August 15, 2019 | International, Land
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
ARLINGTON: To see through the fog of war on future battlefields, ground troops will need near-real-time access to huge amounts of information from a host of sensors — from satellites to F-35s to mini-drones to targeting goggles, all sharing data through a joint combat cloud. But to evade the enemy's own swarms of sensors, soldiers will also need to know when to disconnect from the network and go dark.
Switching quickly from being hyperconnected to being cut off — whether as a tactical choice or as the result of enemy jamming and hacking — will put a new kind of strain on future frontline commanders. The capability to cope is central both to the Army's evolving combat concept, Multi-Domain Operations, the Pentagon's controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative, the JEDI cloud computing program.
The Case For Cloud
“Why do we want to go to the cloud? Because you get better synthesized data,” said the Army's senior futurist, Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley, in a recent conversation with reporters. “Sensors are going to be ubiquitous on the battlefield,” he said. They'll provide such masses of data that unaided human brains and traditional staff processes can't collect it all in one place, let alone make sense of it: “It's got to be synchronized by tools such as artificial intelligence and cloud-based computing.”
“If I am a warfighter, I want as much data as you could possibly give me,” said the head of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, at a separate roundtable. “Let me use my algorithms to sort through it ... at machine speeds...It's really hard for me to do that without an enterprise cloud.”
While disconnected, troops will have to make do with whatever data they've already downloaded, perhaps to a backpack mini-server with built-in AI. Then, Wesley continued, “when you're back up on the net, you might need to do a download, adjust your algorithms, adjust your data.
“But you won't necessarily have access to that all the time,” Wesley warned. “You can imagine where a given [unit] will be off the net for a period — maybe go dark, not unlike the way submarines operate now. ”
While disconnected, troops will have to make do with whatever data they've already downloaded, perhaps to a backpack mini-server with built-in AI. Then, Wesley continued, “when you're back up on the net, you might need to do a download, adjust your algorithms, adjust your data.”
“You're going to have balance both cloud computing and computing at the edge,” Wesley said. “It's absolutely a form of maneuver.” Transmitting and going silent, uploading and downloading, will need to be as well-practiced and intuitive as digging in a hasty defense or laying an ambush.
Wesley, who works for Army Futures Command, didn't mention the all-service JEDI program by name. But Shanahan, who reports to the Pentagon CIO, made the link explicit.
“JEDI will include cloud capabilities that are able to operate out of standalone, portable hardware even in the absence of communications links,” Shanahan said. “It will re-synch with the rest of the JEDI cloud as soon as communications are restored.”
“You have the central JEDI cloud, then you have, maybe, portable data centers that are downrange,” Shanahan explained. “The beauty of that is not only are you getting access to all the benefits of the cloud down to the very edge of the battlefield: As you're collecting data, that data can then go back into [the central cloud], so everybody is benefiting from that.”
“If you get disconnected, as is going to happen in combat, especially in a high-end fight, you still have what you had at the point it was disconnected,” Shanahan said. Your latest downloads will be saved at the closest local server, which might be in a CONEX shipping container carried by truck to a forward command post or in a pair of soldiers' backpacks, accessible even when long-range communications fail. Then, he continued, “when it suddenly comes back, you have all of this ... connected across the entire enterprise.”
Multi-Domain Command & Control
While JEDI plays a central role in this vision of future warfare, it's just one part of a much larger push, an Air Force system for communicating and combining all this information, the Multi Domain Command and Control System (MDC2). The goal is to move data from any part of the force, anywhere in the world, in any of the five recognized domains — land, sea, air, space and cyberspace — to any other part, quickly and in useful form. In essence, the Air Force and JEDI are attacking the multi-domain problem from the top down, starting with central servers, higher headquarters, and satellites, while the Army is coming from the ground up, grunt-first.
“Imagine a scout on the reverse side of a tactical slope,” Wesley said. “Imagine an F-35 may have just flown over that slope, that space, in the previous 60 minutes. Those aircraft are going to be taking in all sorts of data. How is the scout going to get access to that data without waiting for a direct point-to-point communication with that aircraft?” The solution, he said, is for all sensors to share their data in a common “combat cloud,” a term which he noted comes from in the Air Force.
