DARPA: Program Targets Innovative Propulsion Solutions for Ground-Based Weapons Delivery System

On the same subject

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  July 11, 2018 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  The Marine Corps wants to protect its Hornets from GPS jammers

  By: Shawn Snow The Corps is looking to install antennas in its F/A-18 C/D Hornets to help the aircraft defeat GPS jammers. In a request for information posted in early June by Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, the Corps wants to install the anti-jam antennas known as the Air Navigation Warfare Program, or NAVWAR, in 120 of the legacy Hornets. The anti-jamming antenna “provides Global Positioning System (GPS) protection for Naval Air platforms by allowing for continued access to GPS through the use of Anti-Jam (AJ) Antenna Systems designed to counter GPS Electronic Warfare threats from intentional and unintentional interference,” Michael Land, a spokesman for NAVAIR, told Marine Corps Times in an emailed statement Tuesday. The development comes as U.S. aircraft have faced mounting electronic warfare attacks against aircraft in Syria. Army Gen. Tony Thomas, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told audience members at a conference in April that adversaries were trying to bring down AC-130 gunships in Syria using electronic warfare, or EW. “Right now in Syria, we're in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet, from our adversaries,” Thomas said. “They're testing us every day, knocking our communications down, disabling our AC-130s, et cetera.” The Corps is amid an overhaul of its forces and equipment to prepare for a potential fight with near-peer adversaries like Russia and China. Both countries boast an impressive array of electronic warfare capabilities. Russia has been using the Syrian battlefield to hone its EW skills. The top Marine has oft repeated the threats posed to GPS systems from rising adversaries and says the Corps needs to be prepared to fight in GPS denied environments. The F/A-18 is the Corps' bridging aircraft as it moves to the new high-tech F-35. As the Corps transitions the older legacy Hornets are undergoing a service life extension, meaning the aircraft are being updated to handle the modern battlefield. “Installation in F/A-18 A-D helps ensure continued mission capability as the service life of the aircraft is extended and facilitates supportability by using more common equipment,” Land said. The Navy and the Marine Corps already use the anti-jamming GPS antenna in a number of airframes, according to Land. “Typical installations replace a platform's existing GPS antenna with a NAVWAR antenna and separate antenna electronics, while leaving a platform's GPS receiver in place,” Land added. The Corps expects the F/A-18 to be in sunset by 2030. As the Corps moves to the F-35 and phases out its Hornets, the legacy fighters will consolidate on the West Coast by 2018 with the exception of VMFA (AW)‐242, which will remain aboard the Corps' air station at Iwakuni, Japan until it transitions to the F-35 in 2028, according to the Corp's 2018 aviation plan. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/07/10/the-corps-wants-to-protect-its-hornets-from-gps-jammers/

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  October 17, 2019 | International, Land

  3 ways the Pentagon wants to make buying American weapons easier

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — America sold more than $55 billion in weapons abroad in fiscal 2019, but the man in charge of those efforts hopes to increase sales as he continues to tinker with the security cooperation system. Security cooperation has long been a foreign policy tool in America's pocket, but under the Trump administration, it “has been elevated to a tool of first resort for U.S. foreign policy,” Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, the head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said during a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference. Since taking over at DSCA, Hooper has implemented a series of reforms aimed not only at speeding the process up, but shaving costs for potential buyers. He intends to keep that reform effort going in 2020. Here's how: Continue to cut surcharge costs. In June, DSCA dropped a surcharge on American defense goods sold abroad from 3.5 percent to 3.2 percent; later that year, the agency also cut a transportation administration fee. Both those charges are used to support DSCA operations, but some in the security cooperation process had argued the increased prices for customers would lead potential buyers to look to cheaper Russian or Chinese goods in the future. Hooper said that in 2020, DSCA plans to also cut the contract administration surcharge — applied to each FMS case to pay for contract quality assurance, management and audits — from 1.2 percent to 1 percent. “This will reduce the overall costs of FMS and could potentially save allies and partners 16.7 percent in CAS surcharges in this coming year,” Hooper said. Make it easier for customers to get custom weapon systems. The FMS system is set up to help sell weapons that are identical to systems already in use by the U.S. military. It's easier to move a package of Abrams tanks equipped with the same gear that multiple countries use than to push through a custom version with specific capabilities. But Hooper noted that partners are moving away from standard designs and are looking for systems “designed and tailored to meet their needs. Our system was not initially designed to process these types of systems, which increases time and cost in the U.S. response.” To help deal with that, DSCA established an “interagency non-program of record community of interest,” which involves all the agencies that have a say in the process, to figure out ways to make moving custom systems more plausible. The goal is to have a new pathway for moving those capabilities by 2020, which Hooper says will “reduce the time it takes to review request for non-program of record systems, to facilitate industry ability to compete in this global market.” Plan out commercial offsets. Many countries require offsets from industry for big foreign military sales. These offsets are essentially throw-in sweeteners for the buying country, put together from the industrial partner. In the past, these were often things like building a new library or school. But in the last two decades, some countries specifically requested high-end technologies or tech transfer to jump-start their domestic defense industries. Because offsets are negotiated between the industrial partner and the customer nation, the Pentagon, which serves as the in-between for an FMS case, often finds out about offsets only at the end of the process. But with offsets becoming more technological, those now require more review time, and so a deal can slow down while the relevant agencies approve the deal. Hooper hopes 2020 will see industry better inform DSCA of potential offsets early in the process so that last minute hangups can be avoided. “We continue to encourage our industry partners to inform the U.S. of potential offset requirements early on so that we can begin the necessary technology security foreign disclosure and policy reviews as early as possible,” Hooper said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2019/10/16/3-ways-the-pentagon-wants-to-make-buying-american-weapons-easier/

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  March 12, 2019 | International, Land

  The new Army program to train soldiers to fight underground

  In the modern battlefield, troops might have to fight an enemy in the vast subways and water systems underneath huge cities, or in the pitch-black tunnels guarding the North Korean defensive line. A new Army program aims to get them ready. (Ben Murray/Military Times) https://www.militarytimes.com/newsletters/tv-next-episode/2019/03/04/the-new-army-program-to-train-soldiers-to-fight-underground/