This decades first Sentry Aloha exercise, Jan, 2020 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.
Sentry Aloha provides tailored, cost effective, realistic combat training to the ANG and our DOD counterparts.
01.16.2020
Video by Staff Sgt. Joshua Halverson
128th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
Exercise COPE NORTH 20 (CN20) is a Commander Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) sponsored multilateral field training exercise involving the United States Air Force (USAF), Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
CN20 involves large force employment Air Combat Exercise with Dissimilar Air Combat Tactics and a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) exercise phase. Held from 12-28 February 2020 at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, an Air Task Group from the RAAF involving F/A-18A Hornet, E-7A Wedgetail, KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker/Transport aircraft, as well as combat support and medical elements have deployed for the Exercise.
CN20 involves more than 2300 personnel and approximately 100 aircraft and aims to increase the combat readiness and interoperability of the USAF, JASDF and RAAF.
Australian Department of Defence
February 27, 2020
By Pierre Tran
Paris – France should reach agreement on a European project for a medium-altitude, long-endurance drone, while keeping close budgetary watch and ensure military needs were met, the national audit office said in a Feb. 25 report.
That report was published just a few days before Airbus presented March 2 to the armed forces ministry an analysis and mitigation of risk for the company’s budget request of an estimated €7.1-€7.2 billion ($7.9-$8 billion) to build a MALE drone.
That presentation reflects lessons Airbus learnt on building the A400M, a transport plane which led to some €10 billion of charges for the company. Airbus seeks a binding agreement to freeze requirements, which would be “set in stone,” a source said.
The ministry should “maintain strategic European interest, promptly conclude an agreement with partner nations and companies on a MALE drone program, financially manageable and meeting operational requirements,” said the NAO, an independent office.
That European UAV carries “strategic” significance as the project would allow “cooperation, test the solidity of ties with our partners, particularly Germany, consolidate the European defense industrial and technological base, while taking part in the construction of European defense,” the report said.
The UAV project offers a replacement for a fleet of General Atomics Reaper, which is due to be retired from service between 2032-2036, the report said.
However, close scrutiny was needed due to difficulties surrounding the project.
A distinct set of French and German requirements has led to delays and costs seen to be unacceptable by the partner nations, and cast doubt over successful conclusion to the project, the report said.
A positive outcome to the project, which will receive €100 million of funding from the European Union, will serve as a test, the report said.
France, Germany, Italy and Spain are partner nations for the UAV project.
The report carried a reply from the armed forces minister, Florence Parly, who agreed to the audit office’s recommendations.
The cost of ownership was a key factor, she said. Negotiations over the European UAV were due to be concluded by the end of 2019 and a contract signed by mid year.
Ownership of a highly effective operational capability, essential to freedom of action of French forces, and cost control were highly important, she said.
“It would be difficult to envisage in 2028 the French forces not having equipment as capable as that which is already on the market,” she said.
The audit office gave a scathing report of fumbles in French policy which led to failure to build a European aerial unmanned vehicle and costly dependence on US kit, namely an urgent operational requirement for the Reaper, which has cost some €800 million and is subject to what the office sees as strict rules.
“France has been slow in drawing conclusions on the importance of drones in modern military operations,” the report said.
“The combined consequences of disaccord between companies, lack of forward thinking by the forces, and policy switches by the authorities have led to damaging and expensive consequences, and an extended operational life of aging equipment.
“It has also led to the acquisition of American equipment under constraining and restrictive conditions.”
A key “cultural” factor was the importance of the pilot for the air force, the report said. Divergent needs of air force and army, competition between companies, and diplomatic twists led to a failure to draw on French technology and European cooperation, the report said.
There has been a lack of strategic thinking and medium term planning, slowing a pooling of equipment and a consistent approach to acquisition, the report said. The report contrasts the lack of French drones with greater capability flown by UK forces.
France has increased spending on drones since 2015, but that investment remains limited in view of the potential in terms of effectiveness and cost, the report said.
Meanwhile, there has been turbulence in the delivery of tactical and mini drones.
Thales, an electronics company, will deliver the Spy Ranger mini drone in the first half of the year, executive chairman Patrice Caine said Feb. 26 at a news conference on financial results.
That delivery is late, as the company had been due to ship the first drone system last year. It was not clear what has delayed shipment, but a new date had to be agreed.
Thales won that deal in December 2016, displacing Airbus Defence and Space, which supplied the Drac mini UAV and pitched its SkyGhost as replacement.
Meanwhile, a Patroller built by Safran, an aerospace and engines company, crashed Dec. 6 on a flight to test the tactical UAV ahead of delivery to the army.
Safran chief executive Philippe Petitcolin said Feb. 27, the Patroller would enter into service in 2021, business website La Tribune reported. The cause of the crash — faulty subsystems — was quickly identified, the report said.
Flights are continuing, with a pilot on board the Patroller while the unmanned systems are tested.
Safran signed up in 2016 to ship the Patroller in 2018, offering its UAV against the Thales Watchkeeper, which had been selected by the UK.
Safran pitched its Patroller partly on the strength on its 85 percent French content, while Thales had pledged to boost French content on Watchkeeper to 30 percent from 10 percent.
