January 10, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR
By: Todd South
A recent Army and Marine war game that included engineers, academics and other defense representatives evaluated how troops could use experimental technologies to fight in dense urban areas and underground.
The U.S. Army Subterranean and Dense Urban Environment Materiel Developer Community of Practice is a working group that has conducted three prior workshops that set the challenges of fighting in those environments.
“Fighting in dense urban environments and the unique challenges it presents is still not totally understood, and this study was the front-end look at identifying and defining those materiel challenges to drive where investments need to be for this operational environment,” said Bob Hesse, technical lead coordinator for the Community of Practice.
The most recent “tabletop” exercise looked at the gear troops might need to get through those intense battle scenarios, according to an Army release.
Soldiers and Marines worked as friendly and enemy forces during the exercise, evaluating 48 experimental future technologies.
One such piece of tech would be using sensors that attach to the exterior building wall to help troops visualize the interior layout.
And every advantage in these terrains can help.
“Everything that Marine formations or Army formations have to do is more difficult when you take it into an urban environment,” explained Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Christian Wortman, commanding general of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and vice chief of Naval Research.
The Marines recently launched Project Metropolis II, a five-year effort to better prepare Marines for likely future urban battles.
“Across the warfighting functions — whether it's intelligence, surveillance or reconnaissance, collections, maneuver, force protection, command and control, logistics and sustainment — all of those things are complicated and challenged by the compartmentalized terrain that's present in the urban environment and the three-dimensional nature of the urban environment,” Wortman said.
And that multi-dimension challenge grows with the subterranean.
For both above ground and underground, robotics will play a major role. The Squad X project by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, for example, is blending robots into dismounted formations.
Soldiers with the 10th Mountain Division and 101st Airborne Division along with Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are experimenting with four submissions for the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport gear mule that will carry fuel, water, ammunition and equipment for a squad through rough terrain over 60 miles on a 72-hour mission.
Lt. Col. Calvin Kroeger, battalion commander for the 35th Engineering Battalion, ran one of the blue teams during the tabletop exercise.
Participants ran scenarios such as a high-intensity fight, a traditional counter-insurgency and a security force-assisted mission, all under the conditions of a megacity.
But the wargaming went beyond simply clearing buildings and attacking objectives.
Teams countered enemy social media campaigns, communicated underground, and assessed the second- and third-order effects of engaging the enemy with lethal munitions, which could impact local power, gas and water networks.
“How we employ our capabilities changes as you move from a high-rise platform to urban cannons,” Kroeger explained. “But you're also looking at everything under the ground as well, where you can't use a conventional means like a mortar system to shape the battlefield, so that the enemy doesn't shape it for you.”
As team members fix on what materiel needs might best serve troops, Hesse said the subject matter experts will assess how well the tech will meet military goals.
For example, if there is an aerial technology that might help troops locate enemy forces, even though the troops can't see them because of the skyline, his team would then analyze that technology and determine how well it meets Army standards and if it needs to be modified.
“We will now transition from the workshop learning to live experiments and replicate the unique conditions in real venues. We're taking the materiel campaign of learning and now transforming that into action,” Hesse said.
June 9, 2023 | International, Other Defence
The new assistance package includes funding for more Patriot missile battery munitions, Hawk air defense systems and missiles, and small Puma drones.
January 19, 2021 | International, Aerospace
L'armée de l'Air et de l'Espace (AAE) a annoncé le lancement le 20 janvier de la mission Skyros, qui se tiendra jusqu'au 5 février. Au départ de Djibouti, quatre Rafale B, deux A400M Atlas ainsi qu'un A330 Phénix y participeront. L'objectif est de « démontrer les capacités opérationnelles des forces armées françaises, de compléter la formation des équipages et de renforcer les liens entre la France et les pays visités », selon le ministère des Armées. A travers cette tournée, l'AAE visitera des pays stratégiques, soit des clients actuels du Rafale, à l'instar de l'Inde (36 Rafale) ou encore de l'Egypte (24) soit des prospects, qui ont fait part de leur intérêt pour le chasseur français. Après avoir décollé de Djibouti, qui accueille la base aérienne 188, l'AAE arrivera donc en Inde le 20 janvier. Elle se rendra aux Emirats Arabes Unis le 24, puis en Egypte le 28 et enfin en Grèce le 2 février. Air & Cosmos du 18 janvier 2021
June 25, 2019 | International, Aerospace
By: Kelsey Reichmann The Defense Innovation Unit — the Department of Defense's emerging technology accelerator — is working on several projects aimed at improving national security by contracting with commercial providers: According to the DIU annual report for 2018, using AI to predict maintenance on aircraft and vehicles could save DoD $3 billion to $5 billion annually. DIU determined maintenance on aircraft and vehicles was often done too early, removing parts that still had a working life ahead of schedule, so, using AI, DIU analysts found they could predict 28 percent of unscheduled maintenance on the E-3 Sentry across six subsystems and 32 percent of on the C-5 Galaxy across 10 subsystems. DIU found deficiencies in the commercial drone industry, resulting in a lack of smaller options for war fighters. Through partnership with the Army's Program Executive Office Aviation, it was able to build an inexpensive, rucksack-portable VTOL drone fit for short-range reconnaissance, according to the report. DIU launched a project, VOLTRON, to discover vulnerabilities in DoD software. This follows a 2018 Government Accountability Office report that found $1.66 trillion work of weapons systems at risk for cyberattack. Using this automated detection and remediation system, DIU will be able to provide DoD software with more secure networks. DIU is also working to secure networks on the battlefield through its Fully Networked Command, Communications & Control Nodes, or FNC3N, project. This project wants to create wearable technology that will provide data to users in a secure interconnected tactical network, according to the report. Using commercial satellite images, DIU is filling gaps in space-based reconnaissance. The peactime indications and warning project has completed the launch of the first commercial, small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite. The use of commercial data will allow the department to easily share the data it receives with allies and partners because it is unclassified. In August 2018 DIU was solidified within the Defense Department when “experimental” was removed from the office's original name, according to the report. It also received a large funding increase, from $84 million in 2017 to $354 million in 2018. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2019/06/21/could-these-5-projects-transform-defense/