It's not just intelligence, Wesley went on: It's targeting data. The ultimate goal is some AI algorithm — carefully monitored and directed by human commanders — that can match a target with the weapon best suited to destroy it, whether that weapon is a strike fighter, a land-based missile launcher, or a warship. A future commander could call for fire support the way today's urbanites call an Uber
To experiment with how this might work in real life, the Army has already created a brigade-sized Multi-Domain Task Force, whose collective eyes are a battalion-sized Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare, & Space (I2CEWS) detachment. The original MDTF has been holding wargames and field exercises in the Pacific with the other services and with allies like Australia; a second task force is planned for Europe, and a third will join the first in Asia. After that, Wesley said, the Army plans to develop new organizations like a Theater Fires Command to coordinate long-range strikes by its new thousand-mile missiles.
But this cannot be only an Army effort, Wesley emphasized, and it isn't. “The Air Force and Army are well aligned in that this future design is going to have to be increasingly joint,” he said. “Headquarters are going to be increasingly purple in the future.”
“We must have a joint concept going forward,” Wesley said. “The former acting secretary of defense, [Patrick] Shanahan, directed joint wargames that will ensue this fall. I think that's the next big moment where you're going to see the services come together.“
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/download-disconnect-fire-why-grunts-need-jedi-cloud/
May 4, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval
PLANO, Texas — The Navy selected Martin UAV’s V-BAT for a VTOL UAS prototyping and development effort in order to fulfill new technological requirements driven by the changing nature of threats in austere operating environments, Martin UAV said in an...
September 12, 2019 | International, Land
By: Jen Judson LONDON — As the U.S. military and its European allies look to counter Russian capabilities observed against Ukraine in Crimea, countries are looking to move away from towed artillery systems to highly mobile mortar systems that pack a punch at greater range. The exposition floor at DSEI, a large defense trade show in London, was littered with examples of mobile mortar systems that are answering the call. “We're seeing the emergence of mobile mortars now due to changing threats and environments,” James Tinsley, a managing director at Avascent, told Defense News at the show. “Where U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan and Iraq used largely static mortar and artillery emplacements at Forward Operating Bases, these sites are easily fixed, targeted and destroyed by more advanced conventional adversaries,” Tinsley said. “Those adversaries use unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic intelligence and counter-battery radars to quickly target and counter-fire on vulnerable artillery positions.” Militaries have increased their focus on mobile artillery solutions, as a result, Tinsley said, to include self-propelled howitzer being recapitalized with new systems like the Paladin M1299 Extended Range Cannon Artillery, Hanwha's K9, BAE Systems' Archer 155mm howitzer to name a few. And there's an effort to extend the range of rounds like the Nammo ramjet capability. Hammer of Thor BAE Systems showcased its CV90 Mjölner variant — Hammer of Thor — with a 120mm mortar system, which is about to be delivered to the Swedish Army after completing qualifications. The company is seeing a genuine requirement from customers because they are seeing the threat and so the company believes its system fits the bill due to its simplicity for the operator. Swedish Armed Forces Colour Sergeant Joakim Kylstad, a development officer at the Land Warfare Centre, said the system brings an increase in mobility and speed of firing and it can keep up with main battle tanks. The ability to shoot and move out of the way before an enemy can detect and return fire is critical, he added. And the 120mm's firepower and range are more effective than an 81mm mortar, Kylstad said. While this variant was specifically designed for the Swedish Army, there are a number of other countries interested in the platform, Dan Lindell, BAE Systems' director of combat vehicles in Sweden, said. The company has sent information on both the Mjölner variant and an advanced mortar system to the United States, but the two have very different price points, Lindell noted. The vehicle was delivered in record time to the Swedes. BAE fired the first shot from the variant just two-and-a-half months after signing a contract in December two years ago. BAE also brought its Archer system on an 8x8 truck. The system carries 21 rounds and can be fired in two-and-a-half minutes. Also packing a punch, Finnish defense company Patria displayed a 120mm Nemo turret on its 6x6 armored wheeled vehicle. While not integrated onto a vehicle at the show, German defense company Rheinmetall brought its 120mm Ragnarok mortar combat system intended for integration into combat vehicles. Downsizing But even smaller vehicles came to the show with mortar systems