How the Defense Digital Service revamped Army cyber training

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  October 9, 2018 | International, Land

  Replacing the Bradley is the top priority for the Army’s next-gen combat vehicle modernization team

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The modernization team tasked with advancing the Army's next-generation combat vehicles is focused, as its top priority, on replacing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle with an Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, according to the team's leader, Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman. The OMFV is meant to “provide options to commanders in combat, so it's a decision to, manned or unmanned, gain contact with the enemy, and that can be visual or through firepower, and it actually provides options to commanders so that they can use the best way to accomplish their mission,” Coffman said in an interview with Defense News shortly before the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting. The Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team — established as part of the Army's new Futures Command — tackles the service's second highest priority out of six major lines of effort that are intended to fully modernize the force by 2028. The CFT has had many conversations with industry to determine what's possible. The team has laid out what it thinks will be the requirements for the vehicle, Coffman said, including aspects like an optionally manned capability, loading it on a C-17 aircraft, protection elements and lethality. Even though the Army plans to rapidly prototype and procure the OMFV, Coffman said the team will continue to roll new technologies in through constant experimentation, in parallel with OMFV procurement, so that the first OMFV that comes out and gets fielded is constantly improved. The Army will roll those improvements into manufacturing “so that we can always maintain the current technology on these vehicles,” he said. The Army is requesting that designs have lots of room for upgrades and to add in new technology. "We know technology will continue to move at the pace it is today or faster, and it is going to allow us to have enough physical space and computing power as well as propulsion power that, if we want to add things to these vehicles, we have the ability to build them [to be] the best they can be,” Coffman said. Jumping right in, the service plans to release a request for proposals, not just a draft, by the end of the year, Coffman said. It is anticipated that the proposals will be due in May next year, and then the Army will downselect to two competitors who will build 14 prototypes in an engineering and manufacturing development phase in the first quarter of fiscal 2020, according to industry sources. Coffman said he hoped to cast a wide net with industry, including looking to partners around the world for solutions. “We want them to bring us their best, and we will evaluate and downselect to some number and do a procurement contract at the end of the final evaluation,” he said. To accommodate for the OMFV effort and the other lines of development within the CFT's portfolio, the Army has downgraded its prototype activity within the Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center. A year ago, the Army had kicked off a major prototyping effort to develop what the service was calling its NGCV by awarding an industry team a contract to build two demonstrators by fiscal year 2022. The Army awarded a seven-year, $700 million contract to a team consisting of SAIC — the team lead — as well as Lockheed Martin, Moog Inc., GS Engineering Inc., Hodges Transportation Inc. and Roush Industries. Jim Scanlon, senior vice president and general manager of SAIC's Defense Systems Group, told Defense News in a recent interview that while the initial plan was to build prototypes, the strategy has evolved. Now, the team is working on sub-system experimentation for TARDEC using Bradley assets, to test capabilities such as mobility systems and manned-unmanned teaming. SAIC, according to Scanlon, sees the Mobile Protected Firepower solution it is hoping to prototype for the Army as possessing technological capabilities that will serve as “hooks” — or a pathway — to fulfilling OMFV requirements. Other companies are likely to emerge with offerings for OMFV, including General Dynamics Land Systems, AM General and BAE Systems. BAE Systems brought its CV90 fighting vehicle, developed for the Swedish army, to AUSA. The Netherlands, Finland and Denmark are also customers of the vehicle. According to BAE, it brought the CV90 to the show as a starting point to discuss possible options for the NGCV program. Raytheon and Rheinmetall announced at the AUSA conference Oct. 8 that they are partnering to provide Rheinmetall's Lynx combat vehicle as its submission to the impending OMFV competition. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/08/replacing-the-bradley-is-the-top-priority-for-the-armys-next-gen-combat-vehicle-modernization-team

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  July 27, 2020 | International, Land

  Two Men & A Bot: Can AI Help Command A Tank?

