Navy Exploring Options for Multi-Engine Training Aircraft to Replace T-44

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  June 3, 2019 | International, Land

  US Army to free up another $10 billion for priorities

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is freeing up another $10 billion to apply to its top priorities in its next five-year budget plan, according to the service's undersecretary. “We are about to slap the table on the [program objective memorandum] here by no later than the middle of June,” Ryan McCarthy told a group of reporters during a May 29 media roundtable in his office. As part of a rigorous review of programs and spending, the Army set out to find $10 billion within the budget that could be reallocated toward priorities in its fiscal 2021-2025 program objective memorandum. The money shook out through another round of what the Army informally calls “night court,” a review process that freed up $30 billion in the last budget cycle to get ambitious modernization programs off the ground. The night court process was inspired by similar reviews conducted under Robert Gates when he was defense secretary. Rather than make $182 billion worth of decisions in a few hours, the process is meant to establish a deliberate route to applying funds against priorities, McCarthy said. For example, if a program didn't contribute to a more lethal battlefield or to one of the Army's six modernization priorities, it was canceled or downsized. The Army set up a new four-star command — Army Futures Command — last year to tackle the service's top six modernization priorities: long-range precision fires, the next-generation combat vehicle, future vertical lift, the network, air and missile defense, and soldier lethality. The review was conducted with the Army chief, vice chief, secretary and undersecretary at the head of the table last summer. But this year, to establish a more sustainable model, leadership fell to the major four-star commands and civilian heads in charge of major offices like acquisition and manpower. “Every dollar counts in this environment,” McCarthy said. “And so what we've done is we've realized that it's not a sustainable model to have the entire Army leadership hunkered down every summer, but should delegate to the appropriate echelon of authority.” Only the most difficult decisions will be brought to the top four Army leaders, he added. When it comes to finding another $10 billion across the five-year planning period to apply to priorities, McCarthy said, “we are in very good shape there.” The Army is also working to shift spending so that 50 percent is applied to new programs and 50 percent to legacy systems in the FY24-FY25 time frame. In FY17, the Army was applying 80 percent to legacy programs and 20 percent to bringing on new capabilities. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/05/31/army-freeing-up-another-10-billion-for-priorities/

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  August 3, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Potential defense budget cuts demand a new calculus

