US-Hubschrauberprogramm "Joint Multi-Role"/"Future Vertical Lift"

[muck]

Sollte die deutsche Bundeswehr mit ihrer Einschätzung, dass Kampfhubschrauber obsolet geworden sind, am Ende doch Recht behalten? Ich mag es noch nicht recht glauben.

[Doppeladler]

Na ob bei der Bundeswehr ein Plan dahinter stand ... ?
Aber ich denke schon, dass der Hubschrauber in der Rolle als bemannter bewaffneter Aufklärer / Pfadfinder nicht mehr zeitgemäß ist. Und es wird noch schlimmer, denn die allgegenwärtige Drohnengefahr wird dafür sorgen, dass auch Anti-Drohnen-Waffensysteme allgegenwärtig sind und diese können auch gut gegen Hubschrauber wirken.

[theoderich]

Sollte die deutsche Bundeswehr mit ihrer Einschätzung, dass Kampfhubschrauber obsolet geworden sind, am Ende doch Recht behalten? Ich mag es noch nicht recht glauben.

Letztes Jahr hat das GAO einen Prüfbericht zu FVL und dabei auch zu FARA veröffentlicht. Anscheinend wurde hier eher "die Reißleine gezogen" bevor es zu einer erheblichen Kostensteigerung kommt:

Future Vertical Lift Aircraft:
Army Should Implement Leading Practices to Mitigate Acquisition Risk

GAO-23-105554
Published: Apr 17, 2023. Publicly Released: Apr 17, 2023.

FARA Cost Estimates in Development Along With Analysis of Alternatives

FARA officials are still developing documentation for the effort and have not yet developed a life cycle cost estimate. Officials stated they are coordinating on the development of cost estimates for the analysis of alternatives, as well as for prior to the start of system development, in accordance with DOD policy for the major capability acquisition pathway. They stated these efforts include developing cost estimates for inclusion within the analysis of alternatives, a draft Army Cost Position, and an independent cost estimate. Several offices are expected to coordinate on these efforts, including the offices of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Cost and Economics and DOD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, as well as The Research and Analysis Center for the Army. An independent cost estimate for FARA is not required until the completion of its analysis of alternatives. Establishing such an independent cost estimate prior to system development reflects GAO leading practices for establishing a business case.

In November 2021, FARA officials provided a briefing on the analysis of alternatives, including potential aircraft designs and cost and schedule risks, to the Office of the Secretary Defense Study Advisory Group. Since that briefing, however, the Army requested permission to withdraw the analysis of alternatives based on schedule delays associated with the ITE. As of October 2022, FARA officials do not have a planned completion date for the analysis of alternatives.

Similar to cost, FARA has not yet developed documentation of schedule risks. In 2020, FARA began to develop an analysis of alternatives for potential aircraft and risks to meeting its planned schedule. For example, an identified schedule risk for FARA is the engine that will go into the aircraft—the ITE, which is managed under a separate program office. According to acquisition officials, the ITE has already experienced a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. FARA now expects to take delivery of its first ITE in the spring of fiscal year 2023 and then complete ground-based testing prior to its first prototype demonstration flights. In addition, the completion of the analysis of alternatives itself and selection of aircraft design has already been delayed by over 6 months. FARA officials stated that they still plan to meet their timelines, including issuing a request for proposal in mid-2023 and starting system development in mid-2025, despite the analysis of alternatives remaining incomplete. Officials outside the effort have expressed concern about FARA’s schedule. For example, officials from the Army’s Research and Analysis Center stated that their initial analysis found FARA’s schedule to be aggressive, relying on consistent success and concurrency in development and testing. In addition, they noted that if FARA experiences technical issues but keeps to its current planned schedule, costs for the effort could increase significantly. We previously reported that attaining technology, design, and manufacturing knowledge concurrently is a major cause of schedule delays and cost increases for DOD weapon system programs.

• Army Delivers First FARA Engines (23. Oktober 2023)
  
  https://www.army.mil/article/271051
  
  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peo-avia ... _like_view

Mit der Ausgereiftheit gewisser Technologien scheint es ebenfalls Probleme gegeben zu haben:

FARA and FLRAA Plans for Technology Maturation Do Not Meet Leading Practices

The Army does not plan to demonstrate all FARA and FLRAA critical technologies in an operational environment prior to system development, a GAO leading practice for acquisition. FARA officials identified four critical technologies that the effort will evaluate for maturity prior to reaching development start in 2025:

• The ITE,

• Modular Effects Launcher,

• Area Weapons System (Cannon), and

• Digital Backbone.

Of these technologies, only the ITE is approaching full maturity. The other three critical technologies are currently immature, with officials reporting that the technology components have been tested in a relevant environment. For example, testing in a relevant environment could include a high fidelity laboratory environment or in a simulated realistic environment. Technologies are considered fully mature when they can be demonstrated in an operational environment in their anticipated form, fit, and function. FARA plans to fully mature the ITE and Digital Backbone in an operational environment prior to the start of system development in 2025. However, officials do not plan to fully mature the Modular Effects Launcher and Area Weapons System (Cannon) by the start of system development.

