Lockheed To Test AWS | Iranian Air Force wants to buy the Su-35 | Cyprus receives EMB-135BJ donated by Greece

Americas

Lockheed Martin won a $17.6 million modification, which will exercise options for ship integration and test of the Aegis Weapon System (AWS) for AWS baselines through Advanced Capability Build (ACB) 16. Work will take place in New Jersey, Virginia, California, Washington DC, Mississippi, Florida and Maine. Estimated completion will be by May 2023.

Austal USA won a $11.4 million contract modification to exercise an option for littoral combat ship (LCS) industrial post-delivery availability support for USS Augusta (LCS 34). The LCS main purpose is to take up operations such as patrolling, port visits, anti-piracy, and partnership-building exercises to free up high-end surface combatants for increased combat availability. Work will take place in Alabama and Massachusetts. Expected completion will be by September 2023.

Middle East & Africa

Head of the Iranian Air Force, Brig. Gen. Hamid Vahedi, says his service is interested in acquiring the Su-35 fighter from Russia. Speaking to Borna news agency, he said Iran is no longer looking at the Su-30. Approval is still required from Iran’s Army Command and the Armed Forces General Staff Command. It was reported back in 2020 that Egypt and Algeria are scheduled to take delivery of Su-35s. The Su-35s for Iran if approved, could come from the existing airframes intended for Egypt.

Europe

Greece has donated a EMB-135BJ to Cyprus for use by the latter’s president. Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was at Elefsina Air Base to hand over the aircraft to Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades. Anastasiades and his entourage then boarded the aircraft for their return to Cyprus after the ceremony.

Spanish and German missile manufacturers are leading an effort to develop a new hypersonic defense interceptor as part of the European Defence Fund’s initial batch of sponsored projects. In July, the European Union announced the awards of its first slate of EF-funded projects, which included 61 research-and-development projects and over $1.2 billion in government funds.

Asia-Pacific

India commissioned its first home-built aircraft carrier Friday as it seeks to counter regional rival China’s much larger and growing fleet, and expand its own indigenous shipbuilding capabilities. The INS Vikrant, whose name is a Sanskrit word for “powerful” or “courageous,” is India’s second operational aircraft carrier, joining the Soviet-era INS Vikramaditya that it purchased from Russia in 2004 to defend the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal.

Today’s Video

WATCH: Not Su-30 but Su-35, ‘Most Sophisticated’ Su-35 Fighters To Iran

Serious Dollars for AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)

The AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense System seamlessly integrates the SPY-1 radar, the MK 41 Vertical Launching System for missiles, the SM-3 Standard missile, and the ship’s command and control system, in order to give ships the ability to defend against enemy ballistic missiles. Like its less-capable AEGIS counterpart, AEGIS BMD can also work with other radars on land and sea via Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC). That lets it receive cues from other platforms and provide information to them, in order to create a more detailed battle picture than any one radar could produce alone.

AEGIS has become a widely-deployed top-tier air defense system, with customers in the USA, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Norway, and Spain. In a dawning age of rogue states and proliferation of mass-destruction weapons, the US Navy is being pushed toward a “shield of the nation” role as the USA’s most flexible and most numerous option for missile defense. AEGIS BMD modifications are the keystone of that effort – in the USA, and beyond.

LCS: The USA’s Littoral Combat Ships

Exploit simplicity, numbers, the pace of technology development in electronics and robotics, and fast reconfiguration. That was the US Navy’s idea for the low-end backbone of its future surface combatant fleet. Inspired by successful experiments like Denmark’s Standard Flex ships, the US Navy’s $35+ billion “Littoral Combat Ship” program was intended to create a new generation of affordable surface combatants that could operate in dangerous shallow and near-shore environments, while remaining affordable and capable throughout their lifetimes.

It hasn’t worked that way. In practice, the Navy hasn’t been able to reconcile what they wanted with the capabilities needed to perform primary naval missions, or with what could be delivered for the sums available. The LCS program has changed its fundamental acquisition plan 4 times since 2005, and canceled contracts with both competing teams during this period, without escaping any of its fundamental issues. Now, the program looks set to end early. This public-access FOCUS article offer a wealth of research material, alongside looks at the LCS program’s designs, industry teams procurement plans, military controversies, budgets and contracts.