Alongside modern Western arms, Ukraine uses custom-built 'mini-Grads' | Reuters

On the same subject

• 

  September 22, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR

  Laying the groundwork: US Army unveils rough plan to formalize robotic combat vehicles effort

  Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is preparing to enter into programs of record for light- and medium-class robotic combat vehicles in a few years, with plans to award separate contracts for a lead systems integrator for each program, according to the service's robotic combat vehicles product manager. The service wants to field a light, medium and heavy robotic combat vehicle, and it is experimenting with technology and how the vehicles might fit into future formations through the Army's Next-Generation Combat Vehicle modernization office. Developing NGCV capability is the second-highest priority for the Army. The plan is to make a decision to move the Army's RCV-Light out of technical maturation and into the engineering and manufacturing development phase in the second quarter of fiscal 2023. The service would do the same with the RCV-Medium program in FY24, Lt. Col. Chris Orlowski said Sept. 10 during a conference hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. Orlowski noted that the potential RCV-Heavy program of record would fall behind the start of the medium and light programs by “a pretty significant margin.” At the same conference during a separate keynote presentation, Bruce Jette, the Army's acquisition chief, said decisions were made that “put pieces in place that will establish a formal program for robotic systems with the [program manager], not just following the tech base but in fact being the centerpiece for building light and medium systems inside of an architecture that fits within the entire operational vehicle architecture. In fact, it will leap over into the aircraft as well. It will be everything from driving to operations of the vehicle to visual sensing to probably a broader array of technical capabilities that you may not have even thought possible.” The Army plans to award a contract to a lead systems integrator that will combine the RCV's control station, network, platform, software and payloads, Orlowski said. Anticipated government-furnished equipment for the programs would include autonomy software, radios, war-fighter machine interface software, aided target recognition software and lethality payloads “minus the turret,” according to Orlowski. Other potential government-furnished equipment could be a tethered drone; assured position, navigation and timing technology; hostile fire detection; and other vehicle protection systems, he said. As the Army ventures into developing robotic vehicles that don't just do the dull, dirty and dangerous work, “the biggest thing is going to be software development, improving autonomous and automation software,” he added. “Teleoperation is nice; it works OK if you've got the right radios and the right environments, but long term, when those environments become tested, I think teleoperation will be less viable and we will have to really push the automation and autonomy on these platforms. But also, that being said, there is always going to have to be some soldier interaction with the platforms. How do we improve that interaction for the soldiers, reducing that cognitive burden?" he said. “I know everybody likes cool, big, awesome robots, but it's really a software thing that is going to make these things go, so anything that is kind of tied to software I think is a critical technology in my view,” he added. The Army's rough acquisition strategy for the robots calls for a first unit to receive RCV-Light vehicles in FY28 and a first unit to receive RCV-Medium in FY30, according to a slide from Orlowski's conference presentation. The Army recently wrapped up its first phase of experimentation with RCV-Heavy surrogates fashioned out of M113 armored personnel carriers at Camp Red Devil on Fort Carson, Colorado, which added complexity to an ongoing evaluation of the government-developed platforms. The Army also awarded contracts to a Textron and Howe & Howe team to build an RCV-Medium prototype, and to a QinetiQ North America and Pratt & Miller team to build the lighter version late last year and early this year. Those are being built now. Orlowski stressed those prototypes are being built “primarily to support future planned experimentation” in FY22 and FY24 and “in support of defining and informing requirements for the RCV program of record.” He added there is no plan to transition any of those systems into any type of limited fielding. “They are not designed for that. They are designed for a campaign of learning,” he said. Now that the first major experiment is done, the Army plans to build up to a company-level operation in the first quarter of FY22 at Fort Hood, Texas, with four RCV-Medium and four RCV-Light prototypes. While the experimentation at Fort Carson with RCV-Heavy was focused on cavalry operations where the robots served more in a scout mission and proved they could be effective in a reconnaissance and security role, the experiment in FY22 will move the robots into more of an attack-and-defend role. While the Army has to officially complete a critical technology assessment from the Fort Carson experimentation, Orlowski said the autonomy software “needs to improve.” The experimentation in FY22 will focus on improvements and the Army will work with industry partners to “improve that tether,” he said. “It needs to be robust in contested environments, which we haven't fully explored yet.” The service will also need to look at some alternate communications pathways between the control vehicle and the robots. Aided target recognition needs more maturity, Orlowski explained, “especially on the move to support the platforms.” Anything that reduces the soldier interaction with the platforms will also be incorporated, “and there are other things that soldiers asked for, which when we are ready to release we will. [The ideas from the feedback] were pretty perceptive," he said. "So how critical that becomes, we will see.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/09/21/laying-the-groundwork-us-army-unveils-rough-plan-to-formalize-robotic-combat-vehicles-effort/

