August 7, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Tom Kington
ROME — During Libya's proxy war this year, the skies over the North African country have filled with Turkish and Chinese drones, Russian MiG 29s and Sukhoi 24s and Emirati Mirage 2000s — reportedly — with Turkish F-16s and Egyptian Rafales waiting in the wings.
Russian air defense systems have taken down drones while fighters, civilians and air bases have been bombed by jets as C-130s and Turkish A400M aircraft keep up deliveries of new weaponry and fighters into the country.
In short, Libya has been transformed this year into something of an air warfare laboratory, begging the question, what exactly is going on, who is winning and what has this conflict taught generals about modern air combat?
“On one level, Libya yet again simply underscores the value of air power – you do not want to get in a fight without it,” said Douglas Barrie, Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
The conflict in lawless Libya began to escalate in April 2019 as local strongman General Khalifa Haftar launched his campaign to take the capital Tripoli. Backed by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and France, he felt confident going up against the UN-recognized government in Tripoli backed by Turkey, Italy and Qatar.
In April last year, Chinese Wing Loon II drones operated by the UAE bombed civilian targets in the city, reflecting the recent, and rapid, procurement of Chinese drones around the Middle East.
“The Chinese have been adept at selling drones in the Middle East, including to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Iraq. With the US previously constrained in selling systems, the Chinese saw a gap in the market,” said Barrie.
Turkey has proved the exception. Around May 2019, it introduced its own TB2 drone into the fray, attacking Haftar's forces, knocking out Russian Pantsir air defense systems supporting him and helping end his ambitions to take Tripoli.
“Turkey has majored in UAV design and manufacture and likely used Libya in part as a test and adjust battle lab, and its systems are now ‘combat proven'. Its industry, like Roketsan, has also developed small, precision-guided munitions for UAVs,” Barrie said.
A second analyst said Turkey's use of its TB2 in Libya had been a game changer. “Turkey decided it was okay to lose them from time to time, that they were semi-disposable, and that novel approach caught their enemy off guard,” said Jalel Harchaoui at the Clingendael Institute in Holland.
The reason? Cost. “They used to cost the Turks $1-1.5 million apiece to build, but thanks to economies of scale as production volumes rose, the cost has dropped to below $500,000, excluding the control station,” said Harchaoui.
He added that software and other technical changes had boosted the TB2′s efficiency and reconnaissance capabilities, which allowed them to find the right altitude to avoid the Russian Pantsir systems.
“The performance of the Wing Loon II's in the hands of the UAE has meanwhile been largely static. They didn't evolve, so they have been much less impressive,” he said.
Barrie said Libya was another example of the normalization of drone use in modern warfare.
“UAVs are a capability now pursued by state and non-state actors alike. Obviously states can afford more capable, larger systems, while non-state actors may have to make do with home-built systems akin to being made with Radio Shack-like components, or acquiring systems from state sponsors.”
He added, “In Libya UAVs have suited this kind of ugly, attritional warfare against small, lightly armed units.”
The use of manned fighters in Libya has meanwhile been characterized by major powers sending them in on the quiet, with no announcement.
Last July, a missile strike on a migrant center near Tripoli which killed 53 was likely the work of the UAE, the BBC has reported, quoting a confidential UN investigation.
Analyst Harchaoui alleged that UAE Mirage 2000-9 aircraft flying out of an Egyptian base had been supporting Haftar periodically since June 2019.
“Misrata airbase, which has hosted Turkish TB2 drones, was bombed multiple times last year by Emirati drones and jets until the Turks brought in Korkut and MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems. The raids over Misrata stopped in 2020 – probably because the UAE did not want to see a captured pilot show up tortured on Facebook,” he said.
On July 4, fighter jets attacked Al-Watiya air base, just after Turkey had brought in its MIM-23 Hawk air defense missiles there.
