Japan unveils its hypersonic weapons plans

On the same subject

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  October 16, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  The US Navy’s ‘Manhattan Project’ has its leader

  David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The US Navy's top officer has tasked a former surface warfare officer turned engineering duty officer to create a powerful, all-connecting network service leaders believe they will need to fight and win against a high-end foe such as China. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday tasked Rear Adm. Douglas Small to lead an effort that will “develop networks, infrastructure, data architecture, tools, and analytics that support the operational and developmental environment that will enable our sustained maritime dominance.” Calling the effort “Project Overmatch,” Gilday called it the Navy's top priority after the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. “Beyond recapitalizing our undersea deterrent, there is no higher developmental priority in the U.S. Navy,” Gilday said. “All other efforts are supporting you. Your goal is to enable a Navy that swarms the sea, delivering synchronized lethal and non-lethal effects from near-and-far, every axis, and every domain.” In the past, Gilday has referred to the effort to field a powerful network as its “Manhattan Project,” harkening back to the rapid development of the atomic bomb in the 1940s. The urgency behind the effort to create this network highlights the growing sense of unease the Navy has around its position in the world as China builds towards its goal of achieving first-rate military power status by 2049. “The Navy's ability to establish and sustain sea control in the future is at risk," Gilday said in his letter. “I am confident that closing this risk is dependent on enhancing Distributed Maritime Operations through a teamed manned/unmanned force that exploits artificial intelligence and machine learning. I am not confident we are building the Naval Operational Architecture connecting and enabling this future force as quickly as we must.” The network is to connect with the Air Force's Joint All-Domain Command and Control effort, which the services are all lining up behind. Breaking Defense first reported the memo. Small started his career as a surface warfare officer but became an engineering duty officer in 1997. He has a background in electronic warfare and above-water sensors, as well as work at the Missile Defense Agency. In the Oct. 1 memo, Gilday has tasked him to report after 60 days, then every 90 days after that. In a separate memo to Vice Adm. James Kilby, the Navy's top warfighting requirements officer, Gilday said he wanted the Navy to develop both a concept of operations and a coherent kill chain based on an “any-sensor, any-shooter,” construct, an idea that would mean that any track obtained by any sensor can be passed to any ship or platform with a missile with which to kill it, something that would be enabled by Small's network. ‘We don't have and adequate net' In comments last year, Gilday said the Navy needed to move out with urgency to create a powerful network. “The biggest challenge for us is to join all the main command and control,” Gilday said. “We're building netted weapons, netted platforms, and netted [command-and-control] nodes, but we don't have an adequate net, and that's a critical piece.” The Navy has been working toward a concept of operations that links its ships, aircraft and unmanned platforms by way of communications relay nodes — such as small drones — or whole ships — such as the future frigate or high-tech aircraft like the E-2D Hawkeye. The idea is to spread the force out over a wide area, as opposed to clustered around a carrier, to put a maximum burden on Chinese intelligence and reconnaissance assets. This spread-out, networked force would connect the various shooters so that if any individual node in the network sees something to kill, any Navy or Air Force asset with weapons within range can kill it. This has led to a push for ever-longer-range missiles. But to make it work, all the pieces must be linked on a reliable communications network. The current architecture, according to the Navy, is insufficient for the job, given Chinese and Russian investments in electronic warfare that can interfere with communications. https://www.c4isrnet.com/naval/2020/10/14/the-us-navys-manhattan-project-has-its-leader/

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  January 17, 2019 | International, Naval

  Facing a sealift capacity collapse, the Navy seeks strategy for new auxiliary ships

