Ukraine war spurs European demand for U.S. arms, but not big-ticket items

On the same subject

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  December 19, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Marines look for IBM Watson-like artificial intelligence to plan large-scale wargames

  By: Todd South The Marines are looking to big data analysis and potentially an IBM Watson-like machine or software to help conduct complex wargaming and plan for future battles in an immersive environment. The Corps' Program Manager for Wargaming Capability, Col. Ross Monta, told Marine Corps Times that a recent program announcement seeks to “bring advanced analytics, visualization, models and simulation together to create an environment that enables senior leaders” to make a host of decisions. Those range from capabilities for the future force and ways to test operational plans, develop concepts of operations and help provide information to prioritize resources. The announcement is the service's second round of information gathering in four technology areas that include modeling and simulation, wargame design, data services and visualization. The Marines are reviewing white papers submitted from industry in January, February, March and July. They're aiming to have testing begin as early as October. At the 2017 Modern Day Marine Military Expo, then-Lt. Col. Monta spoke on how the Corps was developing a three- to five-year plan for a wargaming center at Marine Corps Base Quantico that would allow planners to conduct 20 wargames a year, including two large-scale, 250-participant exercises. The simulation they sought at the time would provide, “accurate representation of future operating environments, simulate friendly and enemy capabilities” and perform “rapid, in-depth analysis of game-derived data or insights.” The then-head of Marine Corps Systems Command, Brig. Gen. Joseph Shrader, said that wargaming had to get beyond “moving yellow stickies on a map.” At that time the center was capable of conducting about 11 wargame scenarios a year, Monta said. They were looking at partnering advanced simulation capabilities, such as the one they're seeking in the fbo.gov posting, with flesh and blood experts from the Ellis Group think tank to better see high-order, long-term warfighting needs. The head of training systems command, Col. Walt Yates, told Marine Corps Times that the aim was to have ways of using artificial intelligence to run simulations as many as 1,000 times. With those numbers, planners can learn probabilities of victory, casualty expectations and the logistics required to accomplish the mission. Simulation capabilities would allow commanders to run scenarios against future threats to gauge what equipment and tactics are most needed to succeed. These factors would inform planning for everything from buying the next piece of combat gear to how best to deploy forces, Yates said. The big data analysis is just one of a list of items the Corps has been working in recent years to push their wargaming from squad to Marine Expeditionary Force-level, leveraging advances in computing, data analytics, virtual reality, augmented reality and gaming. Beginning this past year, Marines at each of the Corps 24 infantry battalions began fielding Tactical Decision Kits, a combination of laptop, VR goggles and drones that allow small unit leaders to map battle spaces and then run operations plans in VR to rehearse missions. Earlier this year, MARCORSYSCOM officials sought industry input on pushing weapons simulations for live training, force-on-force shooting past the decades old laser technology still in use today. They want shooting systems that more realistically replicate how bullets and other projectiles move and the types of damage they cause. The system that would be able to simulate all weapons and vehicles typically seen in a battalion, which would include at least: M4/M16; M9 or sidearm, the M27 Infantry Automatic Weapon; hand grenades; rocket propelled grenades; Light Anti-Tank Weapon; 60mm mortars; 81mm mortars; Claymore antipersonnel mine; Mk-19 grenade launcher; Russian machine gun; AK-47 variants; M41 TOW; Javelin missile and the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle. It would also allow for immediate after-action review so that trainers and commanders could see where their Marines were aiming, when and how much they fired to strike a target and what damage their opponents caused. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/12/18/marines-look-for-ibm-watson-like-artificial-intelligence-to-plan-large-scale-wargames

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  April 29, 2024 | International, Naval

  Marine unit found metal shavings in F-35 fuel, plastic tool in wing

  In a memo obtained by Defense News, a Marine Corps squadron commander raises the alarm about the quality of Lockheed Martin's new F-35C jets.