“Sonic booms heard over Sebha, in southwest Libya, suggest the aircraft took off from Egypt then flew to Libya via the Sahara to avoid being spotted by Turkish frigates off the Libyan coast,” said Harchaoui.
“Could it have been Egyptian Rafales? They are good but don't have enough experience for an ultra-precise mission like this. French pilots flying Egyptian Rafales is unlikely in case one was captured, leaving the UAE Mirages as most likely,” he said.
“Of all the Gulf states, the UAE is the most capable of this kind of mission – they have the combat experience and could do this,” added Barrie.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military command in Africa reported in late May that satellite imagery showed Russian aircraft arriving in Libya to support Haftar.
USAFRICOM said, “At least 14 MiG-29s and several Su-24s were flown from Russia to Syria, where their Russian markings were painted over to camouflage their Russian origin.”
The aircraft are reportedly being used to support the Wagner Group, a Russian-sponsored mercenary operation on the ground in Libya which Moscow denies links to.
The American command warned the aircraft might be flown by “inexperienced” mercenaries who “will not adhere to international law.”
According to Harchaoui, eye witnesses in Libya reported a number of misses notched up during bombing raids by the aircraft. “That suggests they were not Russian air force pilots,” he said.
This summer the conflict has slowed, as Haftar's forces retreat from Tripoli and take up position to fight for the coastal city of Sirte, which is key to controlling Libya's oil trade. With Al-Watiya airbase now repaired and back in business after the July air raid, Turkey may be considering basing its F-16s there, finally giving it a beach head for fighters in Libya.
Bringing in American-built aircraft could however rely on the say-so of the U.S.
“Is the U.S. so concerned about Russia's intervention in Libya it would support the deployment of Turkish F-16s to stop it?” said Harchaoui. “Or will it come down on the side of Egypt, which is a US ally? The ball is in its court.”
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By: Matt O'Brien, The Associated Press CHELMSFORD, Mass. — The Army is looking for a few good robots. Not to fight — not yet, at least — but to help the men and women who do. These robots aren't taking up arms, but the companies making them have waged a different kind of battle. At stake is a contract worth almost half a billion dollars for 3,000 backpack-sized robots that can defuse bombs and scout enemy positions. Competition for the work has spilled over into Congress and federal court. The project and others like it could someday help troops "look around the corner, over the next hillside and let the robot be in harm's way and let the robot get shot," said Paul Scharre, a military technology expert at the Center for a New American Security. The big fight over small robots opens a window into the intersection of technology and national defense and shows how fear that China could surpass the U.S. drives even small tech startups to play geopolitics to outmaneuver rivals. It also raises questions about whether defense technology should be sourced solely to American companies to avoid the risk of tampering by foreign adversaries. Regardless of which companies prevail, the competition foreshadows a future in which robots, which are already familiar military tools, become even more common. The Army's immediate plans alone envision a new fleet of 5,000 ground robots of varying sizes and levels of autonomy. The Marines, Navy and Air Force are making similar investments. "My personal estimate is that robots will play a significant role in combat inside of a decade or a decade and a half," the chief of the Army, Gen. Mark Milley, said in May at a Senate hearing where he appealed for more money to modernize the force. Milley warned that adversaries like China and Russia "are investing heavily and very quickly" in the use of aerial, sea and ground robots. And now, he added, "we are doing the same." Such a shift will be a "huge game-changer for combat," said Scharre, who credits Milley's leadership for the push. The promise of such big Pentagon investments in robotics has been a boon for U.S. defense contractors and technology startups. But the situation is murkier for firms with foreign ties. Concerns that popular commercial drones made by Chinese company DJI could be vulnerable to spying led the Army to ban their use by soldiers in 2017. And in August, the Pentagon published a report that said China is conducting espionage to acquire foreign military technologies — sometimes by using students or researchers as "procurement agents and intermediaries." At a December defense expo in Egypt, some U.S. firms spotted what they viewed as Chinese knock-offs of their robots. The China fears