French-made rocket artillery system<\/a>, with Thales and ArianeGroup developing a competing offer. Foreign alternatives already in active service with other European forces include Hanwha Aerospace\u2019s Chunmoo, the PULS system from Israel\u2019s Elbit Systems and Lockheed Martin\u2019s HIMARS.<\/p>\n\u201cThere is significant pressure from the Army, which considers this to be its absolute priority requirement in the event of a major engagement, because they\u2019ll need to hold out during the first few days,\u201d Pailloux said. \u201cIt is a capability they absolutely must have. So the question is, how much will it cost, what is the timeline, when will they be able to deliver?\u201d<\/p>\n
The French goal is to buy 26 systems with 300 munitions, and gradually equip a rocket artillery battalion by 2030, according to Pailloux. France is in a hurry to replace its nine remaining units of the Lance-Roquettes Unitaire, a modified version of the M270 multiple launch rocket system, set to reach the end of their service life in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll face a trade-off between sovereignty and speed, costs, timelines, and so on. We\u2019ll have to make the best choice, or the least bad choice, given our needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
France is also working on a land-based ballistic missile with a range of 2,500 kilometers, with \u20ac1 billion ($1.2 billion) budgeted to start work on the system this year. The plan is for a ballistic missile tipped with a maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicle, with the DGA\u2019s math showing \u201cthis is likely to offer the best cost-military performance ratio,\u201d according to Pailloux.<\/p>\n
While the published goal is for a ballistic missile in 2035, and France will have \u201cno difficulty\u201d to obtain a capability by then, \u201cthat is late, I admit,\u201d Pailloux said. The DGA plans to accelerate the work to bring forward the date \u201cas close as possible to 2030,\u201d for example by having an initial version without anti-jamming measures, and those capabilities added later, according to the director.<\/p>\n
The DGA aims to order more than \u20ac6 billion worth of munitions this year, with plans to buy SCALP cruise missiles, AASM guided bombs, Exocet anti-ship missiles, MICA and Mistral air-defense missiles and Meteor air-to-air missiles. The budget also includes \u20ac320 million to finance an industrial ramp-up where \u201cnecessary and useful,\u201d according to Pailloux.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to prepare for a major conflict by 2030, with the new understanding that we may find ourselves facing a war of attrition,\u201d Pailloux said. \u201cTo put it very simply, a war of attrition is one where in the end, the side that still has ammunition left wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
Work on the future F5 standard of the Rafale fighter jet will start this year. With a budget of \u20ac3.4 billion for combat aviation, projects include a new Safran engine dubbed T-REX with a thrust of 9 tons, compared to the current M88 engine with 7 tons of thrust, and changing all the sensors, particularly the radar, according to Pailloux.<\/p>\n
To upgrade the armament package of the Dassault Aviation fighter jet, the DGA is looking to accelerate work on MBDA\u2019s Stratus RS high supersonic air-to-ground missile, and develop an air-to-air missile called Comet with longer range than the existing Meteor by 2030.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a new way of working, to develop a new air-to-air missile by 2030,\u201d Pailloux said, describing the target date as \u201cvery ambitious.\u201d He said the design brief fits on half a page, and basically boils down to \u201cthat the missile works and has a long range.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s projects also include the Chorus one-way drone, with a range of 3,000 kilometers and a 500 kilogram payload, with the goal to have the drone flying by the end of the year. The drones will be manufactured by carmaker Renault<\/a>, with a unit costs of \u20ac120,000, which Pailloux called \u201cexpensive, but compared to other munitions, a lot less expensive.\u201d<\/p>\nRudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 France is moving closer to a decision on its future rocket artillery system, with the country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5720,2208,2209,2107,2206,5722,5,5718,4039,5721,2088,4660,5719],"class_list":{"0":"post-6841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-ariane-group","9":"tag-circulated-defense-news","10":"tag-defense-news","11":"tag-dga","12":"tag-dn-dnr","13":"tag-elbit","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-himars","16":"tag-mbda","17":"tag-puls","18":"tag-rafale","19":"tag-safran","20":"tag-thales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}