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  30 septembre 2020 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Army Wants New Mega-Jammer In 2023: TLS-EAB

  SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. Mounted on a pair of heavy trucks, the Terrestrial Layer System – Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) will do long-range jamming for high-level HQs – and fry the circuits of incoming enemy missiles as well. WASHINGTON: The Army officially asked industry today to help take a big step towards repairing the Army's long-neglected EW corps and countering Russian and Chinese jamming – and it'll have an unexpected missile defense dimension as well. Boeing and Lockheed are still building rival prototypes for the Army's next-generation cyber/electronic warfare vehicle, the Terrestrial Layer System set to enter service in 2022. The new system, known as TLS-EAB — will be TLS's much bigger brother. The service has set a pretty brisk schedule, talking of fielding something by the end of 2023. The original-flavor TLS, aka TLS-BCT, will fit on an 8×8 Stryker armored vehicle and accompany frontline Brigade Combat Teams. TLS-Echelons Above Brigade will fill a pair of heavy trucks, probably Oshkosh FMTVs, Army officials unveiled today: One truck will carry sensors, transmitters, and a tethered drone or aerostat to detect enemy signals, triangulate their locations for artillery and airstrikes, and disrupt them electronically with a combination of jamming, wireless hacking, and deceptive signals. It'll be crewed by eight soldiers, four specializing in cyber/electronic warfare and four in signals intelligence. There will likely be sub-variants, for example with a division-level system designed to frequently relocate, while a Multi-Domain Task Force might accept a less mobile version with more range and power. But overall, this long-range offensive cyber/EW/SIGINT capability is essentially a supersized version of what the TLS-BCT will do, albeit operating over much greater distances. The other truck, however, adds a dimension absent from the brigade-level TLS-BCT: a high-powered but relatively short-ranged defensive EW capability to protect key sites like division, corps, and theater command posts. It'll be crewed by four electronic warfare soldiers, but there's no SIGINT on this variant. Instead, it'll have an “electronic countermeasure point defense suite” – again, using a mix of jamming, wireless hacking, and deceptive signals – to decoy or disable incoming enemy drones, missiles, rockets, and artillery rounds, many of which rely on radar for guidance and fusing. Because it's mounted on trucks, TLS-EAB can be a lot bigger and more powerful than the Stryker-mounted TLS-BCT or the drone-mounted jamming/sensing system known as MFEW-Air-Large. But it will share data with those systems, because they'll be closer to the front line and/or able to fly over obstacles to see distant threats. TLS-EAB will also link to other Army and interservice systems like the EWPMT command-and-control software and the TITAN satellite terminal. The defensive suite, in particular, will get warning of incoming threats from air & missile defense networks – which we can presume includes the Army's forthcoming IBCS – to “national technical means,” such as spy satellites. Now, the three Army colonels who briefed the AOC CEMAlite conference this afternoon didn't provide any details on what kind of incoming missiles the TLS-EAB defensive suite is meant to stop. Actually jamming an inbound hypersonic or ballistic missile might be prohibitively hard since those weapons fly so fast – Mach 5 and up – and may only be in range for seconds. But if you deceive the enemy's reconnaissance and targeting systems into shooting at a decoy instead of the real target, it doesn't matter how fast their missiles are — they'll still miss. It's also worth noting that the Army hasn't locked down the formal requirements for this system – a draft Abbreviated Capabilities Development Document (ACDD) is in the works – and the service intends to leave plenty of leeway for industry to propose out-of-the-box ideas. “These are our initial concept ideas and not intended to constrain or limit the industrial solution space,” said Col. Jennifer McAfee. “Please think of this is a starting point in a long and mutually beneficial conversation.” That said, all proposals need to rely on an Army-sponsored software framework known as Photon and a set of technical standards known as CMOSS. Both are intended to let the service plug and play components from different vendors instead of getting locked into one company's proprietary solution that's not compatible with other people's innovations. There's also an official Software Development Kit (SDK) to let companies integrate their sensors into the Army-standard systems. What the Army rolled out today was a draft concept of operations (CONOP) for TLS-EAB, explained the Army project manager, Col. Kevin Finch. Looking ahead, he outlined an ambitious schedule: January 2021: The Army will hold an initial industry day for interested vendors (TBD whether it'll be in-person or online). February-March 2021: Individual vendors will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with Army officials. Meanwhile the service will put together a draft Request For Proposals (RFP) and circulate it for industry feedback. June 2021: a second industry day. July 2021: the release of the final RFP and the official launch of what's known as a Middle-Tier Acquisition process. Fall 2023 (first quarter of federal fiscal year 2024): the First Unit Equipped (FUE) will receive prototype TLS-EAB vehicles. If TLS-EAB can stick to that 2023-2024 timeline, it'll enter service along with a host of new long-range Army systems, from howitzers and hypersonics to intermediate-range missiles and missile defense lasers. But between the budgetary hit from COVID and the upcoming election, it's far from certain the Army can afford it all. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/09/army-wants-new-mega-jammer-in-2023-tls-eab/

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  23 juillet 2018 | International, Naval

