BAE Systems teams with AMS to reinforce support of artillery systems in Ukraine

Sur le même sujet

• 

  14 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

  The Pentagon wants to create a broader network of innovators

  By: Mike Gruss The Pentagon is reorganizing its internal offices to better partner with universities and upstart technology firms to ensure the military has access to talent and research in the near future and to fortify its innovation pipeline. Defense leaders are increasingly worried about what they describe as the national security innovation base. They hope a series of steps will make it easier to work with, and take advantage of, the leading-edge science across the country. This includes technology that spans from the concept stage to the production stage, and outlets that includes researchers to the defense industrial base. The changes, which affect the Defense Innovation Unit and MD5, were first mentioned in the Pentagon's budget request for fiscal 2020 and have been discussed with increasing details in recent weeks. Defense innovation leaders explained the new setup to C4ISRNET in an interview May 9. DIU's mission is to help the military accelerate its use of emerging commercial technologies and lower the barrier of entry for businesses that don't already do business with the Pentagon. Under the new approach: - The MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator has been renamed the National Security Innovation Network. The network, which helps connect academia, DOD laboratories and users, will fall under the Defense Innovation Unit as a way to take advantage of economies of scale. Morgan Plummer, the network's managing director, said the new name, which changed May 6, more accurately portrays the agency's mission. The program has its own line in the budget for the first time in fiscal 2020. - The National Security Innovation Capital fund, a new program created in the fiscal 2019 defense policy bill, will set aside investment in upstart U.S. companies so they don't fall risk to foreign investors. U.S. leaders fear that as some startups become so desperate for funding they may not consider the national security ramifications of accepting money from overseas. “It's an attempt to keep hardware investment on shore,” said Mike Madsen, director of Washington operations at DIU. The NSIC also aims to signal to the investment community that the Defense Department is interested in developing dual-use technologies and to provide a foreign investment alternative for hardware companies. In testimony to Congress in March, Mike Griffin, the Pentagon's acquisition chief for research and engineering, said that the new groups will fall to DIU “in an effort to put similarly-focused organizations under a single leadership structure.” Perhaps more importantly, Defense leaders said the new structure will help the Pentagon “hand off” technology with a low readiness level or level of maturity until it is ready for broader adoption. “There are these huge pools of untapped talent,” Plummer said. To take advantage of that talent means going beyond research grants in academia and instead to create a network of hubs and spokes of early stage ventures in approximately 35 communities throughout the country. While DIU has offices in Austin, Boston and Silicon Valley, creating a broader network means the NSIN would have staffers in cities such as Chicago, Miami, Columbus, Boulder, Raleigh, St. Louis and Minneapolis. “It makes the Department accessible in a real way,” Plummer said. Previously, business leaders may see the Pentagon as a “big gray monolith” and “may not even know where the door to this place is.” DIU will continue to focus on artificial intelligence, autonomy, cyber, human systems, and space. The Pentagon asked for $164 million for DIU in its fiscal 2020 budget request. https://www.c4isrnet.com/pentagon/2019/05/13/the-pentagon-wants-to-create-a-broader-network-of-innovators/

