images of the different types of available ship interactions, although some of them are at least 15 months old.Initial LCAC interface tests were completed in June 2013, and the ship has managed to avoid the news since, which is likely a good thing.The second ship, the John Glenn, is already in Navy hands, but is to undergo further construction in Oregon. The third of the series, the Lewis B. Puller, also designated an Afloat Forward Staging Base with additional logistics, command and aviation capacity, was floated in November and is still under construction.A second AFSB variant was ordered by the Navy in December 2014, to be built again by General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, a contract worth $498 million.
MLP concept

MLP concept

The Montford Point Class Mobile Landing Platform is intended to be a new class and type of auxiliary support ship, as part of the US Navy’s Maritime Prepositioning Force of the Future (MPF-F) program. They’re intended to serve as a transfer station or floating pier at sea, improving the U.S. military’s ability to deliver equipment and cargo from ship to shore when friendly bases are denied, or simply don’t exist. That’s very useful in disaster situations, and equally useful for supporting US Marines once they’re ashore.

It’s an interesting and unusual concept, one closely connected to the au courant concept of “seabasing”. The final MLP design changed substantially from the initial requirements, which lowered the platform’s cost along with its capabilities. Time will tell if the initial choices and tradeoffs were well-conceived or not. With contracts to build the ships underway, the remaining question is whether the ships can be built to meet the more limited promises that are being made now.

Continue Reading… »

South Africa’s Sad Military: Why Maintenance Matters

Jul 13, 2014 17:57 UTC

Latest updates[?]: South Africa's own 2014 Defence Review confirms the depth of the problem.
SAAF JAS-39D, Pretoria

SAAF JAS-39D

In 1999, South Africa became the Saab JAS-39 Gripen‘s 1st export customer, ordering 26 fighters. The country is generally considered to be one of Africa’s stronger economies, and a regional security partner. On the defense front, their arms firms have managed to survive, albeit with some adjustment pains and restructuring. They can still produce weapons that are relevant on the world stage.

Unless current trends change, however, outside views of the country’s regional security role may need a rethink.

Continue Reading… »

Tanks for the Lesson: Leopards, too, for Canada

Jun 18, 2014 16:15 UTC DII

Latest updates[?]: Tank upgrades to improve optics; Additional Readings sections updated, upgraded.
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Leo 2A6AM-CAN & LAV-III, Afghanistan

Leopard 2A6M CAN

Canadian Forces took some of the lessons re-learned during Operation Medusa in Afghanistan, directly to heart. Canada’s DND:

“The heavily protected direct fire capability of a main battle tank is an invaluable tool in the arsenal of any military. The intensity of recent conflicts in Central Asia and the Middle East has shown western militaries that tanks provide protection that cannot be matched by more lightly armored wheeled vehicles… [Canada’s existing Leopard C2/1A5] tanks have also provided the Canadian Forces (CF) with the capability to travel to locations that would otherwise be inaccessible to wheeled light armoured vehicles, including Taliban defensive positions.”

In October 2003, Canada was set to buy the Styker/LAV-III 105mm Mobile Gun System to replace its Leopard C2 tanks. By 2007, however, the lessons of war took Canada down a very different path – one that led them to renew the very tank fleet they were once intent on scrapping, while backing away from the wheeled vehicles that were once the cornerstone of the Canadian Army’s transformation plan. This updated article includes a full chronology for Canada’s new Leopard 2 tanks, adds information concerning DND’s exact plans and breakdowns for their new fleet, and discusses front-line experiences in Afghanistan.

Continue Reading… »

ENVG-III/ FWS-I: Point and Shoot Night Vision

May 07, 2014 21:21 UTC

Night operations

Night Vision Goggles have provided American troops with important combat advantages, and the technology has continued to advance. The Army has moved to field Enhanced Night Vision Goggles, but soldiers complained about the first 9,000 or so. 2013 saw generation II ENVGs arrive, but the Pentagon is really excited about ENVG III, and that excitement goes beyond improvements in resolution. They’re so excited that they’ve just issued 9-figure contracts to 2 firms…

Continue Reading… »

India Moves to Boost Anti-Tank Capabilities

Apr 06, 2014 16:00 UTC

Latest updates[?]: $432 million deal for 66,000 APFSDS anti-tank shells.
Indian T-90S

Indian T-90S

India’s armed forces have been complaining of a severe shortage of tank ammunition, and the fleet’s new T-90 tanks have had their share of problems. In 2012, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) began moving to patch these gaps, by approving budgets for a pair of purchases. One is a gun-launched missile that can make the T-90 fleet more effective, while supplementing existing tank ammunition. The other is a follow-on order for an anti-tank missile that can be used by the infantry or mounted on vehicles. That has been followed in 2014 by a more prosaic order for basic ammunition, as a fix for self-inflicted injuries.

