HX project leader Lauri Puranen was interviewed on December 1st. Translated below:
What new capabilities does the HX system bring to the Air Force, the other branches of defense, and their cooperation?
A key goal of the HX system is to replace the performance of the outgoing Hornet (HN). Hornet’s performances in the Defense Forces include air defense, i.e. interception of airborne enemies, air-to-ground support for the Army, air-to-sea-fire and targeting support to the Navy, and stand-off range fire effects that is currently limited to the Hornet.
In addition, intelligence, surveillance and management support, as airborne platforms are, in practice, also reconnaissance aircraft that, while flying, are able to gather huge amounts of information about our immediate surroundings and distribute it to the Army and Navy. These are the key tasks.
Of course, there will be new performances in all these tasks as the image of the war changes. At this point in the acquisition, I can’t open that further to what new performances each HX candidate would bring, as they are each different. Of course, these new capabilities will only become clear to us in detail when the final offer is received and this is all very sensitive information.
What measures still remain in the implementation of the HX project?
The key thing is that next year’s budget includes the entire HX project budget for the entire procurement period. In the Government's proposal to Parliament, it is currently EUR 10 billion. The decision is central to taking this project forward.
Next, right in early 2021, we will have a final call for tenders for HX bidders who have about three months to respond. In the spring, with these prospects by the end of April, we will receive final offers from the bidders.
After that, here we will start working hard as we start evaluating the bids: do they meet all three of our mandatory requirements and decision areas (security of supply, life cycle costs, and industrial collaboration).
If the offer meets those conditions, then it will have access to an assessment of military performance, which will take weeks per candidate, when assessing the performance it will provide to the Finnish defense system until 2060. This will take months. After that, there will first be presentations within the Defense Administration and finally the matter will be taken to the Government for decision by the end of 2021, as outlined in the government program.
Are the competitors' HX delivery packages ready?
They are quite ready, because we have already had a long negotiation process so far. Since the launch of the fighter project, we have sent two invitations to tender - first a preliminary and then a refinement. We have also had four week-long negotiations with each candidate so far to build the HX package. We have responded to the packages presented by the bidders by telling us what shortcomings we think they have and encouraging them to offer us the best possible military performance for the Finnish defense system. This process has resulted in each provider’s HX package being approximately 90% complete. Yes, everyone still has work to do, but I think it will be easy for all of them to do it on the basis of the final call for tenders.
Have differences in the military performance of HX solutions offered by different competitors been observed in the evaluation and simulation carried out so far?
We won't evaluate or report on the performance of different providers in public. In principle, we haven't yet compared the HX options with each other, but have focused on building the HX entity. Of course, different candidates come up with different solutions, the performance of which is evaluated once the final answers are obtained.
The aim is to achieve FOC in 2030 and IOC in 2027. Transition during which both the old and new platform will be used is going to take 5 years, with the capability of the old system declining slowly and the new one increasing steadily.
Leeway to acquire the upcoming HX capabilities over the next 12 years until 2033: what could this be used for?
The premise is that the majority of the HX entity will be acquired at once in connection with the acquisition decision. The budget sets a clear price cap for us, but technically we have an order authorization until 2031. However, the entire funding is a 5-year so-called a transfer appropriation that can be used until 2035. The idea is that because this is a long process, new weapon systems or new missiles that are better suited to us may come up later. So we look at the time from the end of what and when to get. So this is an example. On the other hand, the postponement of procurement is not an end in itself, but the aim is to complete everything as far as possible for the start of the operational use of the new equipment.
Is part of the total budget of the HX project of EUR 10 billion granulated for other costs or is it used entirely for procurement?
Roughly speaking, 10% of the budget is earmarked for our own use, which finances the structural changes required to implement the new system: the integration of the new system with our other defense system, such as management interfaces, construction costs and staff deployment costs. Although the training comes with HX delivery, staff salaries and travel costs must be paid. About 10% of the funding for the HX project has been set aside for all of this, meaning that roughly about 90% of the budget is for HX competitors.
http://www.suomensotilas.fi/hx-ohjelmaj ... i-puranen/The budgetary flexibility of being able to spend the money between 2021 and 2033 seems to allow waiting for new avionics and missiles to come into production. That's good, but it's slightly hard to gauge how they could be taken into account in the performance evaluation. It's probably still going to be based on 120D vs Meteor, JASSM-ER vs JSM etc. For example in the Growler's case it's evident that the further NGJ pods (than NGJ-MB) need to be left for future consideration.
Now there probably isn't a rush to get a new DSCA in 2021 also for 120D and AARGM-ER (both notably absent) since all of the money doesn't need to be spent immediately.
26 Nov 2020, 10:51
. Here's one source for it:
