December 5, 2023 | International, C4ISR
October 25, 2019 | International, Aerospace
US Air Force officially buying light-attack planes
By: Aaron Mehta
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is officially putting down its money to buy two different models of light-attack aircraft.
The service will purchase two to three aircraft each of the Textron Aviation AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corporation/Embraer Defense & Security A-29 aircraft. The handful of planes will be used to support “allies and partner capacity, capability and interoperability via training and experimentation,” according to an Air Force announcement.
The A-29 Super Tucano contract should be awarded before the end of the year, with the AT-6 Wolverine contract coming in early 2020.
The plan to buy a handful of planes was previewed earlier this year by Air Force officials, but the companies will likely breathe a sigh of relief now that the deal is done. The purchase provides a much-needed show of confidence in the project. The two companies have invested internal funds on the Air Force's light-attack experiment over the past two years and remain hopeful the service moves forward with a bigger buy of light-attack aircraft in the future.
The missions and basing for the planes will be different.
The AT-6s will go to Air Combat Command at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., for “continued testing and development of operational tactics and standards for exportable, tactical networks that improve interoperability with international partners,” according to the Air Force announcement. The A-29s will go to Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Fla., and will be used to “develop an instructor pilot program for the Combat Aviation Advisory mission, to meet increased partner nation requests for light attack assistance,” per the release.
“Our focus is on how a light attack aircraft can help our allies and partners as they confront violent extremism and conduct operations within their borders,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in the statement. “Continuing this experiment, using the authorities Congress has provided, gives us the opportunity to put a small number of aircraft through the paces and work with partner nations on ways in which smaller, affordable aircraft like these can support their air forces.”
Experiments will continue with a focus on creating a joint architecture and information sharing.
The Air Force has said that funding for the initial AT-6 and A-29 buys will come out of the estimated $160 million in unspent funds that Congress appropriated for the effort in previous budgets. Congress has appropriated $200 million in total for the effort since it was announced in late 2016.
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/25/air-force-officially-buying-light-attack-planes/
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July 10, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
Pentagon AI center shifts focus to joint war-fighting operations
Nathan Strout The Pentagon's artificial intelligence hub is shifting its focus to enabling joint war-fighting operations, developing artificial intelligence tools that will be integrated into the Department of Defense's Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts. “As we have matured, we are now devoting special focus on our joint war-fighting operation and its mission initiative, which is focused on the priorities of the National Defense Strategy and its goal of preserving America's military and technological advantages over our strategic competitors,” Nand Mulchandani, acting director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, told reporters July 8. “The AI capabilities JAIC is developing as part of the joint war-fighting operations mission initiative will use mature AI technology to create a decisive advantage for the American war fighter.” That marks a significant change from where JAIC stood more than a year ago, when the organization was still being stood up with a focus on using AI for efforts like predictive maintenance. That transformation appears to be driven by the DoD's focus on developing JADC2, a system of systems approach that will connect sensors to shooters in near-real time. “JADC2 is not a single product. It is a collection of platforms that get stitched together — woven together ― into effectively a platform. And JAIC is spending a lot of time and resources focused on building the AI component on top of JADC2,” said the acting director. According to Mulchandani, the fiscal 2020 spending on the joint war-fighting operations initiative is greater than JAIC spending on all other mission initiatives combined. In May, the organization awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a five-year, $800 million task order to support the joint war-fighting operations initiative. As Mulchandani acknowledged to reporters, that task order exceeds JAIC's budget for the next few years and it will not be spending all of that money. One example of the organization's joint war-fighting work is the fire support cognitive system, an effort JAIC was pursuing in partnership with the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical. That system, Mulchandani said, will manage and triage all incoming communications in support of JADC2. Mulchandani added that JAIC was about to begin testing its new flagship joint war-fighting project, which he did not identify by name. “We do have a project going on under joint war fighting which we are going to be actually go into testing,” he said. “They are very tactical edge AI is the way I'd describe it. That work is going to be tested. It's actually promising work — we're very excited about it.” “As I talked about the pivot from predictive maintenance and others to joint war fighting, that is probably the flagship project that we're sort of thinking about and talking about that will go out there,” he added. While left unnamed, the acting director assured reporters that the project would involve human operators and full human control. “We believe that the current crop of AI systems today [...] are going to be cognitive assistance,” he said. “Those types of information overload cleanup are the types of products that we're actually going to be investing in.” “Cognitive assistance, JADC2, command and control—these are all pieces,” he added. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/07/08/pentagon-ai-center-shifts-focus-to-joint-warfighting-operations/
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July 6, 2020 | International, Land
US buys additional 248 JLTVs from Oshkosh
By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has placed a new $127 million order for 248 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles from Oshkosh, the company announced Wednesday. The award would provide JLTVs for the U.S. Army, Marine Corps and State Department. “The JLTV was designed to provide our troops with unmatched mission capabilities,” George Mansfield, vice president and general manager of joint programs for Oshkosh Defense, said in a statement. “And while adversaries, terrains, and tactics have all evolved immensely since the vehicle's conception, the JLTV's flexible design allows the light tactical vehicle fleet to evolve at a similar pace.” This contract is the third order placed in the last seven months for JLTV production. A $407.3 million package for 1,240 vehicles to the U.S. Marine Corps, Slovenia and Lithuania was awarded in February. In December, the company received a $803.9 million award for 2,721 vehicles for the American military and ally Montenegro. Oshkosh beat out Humvee-maker AM General and Lockheed Martin in 2015 to build the replacement for the Humvee for both the Army and the Marine Corps. The low-rate initial production contract was worth $6.7 billion, and the entire program is estimated to be worth $30 billion through 2024. Since a production contract was awarded in 2015, Oshkosh says it has delivered 7,500 total vehicles to the U.S. and partners abroad. In its fiscal 2021 budget request, the Army asked for $894.4 million to buy 1,920 JLTVs. However, that number is down from what had initially been projected by the service; as part of the “night court” process, designed to reprioritize the service's investments and projects, the Army is stretching its planned JLTV buy out in order to reinvest dollars to modernization priorities. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/07/01/us-buys-another-248-jltvs-from-oshkosh/