• 

  October 29, 2019 | International, Naval

  After a leadership shakeup at General Dynamics, a murky future for submarine building

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON — Submarine building, the pride of the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding efforts over the past decade, is facing a mountain of uncertainty, a point underscored by the replacement of senior members of General Dynamics leadership, compounding delays with construction of the Virginia-class submarine and nagging questions about the quality of the work after a high-profile welding issue threatened to trip up the Columbia-class ballistic missile sub program at the starting line. Adding to the uncertainty for General Dynamics, which operates the Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut, are indications that profits from constructing Virginia-class subs may be slipping. And challenges in training new workers in the complex world of building subs as well as concerns that the Columbia program might negatively affect General Dynamics' bottom line are impacting General Dynamics' partner yard Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News, Virginia, as well as the U.S. Navy. Furthermore, a contract for the significantly larger Block V Virginia-class submarine, expected to be one of the largest in the Navy's history, has been repeatedly delayed amid disputes over labor rates, sources told Defense News. That contract is more than a year past due, according to Navy budget documents. In September, General Dynamics pushed out Electric Boat President Jeffrey Geiger. Industry and Navy sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Geiger's replacement was the culmination of mounting frustration on the part of the Navy. That came to a head when quality control issues surfaced with missile tubes in production destined for the Virginia Payload Module, Columbia-class subs and the United Kingdom's replacement ballistic missile sub. Geiger's ouster came on the heals of General Dynamics replacing long-time executive John Casey as head of the Marine Systems division when he retired earlier this year. The shakeup, delays and lingering issues put the Navy and the submarine-building enterprise at a crossroads. It's clear that the Navy's efforts to ramp up production of its Virginia-class attack boats ahead of Columbia have encountered myriad issues and delays. But while delays may be acceptable for the Virginia program, the interconnected nature of submarine building means those delays could eek into a program that the Navy has for years insisted cannot be delayed any further: the replacement of its aging Ohio-class ballistic missile subs, part of the nuclear deterrent triad. The Navy has said Columbia must be ready for its first patrol in 2031 to ensure the nation doesn't fall below a dangerous threshold where retiring Ohio-class submarines leaving the country without an adequate number of boats to execute its deterrent strategy. But to head that off, the Navy may have reduce its expectations of the industrial base's capacity to build submarines, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank and a retired submarine officer. “The Navy is going to have to reduce its appetite for submarine capacity while it gets the construction process in a better position,” he said. “All of the things we have seen in the past year in the submarine-building enterprise are the results of the ramped-up production levels and the challenges that EB [Electric Boat] faces in hiring more workers up in Connecticut. “They've been growing capacity, investing in infrastructure; they're trying to hire a bunch of workers and design engineers. [But] there just isn't a large workforce of those kinds of people up there as opposed to in Hampton Roads or the Gulf Coast. So there are a lot of challenges in ramping up production to [increase] Virginia-class production and, in addition, starting Columbia and beginning the Virginia Payload Module-equipped Virginias, which is a 30 percent larger submarine.” A bridge to Columbia In March, Defense News reported that all the Virginia-class submarines under construction were between four and seven months behind schedule. Naval Sea Systems Command pointed to the cumulative effect of ramping up to building two Virginia-class submarines per year. In a statement, the service's top acquisition official said the Navy was continuing to confront material, labor and shipyard infrastructure issues. Labor issues in particular hit the Newport News yard, which told investors in a recent earnings call that profits had slipped by about 23 percent on the Virginia sub building because of delays associated with labor issues. In the face of the mounting issues, the Navy should be willing to make difficult choices to get back on an even