October 9, 2018 | International, Land

Army looks to a future of integrated fire

WASHINGTON — Even as Army leadership points to the great progress made toward interoperability of missile systems, the future could take that vision one step further.

During a Monday panel hosted by Defense News at the Association of the United States Army annual meeting, Col. John Rafferty, director of the Long-Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, said the Army aspires to have “an integrated network, rather than interoperability, which is the work around" in the meantime.

"When we get into operational strategic fires we want to extend the systems approach across the fires warfighting function, offensive and defense,” Rafferty added.

Tom Karako, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defense Project, stressed that a more aggressive approach to integrating offensive and defense fires is required to defeat current and future near-peer threats. One area Karako has his eye on “is the degree of integration between Maneuver SHORAD, and frankly the whole rest of ARMY AMD, as well as offensive fires. Making sure that interoperability or integration is common as opposed to being another stovepipe of excellence.”

The Integrated Air and Missile Battle Command System (IBCS) is one Army program that will be key to achieving integrated fires. The brains behind the Army's future air and missile defense command-and-control system, IBCS will improve the operational capabilities of current AMD systems like THAAD and Patriot by connecting the former disparate systems. When integrated, the Army can leverage THAAD's AN/TYP-2 radar to extend Patriot's effective range and provide a clearer picture of incoming threats.

Discussing the importance of integrated air and missile defenses, Karako said, “just as there is that full spectrum of air and missile threats, we're going to need to have a full spectrum and integration of air and missile defense.”

Rafferty and his team have not overlooked the significant investment being made in long-range precision fires.

“I definitely feel like we are the number one modernization priority for the Army,” Rafferty said. “I also realize that with the investment comes a sense of cost consciousness because we know that hard choices were made ... across the Army to resource this number one priority.”

And while Rafferty's cross functional team is receiving significant funding, the Army knows it has to work as a team to achieve its goals. As explained by Brig. Gen. Alfred Abramson, the program executive officer with PEO Ammunition, the Army has to put their heads together to figure out “where's the juice worth the squeeze in terms of investment."

"Can we build a better mouse trap so to speak with some limited dollars, because you can't spread it across everything,” said Abramson, adding that his organization has seen a significant spike of about $2.5 billion for fiscal years 2017 to 2022 funding for ammunition and armament systems products. "At the same time we have a conversation with Col Rafferty's organization about what direction should we be heading. So it really is a discussion across these organizations to make sure everybody is focused on the same thing.”

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/08/army-looks-to-a-future-of-integrated-fire

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July 13, 2020 | International, Land

Russia and US jostle for arms sales to India after tensions with China over border
India is a top buyer of foreign weapons on the international market and Russia has been its main supplier since the Soviet era The June 15 clash between China and India in the contested Galwan Valley lends an urgency to New Delhi's arms programme Russia and the United States are racing to sell weapons to India as New Delhi seeks to boost arms supplies for its ongoing military tension with Beijing. The Indian government last week rushed to approve a proposal to acquire 33 new Russian warplanes for US$2.4 billion and upgrade 59 more, in addition to an earlier US$5.43 billion deal for S-400 air defence missile systems, after the deadly skirmish with Chinese troops last month on their disputed border. However, Russia's close relationship with China raised questions over Moscow's reliability by some in India, while the US, which has been stepping up ties with New Delhi through the Indo-Pacific strategy, has been pushing for arms sale to India. “Many believe that India must not put all its eggs in one basket, rather continue to follow the middle path by pushing for engagement with both Russia as well as the United States,” said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, a distinguished fellow and head of the Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. India is a top buyer in the international arms market, with billions of dollars of imports every year. In the past 10 years, it has spent more money on foreign weapons than any other country in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Russia has been the main supplier to India since the Soviet era. Since 2000, it has sold about US$35 billion worth of weapons, accounting for more than two-thirds of India's arms procurement of US$51 billion. Most of India's strategic weapons – from its only active aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya with its ship-borne MiG-29 and Ka-31 aircraft, to its only nuclear attack submarine in service, the Chakra II, to its T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks – are from Russia. Additionally, Russia licensed Indian firm HAL to build the Su-30 MKI, the main fighter for the Indian Air Force, and contributed to India's only nuclear-capable supersonic cruise missile – the BrahMos. In comparison, arms deals with the US have totalled just US$3.9 billion over the past 20 years but America has been rapidly catching up since 2010 to rise to number two vendor to India, surpassing Israel and France. India has equipped its military with Boeing C-17 and C-130J airlifters. Earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to US President Donald Trump to buy US$3 billion worth of US equipment, including helicopters, as the two converged on a course to counter China in the Indo-Pacific region, and gradually formed much closer military ties with a series of strategic military pacts Then the tension between India and China suddenly escalated, culminating in a clash on June 15, in which at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the contested Galwan Valley between Indian-administered Ladakh and Chinese administered Aksai Chin. The continued stand-off added urgency to India's arms shopping. “Russians profit from a Sino-India clash. I don't think the Americans would be so happy to see that,” said Zhou Chenming, a Beijing-based military analyst. “The Trump administration has been trying very hard to grab a bigger share in this market of billions every year, which they wouldn't want to miss.” The US has leverage. The 2017 Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) punishes whoever engages in “significant transactions” over US$15 million with the Russian state-owned defence industry. And Washington has remained non-committal despite the constant request for an exemption from the Indian side. “I don't think the US will actually implement the sanction at the end of the day. That was part of the effort to pressure India to choose American arms over Russian,” said Song Zhongping, a military commentator in Hong Kong. “And Russia will not sit by. They will also take action to keep India on.” Other efforts include discussions earlier this year in which the US offered to develop for India a “super F-16”, and even transfer the production line to India as preferred by the Modi government, as well as other air defence missile alternatives to the S-400. The US has delivered Apache and Chinook helicopters now deployed in Ladakh. Song said India's buying spree could increase its strength against the Chinese army but only to a limited extent. “India could buy some advanced weapons but cannot buy real combat capability. A modern military is an organic system,” he said. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3092710/russia-and-us-jostle-arms-sales-india-after-tensions-china
September 23, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

