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October 29, 2024 | International, Land

Pentagon unveils new plan to energize America’s defense sector

The document, which had been delayed for months, will help organize the Pentagon's spending on its industrial base.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2024/10/29/pentagon-unveils-new-plan-to-energize-americas-defense-sector/

On the same subject

  • U.S. Army Flexes New Land-Based, Anti-Ship Capabilities

    October 21, 2020 | International, Naval, Land, C4ISR

    U.S. Army Flexes New Land-Based, Anti-Ship Capabilities

    Steve Trimble Lee Hudson Finding ever new and efficient ways to sink enemy ships is usually assigned to the U.S. Navy and, to a lesser extent, the Air Force, but not anymore. Though still focused on its primary role of maneuvering against land forces and shooting down air and missile threats, the Army is quietly developing an arsenal of long-range maritime strike options. As the Army carves out an offensive role in the Pentagon's preparations for a mainly naval and air war with China, service officials now seek to develop a capacity for targeting and coordinating strikes on maritime targets with helicopter gunships in the near term and with long-range ballistic missiles by 2025. The Project Convergence 2020 event in September focused the Army on learning how to solve the command and control challenge for a slew of new land-attack capabilities scheduled to enter service by fiscal 2023. The follow-on event next year will expand to include experiments with the Army's command and control tasks in the unfamiliar maritime domain. “I think we have a long way to go in terms of partnering with the Navy for some of the maritime targeting [capabilities],” says Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, the Army's cross-functional team leader for Long-Range Precision Fires. “And I think that'll be a natural evolution into Project Convergence 2021,” Rafferty says, speaking during the Association of the U.S. Army's virtual annual meeting on Oct. 15. The Army operates a small, modest fleet of watercraft, including logistics support vessels and Runnymede-class large landing craft, but service officials have been content to respond to attacks on enemy ships at sea with the Navy's surface combatants and carrier-based fighter squadrons. Last year, the Air Force also revived a maritime strike role by activating the Lockheed Martin AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile on the B-1B fleet. But the Army's position has changed. The AH-64E Capability Version 6, which Boeing started developing in 2018, includes a modernized radar frequency interferometer. The receiver can identify maritime radars, allowing the AH-64E to target watercraft at long range for the first time. Meanwhile, the Defense Department's Strategic Capabilities Office started working in 2016 to integrate an existing seeker used for targeting ships into the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms), which is currently the Army's longest-range surface-to-surface missile at 300 km (162 nm). Beginning in fiscal 2023, the Lockheed Martin Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) is scheduled to begin replacing the Atacms. The Increment 1 version will extend the range of the Army's missiles to 500 km. A follow-on Increment 2 version of PrSM is scheduled to enter service in fiscal 2025, featuring a new maritime seeker now in flight testing by the Army Research Laboratory. “As we begin to develop the PrSM [Increment 2] with the cross-domain capability against maritime and emitting [integrated air defense system] targets, obviously we'll be partnering with the Navy on that,” Rafferty says. Targeting ships from land-based artillery systems is not unique to the Army. The U.S. Marine Corps plans to introduce the Raytheon-Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile, firing the ground-based anti-ship cruise missile from a remotely operated Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. To strike a moving target at ranges beyond the horizon, the Army needs more than an innovative new seeker. A targeting complex linking over-the-horizon sensors with the Atacms and PrSM batteries is necessary. Moreover, the Army will need to adapt command and control procedures to an unfamiliar maritime domain. The annual Project Convergence events offer a laboratory for the Army to prepare the targeting and command and control complex before new weapons enter service. With the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, a medium-range ballistic missile and PrSM also set to enter service in the next three years, the Army is seeking to adapt quickly. Last month, the Army used the first prototype of the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node ground station. An artificial intelligence (AI) program named Prometheus sifted through intelligence information to identify targets. Another AI algorithm called SHOT matched those targets to particular weapons with the appropriate range and destructive power. An underlying fire-control network, called the Advanced Field Artillery Data System, provided SHOT with the location and magazine status of each friendly weapon system. A process that would otherwise take minutes or even hours dwindled—in an experimental setting—to a few seconds. The first Project Convergence event last month focused on the Army's traditional mission against targets on land. The next event will seek to replicate that streamlined targeting process against ships possibly hundreds of miles away. These experiments are intended to help the Army familiarize itself with new tools in the command and control loop, such as automated target-recognition systems and targeting assignments. The event also helps the Army dramatically adapt, in a few years, institutional practices that had endured for decades. “In order for a bureaucracy to change, [it has] to understand the need, and we have to create the use case in order for a bureaucracy to change,” says Gen. Mike Murray, the head of the Army Futures Command. “I think in Project Convergence, what we're able to demonstrate to the senior leaders in the army will further help drive that change.” In a way, the Army is seeking to achieve in the maritime domain a networked sensor and command and control system that the Navy introduced to its fleet nearly two decades ago. To improve the fleet air-defense mission substantially, the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) generally develops a common, shared database of tracks from the multiple airborne, surface and subsurface sensors available to a carrier battle group. But the Navy also is building on the CEC standard. In 2016, a Lockheed F-35B demonstrated the ability to develop a target track of an over-the-horizon enemy warship. The track information was sent via the CEC to a launcher for a Raytheon SM-6. Although primarily an air- and missile-defense interceptor, in this case the SM-6 demonstrated an anti-ship role. A follow-on development SM-6 Block 1B is expected to optimize the weapon system as a long-range, anti-ship ballistic missile with hypersonic speed. More recently, the Navy has been quietly experimenting with its own series of Project Convergence-like experiments. Known as the Navy Tactical Grid experiments, the Navy and Marine Corps organized a series of demonstrations in fiscal 2019, according to the latest budget justification documents. Building on the common operating picture provided by the CEC, the Navy Tactical Grid is possibly experimenting with similar automation and machine-learning algorithms to streamline and amplify the targeting cycle dramatically. A new initiative is now replacing the Navy Tactical Grid experiments. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday tapped Rear Adm. Douglas Small, the head of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, to lead the effort known as Project Overmatch. Small must provide a strategy, no later than early December, that outlines how the Navy will develop the networks, infrastructure, data architecture, tools and analytics to support the operational force. This includes linking hundreds of ships, submarines, unmanned systems and aircraft. “Beyond recapitalizing our undersea nuclear deterrent, there is no higher developmental priority in the U.S. Navy,” Gilday wrote in an Oct. 1 memo that revealed the existence of Project Overmatch. Aviation Week obtained a copy of the document. “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.” While Small is tasked with creating the “connective tissue,” Gilday directs Vice Adm. James Kilby, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (N9), with accelerating development of unmanned capabilities and long-range fires, Gilday wrote in a separate Oct. 1 memo outlining the details of Project Overmatch. Kilby's assessment must include a metric for the Navy to measure progress and a strategy that appropriately funds each component. His initial plan is also due to Gilday in early December. “Drive coherence to our plans with a long-term, sustainable [and] affordable view that extends far beyond the [future years defense plan],” Gilday wrote. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-army-flexes-new-land-based-anti-ship-capabilities