footing, Clark said. “Are we going to make some tough choices and dial back submarine construction deliberately to make sure we can get Columbia started correctly?” he asked. “And that means maybe we slow down Virginia, maybe we go to one per year for at least a couple of years to catch up.” Clark said the Navy should continue to fund two submarines per year but should expect that they will take longer to build while General Dynamics and Newport News stabilize their labor and parts issues. Paring back submarine production is a tough pill to swallow for the Navy, as it's been fighting for years to prevent a shortfall of attack submarines in the coming decade. The Navy expects its inventory of attack boats to drop from 52 to 42 by the late 2020s as Cold War-era Los Angeles-class attack subs retire. Furthermore, there's the question of whether scaling back production might invite a funding cut, which could make matters worse. The supplier and labor issues, after all, primarily stem from the 1990s when the Navy all but stopped buying submarines, which resulted in a contraction of the number of businesses that built submarine parts and a loss in skilled laborers who knew how to build them. Less funding would likely have a detrimental effect on sub-building efforts, said Bill Greenwalt, a former Senate Armed Services Committee staffer. “Under our current budget and appropriations process, slowing down — which likely implies cutting program funding — would exacerbate industrial base problems as it already has in the past due to lack of program demand,” Greenwalt said. “Congress and the Navy need to be prepared for industrial base surprises and seriously face the past problem of the underfunding of naval shipbuilding.” “A flexible schedule and more realistic and flexible funding mechanisms will be needed to meet whatever industrial base challenges ... will inevitably arise,” he added. “In the near term we may even need to look at some of our allies' capabilities to meet shortfalls and help us keep on schedule until we rebuild U.S. capacity.” Greenwalt's view tracks with that of General Dynamics, according to a source with knowledge of the company's thinking on the difficulties it has faced. The company considers ramping up production on the Virginia-class sub as essential to building a sufficient labor force and supplier capacity so the resources are available to build Columbia class on schedule, the source said. ‘Two-hump camel' The Navy's top acquisition official, James Geurts, has similarly described the issue. On the possibility of building a third Virginia-class submarine in 2023, Geurts told the House Armed Services Committee's sea power panel in March that it would benefit the Columbia-building effort. “We can get some of the additional workforce trained up, get some more of the supplier base and get some of the supplier builds out of the way before Columbia gets here,” he said. Officials everywhere seem to agree that the labor force is the most critical factor when it comes to getting submarine building on track. In an exit interview with Defense News in August, outgoing Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said turnover at shipyards was a challenge but also an exciting chance to build a new generation of skilled labor. “We're asking a lot of the submarine industrial base right now to continue with Virginia, two to three per year including that payload module, and deliver Columbia,” Richardson said. “And the workforce is going through a transformation. “The people who built and delivered the Virginia program, the Los Angeles program and Seawolf — those folks are retiring. We used to have this two-hump camel in terms of the demographics of the shipyard: You had the Cold Warriors and you had the post-9/11 folks. And that Cold War hump is gone. And I think that although it's going through some friction right now, it's really inculcating, indoctrinating and educating a brand-new workforce.” Richardson also sounded a note of warning about work quality, saying that the managers overseeing the work for the submarine-building enterprise must be on top of their jobs. “We've had some welding issues: We've got to be on that,” he said. “[It's] a lot closer oversight as we educate this new team.” Clarification: The story has been updated to better reflect the arguments surrounding the future of submarine building. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/10/28/after-a-leadership-shakeup-at-general-dynamics-a-murky-future-for-submarine-building/

• 

  May 5, 2024 | International, Land

  Watchdog agency accuses chief of military police of blocking investigations | CBC News

  The country's military police watchdog has accused the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal of obstructing its independent reviews of complaints.