Canadian military laying groundwork for arrival of armed drones

Sur le même sujet

• 

  27 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Should Army Compete With Industry On OMFV?

  Industry sources say the Army shouldn't enter its own in-house design team in the race to replace the M2 Bradley. Top Army officials told us why it would work. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on July 24, 2020 at 7:00 AM WASHINGTON: Is fourth time the charm? After three failed attempts to replace the Reagan-era M2 Bradley troop carrier with better tech for modern warfare, the Army has a bold new strategy – one that could include a government design team competing head-to-head against contractors. The draft Request For Proposals (RFP), released Friday, raised some eyebrows in industry. But in an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense, Army officials told me a government team should stimulate, not stifle, much-needed innovation and competition. “We recognize that this does generate some concerns about potential organizational conflicts of interest,” said James Schirmer, the Deputy Program Executive Officer for Ground Combat Systems. “We certainly take those seriously.” The potential government team is now developing a formal “Organizational Conflict of Interest Mitigation Plan,” creating organizational firewalls so the Army team can't influence the requirements or selection process, Schirmer told me. If that plan doesn't pass muster with Army lawyers, he said bluntly, “then we would be prohibited from awarding a contract to the government team.” “To my knowledge, there's not a direct example of something similar occurring,” Schirmer agreed. But armored combat vehicles are a uniquely military design problem with few equivalents in the commercial world. “If you look at small arms, while we do have expertise in-house, there's a commercial industry that is very, very similar to the small arms that we're procuring for the military,” Schirmer told me. “If you look at aviation, while there's obviously some very important differences with military aircraft versus civilian ones, there's an awful lot of similarities.” “On the combat vehicle side, they're aren't as many similarities,” he said. “The engines that we use in commercial trucking can't survive under armor without cooling.... Our suspension systems are not unlike some commercial construction equipment, but we drive our vehicles at much higher speeds and are generally much heavier.” Meanwhile, Army scientists and engineers have spent decades studying everything from engines to armaments, from automated targeting systems to complete concepts for new vehicles. “We've got government folks that are really experts on combat vehicles and have good ideas,” Schirmer told me. “This phase primarily is generating ideas... potentially some innovation from inside our own halls.” That said, Schirmer didn't rule out the possibility that a government team might compete in later phases of the program – not just in developing “preliminary digital designs,” the subject of the draft RFP, but potentially in building a physical prototype vehicle as well. Actual mass production, however, would definitely be up to the private sector. “The government's got the ability to build prototypes,” he said. “The challenge would be the transition from an EMD [Engineering & Manufacturing Development]-like prototype into a production asset. That's something, typically, the government has not done.” So, he said, “the government team might need some help in that phase.” A government team might need help crafting a sufficiently detailed design that a contractor could actually build a working vehicle from it. Conversely, the manufacture would have to set up their supply chain and production line without the benefit of having done a prototype beforehand. “We'd have to figure out how we do that if the government were to continue as a competitor,” Schirmer said. “But to be honest, we have not thought beyond this phase” in any detail. Remember, the Army's still seeking industry feedback on the draft RFP; it has until next year to revise and finalize it. So at this point, it's not certain that a government team will even enter the current phase of the competition, let alone win a contract to develop the preliminary digital design. “We have room to award up to five contracts,” Schirmer said. “Even if the government team is one of those, there will be four additional contracts for industry.” “There's plenty of room for industry to get in and win,” he said. “I don't think they're going to be at a disadvantage relative to ... the government team.” Industry experts and insiders weren't so sure. Skeptics Speak Out “Let's face some reality first,” said Bill Greenwalt, an acquisition veteran who's worked in both the Pentagon and Congress. “There is no way the Army can effectively mitigate conflict of interest with a government design team, and there is no way that the government team will not have an advantage, through access to information flow within the Army's chain of command not available to the private sector.” After three previous failed attempts to replace the Bradley – FCS, GCV, and the first version of OMFV – the Army rebooted the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program and tried to give industry wide leeway to come up with solutions, instead of prescribing rigid requirements. But with the new mandate for a two-man crew and the proposal for a government design team, Greenwalt lamented, “just when the Army has finally asked industry to come up with a solution rather than dictate it to them, it seems they have signaled what they really want to do is dictate the solution.” “Unfortunately, for decades, the Army has [been] wanting to return to the pre-World War II arsenal system where they controlled everything but were woefully un-innovative,” Greenwalt told me. “Rather than this half measure they should just nationalize the industrial base and get it over with and then see what kind of innovation they come up with.” Two industry sources, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed similar skepticism that the Army's Combat Capabilities Development Center (CCDC) and its subordinate commands, particularly the Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC), can pull this off. “I anticipate the CCDC and its conglomerate of R&D facilities will think they can compete and win,” one industry source told me. “Their design will be exquisite and probably un-manufacturable.” “The CCDC and its R&D teams are under intense pressure from Futures Command to prove their value for the voluminous funding they have received over the last 10 years,” the source continued. “Armaments Center (formerly ARDEC) has the best track record for working with industry on guns, cannons (ERCA) and ammo, but GVSC (formerly TARDEC) has an abysmal record of having any of its technology investment migrating to a fielded platform.” “I'm not in agreement with the Army on the acquisition strategy,” another industry source told me. “They think there are companies that would welcome the government business [to mass-produce a government design]. But I'm always skeptical of a build-to-print proposal when the company doing the production has little invested in the design. The government loses out on innovation and cost in the process, because there is no incentive to improve or advance the product.” Greenwalt put the skeptics' bottom line most bluntly: “Private industry should think long and hard about whether to potentially waste their valuable engineering talent and bid & proposal dollars on such a competition.” Army officials, however, argued that they've set the competition up to let industry participate at minimal risk. “They submit a proposal, and then the government is paying them for their initial design,” said Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman, director of armored vehicle modernization at Army Futures Command. While the final value is still being worked out, each of the up to five contract awards for the next phase should include enough funding for industry to get through Preliminary Design Review (PDR) without having to invest additional money of their own. But what if a company feels it's not competitive without investing its own Independent Research And Development (IRAD), as General Dynamics in particular has already done over the years? “That's a question for industry, [but] that is not the intent of the program,” Coffman told me. “We're trying to reduce risk for industry.” The Army wants a wide range of competitors – definitely from industry, but perhaps in-house as well – to offer the widest possible range of ideas. OMFV could resemble a Bradley rebuilt with the best available 21st century tech, or it could look nothing like a 20th century Infantry Fighting Vehicle at all. “Industry has a choice,” Coffman said. “Industry can use a traditional IFV model... or industry can provide a different manner in which we will transport our infantrymen on the battlefield in the most dangerous places on Earth.” “I think we're going to see a lot of unique solutions to the problem,” he said. The biggest technological innovation the Army's seeking: replacing the three-man crew used in the Bradley – and almost every comparable IFV worldwide – with just two humans assisted by powerful software. Why the Army thinks that's achievable, and why some are skeptical, is the topic for Part II of this story, coming Monday. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/should-army-compete-with-industry-on-omfv/

