October 30, 2018 | International, Naval, C4ISR
By: Andrew Chuter
LONDON — Britain's Ministry of Defence has been given a £1 billion (U.S. $1.28 billion) spending boost in the Treasury budget announcement Oct. 29, with Chancellor Philip Hammond suggesting the money would be mainly spent on three strategic military programs.
Hammond said the additional money would be available in the coming months. Cyber, anti-submarine warfare and the Dreadnought nuclear submarine build program all got named as destinations for the extra cash.
“As a former defense secretary myself I understand the immediate pressure our armed forces are facing, so today I will provide £1 billion to cover the remainder of this year and next to boost our cyber, and anti-submarine warfare capacity and to maintain the pace of the Dreadnought program,” Hammond told Parliament.
The increase caught many by surprise. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has been battling with Hammond for months for extra cash, but a massive funding commitment to the National Health Service made new funds toward security seem unlikely.
Jon Louth, the director for defence, industry and society at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London said the additional funding was good news, but fell well short of what is required.
“It's welcome, but comes nowhere near addressing the potential funding gap if you add up all the programs in the equipment plan. It does appear to be a significant increase in percentage terms, although the devil will be in the detail,” he said.
The RUSI analyst said the outcome was “better than we expected a few months ago. Politically people will be chalking that up as a win for Williamson in the context of the wider government budget. One billion pounds is a win,” he said.
Louth cautioned against getting too hung up on the chancellor's announcement about where the extra cash will be spent.
“I suspect when we come to see how the money is used next year it will potentially be a little different from the chancellor's headlines today,” he said.
Defense consultant Alex Ashbourne Walmsley of Ashbourne Strategic Consulting said the new money was a “sticking plaster, but it will buy the MoD a bit more time to work out how to do more with less.”
Earlier this year the MoD received a total of £800 million in funds to keep the program to build four Trident missile equipped Dreadnought nuclear submarines on track.
Some £600 million of that cash came from a £10 billion contingency fund set aside by the government for the Dreadnought program.
Ashbourne-Walmsley described the Dreadnought program as a “money pit.”
The MoD is trying to bridge a funding gap in its £179 billion 10-year equipment plan.
The black hole is put at anywhere between £4 billion and £20 billion by the National Audit Office, the government's financial watchdog. The final figure is dependent, in part, on how effective an ongoing efficiency drive is at the MoD.
The MoD budget for this year is £36.6 billion with 15.6 percent of that spent on equipment procurement and 18.7 percent on support.
The Conservative government is committed to increasing equipment spending in real terms by 0.5 percent a year until 2020.
A long running review, known as the Defence Modernisation Program, has been looking at how British armed forces can adapt and transform to meet the changing and growing military threat, while at the same time balancing the books — an effort that could require capability cuts in several areas.
Publication of that report has already been kicked down the road a couple of times. Although Williamson may announce something before the end of the year, analysts and industry executives expect little of substance ahead of a comprehensive spending review due to take place across all government departments next year.
Hammond appeared to say as much today when he told Parliamentarians the modernisation review will “form the basis for a comprehensive consideration of defense spending next year.”
“The Modernizing Defence Program is increasingly tied into the comprehensive spending review and the 10-year equipment plan in 2019. We might get a whitepaper in late winter or early spring to set up some of the themes but the details won't be out until beyond April,” said Louth.
Some industry executives though are starting to wonder if the modernization program could be published even by April. One executive who asked not to be named, said he wondered whether the comprehensive spending plan might be the trigger for a full blown strategic defense review, particularly if Brexit goes badly and the economy takes a big hit.
November 14, 2023 | International, Aerospace
The U.S. drive to develop sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) using ethanol could be slowed because of growing opposition to proposed pipelines that would curb greenhouse gas emissions from ethanol plants by capturing carbon dioxide and carrying it away to other states for storage.
October 9, 2019 | International, C4ISR
By: Brig. Gen. Gregory Gagnon and Lt. Col. Nishawn Smagh There is always a next war. Great power competition is here. Now is the time, while the United States maintains a position of strength, to ensure we are not outmatched, out-thought, or out-witted. Rapidly and realistically positioning the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance enterprise for first-mover advantage in today's data-driven environment is beginning with purposeful urgency. The past paradigm: crew-to-aircraft model During our careers, the Air Force ISR enterprise grew in both capability and capacity. In the late 1990s, the Air Force operated an ISR enterprise dominated by manned aircraft, each with their own specialized team operating unique systems that turned data into initial intelligence. Only a few organizations could turn raw airborne sensor data into intelligence in near-real time. We were only beginning to move data to the analyst, versus deploying the analyst to the data. As battlefield demand of ISR grew, we scaled up. We were fortunate to help build and execute airborne intelligence operations on a global scale, connected via a global network — we called them “reachback” operations. Reachback operations were the first step in transmitting ISR sensor collection across the globe in seconds. Even today, few nations can conduct this type of ISR operational design. The enterprise has continued to advance, achieving fully distributed operations around the world. We also made it possible to remove humans from aircraft, allowing missions to fly nearly three times longer and expand the data available to exploit. Correspondingly, the Air Force increased the number of organizations that could accept data and create intelligence. Following 9/11, our nation's needs changed; the fight necessitated the Air Force grow its capacity to deliver intelligence for expanded operations in the Middle East. We bought more unmanned vehicles, trained