In 2016 year, almost every industry in the foreign defense industry is faced with extraordinary, out of the ordinary event. Tailored to the prospective tasks of the equipment broke down in the most unexpected places, and traditional leaders list of the largest government contractors received a series of blows to the gut.
It should be noted that the stress test foreign defense failed, and now even the most confident of the superiority of foreign technology professionals cannot vouch for the reliability of ships, tanks and planes.
Less money, more Donald
The protagonist of the news for some time became beloved by the military experts, the American multi-purpose fighter F-35. Attention to the project of development and serial production of the aircraft for a long time and very simply explained – in his creation invested a fantastic amount of money. Half a trillion dollars. Approximately in this amount assess the total amount of funds that will be spent on the production of the aircraft, combat readiness which has not reached the planned level.
Although delivery of the first machines to foreign customers has already begun, the elected President of the United States Donald trump is likely to give a hand to bigwigs of the military industrial complex of Lockheed Martin. The thing is that upon assuming the office of President at the end of January trump may revise the quota for the purchase of fighter planes for the army, air force and Navy of the United States, or to abandon this idea altogether.
The latter, though unlikely, but is considered by many experts (including within the US) as quite normal. However, the first to doubt the reliability perspective, and so hard born machines… the closest neighbors of the United States – Canadians. The Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau told the press that the F-35 is too expensive and has no competitive advantages over existing aircraft. The refusal of the government of Canada to buy the F-35 for a little over a hundred million dollars per unit easy to explain.
First of all, Canadians know how to count money. The second item is the absence in Canada of serious enemy air force could fight in the near future. For the other problems are already the armament of multirole fighter F/A-18 Super hornet, in a modernisation programme which the government of Canada and plans to invest significant funds. However, the most significant contribution to the fate of the aircraft has made the US President-elect Donald trump, whose tweet on the social network has brought down the shares of the company Lockheed Martin.
According to independent experts, the cost of a leading government contractor and manufacturer of aircraft equipment fell by almost 3.5 billion dollars after one publication to the Internet. Previously, the eccentric billionaire, and now the President of the United States said “no” to the hopes of the American Boeing company “bask” on the state contract.
Trump said that the new aircraft of the President of the United States is too expensive and makes no sense to spend billions of dollars just. 2016 for aircraft manufacturers was the last good year. The Obama administration generously supplied Lockheed Martin and other manufacturers money, not particularly caring about the end result. Most likely, within the next few years, the American aviation industry expects a tough audit, corruption scandals and the publication of inconvenient data about the real effectiveness of promising aircraft.
Embossing competitor
By themselves the submarines – the product is unique. As a unique buyer of such goods. To sell such equipment is necessary not only to win the customer’s test results and colorful 3D demonstration of the product, but also to ensure proper quality. About security in this case care should be taken separately, because the submarines in particular, and the submarine fleet in General are still the most closed part of the Armed forces of any country.
However, in August 2016, the French state company of military shipbuilding DCNS said the leak of secret documents about the six submarines of the class “scorpionfish”. The piquancy of the situation with the loss of sensitive data lies in the fact that in addition to the Indian Navy submarines of this type were planned for procurement by the Navy of Australia and Brazil. In addition, submarines of the “bet” taken the fleet of the Navy of Chile and the CCM of Malaysia.
The publication is in the public domain once classified information has not only spoiled the reputation of the French company DCNS, but also allowed not only the public but also many private companies to perform the design of submarines and to identify vulnerabilities. So, according to published reports, the network was 22.4 thousand pages with sensitive data, of which nearly 7 thousand pages describe not only the communication systems but also power supply circuit of the submarine for another five thousand pages describes in detail the principle of operation of the sensors of the submarine.
The content of other documents on the work of combat systems, information and computer systems and all the equipment, thanks to which the submarine can perform tasks. It is not difficult to imagine that such a detail in the leaked documents describe and ability to combat submarines of “scorpionfish” with enemy ships. Experts point out that the leaked information with a probability of 100% was copied and the detailed studied. This means that by and large submarine “scorpionfish” will either have to seriously upgrade, or to abandon their operation in General.
To imagine the consequences of such an information leak, try to imagine that this made in the office of the manufacturer of submarines anywhere in the United States. The threat to national security and hundreds of millions of dollars thrown into the pipe in this case will be just the tip of the iceberg. Experts in the field of information security have noted that in recent years between European arms manufacturers, competition intensified, and the struggle for lucrative contracts in the course can go dirty, like stealing confidential information and its publication in open sources.