highlighting easy setup and high mobility. AM General's booth had one vehicle - a HMMWV with a Hawkeye 105mm mobile weapon system using a standard M20 cannon installed with a soft recoil capability. The company has been working with Mandus Group on refining and integrating the Hawkeye system to the humvee. The only parts different from what is already in the U.S. Army inventory is the gun system's cradle and the recoil mechanism, Nguyen Trinh, company executive vice president of International Defense, told Defense News. The 105mm system can be found on Korean and South African vehicles, but it's installed on huge 6x6 trucks. Yet, AM General installed the gun without making any modifications to the humvee besides adding stabilizer legs to adjust to uneven ground. In a recent demonstration, an experienced artillery crew at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, showed the benefits of a system installed on a humvee versus a towed M119. Compared to the four minutes and 41 seconds an artillery crew of seven took to set up and first fire the system, the four person crew using the HMMWV Hawkeye system fired its first shot in one minute and 54 seconds after spending a day-and-a-half training to use it, Trinh said. In emergency situations, a two-person crew can set up and deploy the weapon. Additionally, the system can fire 24 rounds within three minutes from the time the vehicle stops, and by the time a counter-battery radar has time to find the system, it's already moving to its next firing position, he added. And towed-artillery crews can normally only break down and set up the system several times before it becomes physically exhausting. But the mobility and ease of use of the Hawkeye humvee system means the crew can keep going longer. The AM General system can also shoot in 360 degrees and is the only company worldwide with this capability. The rest of the systems out there can shoot in a forward-facing “wedge.” One of the U.S. Army's priorities is to increase protective mobile fire capability because of the threats observed by Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine, and the Army is evaluating systems including AM General's system. “Mobile, self-protected howitzers we believe are the future, not only in the Army but internationally,” Trinh said. Ditching towed systems The U.S. Army has recently completed an Army Requirements Oversight Council review on mobile, self-propelled artillery and language on the way forward is expected soon. The United Kingdom is also looking at the same thing seriously and has requirements for a 155mm system. But “I would say any country that has towed systems today and that really understands the survivability challenges of towed systems are looking in general terms at self-propelled systems,” Trinh noted. While not at the show, the company also has a 155mm system called Brutus on an FMTV chassis. The system doesn't just have to go on a humvee or FMTV either, Trinh said, but any vehicle in a country's inventory. Also taking up less of a footprint was British company Supacat's High Mobility Integrated Fires Capability with an 81mm mortar system on the back. The U.S. Army has several programs that increase the mobility of 120mm mortar systems from the Future Indirect Fire Turret (FIFT) program, the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle (AMPV) and work within the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle program. Several options are being demonstrated to the Army with Stryker for the FIFT program, with a target of installing on AMPV or the future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. “Mortars offer significant firepower in lighter weight systems than self propelled howitzers, albeit at lower ranges. But they are a highly effective complement to other systems,” Tinsley noted. Most self-propelled mortars today are mounted in the hull of vehicles like AMPV or the Stryker combat vehicle. “These can be effective but they are slower to bring to bear, have an open roof, which is vulnerable to counter-fire and require a heavier vehicle to handle recoil or an expensive and complex recoil system,” Tinsley said. So turret-mounted systems are “coming into vogue now,” he said. “They offer high rates of fire, maintain crew protection and tightly integrate fire control or indirect and direct fire missions. Some have automatic loaders and other automation to drive even higher rates of fire.” The Army was moving in this direction back in the days of Future Combat Systems, but the program was cancelled with the rest of the program. The international market has been developing and adopting these systems more quickly, according to Tinsley, and it's likely that the providers with wares to show at DSEI are leading candidates for some of the things the U.S. Army is looking for, but will likely require U.S. production partners and integrators, according to Tinsley. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2019/09/12/shoot-and-scoot-industry-answers-call-for-more-mobile-firepower
March 1, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Saudi and British defence ministers have agreed to study future co-operation on combat air capabilities and potential industrial projects, the Saudi state news agency reported.