• 

  25 février 2019 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR

  Raytheon will participate in Army missile defense radar ‘sense-off’

  By: Jill Aitoro WASHINGTON — Raytheon will participate in a missile defense radar “sense-off” to test designs that could be included in the U.S. Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense system under development. The Army announced plans for the sense-off in October, resetting the approach for the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, program that has struggled to bring about a new radar for well over a decade. The sense-off is “separate and distinct” from contracts awarded to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin last fallto come up with design concepts for a new missile defense radar, according to Bob Kelly, Raytheon's director for integrated air and missile defense in the company's Integrated Defense Systems division, who spoke with reporters Thursday. According to an Oct. 29 notice posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website, the sense-off will take place this spring at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Each vendor with a radar will have roughly two weeks on the range to demonstrate capabilities. A down-select will happen by the end of the year. “We can meet the timeline for both the sense off and initial operational capability in fiscal year 2022,” Kelly said. However, it's unclear what this means for the prior technology development program. Kelly said that effort remains relevant, with the contract ongoing, but referred any further questions about its status to the Army. “Our developmental efforts — what we do for one, it serves the other as well,” he said. “We were both [Raytheon and Lockheed Martin] going to develop prototypes. But with the sense-off, we're doing it faster,” and with more competitors. The sense-off strategy accelerates the timeline by a couple of years, Kelly said. The other lingering question is whether the LTAMDS will include 360-degree coverage — a high priority for the Army, but seemingly one downsized in importance for the LTAMDS effort. “The threshold is not for a 360-degree radar,” Kelly said, adding that Raytheon's base design does include the capability. “We have a lot of scalability in our system, so if the Army decides they don't want [360-degree coverage], we can give them the opportunity in the future to upgrade.” The Raytheon-made Patriot air and missile defense radar was first fielded in the 1980s, and the Army attempted to replace the system with Lockheed Martin's Medium Extended Air Defense System through a co-development effort with Germany and Italy. But that program was canceled in the U.S. after closing out a proof-of-concept phase roughly six years ago. Since then, the Army has studied and debated how to replace the Patriot radar with one that has 360-degree detection capability, while Raytheon continues to upgrade its radar to keep pace with current threats. It is acknowledged that there will come a point where that radar will not be able to go up against future threats. “The Patriot remains exceptional” today, Kelly said. “LTAMDS is looking out beyond tomorrow.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/02/21/raytheon-will-participate-in-army-missile-defense-sense-off/