The source for the Spy Ranger photo:
According to a story published on the UK Ministry of Defence website on February 25, 2020, UK participation in Cold Response 2020 is one of the largest UK engagements in this year’s exercise regime.
A Naval task group made up of four Royal Navy vessels; HMS Albion, HMS Sutherland, HMS Echo and RFA Lyme Bay have set sail this week to Norway in one of the largest UK deployments in 2020.
They will join a force of more than a thousand Green Berets who have been in Norway over recent weeks mastering Arctic survival, movement and combat skills in Norway ahead of the larger multinational exercise.
Exercise Cold Response is a Norway-led, large-scale exercise that will boost Allies’ ability to operate together in extreme sub-zero conditions. The UK will exercise alongside the USA, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway. Around 14,000 personnel will participate in total.
After Norway, the UK is the largest contributing nation in terms of the number of personnel.
This year marks the first of a decade-long training programme the Royal Marines have committed to with their Norwegian counterparts. Each year, around 1,000 Royal Marines will travel to Norway to test their skills hundreds of miles inside the Arctic Circle where temperatures drop as low as -30oC.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:
“This decade will see the Royal Marines test their expert cold weather combat skills and build rock solid partnerships with our allies in the High North.
“The shifting landscape and increased strategic competition of the Arctic region will create future threats. But our forces will be ready to respond wherever they emerge.”
Training preparations for Exercise Cold Response 2020 begin on 27 February with the main field exercise itself, in which the thousands of multinational troops will simulate a high-intensity combat scenario, starting on 12 March and running through to 18 March.
The UK will be deploying over 2,000 personnel for the exercise, of which around 1,250 will be from the Lead Commando Group with the rest supporting the Naval task group led by HMS Albion and the Joint Helicopter Command air group.
The Joint Helicopter Command group is made up of the Commando Helicopter Force’s Merlin Mk4 aircraft and Wildcats, RAF CH-47 Chinooks and Army AH64 Apaches.
Lieutenant Colonel Innes Catton, 45 Commando’s Commanding Officer, said:
“45 Commando Royal Marines are the UK’s mountain and cold weather warfare specialists.
During Exercise Cold Response, we will be working alongside our NATO allies to give our adversaries hell from the sea.
“As the UK’s Lead Commando Group and poised to deploy on operations around the world, 45 Commando will be the ‘tip of the NATO spear’ during the exercise and we will strike the enemy using small, lethal teams on amphibious Commando raids, reminiscent of our World War Two Commando forebears.
“We have a long history of operating in the Arctic and remain at the forefront as experts in combat in one of the world’s harshest environments.
“On Cold Response, commandos will continue to confront the challenges posed by ever-evolving threats and work on developing small-team tactics as part of our Future Commando Force evolution.”
While on Cold Response, HMS Sutherland will be adopting Anti-Submarine Warfare duties. Throughout the exercise, the frigate will conduct a wide variety of serials including gunnery and boarding operations, maintaining and enhancing her readiness for future tasking.
HMS Sutherland’s Commanding Officer, Commander Tom Weaver Royal Navy said:
“This period of integrating with our NATO partners as part of a wider task group presents us a wide range of opportunities. My crew will be ready to meet the harsh conditions of the arctic region, and are looking forward to honing their warfighting skills alongside our allies.”
The featured photo: 45 Commando Assault Engineers prepare charges to conduct ice demolition training in northern Norway.
In response to the bushfire in the Commonwealth of Australia, the MOD/JSDF dispatched a Japan Disaster Relief (JDR) Team (Japan Self-Defense Forces Units) including two JASDF C-130H Transport Aircraft and approx. 70 personnel to transport firefighters and goods on January 15th, 2020.
The bushfire in Australia has been raging since September 2019 and the damage is spreading.
On January 13th, the Australian Department of Defence informed the MOD that they might submit a request for its assistance. The MOD/JSDF dispatched an investigation team to Australia to gather information on the situation and the need for assistance, and to coordinate with related organizations.
The Australian government submitted the request for assistance on January 14th, and approx. 70 personnel including the JASDF’s 1st Tactical Airlift Wing departed Komaki Air Base on January 15th for RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) Base Richmond in New South Wales, where operations in Australia were based.
The dispatched personnel conducted transportation activities in Edinburgh and King’s Court in eastern Australia, where damage has been significant. There, they conducted air transport of local firefighters and goods.
This is the first time that the MOD/JSDF has conducted international disaster relief activities at the request of Australian government. One of the dispatched personnel told the media, “We received a great deal of support from the Australian Defence Force after the Great East Japan Earthquake, so I want to do my utmost to repay for the support as part of this mission.”
Published by the Japanese Ministry of Defense in its March 2020 issue of Japan Defense Focus.
This video produced on October 24, 2019, highlights the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, from Oct. 23-25, 1944.
CH, MA, UNITED STATES
10.24.2019
Video by Petty Officer 3rd Class Joshua Samoluk
USS Constitution
See the following:
During a visit to Pax River in January 2020, there was a chance to discuss the progress of the program with Colonel Jack Perrin Program Manager, PMA-261 H53 Heavy Lift Helicopters, US Naval Air Systems Command at Pax River Naval Air Station.