Too warm to swim
Loss of power on warships – the situation is an emergency. To combat this incident threatens the ship and crew death, and the Union Navy by the failure of the task. As the main causes in most cases, consider a failure of the power plant as a result of manufacturing defects. However, there are curious exceptions that are forced to ponder how such a thing could happen to a fighting ship. British destroyers Type 45 involved in combat operations against ISIL were disconnected right in the middle of the Persian Gulf.
The large and well-equipped air defense destroyers, which in the near future should be the main Navy of great Britain summed up the power plant. Agreeable people down on several ships came out of the gas turbine power plant. If the failure analysis revealed that the unit manufacturing company rolls-Royce is set to work in colder water.
The water in the Persian Gulf for gas turbines in the British destroyers was disastrous, as when used in unusual conditions, the turbine slows down and the installed control automation for unknown reasons, not only disables the engine, but trying to power it at the expense of other ship’s systems. In a series of crashing huge ships with modern weapons turned out to be something floating in the ocean block of ice.
The source of the newspaper the Daily Mail first reported the incident, explained that all six destroyers not only lost speed, but for a long time could not communicate, were deprived of opportunities to use ancillary equipment, including lighting and ventilation systems.
Iron kaput
No matter was completed and the first tests of the newest warship of the American Navy. Destroyer “Zumwalt” was introduced into the fleet in mid-October 2016 and according to the itinerary had to rush into battle somewhere in the waters of the world ocean, and quietly walk to the port in San Diego. The event on the transition vehicle to a Parking lot in General routine, and therefore no special attention to such hauls professionals usually do not show. “Zumwalt”, which has a characteristic shape called “iron” was prepared in 2013-m to year, but take it from US Navy refused.
Three years of hard work of experts of various profiles needed to bring the ship to mind. However, the conducted inspection, inspections and re-inspections was not enough, and at the end of November “Zumwalt” broke in the Panama canal. As in the case with the British destroyers, an American ship has summed up the flaw in the design of the power plant.
Despite the fact that in the first publications about this incident damage was called minor, because of the defect of the power plant destroyer was stripped of the speed and only with tug assistance operation to stretch the American sailors are not disrupted. If you omit the analysis of the operational effectiveness of the destroyer and the absence of the slightest hint of “weapons of the twenty-first century” is the railgun, which this ship was equipped with, the adaptability of the destroyers of this project is questionable.
American experts in many analyses have questioned the fact that the U.S. Navy really need a ship price of $ 7 billion per unit. It is clear that there is no railgun on the head ship of the series and could not be. Instead, the first of the ships “Zumwalt” equipped with traditional American destroyers set of weapons, including cruise missiles, however, according to experts, to make that American shipbuilders could for much more modest money.
A blow to the reputation
Got in 2016, the year and foreign vehicles. First the role of victims on examples of the American tanks M1 “Abrams” shot down by rebels in Yemen. It should immediately be noted that in addition to debunked the myth of the invincibility of these machines took place and ignorant of their use on the battlefield. If you carefully review the record on which the rebels operate in Saudi M1, it is possible to detect that no cover-up there were no cars in principle, and operators ATRA had plenty of time to commit the perfect shot.
The other disappointment for fans of foreign armored vehicles was the destruction of several tanks, “Leopard 2” in the North of Syria. Experts note that the Turkish military and their subordinate units of the armed opposition, in fact, made the same mistake that Saudi tankers. Destroyed and captured by the “Leopard 2”, though not made of the militants of the weather, but all the potential customers of the European companies began to think, and is there any point in purchasing equipment that burns the same as the cheaper ones come from Asia?
The application of the “Leopard 2” of the Turkish army in Northern Syria have only added fuel to the fire disputes on the reliability of the European armored vehicles. However, this is not the first major loss of European tanks that are worth mentioning. During the period of operation of the Western coalition in Afghanistan Denmark’s Armed forces, existing in the composition of the mixed population, lost six tanks “Leopard 2” in the modification A5DK. And although the nature of the damage in the press not reported, published photos from the base of temporary storage allow us to conclude that one cause damage to the machine could be not only the land mines laid along the roads, and antitank grenade launchers.
Last year for foreign military-industrial complex was not as successful as it may seem. A number of challenges that require a thorough approach, unreasonably expensive, and thus have an average efficiency of samples of modern weapons – it was memorable for the military-industrial 2016-th year for manufacturers. While experts argue over why it all happened the way it happened, potential buyers of European and American arms looking at the other players in the arms market.
Author: Dmitry Yurov
Photo: U.S. Navy/ Pline/ Wikimedia/ Rob Arnold/ ZUMAPRESS.com/ Jerzy Dabrowski/ dpa/ Globallookpress