  By: David B. Larter ARLINGTON, Va. – The U.S. Navy is moving toward settling on an approach for recapitalizing the nation's aged sealift fleet, moving away from a single common hull for five missions. The sealift fleet, which is facing the prospect of an imminent collapse in capacity due to the ships all reaching or exceeding their hull life according to the U.S. Army, is what the U.S. would use to transport up to 90 percent of Army and U.S. Marine Corps gear in the event of a major conflict overseas. The program, known as the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-Mission Platform, was envisioned as we way to recapitalize the country's surge sealift force and replace other auxiliary ships such as hospital ships and submarine tenders with a common hull form. But the Navy found after studies last year that one hull simply wasn't going to work for all the disparate functions the Navy was looking to fulfill with the platform. Now, the Navy thinks it has a better answer: Two platforms. “We started out thinking it was going to be one hull ... but what we found from our own examination and from industry feedback is that these missions fall into two basic categories,” said Capt. Scot Searles, the strategic and theater sealift program manager, in a brief at the annual Surface Navy Association's national symposium. “One is a very volume-intensive category where you need large volume inside the ship – that's the sealift mission where you are trying to carry a lot of Marine and Army cargo. The other bucket it falls into is the people-intensive mission. When you talk about a hospital ship or a submarine tender, those are people-intensive, and we found we didn't need as much internal volume. It could be a smaller ship but needed more berthing capability.” The Navy released a request for information this week for industry studies that they hope to award in March that will validate the approach, Searles said. “We believe it's going to be two hulls, but that's still a great savings over designing five hulls,” he said. Congress wants the Navy to start ordering hulls by 2023 to deliver by 2026, something the Navy told Congress in a report last year could be done if it ponies up the cash. The most urgent need in the surge sealift fleet is the ready reserve force, a fleet of ships run by the Maritime Administration that are in reduced operating status and spend most of their time in port on standby waiting to be activated in case of a national emergency. Searles said the plan would be to bring the newly constructed auxiliary sealift ships online and use them as maritime prepositioning ships, then take the current prepositioning ships – which still have plenty of life left in the hull – and move them into the ready reserve force. Prepositioning ships are operated by Military Sealift Command and deploy forward with logistics and equipment that can be used in a crisis on short notice. Developing the new ships will take anywhere from three-to-five years, Searles said, and in the meantime the Navy plans to buy used ships off the open market and modify them for DoD use. They will also extend the lives of the current ships in the sealift force to the best of their ability. Collapse In February, the Army sent a letter to Congress saying that the country's organic sealift capacity would fall below the level required to move the Army's equipment by 2024 if the Navy did not act fast. “Without proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in force projection capability beginning in 2024,” the document said, adding that the advanced age of the current fleet adds further risk to the equation. “By 2034, 70% of the organic fleet will be over 60 years old — well past its economic useful life; further degrading the Army's ability to deploy forces,” the document reads. The Army's G-4 also alluded to then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' readiness push, adding that even the most prepared forces wouldn't matter if they can't reach the front line. “Shortfalls in sealift capacity undermine the effectiveness of US conventional deterrence as even a fully-resourced and trained force has limited deterrent value if an adversary believes they can achieve their strategic objective in the window of opportunity before American land forces arrive,” the paper reads. “The Army's ability to project military power influences adversaries' risk calculations.” The document reflects the Army's growing impatience with the Navy's efforts to recapitalize its surge sealift ships, which are composed of a series of roll-on/roll-off ships and other special-purpose vessels operated by Military Sealift Command and the Maritime Administration. And Capitol Hill shares the Army's view, according to two HASC staffers, who spoke to Defense News last year on condition of anonymity. The Navy, which is responsible for recapitalizing the surge sealift force, put forward a budget in 2019 that called for about $242 million over the next five years, the bulk of which would go toward designing and developing a new platform that will replace the current vessels. HASC lawmakers considered that amount of funding not enough to make any serious inroads on recapitalization, and certainly not enough to forestall the critical shortfall identified in the information paper, the staffers said. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/01/16/facing-a-sealift-capacity-collapse-the-navy-hones-in-on-a-strategy-for-new-auxiliary-ships

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  June 14, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  ViaSat acquisition boosts its secure networks portfolio

  ViaSat, a global communications company that has contracts with the Department of Defense, announced its acquisition of Horsebridge Defence and Security, a UK-based firm focused on design, system integration and support of deployable secure networks. ViaSat said that the acquisition will give the California-founded company greater military communications integration expertise and access to the UK defense market through the relationships Horsebridge Defence and Security has with the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and UK Armed Forces. “By acquiring Horsebridge Defence and Security, we hope to accelerate the trajectory of our ability to support UK defence operations,” said Ken Peterman, president of government systems at ViaSat. “By combining our strengths with the deep domain expertise of the Horsebridge Defence and Security team, we intent to reliably extend commercial, military or emergency service networks to the tactical mobile edge.” The financial details of the deal will not be disclosed, ViaSat said. However, the company does not expect the transaction to materially affect its non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings for the 2019 fiscal year. ViaSat's Defense Department contracts include a $13.7 million Defense Information Systems Agency contract in 2017 to provide ground transceivers and a $33.3 million Air Force contract for anti-jam satellite technology. https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/2018/06/13/viasat-acquisition-boosts-its-secure-networks-portfolio/