  • HII awarded $11.5M for further repairs on USS Gerald R. Ford

    December 5, 2019 | International, Naval

    HII awarded $11.5M for further repairs on USS Gerald R. Ford

    ByChristen McCurdy Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Hungtington Ingalls of Newport News, Va., was awarded an $11.5 million contract for further repairs on the troubled USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier. The contract, announced Tuesday by the Department of Defense, funds the advance planning, design, documentation, engineering, procurement, ship checks, fabrication and preliminary shipyard work on the first-in-class carrier. Work will be performed at Huntington Ingalls Newport News, Va., site and is expected to be completed by September 2020. The Pentagon has obligated $1 million at the time of the award that will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Ford, intended to replace Nimitz-class carriers, has been plagued by cost overruns and delays, including problems with its 11 electromagnetic elevators -- just seven of which were operational at the end of October. In recent months, the vessel completed a training evolution and sea trials, as well as an independent steaming exercise that included sailing more than 7,000 nautical miles, completing more than 1,000 cycles of the advanced weapons elevators and performed more than 200 advanced arresting gear simulations. The carrier is expected to start compatibility testing early next year, and is now expected to be ready for deployment sometime before 2024. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2019/12/04/HII-awarded-115M-for-further-repairs-on-USS-Gerald-R-Ford/4431575418593

  • Kratos Receives $65 Million in Recent Space and Satellite Communications Contract Awards

    January 2, 2019 | International, C4ISR

    Kratos Receives $65 Million in Recent Space and Satellite Communications Contract Awards

    SAN DIEGO, Dec. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: KTOS), a leading National Security Solutions provider, announced today that it has received recent space and satellite communications contract awards and options on existing contracts totaling approximately $65 million. Work performed under these contract awards will be performed at secure Kratos manufacturing facilities and customer locations and is expected to be substantially completed over the next 12 months. The awards include Kratos' products and services across technology application domains that are critical to defending space operations and assuring global satellite communication for the United States and its allies, as well as certain other operations that are essential to national security. Under the contract awards, Kratos will provide solutions for satellite command & control, signal monitoring, end-to-end service assurance, cloud-enabled architectures and other applications. Kratos products support more than 85 percent of United States space missions, and are used by more than 75 percent of global satellite operators. Kratos owns and operates the largest global, commercial network of space-focused Radio Frequency (RF) sensors employed to help customers identify, locate and mitigate interference challenges. The company recently announced it has begun leveraging this network to offer new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) services to bring additional clarity and insight to operations in the space environment for its customers. Due to customer related, competitive and other considerations, no additional information will be provided related to these contract awards. Phil Carrai, President of Kratos' Space, Cybersecurity and Training business, said, “The Space sector is experiencing a technology renaissance, and much of that advancement is occurring in the ground segment solutions that Kratos specializes in: those which assure the availability, reliability, security and operational goals of these missions. The range of space missions enabled by these awards and renewals is extremely broad, and Kratos is one of the only companies that can support that breadth with industry-leading COTS products, as well as cloud operations enablement, mission-specific applications and tailored waveforms.” About Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ:KTOS) develops and fields transformative, affordable technology, platforms and systems for United States National Security related customers, allies and commercial enterprises. Kratos is changing the way breakthrough technology for these industries are rapidly brought to market through proven commercial and venture capital backed approaches, including proactive research and a streamlined development process. Kratos specializes in unmanned systems, satellite communications, cyber security/warfare, microwave electronics, missile defense, hypersonic systems, training and combat systems. For more information go to www.kratosdefense.com. Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of Kratos and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Kratos undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Kratos believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements involve many risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from what may be expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. For a further discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of Kratos in general, see the risk disclosures in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Kratos for the year ended December 31, 2017, and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the SEC by Kratos. Press Contact: Yolanda White 858-812-7302 Direct Investor Information: 877-934-4687 investor@kratosdefense.com http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/12/31/1679167/0/en/Kratos-Receives-65-Million-in-Recent-Space-and-Satellite-Communications-Contract-Awards.html

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