  Instead of a traditional three-man crew, Brig. Gen. Coffman told Breaking Defense, “you have two humans with a virtual crew member, [sharing] the functions of gunning, driving, and commanding.” By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on July 27, 2020 at 7:00 AM WASHINGTON: Field tests and computer models have convinced the Army that future armored vehicles can fight with just two human crew, assisted by automation, instead of the traditional three or more, the service's armor modernization chief told me. That confidence drove the Army, in its draft Request For Proposals released on the 17th, to require a two-soldier crew for its future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. The OMFV is scheduled to enter service in 2028 to replace the Reagan-era M2 Bradley, which has the traditional trio of commander, gunner, and driver. (Both vehicles can also carry infantry as passengers, and the Army envisions the OMFV being operated by remote control in some situations). The Army has already field-tested Bradleys modified to operate with a two-soldier crew instead of the usual three, said Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman, the director of Army Futures Command's Cross Functional Team for Next Generation Combat Vehicles. “As we speak,” he told me in an interview last week, “we've got those Mission-Enabling Technology Demonstrators, or MET-D, actually maneuvering at Fort Carson, Colorado, as part of the Robotic Combat Vehicle test.” With the benefit of modern automation, Coffman said, those two-soldier crews have proven able to maneuver around obstacles, look out for threats, and engage targets — without being overwhelmed by too many simultaneous demands. “They're doing that both in simulation and real world at Carson right now,” Coffman told me. “You have two humans with a virtual crewmember that will remove cognitive load from the humans and allow the functions of gunning, and driving, and commanding the vehicle to be shared between humans and machines,” Coffman said. “We think that the technology has matured to the point where ...this third virtual crewmember will provide the situational awareness to allow our soldiers to fight effectively.” The defense contractors who would have to build the vehicle – even if a government team designs it – aren't so sure. “A two-man crew will be overwhelmed with decision making, no matter how much AI is added,” one industry source told me. A Persistent Dilemma For at least eight decades, combat vehicle designers have faced a dilemma. A smaller crew allows a smaller vehicle, one that's cheaper, lighter, and harder to hit – and if it is hit, puts fewer lives at risk. But battlefield experience since 1940 has shown that smaller crews are easily overwhelmed by the chaos of combat. Historically, an effective fighting vehicle required a driver solely focused on the path ahead, a gunner solely focused on hitting the current target, and a commander looking in all directions for the next target to attack, threat to avoid, or path to take. (Many vehicles added a dedicated ammunition handler and/or radio operator as well). A “virtual crewmember” could solve this dilemma — but will the technology truly be ready by the late 2020s? The Army actually tackled this question just last year and came to the opposite conclusion. You see, the draft Request For Proposals released last week is the Army's second attempt to launch the OMFV program. In March 2019, the Army issued its original RFP for an Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. In most respects, the 2019 RFP was much more demanding than last week's draft: It wanted the vehicle in service two years earlier, in 2026 instead of 2028, and it had such stringent requirements for weight and amor protection that no company managed to meet them, leading the Army to start over. But for all its ambition in other aspects, the 2019 RFP did not mandate a two-person crew; that's a new addition for the 2020 version. It's worth noting that just one company managed to deliver a prototype by the Army's original deadline in 2019: General Dynamics. They built their vehicle to operate with a crew of three – but with the option to go down to two as automation improved. At the same time, the Army started experimenting with Robotic Combat Vehicles that had no human crew aboard at all. The long-term goal is to have a single soldier oversee a whole wolfpack of RCVs, but the current proto-prototypes are operated by remote control, with a crew of two: a gunner/sensor operator and a driver. The Army has been impressed by how well these teleoperated RCVs have performed in field trials. If two soldiers can effectively operate a vehicle they're not even in, might two be enough to operate a manned vehicle as well? The other piece of the experimental RCV unit is the mothership, an M2 Bradley with its passenger cabin converted to hold the teleoperators and their workstations. These modified M2s, called MET-Ds, also operate with just two crewmembers, a gunner and a driver – without a separate commander – and, says Coffman, they've done so successfully in combat scenarios. The Army is not just adding automation to individual vehicles. It's seeking to create combined units of manned and unmanned war machines that share data on threats and targets over a battlefield network, allowing them to work together as a seamless tactical unit that's far more than the sum of its parts. “This [vehicle] will not fight alone, but as part of a platoon, a company, a battalion,” Coffman said. “The shared situational awareness across that formation will transform the way we fight.”

