November 10, 2024 | International, C4ISR, Security
CISA Alerts to Active Exploitation of Critical Palo Alto Networks Vulnerability
CISA alerts to active exploits in Palo Alto, CyberPanel, and Android, urging urgent fixes
May 2, 2019 | International, Land
Army to outfit all Double V-Hull Strykers with 30mm firepower
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — The Army has decided to outfit all of its brigades equipped with Double V-Hull A1 Stryker Infantry Carrier Vehicles with 30mm guns following an evaluation of the vehicle equipped with the cannons in Europe, according to an Army official.
The service plans to open up a competition to integrate and field up-gunned DVHA1, the official told Defense News on background.
The Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and the Army Requirements Oversight Council decided on March 20to equip future Stryker brigades with 30mm Medium Caliber Weapon System (MCWS) capability after reviewing lessons learned from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Europe, but also directed the Army to ensure that the new MCWS capability be applied to the more mobile, better protected DVH ICVVA1 that will be the basis for the future Stryker fleet, according to the official.
Based on an urgent operational need out of Europe, the Army was provided emergency funding from Congress in 2015 — a little over $300 million — to rapidly develop and field a Stryker with a 30mm cannon specifically for the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which is permanently stationed in Germany. The funding covered development, eight prototypes and upgrades to 83 production vehicles, as well as spares.
The Army spent 18 months to put together its upgunned Stryker using off-the-shelf solutions, such as the remote turret, from Kongsberg in Norway, and the 30mm cannon from Orbital ATK and shipped those vehicles off to Europe for an evaluation that went on for the better part of a year.
The plan going forward is to execute a competition in two phases to select a 30x173mm-equipped MCWS integrated onto a Stryker DVH ICVVA1, the official said, which will lead to equipping the first brigade with a new capability in fiscal year 2022.
Army Contracting Command released a Request for Quote to begin the first phase of the Stryker MCWS program on April 9.
The recent request called for integration designs. The Army will award up to seven design integration study contracts for potential vendors to study integrating a MCWS onto a Stryker ICVVA1 platform.
The Army will supply both a Stryker platform and the XM813 30mm cannon to build production representative system samples, the official said.
The service will then circulate a draft request for proposal this fall to begin the second phase of the program, which will establish a full-and-open competition to award a production contract for a MCWS integrated onto an ICVVA1, which will be based on vendors' production representative system samples and proposals.
The MCWS will be part of a suite of lethality improvements for Stryker formations which include the Common Remote Operated Weapons Station-Javelin (CROWS-J) — that was also on the Stryker ICV Dragoon in Europe — and the Stryker Anti-Tank Guided Missile Vehicle (ATGM) engineering change proposal program.
The Army is also developing a host of other capabilities for the Stryker through the Army Futures Command Cross-Functional Team initiatives, according to the official.
Col. Glenn Dean, the Stryker program manager, told Defense News last fall that between early user testing in 2018 and subsequent fieldings, there had been an overall “very positive response” to the lethality and effectiveness of the Stryker ICVD.
“The cannon provides a tremendous standoff and additional maneuver space, and it is very effective against the threats they are concerned about in Europe,” he said.
But some feedback suggested that the physical layout of the vehicle could use some improvements, particularly when it came to situational awareness.
The turret for the cannon takes up a lot of roof and hatch space and also affects how equipment is stowed.
But the Army was already making modifications to the Dragoon based on feedback from the field, according to Dean.
It is unclear what the specific requirements might be for a more lethal Stryker, but one factor up for debate could be whether there is a need to reload and operate the turret under armor, which could change the physical nature of the vendors' designs.
Another issue to work out is what is necessary for a field-of-view inside the vehicle and how that might be achieved and who might control the cameras providing a view of the battlefield.
Soldiers in the Stryker ICVD noted a lot of dead zones where users couldn't see. The Army made improvements to the cameras used on the vehicles in Europe providing an overlapped field-of-view.
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January 8, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
Congressional commission wants more cyberwarriors for the military
Mark Pomerleau The U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan organization created in 2019 to develop a multipronged U.S. cyber strategy, will recommend the Department of Defense add more cyberwarriors to its forces, the group's co-chair said Jan. 7. The cyber mission force was established in 2013 and includes 133 teams and roughly 6,200 individuals from across the services that feed up to U.S. Cyber Command. These forces reached a staffing milestone known as full operational capability in May 2018, however, some on the commission believe the cyber landscape has changed so that the force needs to adapt as well. In a final report that's expected in the coming months, the solarium will recommend adding more cyberwarriors. “It's fair to say that force posture today in cyber is probably not adequate," said Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., co-chair of the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Gallagher spoke at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington Jan. 7. Within the last two years, Cyber Command has described a philosophy called persistent engagement, which is a means of constantly contesting adversary behavior in cyberspace before it can be disruptive. Persistent engagement is viewed as a means of meeting the 2018 DoD cyberspace strategy's direction to “defend forward.” That action seeks to position U.S. cyber forces outside of U.S. networks to either take action against observed adversary behavior or warn partners domestically or internationally of impending cyber activity observed in foreign networks. It is under this new approach that Gallagher and other commission members said the Pentagon must ensure its forces are capable of meeting the burgeoning challenges from bad actors. “We need to figure out what's the right size” of the force, Mark Montgomery, executive director of the commission, said at an event in November. “In my mind, the CMF probably needs to be reassessed. It might be that the assessment [says] that the size is the right size. I find that hard to believe with the growth in adversary.” The cyber mission force is made up of about 5,000 service members out of a full staff of about 6,200, Dave Luber, Cyber Command's executive director said in November. According to a defense official, it's normal that staffing will fall below 100 percent but leaders are confident in DoD's cyber forces' readiness and ability to defend the nation. During a February 2019 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Cyber Command's leader, Gen. Paul Nakasone, said the force is the right size for the threats they currently face, but as it continues to operate and adversaries improve, it will need to grow beyond the 133 teams. However, Nakasone told a defense conference in California in December that the force has been built to execute the persistent engagement strategy. “Within U.S. Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, it's about persistent engagement; this idea that we will enable our partners with information and intelligence and we will act when authorized,” he said. “This is the way forward for us ... This is the way that we've structured our force. This is the way that we developed our doctrine. This is the way that we engage our adversaries ... this is our method upon which we look at the future and say this is how we have an impact on our adversaries.” Aside from the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, Congress now requires the Department of Defense to provide quarterly readiness briefings on the cyber mission force. In the annual defense policy bill, signed into law in December, Pentagon officials must brief members of Congress on the abilities of the force to conduct cyber operations based on capability, capacity of personnel, equipment, training and equipment condition. The secretary of defense must also establish metrics for assessing the readiness of the cyber mission force, under the provision. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2020/01/07/congressional-commission-wants-more-cyberwarriors-for-the-military/
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August 23, 2022 | International, Land
Army launches new Bring-Your-Own-Device pilot as it aims to leverage commercial capabilities
"Since this is done in a virtualized environment that is hosted up in the cloud through DoD, it is very, very, very secure... We're pretty excited about this and it's taken us a while to get to this point, both from a policy perspective and from a building out of the environment [perspective], but we are right on the cusp of implementation," Lt. Gen. John Morrison said.