  By: Lt. Gen. David Deptula (ret.) and Douglas A. Birkey With the U.S. election around the corner and the economic impact of COVID-19 mounting, calls for defense spending cuts are on the rise. The practicality of reductions is questionable given the scale and scope of the threat environment, the reality that key elements of the military are decaying, and that defense jobs represent one bright spot in an otherwise bleak economy. If cuts are coming, it is crucial to execute them in a fashion that prioritizes the most effective, efficient and valuable capabilities within the Department of Defense. This requires a new approach to assessing weapon systems' value. Defense programs are traditionally measured in a service-centric fashion based primarily upon two metrics: unit cost, and individual operating and support costs. Think about this in the context of buying a car and expenses associated with gas and maintenance. However, not all vehicles are created equal, with a compact car far different than a large SUV. Relative capabilities are essential when understanding how to best meet mission goals effectively and efficiently. To this point, when it comes to military systems, a much more relevant determination of merit is “cost per effect” — measuring the expense associated with achieving desired mission results. These sorts of comparisons are far from theoretical. On the first night of Desert Storm, it took 41 non-stealth aircraft to hit one target. At the same time, 20 F-117 stealth fighters struck 28 separate targets. Without the protection afforded by stealth, it took a large airborne team to protect the eight bomb-carrying aircraft striking one target. This gets to the crux of the cost-effectiveness challenge. Even though the non-stealth aircraft each cost less from an individual unit aircraft perspective, the F-117s yielded far more mission results at less risk for far less enterprise cost. However, during the last few budget downturns, decision-makers too often cut weapon systems that appeared “expensive” on a spreadsheet but actually delivered far greater effects for less cost. This year saw the Air Force seeking to retire 17 of its B-1 bombers even though a single B-1 can deliver as much or more ordnance than an entire aircraft carrier air wing, depending on the operational realities of range and payload. Production lines for the B-2 and F-22 — respectively the most advanced and capable bomber and fighter ever built — were terminated well before their validated military requirement was filled. Cost-per-effect analysis would have yielded very different determinations. These decisions continue to have very significant consequences. The security environment today is much more dangerous than at any time since the end of the Cold War, and U.S. forces are stretched thin. Smart investments are essential to yield necessary mission results. The U.S. military no longer has the capacity to bludgeon its way to victory through mass as it did in World War II. This is exactly why military leaders are embracing the need to harness information in their future war-fighting construct. Joint All-Domain Command and Control centers around understanding the battlespace in a real-time fashion to seek favorable pathways to achieve mission objectives, minimize the dangers posed by enemy threats and collaboratively team weapon systems to yield enhanced results. This is an incredibly smart approach. However, it is also wholly incongruous, with analysis centered around unit cost and individual operating expenses. If victory is going to be secured through the sum of parts, then we need to stop focusing on unilateral analysis absent broader context. Cost per effect can be applied to any mission area — the measurement points simply need to be tailored to relevant data sets. Accordingly, if we look at high-end air superiority and strike missions, it is important to consider the ability to net results in a precise fashion. This is simple — not only does “one bomb or missile, one target” save money, but it also frees up forces to execute other tasks. It is also important to consider survivability. Large, self-protecting, non-stealth strike packages akin to the Desert Storm example are incredibly expensive. Replacing a plane and pilot is not cheap. Additionally, losses reduce the force employment options available to commanders. Fifth-generation technology attributes are also crucial — the combination of stealth, sensors, processing power, fusion engines, and real-time command-and-control links to penetrate defended adversary regions and understand how best to attain desired effects, while minimizing vulnerability. Finally, range and payload are also very important — a single aircraft able to fly farther and carry more missiles or bombs drives effectiveness and efficiency. Assessing these attributes — all of which are measurable — validate precisely why aircraft like the F-35 and B-21 are so important. Nor should these assessments be restricted within a service. That is not how combat commanders fight. They focus on missions, not service ownership. If cuts to defense are coming, then it is crucial that the DoD maintain the most effective, efficient options, regardless of service. If past DoD budget cuts are any indicator, DoD budget “experts” will once again resort to their traditional monetary spreadsheets focused on unit cost and service-focused budget columns. Leadership from the very highest levels is crucial to ensure the very best options are preserved and prioritized. Joint cost-per-effect analysis is what will ensure a given amount of money will yield the most value at a time when it matters the most. Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula is dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Power Studies. He has more than 3,000 flying hours under his belt, and he planned the Desert Storm air campaign and orchestrated air operations over Iraq and Afghanistan. Douglas A. Birkey is the executive director of the Mitchell Institute, where he researches issues relating to the future of aerospace and national security. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/07/31/potential-defense-budget-cuts-demand-a-new-calculus/

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  February 4, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  U.S. Air Force Defines Radical Vision For Command And Control