more ISR Airmen, and created more organizations to exploit data. Collection operations were happening 24/7 and most sorties required multiple crews to fly, control sensors and turn collection tasks into intelligence. As reachback operations grew, they became the Distributed Common Ground System and developed the ability to exploit aircraft sensor data. This growth was significant, but at the tactical level we employed the same crew model and simply grew at scale. This resulted in manpower growth, but also in disparate, distributed crews working similar tactical requirements with little unity of effort or larger purpose. This limited the ability of ISR airpower to have broader operational effects. While suitable for counter-terrorism, history tells us this approach is ill advised for great power conflict. Observe and orient: the data explosion and sense-making The traditional crew-to-aircraft model for exploitation must fast forward to today's information environment. The Pentagon has shifted its guidance to this new reality. The Defense Department recently declared information a seventh core function, and the Air Force's formal ISR flight plan maps a course for digital-age capabilities to turn information into intelligence. This “sense-making” must be able to handle both the complexity of a diverse information environment and scale to contend with an exploding volume of data. Access to expanded data sets, from diverse collection sources and phenomenology, is near and urgently needed. The Department's focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning in this realm remains stable and necessary. The next step is to retool how we task, organize, and equip both intelligence collection and analytic crews. As the Pentagon focuses on open architectures, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and data standards, the field is rapidly moving out. Air Combat Command , the Air Force lead command for ISR, is attacking the crew-to-aircraft model to test a sensor-agnostic approach using multiple data sources to address intelligence requirements. Cross-functional teams of Airmen are now assigned broader operational problems to solve, rather than a specific sensor to exploit. This will change joint and service collection management processes. ACC is tackling this future. We are supporting Air Force commanders in Europe and the Pacific with a pilot project that allows Airmen to explore these sensor-agnostic approaches. An additional element to our future success is partnering with our joint and allied partners, as well as national agencies, to bring resources, tools, and insights to bear. As we field the open architecture Distributed Common Ground System, we are shifting the focus from airmen operating specific sensors to airmen leveraging aggregate data for broader analysis. Headquarters Air Force and ACC are installing technologies to ensure readiness for the future ISR enterprise. Cloud technology paired with artificial intelligence and machine learning promises to speed human-machine teaming in generating intelligence across warfighting domains at the speed and scale necessary to inform and guide commanders. Underpinning this effort is a new data strategy and agile capability development for rapid prototyping and fielding. The Defense Department and the Air Force must continue to prioritize this retooling. Our adversaries see the opportunities; this is a race to the future. Situational awareness in the next war will require the development and fielding of AI/ML to replace the limited and manpower-intensive processes across the Air Force ISR enterprise. Employing AI/ML against repetitive data exploitation tasks will allow the service to refocus many of its ISR Airmen on AI/ML-assisted data analysis and problem solving. ISR and multi domain command and control ... enabling decide and act A headquarters-led initiative, with eyes toward a joint capability, is the creation of a collaborative sensing grid that operates seamlessly across the threat spectrum. Designs call for a data-centric network of multi domain platforms, sensors, and airmen that work together to provide persistent ISR. Equipped with manned and unmanned platform sensors capable of computing via AI/ML, these capabilities will link commanders to real-time information, plus tip and cue data from sensors-to-sensors, joint commanders, and weapons. This collaborative sensing grid is a foundational element for multi domain command and control . The vision of MDC2 is to outpace, outthink and outmaneuver adversaries. Creatively and rapidly applying new technology to operational problems is a long-held characteristic of airmen. Our DCGS airmen are no different. Non-material solutions deserve as much attention as hardware. This pilot project is our vanguard initiative to prepare for rapidly changing future systems environments. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2019/10/08/how-airmen-can-work-together-for-persistent-isr/
January 15, 2021 | International, Aerospace
Le Royaume-Uni notifie le missilier MBDA d'un contrat de 550 M£ pour lancer la production du mini-missile de croisière Spear 3 qui a déjà bénéficié de 561 M£ en contrats d'évaluation et de développement. 550 M£ de plus pour MBDA Le ministère britannique de la Défense a notifié le missilier MBDA un contrat d'un montant de 550 M£ pour la mise en production du mini-missile de croisière SPEAR en développement depuis 2010. Destiné à équiper les Airbus Typhoon et les Lockheed Martin F-35B de la Royal Air Force et de la Fleet Air Arm, ce missile, qui est désigné "SPEAR 3", est le premier de sa catégorie à être équipé de moyens de connectivité pour une utilisation en réseau, préfigurant les effecteurs déportés et utilisables en essaims. MBDA ne précise pas si les missiles SPEAR 3 destinés à la Royal Air Force comprendront une version dotée d'une charge de guerre électronique pour brouiller les moyens de détection ennemis. On peut supposer que "oui" puisque cela était une demande de la Royal Air Force. Déjà 561 M£ versés pour le missile SPEAR 3 Ce nouveau contrat d'un montant de 550 M£ qui lance la production du missile MBDA Spear s'ajoute à ceux déjà passés les années 2010 et 2016. En mai 2016, le ministère de la défense britannique avait annoncé avoir accordé un contrat d'une valeur de 411M£ à MBDA pour poursuivre le développement du missile Spear 3. Ce contrat faisait suite à un premier engagement de 150M£ accordé en 2010 pour lancer la phase d'évaluation du système. Essais sur avion de combat Airbus Typhoon Les essais de tir depuis l'avion de combat Airbus Typhoon avaient commencé quelques mois plus tôt tandis que les travaux d'intégration sur l'avion de combat Lockheed Martin F-35B avaient officiellement commencé trois ans plus tard, parallèlement aux travaux d'intégration du missile Meteor de MBDA sur le même avion. https://www.air-cosmos.com/article/mbda-le-missile-spear-passe-en-production-24077