  Navy's Fire Scout Drone Helo May Be Sold to Allied Militaries Soon

  By Oriana Pawlyk RAF Fairford, England -- Northrop Grumman Corp. is looking to expand sales of its MQ-8C Fire Scout abroad as the unmanned helicopter preps for its anti-submarine warfare mission. Sitting buttoned-up on the flightline here, the Fire Scout drone -- complete with the U.K.-based Ultra Electronics' sonobuoy mission pod -- is receiving exposure just weeks after completing the first set of mission tests of its target identification, surveillance and surface warfare abilities aboard the USS Coronado. "They've matured it to a level now where [people are] recognizing the value in different missions it is able to do and the [U.S. Navy] is very excited about expanding that capability," said Brian Chappel, Northrop's sector vice president and general manager of autonomous systems. Military.com sat down with Chappel during the Royal International Air Tattoo here. Northrop did not showcase the UAS at Farnborough. "Some of those missions are going to be very interesting to customers around the world. Antisubmarine warfare, communication nodes, support to service action groups, and also with beginning to see a shift in the export policy around this class of system in the U.S., we think there's an opportunity now to take this system and its capability and what it does and find some fertile ground overseas," he said. Related content: US Still Hopes to Sway Turkey to Buy Patriot Missiles over S-400 Air Force Slowly Building Up in Eastern Europe: USAFE Commander Military.com Farnborough Airshow Coverage Chappel's comments come as the Trump administration on Monday finalized its Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) Policy. The State Department recently approved the policy, which aims to relax export rules as well as create channels for U.S. defense industry to sell weapons and drones to international customers without U.S. government sign-off. "We're in various stages in providing information to [partners] through the Navy," Chappel continued. "And by bringing it here [during] the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force, a lot of different forces, a lot of people to talk to here that wouldn't normally think about a Fire Scout, and we get to ... tell them how it's a little bit different than just unmanning a helicopter that flies by itself." The Navy, which is set to use Fire Scout aboard its Littoral Combat Ships, is working with Northrop to add different capabilities, Chappel said. "There's a radar that's now being implemented on the system that when it goes operational, will extend the horizon [of it] hundreds of miles beyond," he said, referring to Leonardo's Osprey 30 lightweight active electronically scanned array radar, as well as common datalink Link 16. The UAS is a stripped-down version of the Bell 407. While the anti-sub mission pod would also be an enhancement, it is not currently used by the Navy. The Fire Scout also participated in the U.S. Navy-led RIMPAC exercises this month. The drone can stay airborne for 12 hours and fly at a ceiling of 16,000 feet. Its radar range lets it see roughly 100 miles out to detect a surface target. Chappel estimates that in 10 years additional U.S. units will be using the drone, as well as allies. He said it will evolve for different mission sets. "Do you want it to be an [anti-sub warfare] platform today, and a comms node tomorrow or mixing and matching ... in between?" he said, adding that additional sensors could be integrated for range. "That type of flexibility will make it very attractive." https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2018/07/17/navys-fire-scout-drone-helo-may-be-sold-allied-militaries-soon.html

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  22 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité, Autre défense