One of the issues which we discussed was how the CH-53K was providing a new capability for a new strategic environment.
The Commandant’s Guidance highlighted the nature of the new strategic environment and the importance of distributed operations leveraging both sea-basing and expeditionary or mobile basing.
It is clear that heavy lift is a key enabler of such a concept of operations.
As Col. Perrin noted in our conversation: “The USMC has done many studies of distributed operations and throughout the analyses it is clear that heavy lift is an essential piece of the ability to do such operations.”
And not just any heavy lift – but heavy lift built around a digital architecture.
Clearly, the CH-53E being more than 30 years old is not built in such a manner; but the CH-53K is.
What this means is that the CH-53K “can operate and fight on the digital battlefield.”
And because the flight crew are enabled by the digital systems onboard, they can focus on the mission rather than focusing primarily on the mechanics of flying the aircraft. This will be crucial as the Marines shift to using unmanned systems more broadly than they do now.
For example, it is clearly a conceivable future that CH-53Ks would be flying a heavy lift operation with unmanned “mules” accompanying them. Such manned-unmanned teaming requires a lot of digital capability and bandwidth, a capability built into the CH-53K.
If one envisages the operational environment in distributed terms, this means that various types of sea bases, ranging from large deck carriers to various types of Maritime Sealift Command ships, along with expeditionary bases, or FARPs or FOBS, will need to be connected into a combined combat force.
To establish expeditionary bases, it is crucial to be able to set them up, operate and to leave such a base rapidly or in an expeditionary manner (sorry for the pun).
This will be virtually impossible to do without heavy lift, and vertical heavy lift, specifically.
Put in other terms, the new strategic environment requires new operating concepts; and in those operating concepts, the CH-53K provides significant requisite capabilities.
And this Marine Corps-Navy capability is suggestive of a broader set of considerations for the Army and the Air Force.
If Expeditionary Basing is crucial, certainly the CH-53K could provide capabilities for the Army and the Air Force, to compliment fixed wing lift aircraft.
And in many cases, only a vertical lift support capability will be able to do the job.
Remember the USAF flies the CV-22s and if they are part of the distributed fight and requiring expeditionary basing, it may be the case that such a base can be set up and sustained only by vertical heavy lift.
Both considerations, how to cross-operate across the seabase and the expeditionary base, and the question of whether vertical heavy lift is now becoming a strategic asset, will be dealt with in later pieces.
But for now, the core point is simple – the K needs to come into the USMC-Navy team as soon as possible to enable the shift in concepts of operations required to deal with the new strategic environment.
And if the CH-53K became part of the joint team, the question of cost is very manageable.
By producing more aircraft, the cost curve comes down.
And shaping a more effective cost curve is a significant challenge which the program is addressing.
Colonel Jack D. Perrin is the United States Marine Corps, Program Manager, PMA-261, H-53 Heavy Lift Helicopters
For the complete interview with Col. Perrin, see the following:
Colonel Jack Perrin on the CH-53K Program: An Update on a Key Program
For our archive of CH-53K stories, see the following:
https://defense.info/system-type/rotor-and-tiltrotor-systems/ch-53k/
In the video below, two CH-53K King Stallion aircraft are preparing for and engaged in a formation flight test at NAS Patuxent River, MD, on 9 Jan 2020.
The credit for the video:
01.09.2020
Video by Victoria Falcon
Naval Air Station Patuxent River
By LEUT Jessica Craig
THE strength of French and Australian defence cooperation was on show when HMAS Parramatta and Marine Nationale ship FNS La Moqueuse sailed into Sydney Harbour in company on January 31.
The 3600-tonne frigate Parramatta manoeuvred seamlessly with the 480-tonne patrol vessel La Moqueuse, entering Sydney heads in formation.
Before entering the harbour, the ships joined in a passage exercise, conducting officer-of-the-watch manoeuvres and replenishment-at-sea approaches, which allowed both ships’ companies to work on coop- erative capabilities.
The two navies have a long his- tory of cooperation, having stood alongside each other in many operational theatres since WWI and at present in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East.
CO Parramatta CMDR Anita Nemarich said such exercises were integral to maintaining a commitment to shared values, goals and security interests.
“Cooperative maritime activities and interactions at sea allow us to enhance interoperability with our regional partners, including the French Marine Nationale via La Moqueuse, which is based in Noumea,” CMDR Nemarich said.
“Both navies have a shared commitment to the peaceful settlement of conflicts and to strengthening international peace and security, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and Southern Ocean.”
The passage exercise also allowed the Sea Training Group on board Parramatta to conduct training with the crew and ensure it was ready for a busy year.
La Moqueuse conducted a port visit to Sydney as part of her patrol passage.
Published in Navy News, February 20, 2020.
Note:Australian Defence Force personnel recently took part in Exercise Croix du Sud, a biennial French-led multi-national humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise.
The Royal Australian Navy Heavy Landing Ship (LSH) HMAS Tobruk, provided command and control and sea lift support during the exercise, which was held in waters off New Caledonia 12-26 Nov 2012.
