December 26, 2024 | International, Land
QinetiQ orders acquisition systems from Celestia STS for UK MoD
QinetiQ, a company that delivers test, trials, training, and evaluation services for UK MoD, has placed an order with Celestia STS.
May 9, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval
The US military’s logistical train is slowly snaking toward China
By: Kyle Rempfer
A failed Venezuela coup, Iranian missiles and Russian hybrid warfare make for interesting side stories, but the center of military policy is increasingly gravitating toward U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, according to U.S. government officials.
If anything, the challenge is how to quicken the pace because the logistical tail of warfare takes time to put in place and because the Pacific theater is one of the most difficult environments for moving supplies.
“If there's a challenge, it's moving enough focus and enough direction from everything else we're doing towards the Pacific," said Joel Szabat, the assistant secretary for international affairs within the Department of Transportation.
Szabat, whose department deals with U.S. military logistics in wartime, said the center of gravity has shifted so much toward the Asia-Pacific region that even a major crisis on par with 9/11 won't derail the change.
“I don't see, in the near term at least, things that would have us pull back,” Szabat said.
But he warned that new lines of effort must be implemented if that shift is to be sustainable during a war with the region's biggest player — China.
The baggage train challenge
The Department of Transportation is the coordinating arm for civilian airlift and sealift capacity in peacetime and wartime. But the sealift fleet is old and in need of recapitalization.
The size of the fleet is also too small to support the long logistical train required in a Pacific-based conflict, and the ships that do exist are poorly positioned across the operating area and would lack armed escorts in the event of a conflict, according to Szabat.
“For small or moderate-scale warfare exercises, it's adequate," Szabat said. “For the maximum deployment that our military is built for ... it is not adequate to move and sustain. We don't have the mariners. We don't have the U.S. flagged Merchant Marine that we need for that purpose.”
The Marine Corps represents a large component of the military force that would need to be delivered in the event of a war.
“There are 40,000 Marines at any one time that are moving around the world, and 23,000 of those are west of the international date line, so they're in the Pacific,” said Gayle Von Eckartsberg, policy director at Headquarters Marine Corps' Pacific Division. “And then you have your Marines in Hawaii, and that brings that number to over 30,000. And the rest are distributed across other places in the world.”
"The Marine Corps' natural environment is the Asia-Pacific region, and I think we're uniquely capable of operating effectively [there],” she added.
The Corps is posturing to act as the inside force of the region, as it practices littoral operations in contested environments and expeditionary base operations from deep in the Pacific.
“We're today engaged in aggressive war gaming, training and exercises to test out and refine these concepts,” Von Eckartsberg said. “We're going to hug the enemy and we're going to be there first, operate at this level below armed conflict.”
But there remains an “enduring gap in lift capability," Von Eckartsberg acknowledged.
No armed escorts
The Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration is responsible for managing much of the Navy's sealift capability that would be responsible for delivering Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen and their equipment into a war.
If there was a conflict with China, Szabat said, there is a high degree of confidence that the Navy, with the use of pre-positioned vessels, will be able to move the initial salvo of personnel and equipment quickly into the area of operations.
“But sustaining a battle means getting supplies and getting the remainder of your forces from [the continental United States] to wherever the battle is,” Szabat said, adding that the fleet for this isn't currently in place.
After the initial war push, 90 percent of logistics would move via civilian vessels and aircraft, according to Szabat. Those civilian assets will need armed escorts at sea, but the Navy has no dedicated escort vessels for the Merchant Marine fleet, he added.
“I used to serve in the European theater. That was a challenge. But crossing the Pacific is four times as difficult in terms of logistics and supplies," Szabat said. “We are not able to move our logistics according to war plans unless we have cooperation from our allies.”
That presents a unique challenge altogether. The biggest change to U.S. policy in the region has been an increased reliance on allies to accomplish missions and long-term goals, and one would assume that the goal is for them to pick up some of the logistical burden.
