August 28, 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau
Mission command systems exist for the physical world, providing commanders a picture of the ground and air environment. However, the Army, as well as the joint force, is shifting to so-called multidomain operations, which opens up a need for new tools to fully understand the operating environment.
"What we lack right now is a comprehensive understanding of cyberspace,” Col. Steve Rehn, the cyber capabilities manager at the Army Cyber Center of Excellence, said Aug. 23 at TechNet Augusta.
In multidomain battle, the commander cannot make a decision unless he understands the entirety battlespace, Rehn said, which makes it imperative that someone develop systems for understanding cyberspace (broadly defined as cyber, the electromagnetic spectrum, space and even the social media environment).
Rehn said the Army is in the process of prototyping what will eventually become a program in 2020 called cyber situational understanding, or cyber SU. This tool will help commanders visualize and understand what is happening in the nonphysical battlespace under their command, which could have drastic impacts during operations.
For example, Rehn said, speaking a day prior during the same conference, there's at least seven different networks within an average brigade combat team aside from the primary command or communications network.
The communications personnel within the brigade generally have a good handle on the primary one, but not all the others. This presents openings for the adversary if they can exploit one portion of this network and move laterally to the most important ones, gleaning sensitive information or shutting it down.
One component of cyber SU is to pull this data on all the networks together to provide the commander a more complete picture of his battlespace, which now includes the broad realm of cyber.
Not only that, Rehn said, but the general vision for a cyber SU capability, on a conceptual level, is to be able to pull information from all types of sensors in the battlespace that might provide greater intelligence about adversary action.
He provided another example in which a link goes down on the battlefield. While the normal course of action when a link goes down is to troubleshoot, if personnel were able to detect and correlate at the time the link went down that there was radio frequency interference in the same location, that would likely change the reaction and how the staff would approach a down link.
With a situational awareness tool, staff can tell the commander what the impact to the mission might be, as well as provide additional intelligence that it is typical in the doctrinal template, such as inferring from the adversary they're facing that a denial-of-service attack means the enemy is about to launch an attack and where the attack might take place.
However, Rehn noted earlier, such understanding of adversary tactics has not been realized yet. He said he'd like to get to a place where, if the adversary is targeting certain friendly systems, friendly forces might be able to discern if that is an indicator of a particular action they might take in the physical space. The Army hasn't linked observed activity within cyberspace yet to understand what that might mean in the physical space, he said.
Overall, he noted, cyber situational understanding can tip off the commander to certain indicators in which there were no physical effects or indicators.
May 17, 2023 | International, C4ISR
Command posts of the past were relatively stationary, cumbersome to set up and break down, and often identifiable by the heat and noise they emit.
May 19, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Land
By: Ashok Sharma, The Associated Press NEW DELHI — India announced Saturday that global companies can now invest up to 74 percent in the country's defense manufacturing units, up from 49 percent, without requiring any government approval. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman expressed hope that the new policy will attract foreign companies with high-end technologies to set up their manufacturing bases in India in collaboration with Indian companies. Sitharaman's announcement came as part of reforms Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is implementing to revive India's economy, which has been shattered by the coronavirus pandemic. She also told reporters that India will stop importing weapons that can be made in the country. “We will notify a list of weapons and platforms for ban on their imports and fix deadlines to do it,” she said, adding that this will improve self-reliance on defense manufacturing. India introduced up to 49 percent foreign direct investment in defense production in 2016 to attract modern technology in the country. That attracted more than 18.34 billion rupees (U.S. $244 million) until December last year, according to a government statement. India issues defense-industrial licenses for making tanks, military aircraft, spacecraft and their parts, UAVs, missiles for military purposes, and warships. India, a major buyer of military equipment, depended largely on the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. But it has been diversifying its purchases by opting for U.S. equipment as well. During U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to India in February, the two countries signed a deal for India to buy from the U.S. more than $3 billion in advanced military equipment, including helicopters. https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2020/05/18/india-ups-foreign-investment-but-will-stop-importing-weapons-that-can-be-made-locally
January 18, 2021 | International, Aerospace
Depuis le début de la crise, l'État a tenu à soutenir les industriels de défense, en particulier les PME, à la fois en maintenant un niveau important de commandes de matériels et en débloquant des fonds de soutien. Tel est le message adressé hier par Geneviève Darrieussecq, la ministre déléguée à la Mémoire et aux Anciens Combattants, lors de sa visite à TMH-AMS à Ch'tellerault. Cette société aéronautique de 22 salariés conçoit et fabrique des bancs hydrauliques fixes et mobiles pour la maintenance au sol des avions et des hélicoptères civils et militaires. Elle travaille à 70 % pour la défense et à 50 % à l'export. Ses clients ? Les principaux donneurs d'ordre du secteur. TMH-AMS est l'une des cinq entreprises du groupe poitevin Techman-Head. Qui, à l'image de tout l'aéronautique, sort d'une année 2020 « compliquée, dixit le président Jean-Yves Taboni et le directeur général Philippe Jehanno. On a perdu 33 % de chiffre d'affaires. » Les deux dirigeants confirment que l'effort de l'État dans le domaine de la défense a été bénéfique pour leur groupe, dont l'activité militaire pèse 33 % : « Ça a sauvé la mise de nos deux entreprises qui travaillent majoritairement pour le militaire, TMH à Ch'tellerault et Novatec à Poitiers. » L'enjeu de la vaccinationUn autre élément a permis à Techman-Head de passer 2020 sans dommage : « Financièrement, le groupe est sain, solide et rentable. Notre capacité à développer des produits propres, et donc à ne pas dépendre uniquement de donneurs d'ordre, est un point fort. » Techman-Head « ne se fait guère d'illusions sur 2021. On n'attend pas de reprise avec le second semestre. » Cela n'empêche pas le groupe de se projeter déjà sur un redémarrage : « Il y aura des opportunités à saisir, il faudra être prêts, analyse Jean-Yves Taboni. Dans cette compétition internationale, la vaccination est un enjeu majeur. C'est là qu'on va gagner ou perdre la partie. Il ne faudrait pas prendre du retard vis-à-vis des Anglais ou des Allemands. » Le message – à la ministre – est passé. https://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/chatellerault/chatellerault-pour-la-societe-aeronautique-tmh-ams-le-militaire-a-sauve-la-mise-en-2020