came to a head in a bitter competition between Israeli firm Roboteam and Massachusetts-based Endeavor Robotics over a series of major contracts to build the Army's next generation of ground robots. Those machines will be designed to be smarter and easier to deploy than the remote-controlled rovers that have helped troops disable bombs for more than 15 years. The biggest contract — worth $429 million — calls for mass producing 25-pound robots that are light, easily maneuverable and can be "carried by infantry for long distances without taxing the soldier," said Bryan McVeigh, project manager for force projection at the Army's research and contracting center in Warren, Michigan. Other bulkier prototypes are tank-sized unmanned supply vehicles that have been tested in recent weeks in the rough and wintry terrain outside Fort Drum, New York. A third $100 million contract — won by Endeavor in late 2017 — is for a midsized reconnaissance and bomb-disabling robot nicknamed the Centaur. The competition escalated into a legal fight when Roboteam accused Endeavor, a spinoff of iRobot, which makes Roomba vacuum cleaners, of dooming its prospects for those contracts by hiring a lobbying firm that spread false information to politicians about the Israeli firm's Chinese investors. A federal judge dismissed Roboteam's lawsuit in April. "They alleged that we had somehow defamed them," said Endeavor CEO Sean Bielat, a former Marine who twice ran for Congress as a Republican. "What we had done was taken publicly available documents and presented them to members of Congress because we think there's a reason to be concerned about Chinese influence on defense technologies." The lobbying firm, Boston-based Sachem Strategies, circulated a memo to members of the House Armed Services Committee. Taking up Endeavor's cause was Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat — and, like Bielat, a Marine veteran — who wrote a letter to a top military official in December 2016 urging the Army to "examine the evidence of Chinese influence" before awarding the robot contracts. Six other lawmakers later raised similar concerns. Roboteam CEO Elad Levy declined to comment on the dispute but said the firm is still "working very closely with U.S. forces," including the Air Force, and other countries. But it's no longer in the running for the lucrative Army opportunities. Endeavor is. Looking something like a miniature forklift on tank treads, its prototype called the Scorpion has been zipping around a test track behind an office park in a Boston suburb. The only other finalist is just 20 miles away at the former Massachusetts headquarters of Foster-Miller, now a part of British defense contractor Qinetiq. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The contract is expected to be awarded in early 2019. Both Endeavor and Qinetiq have strong track records with the U.S. military, having supplied it with its earlier generation of ground robots such as Endeavor's Packbot and Qinetiq's Talon and Dragon Runner. After hiding the Scorpion behind a shroud at a recent Army conference, Bielat and engineers at Endeavor showed it for the first time publicly to The Associated Press in November. Using a touchscreen controller that taps into the machine's multiple cameras, an engineer navigated it through tunnels, over a playground-like structure and through an icy pool of water, and used its grabber to pick up objects. It's a smaller version of its predecessor, the Packbot, which was first used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2002 and later became one of soldiers' essential tools for safely disabling improvised explosives in Iraq. Bielat said the newer Scorpion and Centaur robots are designed to be easier for the average soldier to use quickly without advanced technical training. "Their primary job is to be a rifle squad member," Bielat said. "They don't have time to mess with the robot. They're going to demand greater levels of autonomy." It will be a while, however, before any of these robots become fully autonomous. The Defense Department is cautious about developing battlefield machines that make their own decisions. That sets the U.S. apart from efforts by China and Russia to design artificially intelligent warfighting arsenals. A November report from the Congressional Research Service said that despite the Pentagon's "insistence" that a human must always be in the loop, the military could soon feel compelled to develop fully autonomous systems if rivals do the same. Or, as with drones, humans will still pull the trigger, but a far-away robot will lob the bombs. Said P.W. Singer, a strategist for the New America Foundation think tank: “China has showed off armed ones. Russia has showed them off. It's coming.” https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/12/30/army-looks-for-a-few-good-robots-sparks-industry-battle/