• 

  16 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Key House Democrats want to lock in New START weapons limits

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― The chairmen of the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees are pushing a measure meant to extend the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control agreement amid fears President Donald Trump will let it lapse. Led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the proposal would require congressional approval to increase the nuclear arsenal above the limits of the 2010 New START treaty, if the pact is allowed to expire next year. The measure was offered as an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which is set for floor consideration next week. Engel's amendment was cosponsored by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee Chairman Jim Langevin, D-R.I. “This Administration's recklessness has left New START as the only remaining agreement limiting Russia's nuclear weapons. Despite the White House's claims, there's no ‘better deal' with Russia and China on the horizon, and the clock on New START is ticking,” Engel said in a statement. “The president doesn't seem to have a problem with Russia developing more and more nuclear weapons that could strike the United States, so Congress has to do everything we can to keep these protections in place.” The action came days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned he's not very optimistic about prospects for an extension because of Washington's focus on making China sign onto the pact. U.S. and Russian envoys held talks last month in Vienna, but Beijing has refused to take part. Engel's amendment states that the U.S. should extend the pact for five years, to an expiration date of February 5, 2026, unless Russia is in material breach of the treaty or if it is replaced by a new, stronger agreement. It also provides the executive branch with permission to continue inspection activities and other transparency measures if New START expires on February 5, 2021, assuming that the government of Russia reciprocates these steps The New START treaty limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance. The amendment would bar funding to increase the arsenal above the treaty limits unless the president notifies Congress in advance of the new military requirements, certifies that the additional deployments are necessary and justifies the deployments, reports the associated costs and operational implications, and requires that any increase in deployed nuclear weapons is subject to a joint resolution of approval. It also requires detailed reports on Russian nuclear forces and, with and eye toward potential growth in China's nuclear arsenal, requires briefings and reports regarding the administration's arms control approach with Beijing, according to a summary. It also requires a presidential certification before New START would lapse that this would serve U.S. national security interests, an assessment whether continuing limits on Russian nuclear forces would serve U.S. interests and a plan for how the U.S. military and intelligence communities will address the post-New START environment, including the potential funding and development of additional nuclear deterrence and intelligence requirements. If Engel's amendment is accepted by the House Rules Committee and adopted by the House, it would almost certainly invite resistance from hawkish supporters of the president during negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the NDAA. Senate Armed Services Committee's Chairman Jim Inhofe, a proponent of nuclear weapons spending, has historically been a skeptic of the treaty. Kingston Reif, the Arms Control Association's director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, said the Trump administration doesn't seem like it will extend New Start and that Congress ought to be putting in roadblocks. “Crucially, the amendment would require congressional approval to increase the nuclear arsenal above the treaty limits, if the treaty is allowed to expire next year. A decision as consequential as increasing the size of the deployed arsenal, which hasn't occurred in decades, merits special scrutiny,” Reif said. After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty last year, New START is the only remaining nuclear arms control deal between the two countries. Russia has offered its extension without any conditions, while the Trump administration has pushed for a new arms control agreement that would also include China. Moscow has described that idea as unfeasible, pointing at Beijing's refusal to negotiate any deal that would reduce its much smaller nuclear arsenal. Trump declared an intention to pull out of the agreement in May, citing Russian violations. Russia denied breaching the pact, which came into force in 2002, and the European Union has urged the U.S. to reconsider. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/07/15/key-house-democrats-want-to-lock-in-new-start-weapons-limits/