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  October 22, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - October 21, 2019

  AIR FORCE Raytheon Co., Dulles, Virginia, has been awarded a $128,450,262 firm-fixed price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Mobile Sensors operations and maintenance. This contract provides for non-personal services for operations and maintenance services that will ensure the availability of the Cobra King and Gray Star's radar facility to collect on 100% of the tasked data collection opportunities that pass through its field of view with the necessary support provided 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Work will be performed at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, and locations overseas and is expected to be completed by Oct. 31, 2021. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and one offer received. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $22,722,616 are being obligated at the time of award. The Acquisition Management and Integration Center, Detachment 2, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity (FA7022-17-D-0001). Mesotech International, Sacramento, California, has been awarded a ceiling of $17,462,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for the Fixed Base Weather Observation System (FMQ-23) program. This contract provides for new FMQ-23 system purchases and contractor logistics support. Work will be performed at Sacramento, California, and is expected to be complete by October 2025. This award is the result of a sole source acquisition. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $129,286 will be obligated at the time of the award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8730-20-D-0003). NAVY Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., San Diego, California, is awarded an $18,253,921 modification (P00003) to a firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order (N00019-19-F-0272) against a previously issued basic ordering agreement (N00019-15-G-0026) in support of the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system. This order procures material kits and retrofit labor to incorporate the Integrated Functional Capability (IFC) 4.0 configuration into one retrofit ground segment and fully fund the IFC 4.0 retrofit install labor for aircraft B10. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (41.2%); Palmdale, California (30.7%); Waco, Texas (9.9%); Salt Lake City, Utah (2.9%); Newtown, North Dakota (2.5%) Verona, Wisconsin (1.6%); Sterling, Virginia (1.5%); Irvine, California (1%); San Clemente, California (0.7%); and various locations inside and outside the continental U.S. (7.9% and 0.1%, respectively). Work is expected to be completed in February 2021. Fiscal 2020 aircraft procurement (Navy); and fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $18,253,921 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. ARMY Advanced Structural Technologies Inc.,* Oxnard, California, was awarded a $17,643,500 firm-fixed-price with economic price adjustment contract for manufacture and supply of M1 Abrams tank aluminum road wheel inserts. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work will be performed in Oxnard, California, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 21, 2021. Fiscal 2020 Army working capital funds in the amount of $17,643,500 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W911RQ-20-D-0001). Pontchartrain Partners LLC,* New Orleans, Louisiana, was awarded a $12,221,180 firm-fixed-price contract for emergency erosion repairs. Bids were solicited via the internet with two received. Work will be performed in Texas City, Texas, with an estimated completion date of Aug. 14, 2020. Fiscal 2018 flood control and coastal emergencies, civil works funds in the amount of $12,221,180 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston, Texas, is the contracting activity (W912HY-20-C-0002). TAC Environmental LLC,* Toledo, Ohio, was awarded a $9,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for environmental architect engineering services. Bids were solicited via the internet with four received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 20, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Kentucky, is the contracting activity (W912QR-20-D-0002). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Oshkosh Defense LLC, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has been awarded a maximum $9,899,267 firm-fixed-price, requirements contract for pneumatic tire wheel assemblies. This was a competitive acquisition with one response received. This is a three-year contract with no option periods. Location of performance is Wisconsin, with an Oct. 21, 2022, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2022 Army working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Warren, Michigan (SPRDL1-20-D-0002). Standard Bent Glass, East Butler, Pennsylvania, has been awarded a $9,077,715 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for transparent armor vehicular windows. This was a competitive acquisition with two offers received. This is a three-year base contract with two one-year option periods. Location of performance is Pennsylvania, with an Oct. 20, 2022, performance completion date. Using military service is Army. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2022 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, Columbus, Ohio (SPE7LX-20-D-0002). *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/1994358/source/GovDelivery/