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  July 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  In a future USAF bomber force, old and ugly beats new and snazzy

  Robert Burns, The Associated Press WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. — In the topsy-turvy world of U.S. strategic bombers, older and uglier sometimes beats newer and snazzier. As the Air Force charts a bomber future in line with the Pentagon's new focus on potential war with China or Russia, the youngest and flashiest — the stealthy B-2, costing a hair-raising $2 billion each — is to be retired first. The oldest and stodgiest — the Vietnam-era B-52 — will go last. It could still be flying when it is 100 years old. This might seem to defy logic, but the elite group of men and women who have flown the bat-winged B-2 Spirit accept the reasons for phasing it out when a next-generation bomber comes on line. “In my mind, it actually does make sense to have the B-2 as an eventual retirement candidate,” says John Avery, who flew the B-2 for 14 years from Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri. He and his wife, Jennifer, were the first married couple to serve as B-2 pilots; she was the first woman to fly it in combat. The Air Force sees it as a matter of money, numbers and strategy. The Air Force expects to spend at least $55 billion to field an all-new, nuclear-capable bomber for the future, the B-21 Raider, at the same time the Pentagon will be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to replace all of the other major elements of the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. The Air Force also is spending heavily on new fighters and refueling aircraft, and like the rest of the military it foresees tighter defense budgets ahead. The B-2′s viability suffers from the fact that only 21 were built, of which 20 remain. That leaves little slack in the supply chain for unique spare parts. It is thus comparatively expensive to maintain and to fly. It also is seen as increasingly vulnerable against air defenses of emerging war threats like China. Then there is the fact that the B-52, which entered service in the mid-1950s and is known to crews as the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, keeps finding ways to stay relevant. It is equipped to drop or launch the widest array of weapons in the entire Air Force inventory. The plane is so valuable that the Air Force twice in recent years has brought a B-52 back from the grave — taking long-retired planes from a desert “boneyard” in Arizona and restoring them to active service. Strategic bombers have a storied place in U.S. military history, from the early days of the former Strategic Air Command when the only way America and the former Soviet Union could launch nuclear weapons at each other was by air, to the B-52′s carpet bombing missions in Vietnam. Developed in secrecy in the 1980s, the B-2 was rolled out as a revolutionary weapon — the first long-range bomber built with stealth, or radar-evading, technology designed to defeat the best Soviet air defenses. By the time the first B-2 was delivered to the Air Force in 1993, however, the Soviet Union had disintegrated and the Cold War had ended. The plane made its combat debut in the 1999 Kosovo war. It flew a limited number of combat sorties over Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched only five combat sorties since 2011, all in Libya. The last was a 2017 strike notable for the fact that it pitted the world's most expensive and exotic bomber against a flimsy camp of Islamic State group militants. “It has proved its worth in the fight, over time,” says Col. Jeffrey Schreiner, who has flown the B-2 for 19 years and is commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, which flies and maintains the full fleet. But after two decades of fighting small wars and insurgencies, the Pentagon is shifting its main focus to what it calls “great power competition” with a rising China and a resurgent Russia, in an era of stiffer air defenses that expose B-2 vulnerabilities. Thus the Pentagon's commitment to the bomber of the future — the B-21 Raider. The Air Force has committed to buying at least 100 of them. The plane is being developed in secrecy to be a do-it-all strategic bomber. A prototype is being built now, but the first flight is not considered likely before 2022. Bombers are legend, but their results are sometimes regretted. A B-2 bomber scarred U.S.-China relations in 1999 when it bombed Beijing's embassy in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, killing three people. China denounced the attack as a “barbaric act,” while the U.S. insisted it was a grievous error. The Air Force had planned to keep its B-2s flying until 2058 but will instead retire them as the B-21 Raider arrives in this decade. Also retiring early will be the B-1B Lancer, which is the only one of the three bomber types that is no longer nuclear-capable. The Air Force proposes to eliminate 17 of its 62 Lancers in the coming year. The B-52, however, will fly on. It is so old that it made a mark on American pop culture more than half a century ago. It lent its name to a 1960s beehive hairstyle that resembled the plane's nosecone, and the plane featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 black comedy, “Dr. Strangelove.” More than once, the B-52 seemed destined to go out of style. “We're talking about a plane that ceased production in 1962 based on a design that was formulated in the late 1940s,” says Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Washington think-tank. Rather than retire it, the Air Force is planning to equip the Boeing behemoth with new engines, new radar technology and other upgrades to keep it flying into the 2050s. It will be a “stand off” platform from which to launch cruise missiles and other weapons from beyond the reach of hostile air defenses. In Thompson's view, the Air Force is making a simple calculation: The B-52 costs far less to operate and maintain than the newer but finickier B-2. “They decided the B-52 was good enough,” he says. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2020/07/26/in-a-future-usaf-bomber-force-old-and-ugly-beats-new-and-snazzy/