  By Steve Trimble The U.S. Air Force has released the full, sweeping vision for the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a two-year-old concept that proposes to disrupt modern norms for the service's command-and-control doctrine, military acquisition policy and industrial participation. The newly released ABMS architecture defines not a traditional program of record but 28 new “product lines” divided into six major components. The implementation strategy is not focused around traditional acquisition milestones measured in years, but rather development “sprints” fielding morsels of new capabilities every four months. The rights for much of the technology, including a new radar, communication gateway and software-defined radio, are claimed not by an industrial supplier, but by the Air Force itself. USAF adopts lead systems integrator-like model ABMS architecture built on government ownership The release of the strategy on Jan. 21 comes three weeks before the Air Force plans to release a budget plan that would shift $9 billion over the next five years for a “Connect the Joint Force” initiative. The proposed funding would come from retiring certain capabilities, including aircraft fleets, within the next five years, with a clear implication: The Air Force is willing, if Congress approves, to trade some capability now to obtain the ABMS over time. “I think of it as we're finally building the ‘Internet of Things' inside the military, something that is very overdue,” says Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, explaining the ABMS to journalists during the unveiling of the architecture in the Pentagon. The scale of the project's ambition has evolved since the ABMS was first proposed in 2018. Air Force leaders unveiled the concept two years ago as a replacement for the airborne Battle Management and Command and Control (BMC2) suite on the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Stars fleet. By September 2018, Roper first suggested the same technology could be applied to replace the aging fleet of Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joints and, sometime in the 2030s, the Boeing E-3C Airborne Warning and Control System. Those aims remain intact, but the revealed architecture clarifies that the goals of the ABMS are far broader. If the system is fully realized, the Air Force will create a “combat cloud” on a mobile ad hoc network, transposing the Internet of Things model from civilian technology to the battlefield. As a result, the nearly four-decade-old concept of a centralized command-and-control center—either ground-based or airborne—would be swept away by a future, decentralized digital network. Using computer processors and software algorithms instead of humans, machines would identify targets from sensor data, select the weapons and platforms to prosecute the target automatically, and finally notify the human operator when—or, crucially, whether—to pull the trigger. Roper compares the ABMS' effect on command and control to commercial services on a smartphone, such as the Waze app for drivers navigating traffic. Waze is not driven by a human staff monitoring and reporting traffic hazards, who then review each request for directions and customize a recommended route. Instead, Waze harvests traffic and hazard data from its users, while algorithms mine that information to respond to user requests for services. The Air Force's command-and-control system is constructed around the human staff model, but Roper wants to move the entire enterprise to the Waze approach. “If it didn't exist in the world around us, you'd probably say it was impossible,” Roper says, “but it does [exist].” The challenge for the Air Force is to defend and, if successful, execute that vision for the ABMS. The Air Force needs to secure the support of the other armed services, whose participation is vital to extracting the benefits of such a system. Moreover, the Air Force needs to sell the concept to Congress, despite a system that lacks obvious employment connections to specific legislative districts, such as future factory sites and operational bases. Roper acknowledges the problem of building support for an architecture, rather than a platform, such as a new fighter, bomber or ship. “Those are easy things to sell in this town. You can count them,” he says. “But the internet is not something that's easy to count or quantify, even though we're all very aware of its power.” The Air Force has briefed congressional defense committee staffs on the ABMS concept, but some remain skeptical. A Capitol Hill staffer familiar with the ABMS program doubts that other services will support the Air Force's vision. The ABMS model also appears unlikely to be embraced by industry, the staffer says. A key point of Roper's plan requires companies to cede some intellectual property rights on key elements of the ABMS architecture to the Air Force. But the Air Force is not waiting. Development of the ABMS started last year, even before an analysis of alternatives is completed. In December, the service staged the first demonstration of four new capabilities: transmitting data on a low-probability of intercept link via a gateway between stealthy Air Force and nonstealthy Navy fighters; connecting a C-130 to the SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation; demonstrating a cloud-based, command-and-control network up to a “secret” classification level; and setting up an unclassified common operational picture display at a remote command center inside a tent. As the second in the planned series of triannual events, the Air Force plans to stage the next ABMS demonstration in April, this time involving U.S. Space Force, Strategic Command and Northern Command. Roper, an Oxford-trained physicist, has little patience for the military's traditional development process, although he has made exceptions for complex, hardware-driven programs, such as the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. For most other programs, Roper wants to trickle out new features at Silicon Valley-speed. A common refrain by military acquisition reformers for decades has been to emphasize delivering an incomplete, “80% solution” sooner than waiting for a system that meets each of sometimes hundreds of detailed requirements. However, for Roper the timeline for delivering even an 80% solution in certain cases is far too long. “[We should] covet the 10-15% solutions that take the next step forward,” Roper said. “Because the learning in that step is so valuable to keep the velocity.” To execute the ABMS vision, Roper appointed Preston Dunlap last year as the lead architect. Unlike a traditional program executive officer (PEO), the architect is a role introduced to the Air Force by Roper, who previously in his career served as the chief architect for the Missile Defense Agency. The six components and 28 production lines for the ABMS are spread across multiple program offices, rather than consolidated under a single PEO. Thus, the role of the architect is to define the vision and then shape acquisition schedules as the various technologies reach maturity. Under Dunlap's architecture, the ABMS is built around six components: new sensors feeding databases in a cloud-based computing environment using software-defined radios, with new apps fusing the data into a common operational picture and integrated effects allowing cruise missiles, for example, to automatically retask sensors on other platforms during flight. Among the 28 product lines, the Air Force proposes to own the rights to the radar, software-defined radio and communications gateway. The Air Force's role resembles the lead systems integrator (LSI) model used for a series of largely failed acquisition programs 15-20 years ago, including the Army's Future Combat System and Coast Guard's Deepwater. In this case, however, the LSI is the Air Force, not an industrial supplier. Such an approach is not unprecedented. The Navy is using a similar model to manage the MQ-25A program, with Boeing selected as a subcontractor to deliver the air vehicle and Naval Air Systems Command providing the ground station and integrating both on an aircraft carrier. The gateway used in the first ABMS demonstration in December offers an example, Roper says. “We took a radio system that was actually built in concert with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to be able to deal with both platforms with the waveforms, and then a Honeywell antenna was able to speak across the frequencies associated with both radio systems,” Roper said. “So we got those three primary vendors working together underneath our government leadership.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/us-air-force-defines-radical-vision-command-control