[...]

According to our leading practices for acquisition, programs should fully mature all critical technologies in an operational environment by the start of system development. According to Army officials, critical technologies for both FARA and FLRAA will not achieve this level of maturity. This creates a danger of limited insight into key technology risks.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105554

Der Modular Effects Launcher und das C-12 Air Launched Effects
Storage System (ALESS) stammen von einer Firma namens Fulcrum Concepts:

Fulcrum's Modular Effects Launcher (MEL) features a modular open systems approach that can carry a variety of store combinations. It integrates fully with both the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) and MH-60 platforms. The MEL can be jettisoned.

https://fulcrumconceptsllc.com/product/ ... ncher-mel/

Key Features & Benefits

• 4 shot capable (2 each side)

• Compatible with CLT and NOAA-standard launch tubes

• Housed within modified Raisbeck wing locker

• Wing lockers can be swapped with ferrying configuration lockers, concealing internal modifications

• Installed with minimal aircraft modifications

• Provisions for uplink/downlink antennae

• Independent GPS antenna mounted in each locker

• Provisions for mounting equipment racks in aircraft cabin

https://fulcrumconceptsllc.com/product/c-12-aless/

Für die Drohnen ALTIUS-600 war AREA-I Inc. verantwortlich, 2021 von Anduril Industries übernommen:


https://www.anduril.com/hardware/altius/

[muck]

Na ob bei der Bundeswehr ein Plan dahinter stand ... ?

Letztes Jahr hat das GAO einen Prüfbericht zu FVL und dabei auch zu FARA veröffentlicht. Anscheinend wurde hier eher "die Reißleine gezogen" bevor es zu einer erheblichen Kostensteigerung kommt

Das ist halt die große Frage, was kam zuerst? Die Zweifel an einem Waffensystem bzw. an einer Gattung von Waffensystemen, oder finanzielle bzw. organisatorische Bedenken, die dann militärisch verbrämt wurden?

[theoderich]

Army officials question plan for future attack reconnaissance

“The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, or FARA, was to deliver the capability to identify and destroy [anti-access, area denial] bubbles to create advantages for [the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft] to exploit,” Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army Southern Command commander and an Army aviator, said in an April 25 speech at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference here.

“FARA intended to combine our pilots with high end capabilities that unmanned systems provide and create advantages against adversaries. What is going to meet that requirement?” she asked. “What is going to replace the Apache that we’ve taken risk in, in order to field FARA?”

The Army should at least be upgrading and matching sensors to the firepower in the Apache to keep pace with rivals, Richardson said.

“While the Army has not announced any investment in our current attack helicopter, our strategic adversaries are doubling down,” she said.

Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, the director of the Army aviation in the G-3/5/7, emphasizing the continued need for manned aviation, told the same audience at AAAA that unmanned aircraft in armed reconnaissance is needed, but “we need them to team with our crewed aviation to be decisive.”

While the Army has stated the Apache will continue to serve in the armed scout role when necessary, it took a risk with the Apache fleet, Rugen noted, and said not only do improvements to Apache need to be made if it will fill in that role, but the service should consider replacing 16 crash damaged aircraft.

Those aircraft are not funded in FY25 or the subsequent four years of the budget cycle, he noted.

Additionally, the Army has three squadrons of Delta-model Apaches that were not going to be bought, “that now we have to look at very closely and see how we fill that in and modernize those three Delta squadrons,” Rugen, whose last job was managing the Army’s Future Vertical Lift efforts including FARA, said.

Within the Army’s Future Vertical Lift portfolio, the service is focused heavily on launched effects and is only beginning to flesh out exactly how it will take capability out of the concept and development realm and into fieldable systems.

The service plans to wrap up a prototyping evaluation effort for a medium-range LE in September and will weigh options from rapid fielding to low-rate initial production to more prototyping depending on how things go. The Army is also pursuing a long-range and short-range version, which are farther afield but will begin prototyping soon.

The service plans to also focus heavily on LE at its EDGE aviation demonstration event in the fall. Another focus will be autonomy.

“What has to still evolve is autonomy to completely do a reconnaissance and security mission,” Maj. Gen. Mac McCurry, the Army Aviation Center of Excellence Command commander, said at AAAA. “We are still investing in that path to autonomy. Being able to see and surveil something is a component of reconnaissance, but not sufficient to perform the whole thing.”

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-sho ... naissance/


US Army to field long-range combat aircraft to first unit in FY31

The U.S. Army’s plan to field its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft with an initial unit is delayed by one year, due to Lockheed Martin’s protest over the service’s choice of Textron Bell’s advanced tiltrotor design, according to the director of Army aviation in the service’s G-3/5/7 branch.

Despite the protest disruption, “we are working steadily on [the program], and I will say that the team came together this past quarter and did a tremendously detailed plan to look at every aspect of this fielding,” Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen said at the Army Aviation Association of America summit, running April 24-26.

The Army will now equip the first unit with the capability in fiscal 2031. But that milestone is “not our pacing decision point,” Rugen said. “We really have to look to the limited user test in ’27-’28.”

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/te ... t-in-fy31/