Taken together, India hopes to add some punch to its mechanized divisions in particular.

Continue Reading… »

Franco-Italian Athena-Fidus Offers Wideband Satcom

Feb 17, 2014 15:23 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Recent launch; Article reformatted; Additional Readings updated.
DGA pic

In February 2010, a EUR 280 million contract launched the Athena-Fidus (Access on THeatres for European allied forces NAtions-French Italian Dual Use Satellite) satellite program. The program is similar to the concept behind the US/Australian WGS, aiming to complement hardened satellite systems with a non-hardened broadband system. The satellite was launched in 2014.

France’s recent scramble to find the satellite bandwidth required to operate its Heron/Harfang UAVs in Afghanistan illustrates the project’s immediate military relevance. Once operational, the Athena-Fidus system will be used by the French, Belgian and Italian armed forces, as well as the civil protection services of France and Italy.

Continue Reading… »

LEMV Airship Sold Back to Manufacturer for a Song, and Future Data

Oct 24, 2013 11:55 UTC

Latest updates[?]: LEMV sold back to HAV.
LEMV

LEMV concept

The rise of modern terrorism, sharply increasing costs to recruit and equip professional soldiers, and issues of energy security, are forcing 2 imperatives on modern armies. Modern militaries need to be able to watch wide areas for very long periods of time. Not just minutes, or even hours any more, but days if necessary. The second imperative, beyond the need for that persistent, unblinking stare up high in the air, is the need to field aerial platforms whose operating costs won’t bankrupt the budget.

These pressures are forcing an eventual convergence toward very long endurance, low operating cost platforms. Many are lighter-than-air vehicles or hybrid airships, whose technologies have advanced to make them safe and militarily useful again. On the ground near military bases, Raytheon’s RAID program fielded aerostats, and then surveillance towers. Lockheed Martin has also fielded tethered aerostats: TARS along the USA’s southern border, and PTDS aerostats on the front lines. The same trend can be observed in places like Thailand and in Israel; and Israeli experience has led to export orders in Mexico and India. At a higher technical level, Raytheon’s large JLENS aerostats are set to play a major role in American aerial awareness and cruise missile defense, and a huge ground and air scanning ISIS radar is under development under a DARPA project, to pair with Lockheed Martin’s fully mobile High Altitude Airship.

The Army’s Long-Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) project fitted in between RAID and HAA/ISIS, in order to give that service mobile, affordable, very long term surveillance in uncontested airspace. Its technologies and flight data may eventually wind up playing a role in other projects. This would help the Army recoup some of its investment, as it sold its prototype back to its manufacturer in the fall of 2013, for the price of a luxury car.

Continue Reading… »

Choices, Changes & Opportunities: Corporate Lessons from the Afghan R4D Exit

Oct 23, 2013 13:00 UTC

UPS trucks M-ATVs

M-ATVs, hauling out

The US Army’s Retrograde, Reset, Redeployment, Redistribution, and Disposal (R4D or “Afghan retrograde”) is a huge effort, moving an estimated $17 billion of good out of country at a cost of around $6 billion. Some of its successes, and failings, offer lessons that apply much further down the chain of service, and in the commercial world.

Continue Reading… »

Iraq: Weapons – and Challenges – In the Pipeline

Jul 18, 2013 00:15 UTC

SA-22 Pantsyr

The last quarterly report [PDF] from SIGIR (the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction) included an interview with OSC-I (Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq) head Lieutenant General Robert Caslen.

Among other things, it provides an interesting breakdown of Iraq’s planned future purchases. Overall:

Continue Reading… »

Gulf Chokepoint: Seafox Saves the Day?

Oct 21, 2012 15:38 UTC

Latest updates[?]: Additional SeaFox orders, plans.
Seafox UUV

Seafox Mk.II

Rising tensions in the Persian Gulf, coupling increasingly bellicose actions by Iran with pointed American warnings, have left international navies thinking hard about how to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for oil traffic. Naval mines, which can be laid by submarines or boats, remain one of the most difficult and inconvenient threats to counter. That was true during the last set of armed clashes between the USA and Iran in the 1980s. It remains true, and the USA has weakened its position by retiring its modern Osprey Class minehunter ships. Some are available for reactivation in an emergency, but their place was supposed to be taken by the MH-60S helicopter’s Airborne Mine Counter-Measures (AMCM) system.

The USA is looking to bolster its defenses in the Straits, but AMCM isn’t quite ready yet. That leaves them looking elsewhere for urgent operational buys. While countries like China counter mines using unmanned ships, the US Navy is turning toward a widely-bought German UUV…

Continue Reading… »
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