Le budget des armées est porté à près de 41 milliards d’euros en 2022
DÉFENSE Le budget des armées est porté à près de 41 milliards d'euros en 2022 En 2022, le budget des armées est porté à 40,9 milliards d'euros, soit une augmentation de 1,7 milliard d'euros par rapport à 2021 et 9 milliards de plus qu'en 2017. Ce budget prévisionnel, établi par le PLF (Projet de loi de finances) 2022, constitue la quatrième étape de la loi de programmation militaire (LPM). « Les crédits dégagés assurent la montée en puissance des équipements majeurs et permettent des investissements conséquents en matière de recrutement, d'innovation ou dans des secteurs stratégiques comme le cyberespace et le domaine spatial. Ils participent également à garantir le maintien de plus de 200 000 emplois sur le territoire français, principalement dans les entreprises constituant la Base industrielle et technologique de défense (BITD) ». C'est un budget historique au service de la remontée en puissance de nos armées », a souligné Florence Parly, ministre des Armées. Ensemble de la presse du 23 septembre
March 2, 2020 | International, Aerospace

Holmes Lays Out ‘Fighter-Like’ Roadmap
By John A. Tirpak ORLANDO, Fla.—Air Combat Command is shifting from a “fighter roadmap” to a “capabilities” roadmap that will capture many of the things fighters do today, but likely with new types of unmanned systems and “attritable” aircraft, Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mike Holmes said Feb. 27. Speaking with reporters at an AFA Air Warfare Symposium press conference, Holmes said ACC is grappling with “what is a fighter?” in the future. The fighter mission will give way to “attritable” aircraft and “loyal wingmen” unmanned aircraft, in addition to fighters, and possibly different kinds of manned aircraft. The roadmap will be very much dependent on the theaters in which the assets will be used. “What I would rather build is a capabilities roadmap that shows how we're going to accomplish the missions for the Air Force that we traditionally have done with fighters,” Holmes said. “And the subtlety there is, I would hope, 30 years from now, I'm not still trying to maintain 55 fighter squadrons. I think we will have advanced and there will be some other things that we'll be cutting-in.” The roadmap is in roughly five-year stages, which parallel “natural decision points” affecting chunks of the fleet, Holmes explained. The first stage seeks a replacement for the F-15C fleet, which is now aging out of the inventory. Those aircraft will be replaced by F-35s and the new F-15EXs, Holmes reported. The EXs are needed to reduce the overall age of the fighter fleet “so we can afford to sustain it,” he said, noting the EX is “what's available to us now.” The next stage “will be what we call the pre-block F-16s—the Block 25 and 30 Fighting Falcons—that we're still flying.” Within the next eight years, “depending on budgets and capabilities, we'll have to decide what we'll do about those airplanes,” Holmes said. There is an “opportunity” to cut-in “something new: low cost, attritable [aircraft], loyal wingmen, various things we're ... experimenting with.” After that, ACC will confront “the post-Block F-16s—the Block 40s and 50s—that can fly for quite a bit longer, but there is a modernization bill that would have to be spent to keep them useful,” Holmes said, suggesting further service life extension for the F-16 may be coming. Gen. Arnold Bunch, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, said the F-16 post-block fleet could be extended for as much as another 10 years of service life, starting in the mid-20s. A SLEP would have to focus first on making them safe to fly, he said, and they would need technology insertions to make them relevant, “depending on what you use them for.” The aircraft will already have Active Electronically Scanned Array radars and digital backbones, he noted. Finally, ACC is trying to decide what the Next-Generation Air Dominance system should be. “The equation and the math we use for ‘what is a fighter' still works pretty well for the European environment—the range, payload, and distance problem,” Holmes noted. But “it's not as effective a solution in the Pacific because of the distances,” and for that theater, he said, “I wouldn't expect [NGAD] to produce things that necessarily look like a traditional fighter, or in that traditional swap between range and payload that we've done.” Pacific Air Forces boss Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. said in the future a family of systems approach will be more useful given the size of the area of operations and the differences in the adversary. “The family of systems provides us some level of advantage. If you're looking for a single point solution that has to be a fighter. It's the fighter, but not the information that comes off the fighter, the information the fighter gets from other platforms ... ,” Brown said. “How all that comes together will be important to support the fighter of the future, or whatever capability we have.” Holmes said Will Roper, the Air Force acquisition chief, is thinking about more low-cost “attritable” options for the Pacific, “thinking about that long-range problem, what might we come up with.” He has previously allowed that something akin to a large missileer, potentially a variant on the B-21, could be part of the mix, and ACC is also thinking about an “arsenal plane” concept. “Those discussions are going on, and they should be,” Holmes added. But “it is still ... our responsibility to the rest of the force to control the air and space on their behalf.” Roper's team is working with industry to pursue a new “digital” prototyping approach that Holmes said he's pleased with. He noted that Boeing was able to win the T-7 competition by showing it can “design and build airplanes in a different way and at a cost point nobody expected,” and “we think we have the opportunity to spread that across the other things we're doing.” He also says there is support from Capitol Hill with the approach at this stage, and ACC is working hard to share information on the future of ACC combat capabilities at “the right level” of classification. https://www.airforcemag.com/holmes-lays-out-fighter-like-roadmap/

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