By Marcus Hellyer With regard to the offshore patrol vessels and the continuing upgrades to the Collins class submarines, progress continues. Offshore patrol vessels The Australian National Audit Office’s recent performance audit of the OPV project was as positive as any ANAO report I’ve ever seen. When the government announced the winner…
By Robbin Laird The International Fighter Conference 2020 provided insights with regard to the evolution of combat airpower, notably with regard to enablers and effectors, and pathways to shaping greater force integration and multi-domain warfighting capabilities. But to do what exactly? And how best to do it? The clear assumption…
By Robbin Laird The second strand of the International Fighter Conference 2020 was the question of the effectors which could be delivered by the evolution of air combat power, notably leveraging multi-domain capabilities. This strand was woven throughout the day and could be seen in a variety of ways, in…
By Pierre Tran Paris - Airbus Defence and Space expected to sign a contract for a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle in the first quarter of 2021, a deal the company saw as critical for European arms companies, chief executive Dirk Hoke said Dec. 9. “Here, we are very confident…
By Robbin Laird The last two International Fighter Conferences, 2018 and 2019, where very different from this one. And I am not just referring to the virtual nature of the conference. This fighter conference was less about fighters than about the changing context of airpower in terms of what enables…
By Pierre Tran Paris - KNDS, a Franco-German joint venture in land weapons, seeks a more streamlined management with the appointment of Philippe Petitcolin as chairman and Frank Haun as the sole chief executive, the French finance and defense ministries said Dec. 14 in a statement. The appointment of a…
By Robbin Laird I first visited 2nd MAW in 2007, at the beginning of the Osprey era. There I saw a small number of the aircraft on the tarmac and met with pilots and maintainers at the beginning of a long period of disruptive change, a period of change which…
By Peter Jennings Australia has a brilliant opportunity to shape US President-elect Joe Biden’s strategy for the Indo-Pacific in a way that will secure a major increase in American military power in the region. This will be a test of the Morrison government’s agility to move quickly to secure an…
