Hackers Created Rogue VMs to Evade Detection in Recent MITRE Cyber Attack

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  April 23, 2019 | International, Land

  US Army needs another year to pick protection system for Stryker

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army plans to take another year to pick an Active Protection System for its Stryker combat vehicle, according to the military deputy to the Army acquisition chief. The service is already fielding the Rafael-made Trophy APS on its Abrams tank and has picked IMI's Iron Fist for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle — both as interim systems until the Army can develop an advanced future system — but it had to go back to square one when its attempt to outfit Stryker with Herndon, Virginia-based Artis LLC's Iron Curtain system failed. The Army put out a request for possible systems to be qualified as an interim solution on the Stryker. Officials ultimately chose a Rafael and DRS team and a Rheinmetall and UBT team to participate in a live-fire rodeo last November to see if either system might work. But while it was believed a decision would come soon after, Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski testified at an April 2 Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee hearing that it would take another year to make a decision. “We have two companies that are in the process of competing for [APS on Stryker]. One is a venture between ... Rafael and DRS and the other is Rheinmetall and UBT, so we are in the process of going through that,” Ostrowski said. “It's going to take about a year, quite frankly, in order to put those systems on the vehicles, characterize them and make a determination as to whether or not to move forward with either one of the two vendors.” Ostrowski added the service had asked each team to provide blueprints and to build their non-developmental APS systems to fit on Stryker. “They are in the process of doing that build,” he said. “And once the build is put on the vehicle, it's then a matter of testing in order to ensure that it works,” Ostrowski said, which is not unlike the process the Army went through to characterize and qualify APS systems on both Abrams and Bradley. Israeli company Rafael and DRS submitted its Trophy VPS — a lighter version of Trophy — for the rodeo. Germany-based Rheinmetall partnered with Unified Business Technologies, based in Michigan, and submitted its Active Defense System — now renamed StrikeShield. During the rodeo, participants did not perform a full installation of their systems on the vehicle. Instead, they set up test rigs in front of Strykers or hung their system off a Stryker in the evaluation. Following the rodeo, the idea was to select one, possibly two systems, to begin some sort of installation characterization on a platform deemed most appropriate for the APS system, Col. Glenn Dean, the Army's Stryker program manager who is also in charge of the interim APS effort, told Defense News in October 2018. Meanwhile, Ostrowski said the Army bought 88 Iron Fist systems for Bradley in 2019 and planned to buy another 36 in the FY20 budget. The service is on a path to field four brigades of Abrams with Trophy by FY21. The Army is also developing its own Modular Active Protection System, which is seen more like a digital integrated backbone that will be designed with an open-system architecture so that vendors can bring radars, optical sensors and hard- or soft-kill effectors and plug them in, according to Ostrowski. The important thing is “to get a capability out there first. . . . Now it's just a matter of moving beyond that,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/04/02/us-army-needs-another-year-to-pick-protection-system-for-stryker/

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  March 26, 2024 | International, Land

  US Army’s new all-domain sensing team to wrangle sensor architecture

  The Army's All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team will focus on the challenge of building an architecture of sensors that can rapidly distribute data.

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  October 10, 2018 | International, Land

  US Army triggers start of possible ground mobility vehicle competition after long delay

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Army seemed geared toward holding a rapid competition to buy a Ground Mobility Vehicle in 2016, but the plan was delayed without much explanation in favor of buying an interim vehicle already in use by special operations forces. Buying the GMV was a top priority following the fall 2015 release of the Army's Combat Vehicle Modernization Strategy, which called for such a vehicle in future and current operations. After a competition never materialized, however, rumors began to swirl that the Army may decide to buy more of the U.S. Special Operations Command's GMV — General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems' Flyer 72 — even after the service had spent several years prior testing a wide variety of commercial off-the-shelf options. But Congress spurred the effort in its fiscal 2018 defense policy bill, mandating the Army hold a competition and move forward with a program. The Program Executive Office Combat Support and Combat Service Support's product lead for the GMV has quietly stated on its website that the Army plans to pursue a competition for the GMV — calling it an Infantry Squad Vehicle — as a formal program of record. The office states that it is projected to enter into a production contract in fiscal 2020 to procure 2,000 vehicles, roughly a year later than originally planned. The Army took a big step forward on Sept. 24, releasing a market survey to industry, via the Federal Business Opportunities website, soliciting offerings for an Infantry Squad Vehicle. The notice states the service is looking for a vehicle that provides mobility for a nine-soldier infantry squad as well as its associated equipment to “move around the close battle area.” The vehicle should be lightweight, highly mobile and transportable “by all means” to include CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters, UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopters and by Low Velocity Air Drop. Responses to the solicitation are due on Oct. 26. While the Army has already bought quantities of the SOCOM vehicle for five airborne infantry brigade combat teams, other companies have continued to wait in the wings for the possibility to compete. And the pool of readily available ultralight vehicles is deep. In addition to GD's Flyer, these vehicles all participated in vehicle demonstrations at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2014: Boeing-MSI Defense's Phantom Badger. Polaris Defense's air-transportable off-road combat vehicle DAGOR. Hendrick Dynamics' Commando Jeep. Vyper Adamas' Viper. Lockheed Martin's High Versatility Tactical Vehicle, which is a version of the British Army's HMT-400 Jackal. The Army launched its new-start GMV program in 2017 as planned, based off the service's new combat vehicle modernization strategy released in 2016, which called for the capability. The Army planned to reach a full-rate production decision on a vehicle by the end of FY19. But then it decided to split GMV procurement into two phases in the FY18 budget request and, in the first phase, planned to exclusively buy 295 of GD's Flyers through a previously awarded contract with U.S. Special Operations Command. The second phase would open up into a competition to build 1,700 more GMVs. Procuring the GMV vehicles from SOCOM raised the unit cost of the vehicle higher than the unit cost of ones that would have been procured through competition, according to FY18 budget documents. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/09/us-army-triggers-start-of-possible-ground-mobility-vehicle-competition-after-long-delay