• 

  9 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval

  The US military’s logistical train is slowly snaking toward China

  By: Kyle Rempfer A failed Venezuela coup, Iranian missiles and Russian hybrid warfare make for interesting side stories, but the center of military policy is increasingly gravitating toward U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, according to U.S. government officials. If anything, the challenge is how to quicken the pace because the logistical tail of warfare takes time to put in place and because the Pacific theater is one of the most difficult environments for moving supplies. “If there's a challenge, it's moving enough focus and enough direction from everything else we're doing towards the Pacific," said Joel Szabat, the assistant secretary for international affairs within the Department of Transportation. Szabat, whose department deals with U.S. military logistics in wartime, said the center of gravity has shifted so much toward the Asia-Pacific region that even a major crisis on par with 9/11 won't derail the change. “I don't see, in the near term at least, things that would have us pull back,” Szabat said. But he warned that new lines of effort must be implemented if that shift is to be sustainable during a war with the region's biggest player — China. The baggage train challenge The Department of Transportation is the coordinating arm for civilian airlift and sealift capacity in peacetime and wartime. But the sealift fleet is old and in need of recapitalization. The size of the fleet is also too small to support the long logistical train required in a Pacific-based conflict, and the ships that do exist are poorly positioned across the operating area and would lack armed escorts in the event of a conflict, according to Szabat. “For small or moderate-scale warfare exercises, it's adequate," Szabat said. “For the maximum deployment that our military is built for ... it is not adequate to move and sustain. We don't have the mariners. We don't have the U.S. flagged Merchant Marine that we need for that purpose.” The Marine Corps represents a large component of the military force that would need to be delivered in the event of a war. “There are 40,000 Marines at any one time that are moving around the world, and 23,000 of those are west of the international date line, so they're in the Pacific,” said Gayle Von Eckartsberg, policy director at Headquarters Marine Corps' Pacific Division. “And then you have your Marines in Hawaii, and that brings that number to over 30,000. And the rest are distributed across other places in the world.” "The Marine Corps' natural environment is the Asia-Pacific region, and I think we're uniquely capable of operating effectively [there],” she added. The Corps is posturing to act as the inside force of the region, as it practices littoral operations in contested environments and expeditionary base operations from deep in the Pacific. “We're today engaged in aggressive war gaming, training and exercises to test out and refine these concepts,” Von Eckartsberg said. “We're going to hug the enemy and we're going to be there first, operate at this level below armed conflict.” But there remains an “enduring gap in lift capability," Von Eckartsberg acknowledged. No armed escorts The Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration is responsible for managing much of the Navy's sealift capability that would be responsible for delivering Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen and their equipment into a war. If there was a conflict with China, Szabat said, there is a high degree of confidence that the Navy, with the use of pre-positioned vessels, will be able to move the initial salvo of personnel and equipment quickly into the area of operations. “But sustaining a battle means getting supplies and getting the remainder of your forces from [the continental United States] to wherever the battle is,” Szabat said, adding that the fleet for this isn't currently in place. After the initial war push, 90 percent of logistics would move via civilian vessels and aircraft, according to Szabat. Those civilian assets will need armed escorts at sea, but the Navy has no dedicated escort vessels for the Merchant Marine fleet, he added. “I used to serve in the European theater. That was a challenge. But crossing the Pacific is four times as difficult in terms of logistics and supplies," Szabat said. “We are not able to move our logistics according to war plans unless we have cooperation from our allies.” That presents a unique challenge altogether. The biggest change to U.S. policy in the region has been an increased reliance on allies to accomplish missions and long-term goals, and one would assume that the goal is for them to pick up some of the logistical burden. “But by statute, and national security presidential directive, we are supposed to be able to provide sealift with U.S. ships and U.S. mariners without relying on allies," Szabat said. "We can't do that unless we have the escorts.” However, allies and partnerships still play an important role. China's growth is followed closely by that of U.S. ally India. U.S. Pacific Command understands the power dynamics between India and China, which is part of why it renamed itself U.S. Indo-Pacific Command last year, according to Deputy Assistant Secretary Walter Douglas, who leads the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. “Bringing the countries of South Asia in is absolutely crucial to what we do,” he said. “India is very much a partner in everything that we do and is central in the Indo-Pacific as we move forward." Allies, while unable to provide sealift under current war plans, remain crucial to U.S. efforts to counter China. The U.S. is helping train naval forces for countries like Vietnam; promising to defend the territorial integrity of countries like Japan and the Philippines; performing freedom of navigation patrols through contested waterways; and courting new allies like the small Pacific island nations in Oceania. “I expect that to continue," Douglas said. "I never want to promise resources until they're delivered, but I think the indications are pretty good that we're going to be doing more.” https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/05/08/the-us-militarys-logistical-train-is-slowly-snaking-toward-china

• 

  1 octobre 2023 | International, Naval

  Lockheed wins $1.1B contract to design Navy’s Integrated Combat System

  The Navy is moving to a single combat system for all surface ships, which would allow for faster and easier upgrades.