  Pentagon acquisition boss talks industry, mergers and coronavirus

  Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — A longtime industry executive, Ellen Lord was confirmed as the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment in August 2017. In that role, Lord — who is now the longest serving political appointee at the department from the Trump administration — oversees billions of dollars in weapons procurement and sustainment, while also overseeing the health of the defense industrial base, a particularly important role in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Lord was a keynote speaker at this year's Defense News Conference, where she touched on a number of issues affecting the Department of Defense. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. We're about six months after COVID-19 first hit the defense industry. How do you judge the health of the defense industrial base? We use the Defense Contract Management Agency and the Defense Logistics Agency to track about 22,000 key companies that the department works with. And going back over the last six months, we did have hundreds of companies shut down, but now we're down to only about 30. So that's very, very good news. We monitor them on a daily basis; we look at on-time deliveries, deliveries missed and, most importantly, we listen to what the issues are, really leveraging the industry associations to do a lot of listening. What we are looking for is whether or not we're maintaining war-fighter readiness for our production programs, and then relative to modernization, whether we are hitting key milestones relative to development programs. We have seen some slowdowns. We are carefully monitoring, using monthly metrics, where we are. That's something that I'm actually extremely proud of the team over the last few years — we have developed a very data-driven way of doing business. The Pentagon is seeking billions of dollars from Congress to help fund reimbursements for the defense industry's pandemic-related costs. But we've heard criticism of this from a number of sectors, with some saying financial reports last quarter were not so bad. Why is that funding needed, and why now? All the [quarterly] reports that have come out in large part don't reflect the hits that were taken by business. I would contend that most of the effects of COVID-19 haven't yet been seen because most companies gave their employees time off, they stretched out production, paid a lot of people for working 100 percent when perhaps they were only getting 50 percent of the hours in and so forth. So I think the system has absorbed it up to this point in time. Now when we get to the point where we're having payments and incentive fees and award fees earned, and if we haven't done the deliveries, that's where you're going to see the hit. So I believe there's a bit of a delayed response. We want to make sure that we have a one-time accounting for these major COVID hits — very, very well defined in terms of a period of time, March 15-Sept. 15, that we take a very, very data driven approach [saying]: “Send us a proposal showing what the impact was; we will assess them all at once and get back.” However, we can't do that at this point in time because we have an authorization through Section 3610 [of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act] and so forth, but we don't have an appropriation. We believe we need that appropriation to maintain readiness because if we do not get that, what we are going to find is we are not going to get the number of units delivered, we are not going to maintain war-fighter readiness, we're not going to move forward in modernization. We would like to take the one-time hit and then see where we go from there. Assuming you get the appropriation, much money is needed? When will industry see it? We think it's somewhere between $10 billion and $20 billion. We think it would take five to six months because once we got an appropriation, we would go out for a request for proposals, and the larger companies are going to have to flow down those RFPs through their supply chain, gather the data — because again, this has to be a very data-driven drill. So we would get all of that back; we think that would take two to three months. Then we want to look at all of the proposals at once. It isn't going to be a first-in, first-out [situation], and we have to rationalize using the rules we've put in place, what would be reimbursable and what's not. So overall we think five to six months, in terms of a process. We're at about the two-year mark from the executive order 13806 study, which assessed the health of the defense industrial base and included some dire warnings about the supply chain. How has work on fixing those issues gone? We had several areas that we pointed out were problematic, that we were concerned that the U.S. had too great of a dependency on non-friendly nations and that we just didn't have the security and resiliency that we were looking for. In fiscal 2019, we actually had 14 presidential determinations, which is the process you go through to actually say: “Yes, these are areas that are worthy of looking at.” Then we go to get the appropriation to be able to use [the Defense Production Act's Title III authorities]. A number of the areas we looked at were small unmanned aerial systems, rare earth [minerals], that type of thing. When COVID-19 hit, it shone a spotlight on the concern we had with this fragility and helped us tell the story. Because of another executive order coming in declaring a federal emergency, we no longer had to go through the presidential determination route, which is a bit time consuming, to identify areas where we needed to invest. Then [with the pandemic] we had new areas bubble up, probably the most significant of which was aviation propulsion, where we have a number of our key suppliers who are extremely dependent on commercial aviation that was grinding almost to a halt for a while — huge impacts there. So what we did was we were now able to move a little bit more quickly, which is always helpful. And we made a number of awards to aviation companies that literally kept those companies in business, which allowed us to continue to support the war fighter. COVID-19 has helped us accelerate some of those areas. Others are perhaps not getting as much attention as they were pre-COVID-19, looking at our defense industrial base for nuclear modernization for instance, also for hypersonics. But overall, the team is working very hard, and we have put out almost a billion dollars in DPA Title III over the last six months. It sounds like the pandemic may have been beneficial in addressing these long-term issues. What it did was allow us to really put speed in the system, peel away all of what I would call the non-value-added bureaucracy. COVID-19 gave us a burning platform to really demonstrate we could be very responsible in terms of taxpayer dollars, very responsible in terms of security of the war fighter, but move at the speed of relevance to get things done. So I don't want to backslide there. And I want to make sure we really take advantage of all of that. Companies are concerned about being in compliance with the Section 889 rules, which prohibit the government from buying a system that might have Chinese equipment in it from the telecommunications supply chain. Are more waivers for companies possible? We are incredibly supportive of making sure that we don't have Chinese technology in a lot of our telecom systems, which has proven to be a problem in terms of exfiltration of data. So what we did is we got a waiver from [the Office of the Director of National Intelligence] for noncritical weapon systems. We continue to discuss an extension beyond September of that with them. We are getting waivers on a case-by-case basis, we will look at those. However, we are encouraging industry and we are very, very pleased at how we see industry still stepping up to really get these systems out of their supply chains. So it will be by exception that we will do waivers, and we are looking to really have a clean path through everything. There have been significant mergers and acquisitions during your tenure at the Pentagon. Are you seeing a downside for the department, given the desire for more competition on programs? I actually put a process in place early on, when we are notified of M&A deals, that we go out very formally to all the services and agencies and ask for objective evidence as to whether or not these mergers or acquisitions will constrain competition in any way. We then work very, very closely with either [the Federal Trade Commission or the Justice Department] on those deals to make sure there are divestitures if needed. Where I'm really focused, and the team is focused, is really getting the small companies going. That's where the predominance of our innovation comes from. That's what bubbles up to these larger companies. So we are holding all kinds of webinars and meetings connecting not only our traditional defense industrial base, small company partners, but nontraditional [firms] with our DoD efforts. We're partnering with the services to get more of that activity. So we want that diverse group coming in, and I'm really excited about what I see coming up through. That doesn't sound like you have many concerns about what you've seen. We watch very carefully. And at this point, we think we've made some smart divestitures on some of those. And we like competition. It's our friend. https://www.defensenews.com/interviews/2020/09/21/pentagon-acquisition-boss-talks-industry-mergers-and-coronavirus/