“But by statute, and national security presidential directive, we are supposed to be able to provide sealift with U.S. ships and U.S. mariners without relying on allies," Szabat said. "We can't do that unless we have the escorts.”
However, allies and partnerships still play an important role.
China's growth is followed closely by that of U.S. ally India. U.S. Pacific Command understands the power dynamics between India and China, which is part of why it renamed itself U.S. Indo-Pacific Command last year, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary Walter Douglas, who leads the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
“Bringing the countries of South Asia in is absolutely crucial to what we do,” he said. “India is very much a partner in everything that we do and is central in the Indo-Pacific as we move forward."
Allies, while unable to provide sealift under current war plans, remain crucial to U.S. efforts to counter China.
The U.S. is helping train naval forces for countries like Vietnam; promising to defend the territorial integrity of countries like Japan and the Philippines; performing freedom of navigation patrols through contested waterways; and courting new allies like the small Pacific island nations in Oceania.
“I expect that to continue," Douglas said. "I never want to promise resources until they're delivered, but I think the indications are pretty good that we're going to be doing more.”
On the same subject
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June 1, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Aviation Week Forecasts: Western Attack Helicopter MRO By Family 2020-2029
June 01, 2020 Aviation Week Network forecasts that annual MRO demand for Western-designed attack helicopters will increase 11.1% during this decade, from $4.2 billion in 2020 to $4.6 billion in 2029. Aviation Week defines attack helicopters as rotary-wing aircraft that are unable to carry cargo internally, are armed with a forward-firing cannon of at least 20mm, and which can carry and self-designate targets for anti-tank guided missiles. Ninety percent of MRO demand in 2020 will be generated by just two helicopter families: the Boeing AH-64 Apache and Bell AH-1 Cobra. The AH-64 will see an 8% increase in its MRO demand over the next 10 years from $2.9 billion to $3.2 billion. Overall, the AH-64 will generate 68.6% of the global MRO demand total. The AH-1's MRO demand will drop 12.3% in the next ten years. Despite the decline, the AH-1 still will generate 18.2% of total attack helicopter MRO. The Airbus Tiger will see the largest decline in MRO demand of any attack helicopter. With no probable future export orders on the horizon and an early retirement by Australia, the Tiger's MRO demand will fall 23.5% from 2020 to 2029. The Leonardo AW129 family of attack helicopters could experience a 22.1% growth in its MRO demand over the forecast if TAI and its T129 derivative manages to hold on to its hard won, but now in danger, export orders by securing a non-US export-restricted engine. Open requirements and competitions will produce over a billion dollars of MRO demand in the next decade, a significant boost to any program. Source: Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) 2020 Military Fleet & MRO Forecast For more information about the 2020 Forecast and other Aviation Week data products, please see: http://pages.aviationweek.com/Forecasts https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/z/aviation-week-forecasts-western-attack-helicopter-mro-family-2020-2029
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October 2, 2020 | International, C4ISR
US Army to upgrade bigger units with new electronic warfare gear
Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — In what some observers might view as back to the future, the U.S. Army is altering the way it fights to keep up with sophisticated adversaries, which means shifting from the brigade-centered focus of the last decade to bringing the division and corps levels into the fold. As a result, new capabilities are under development to increase range, fight deeper and bolster presence on the nonphysical battlefield, such as the electromagnetic spectrum. Officials said a fight against a nation-state like Russia or China must begin at the corps level, where the focus is destroying high-priority systems to lay the groundwork for lower echelons. They added that the corps level must eliminate these targets first, passing them to the lower echelons to include division and brigade, which are both designed for a closer fight to move the enemy back. “We have got to be able to see deep. If we don't have the ability to sense at the corps level, really what we're doing is we're deferring that fight down to the brigade level,” Col. Clint Tracy, III Corps cyber and electromagnetic activities chief, said during a Sept. 29 virtual panel hosted by the Association of Old Crows. “If we build the other way up, from the brigades to corps ... they may not necessarily be equipped without additional enablers to kill those things in the battlespace.” Enter what officials are calling the Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade, or TLS-EAB, formerly referred to as TLS-Extended Range. Army leaders this week detailed the first initial notional concepts and timeline for the new capability, which will be mainly a division and corps asset capable of reaching and prosecuting targets that the TLS system at the brigade combat team level cannot. “TLS-EAB is intended to provide commanders at echelons above brigade the ability to sense, provide improved precision geolocation, conduct non-kinetic fires and support kinetic targeting for a broad coverage of targets ... [that] are unreachable by TLS at BCT,” Col. Jennifer McAfee, Army capability manager for terrestrial layer and identity, said during the same event. TLS-BCT, or Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team, is the Army's first brigade-focused, integrated signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber platform. “TLS-EAB also provides defensive electronic attack to protect our critical nodes, i.e., our command posts and other critical nodes vulnerable to the adversary's precision fires,” McAfee added. She also said TLS-EAB will address several gaps in large-scale combat operations to include deep sensing to help target enemy systems in anti-access/area denial environments, and to conduct reconnaissance and security at long ranges. It will also provide capabilities for signals intelligence and electronic warfare teams within the Multidomain Task Force's Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Space (I2CEWS) battalion, as well as signals intelligence and electronic warfare battalions at the division and corps levels. How is TLS-EAB different from existing capabilities? The key difference between TLS-EAB and other electronic warfare, intelligence and cyber platforms — both airborne or ground-based — is that the former protects static assets from enemy missiles and unmanned systems that use radar fusing and homing. Officials said the new system will be broken into two broad threat categories: the aforementioned protection against precision-guided munitions dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum; and theater, corps and division targets to include ISR, command and control, low- and mid-altitude beyond-line-of-sight comminutions, navigation, and air and ground radars. The service will achieve these effects through advanced electronic attack techniques, radio frequency-delivered cyber effects, military information support operations (formerly called psychological operations), and the deception of adversary sensors. More granularly, TLS-EAB will be broken into two subsystems for those two missions: one for long-range collection, electronic support and effects; and one for defensive electronic attack. Each will include a trailer attached to the eventual vehicle the Army determines for TLS-EAB. While a specific platform hasn't specifically been identified for TLS-EAB, officials said they are eyeing something wheeled from the family of medium tactical vehicles. Interoperability and long range Moreover, the system will connect with other reconnaissance systems in an attempt to shorten the sensor-to-shooter timeline, which involves rapidly delivery sensitive data from sensors to the platforms or individuals who take action. These include the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, or TITAN; the Multidomain Sensing System; TLS-BCT; the Electronic Planning and Management Tool; the Multifunction Electronic Warfare-Air Large; and the integrated tactical network. TLS-EAB is one of the top priorities of the Army's ISR Task Force, which is modernizing the service's ability to see across huge ranges through a layered approach that involves the ground, air and space domains. U.S. adversaries have invested in capabilities that aim to keep forces at bay, such as advanced missiles and radars. To allow American forces to penetrate those capabilities and move back ground-based adversaries, larger echelons such as the corps must be able to see and understand these regions in full, which could be over thousands of miles. This also means sifting through all the noise in the congested electromagnetic spectrum to understand and prioritize specific targets. As such, the corps level must see more of the spectrum than the brigade, said Tracy of III Corps, because if the higher echelons did their jobs right, there shouldn't be a whole lot left for brigades to deal with in the non-kinetic realm when they are eventually deployed. Timeline Units aren't expected to first receive TLS-EAB until at least fiscal 2022, the same year as TLS-BCT. The current plan outlined by officials, which they stressed is all notional, is to have a total of 67 TLS-EABs: four per I2CEWS equaling 16; three per corps equaling nine; four per division equaling 40; and two at training locations. The sketch provided by Army leaders is an industry day in January, with a draft request for proposals set for February and bids in October. https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2020/10/01/us-army-to-upgrade-bigger-units-with-new-electronic-warfare-gear/