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  March 14, 2024 | International,

  US-South Korea defense talks on track, but November not a hard deadline, US official says

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  August 17, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR

  ‘No lines on the battlefield’: Pentagon’s new war-fighting concept takes shape

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — For most of this year, Pentagon planners have been developing a new joint war-fighting concept, a document meant to guide how the Defense Department fights in the coming decades. Now, with an end-of-year deadline fast approaching, two top department officials believe the concept is coalescing around a key idea — one that requires tossing decades of traditional thinking out the window. “What I've noticed is that, as opposed to everything I've done my entire career, the biggest difference is that in the future there will be no lines on the battlefield,” Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during an Aug. 12 event hosted by the Hudson Institute. The current structure, Hyten said, is all about dividing areas of operations. “Wherever we go, if we have to fight, we established the forward edge of the battle area, we've established the fire support coordination line, the forward line of troops, and we say: ‘OK, Army can operate here. Air Force can operate here,' ” Hyten explained. “Everything is about lines” now, he added. But to function in modern contested environments, “those lines are eliminated.” What does that mean in practice? Effectively, Hyten — who will be a keynote speaker at September's Defense News Conference — laid out a vision in which every force can both defend itself and have a deep-strike capability to hold an enemy at bay, built around a unified command-and-control system. “A naval force can defend itself or strike deep. An air force can defend itself or strike deep. The Marines can defend itself or strike deep,” he said. “Everybody.” That “everybody” includes international partners, Hyten added, as the U.S. operates so often in a coalition framework that this plan only works if it can integrate others. And for the entire structure to succeed, the Pentagon needs to create the Joint All-Domain Command and Control capability currently under development. “So that's the path we've been going down for a while. And it's starting to actually mature and come to fruition now,” Hyten said. The day before Hyten's appearance, Victorino Mercado, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, talked with a small group of reporters, during which he noted: “We had disparate services [with] their concepts of fighting. We never really had a manner to pull all the services together to fight as a coherent unit.” Mercado also said the war-fighting concept will directly “drive some of our investments” in the future and tie together a number of ongoing efforts within the department — including the individual combatant command reviews and the Navy's shipbuilding plan. “I can tell you there's some critical components [from those reviews] — how you command and control the forces, how you do logistics; there are some common themes in there in a joint war-fighting concept,” he said. “I can tell you if we had that concept right now, we could use that concept right now to influence the ships that we are building, the amount of ships that we need, what we want the [combatant commands] to do. “So this war-fighting concept is filling a gap. I wish we had it now. Leadership wishes we had it now,” he added. “It would inform all of the decisions that we make today because now is about positioning ourselves in the future for success.” Like Hyten, Mercado expressed confidence that the concept will be ready to go by the end of the year, a deadline set by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. But asked whether the department will make details of the concept public when it is finished, Mercado said there is a “tension” between informing the public and key stakeholders and not giving an edge to Russia and China. “I think there is an aspect that we need to share of this joint war-fighting concept,” he said. “We have to preserve the classified nature of it. And I think I have to be careful what I say here, to a degree.” https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2020/08/14/no-lines-on-the-battlefield-the-pentagons-new-warfighting-concept-takes-shape/

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  October 22, 2019 | International, Land

  Navigation systems that counter jamming and spoofing for Army vehicles, plus some goodies for the dismounted soldier

  By: Todd South Over the past few years, the Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany has seen its Stryker combat vehicles up-gunned and upgraded with better firepower and stronger protection. A recent fielding amid follow-on efforts will give that regiment's soldiers and their supporting rotational brigade protection from invisible threats. That's because the Mounted Assured Position Navigation and Timing System, or MAPS, has been fielded to 62 Strykers in the regiment, with another 339 systems expected next year. Willie Nelson — the director of the Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing Cross-Functional Team — and Col. Nickolas Kioutas — project manager for PNT — recently spoke with reporters about both the testing, development and fielding of MAPS and its dismounted version, known as DAPS. The two systems are key for soldiers to not only navigate but also use weapon systems and communications gear in heavily jammed and spoofing environments. Some of the most contested spaces with those challenges are in Europe. The first generation of the MAPS system has replaced then seven GPS antennas with just one, anti-jamming-capable GPS antenna that can distribute information across all systems in a vehicle, Kioutas said. That iteration has anti-jamming capabilities, a robust GPS receiver and a chip-scale atomic clock. The system has a seven-element array antenna. If it detects radio frequency energy from one direction that's attempting to jam a signal, then the array shuts off detection from that general direction but continues to scan the sky for the correct radio frequency signals to communicate. The clock keeps everything in time if the system is jammed for lengthy periods, Nelson said. The other threat, spoofing, involves an adversary introducing a decoy-type signal. Researchers are working on a capability for the next generation of MAPS that provides both anti-jam and anti-spoof capabilities. Testing that capability is scheduled for next year, with fielding expected by 2021. Even as the first generation is used by troops, the Army can continue to upgrade the system with new capabilities as it comes off the production line. Army leaders will decide next year if the fully fielded MAPS gear will serve as its first generation with upgrades, or a revamped, second variant, Nelson said. And it's not just for Strykers. The next wave of fielding will go to Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, Paladin howitzers and Abrams tanks, which provide the firepower enabled by cavalry formations. And the focus will be to first provide 2nd CR and then the rotational brigade that heads to Europe each year, Kioutas said. Ultimately, a focused fielding plan will see 20,000 Army vehicles with the new MAPS onboard by 2028, officials said. For the individual soldiers, the same groups are working on the dismounted version. DAPS does not have an anti-jam capability yet, but it does use the new GPS M-Code signal that has more complicated encryption. DAPS will replace the existing antenna for the Nett Warrior system, and it is lighter and more effective, Kioutas said. Nett Warrior is an Android smartphone-based navigation, friendly forces and battlefield chat tool that will connect into the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, a mixed reality goggle expected to tie in communications, navigation, targeting and night vision into an individual soldier's heads-up display. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/10/18/navigation-systems-that-counter-jamming-and-spoofing-for-army-vehicles-plus-some-goodies-for-the-dismounted-soldier/