HEL TDV program - Meta-Defense.fr

The 4 future air defense systems close to Directed Energy of the US Army

In many fields, such as long-range surface-to-air systems, anti-tank missiles, electronic warfare and even artillery and armour, the US Army has seen its technological advantage inherited from the end of the Cold War eroding over years of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, while other countries, especially Russia and China, invested methodically to catch up, and sometimes even overtake US technology. But there is one area in which the American armies have been able to invest in time and enough to maintain a significant gap over their competitors, directed energy weapons, in particular for…

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The US Army tests the Stryker DE M-SHORAD armed with a 50 Kw laser

August 18, 2021August 18, 2021

Directed energy weapons, such as hypersonic weapons, have been two absolute technological priorities for the American armies in recent years in an attempt to catch up with the technological dynamics imposed by Beijing and Moscow. If the hypersonic programs encounter problems, the programs of the US Army, the US Navy and the US Air Force concerning the short-term implementation of anti-drone, anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems based on directed energy weapons are advancing in accordance with the very ambitious planning imposed by the Pentagon. This is how, last week, the US Army announced that a first test of engagement “in a combat situation” had been…

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The US Army will test the Iron Dome to protect its vulnerable infrastructure

21th May 2021

One of the major lessons of the war that pitted Azeri forces against Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 was the great vulnerability of force support sites, such as logistics areas, command posts, and fortifications, in the face of modern artillery systems coupled with reconnaissance drones. And if the Armenian anti-aircraft defenses managed to keep the Azeri fighters at a distance, they were largely idle in the face of the small reconnaissance drones directing the enemy artillery fire. Beyond this example, the increase in range and accuracy of modern and future artillery systems, whether artillery…

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US Army sends first Stryker M-SHORAD close air defense to Germany

April 26thApril 26th

5 years. This is the time it took between the urgent call made by the American central command in Europe, the US European Command, for a mobile anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense system, and the delivery of the first Stryker M-SHORAD vehicles to the 5th Battalion of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment of the 10th US Army, based in Ansbach in Bavaria. By the summer of 2021, the battalion will have received the 32 M-SHORADs which will constitute its inventory, giving back to the American mechanized forces deployed in Germany a self-defense capacity in this area largely eroded since the withdrawal of the antediluvian Chaparral systems and of the few Franco-German Roland 2s acquired by the United States…

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Dynetics-Lockheed will design the 100 Kwh anti-aircraft laser system for the US Army

16th May 201916th May 2021

The American group Dynetics, associated with the world leader in defense equipment Lockheed-Martin, has been chosen by the US Army to design the demonstrator of a 100 Kwh mobile anti-aircraft laser, the HEL TVD[efn_note]High Energy program Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator[/efn_note], beating Raytheon, which was also competing for this $130m program. Dynetics will be in charge of the integration of the laser system provided by Lockheed, as well as several control systems, and the Rolls-Royce M250 turbine to provide electrical power, on a vehicle of the FMTV family[efn_note]Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle[/efn_note], a lighter and more mobile vehicle than the…

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