Marines test robotic mule that could carry weapons, sensors

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  15 juillet 2020 | International, Naval

  Navy Awards Contract for First Vessel In Its Family of Unmanned Surface Vehicles

  By: Sam LaGrone July 14, 2020 8:48 PM • Updated: July 15, 2020 6:38 AM The Navy has awarded a contract for the first unmanned surface vessel it will design and build on its own, a key milestone for the eventual family of unmanned systems that will be a key component of the future surface fleet, according to a Monday contract announcement from the Pentagon. L3 Technologies won a $35-million contract to develop a prototype medium unmanned surface vehicle (MUSV) on Monday, which could grow to $281 million if options for eight follow-on craft are exercised, Naval Sea Systems Command announced. The contract calls for delivering the first prototype by the end of the Fiscal Year 2023, according to a release from NAVSEA. “The president's 2021 budget request for the Navy includes additional funding for a second MUSV prototype in FY23. The acquisition strategy for the FY23 vessel is to be determined, however, for flexibility, the development contract contains options for additional USVs,” read the statement. The award to L3 for MUSV is the Navy's first bite at the apple for developing a USV. DARPA contracted for two Sea Hunter vessels in what was originally the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program but has since shifted its focus to be the predecessor to MUSV. A Pentagon office also contracted for two Large USVs as part of the Overlord program, and the Navy will also take those vessels and use them to shape an eventual LUSV program of its own. The Navy envisions a family of unmanned systems that will be the backbone of a future fleet of netted “attritable” platforms that will provide lower-cost options compared to manned surface combatants like the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer or the new FFG(X) frigate program. “The initial focus is on the design, fabrication, testing and support of funded MUSV prototype vehicles. Rapid prototyping efforts will inform procurement of additional MUSV units,” Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez told USNI News on Tuesday. “The Navy will continue to assess the MUSV acquisition plan and has the option to conduct new or additional competitions, if warranted.” According to a notional list of requirements reviewed by USNI News in 2019, the MUSV would “function as a sensor and communications relay as part of a family of unmanned surface systems being developed by the service. The craft will be able to carry a payload equivalent to a 40-foot shipping container, will operate on its own for at least 60 days before needing to return to port, and be capable of refueling at sea,” reported USNI News. “The craft will have to also be able to autonomously operate under the rules of the maritime road at a cruising speed of about 16 knots with a minimum range of about 4,500 nautical miles and operate via a government-provided communication relay system.” L3 served as a subcontractor for Leidos, the lead contractor for the Sea Hunter program that DARPA contracted for before passing it off to the Navy. However, the next version of the MUSV will be different from the Sea Hunter, Navy officials told USNI News this week. “The MUSV and the existing Sea Hunter vessel have differing missions and requirements. The existing Sea Hunter vessel was designed and built with the mission of anti-submarine warfare and would be capable of tracking and following submarines using a hull-mounted sonar array over long distances. The MUSV will provide and improve distributed situational awareness in maritime areas of responsibility through [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and [electronic warfare] implemented by modular payloads,” Hernandez told USNI News. While the program is under development, the current Sea Hunter has been assigned to Surface Development Squadron 1 and is set to operate with a carrier strike group in the near future. L3 Technologies Inc., Camden, New Jersey, is awarded a $34,999,948 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract for the detail design and fabrication of a prototype Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSV). This contract includes options for up to eight additional MUSVs, logistics packages, engineering support, technical data, and other direct costs, which, if exercised, will bring the cumulative value of this contract to $281,435,446. Work will be performed in Morgan City, Louisiana (72.7%); Arlington, Virginia (9.8%); Jeanerette, Louisiana (8.1%); New Orleans, Louisiana (6.6%); Worthington, Ohio (1.7%); Lafayette, Louisiana (0.9 %); and Gautier, Mississippi (0.2%), and is expected to be completed by December 2022. If all options are exercised, work will continue through June 2027. Fiscal 2019 and 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funding in the amount of $34,999,948 will be obligated at the time of award, and $29,779,038 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. https://news.usni.org/2020/07/14/navy-awards-contract-for-first-vessel-in-its-family-of-unmanned-surface-vehicles

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  27 décembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Trump: No plans to name Mattis replacement soon

  By: Tara Copp President Donald Trump has no plans to nominate a replacement for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis any time soon, and said acting secretary Patrick Shanahan may remain in the post for the foreseeable future. Shanahan currently serves as the deputy secretary of defense at the Pentagon, the No. 2 civilian position there, which has traditionally focused more on the internal workings and business practices of the Defense Department. Trump announced on Sunday via Twitter that Shanahan would immediately replace Mattis after the departing defense chief released a public resignation letter last week citing his differences with the administration's security policies. Instead, Shanahan will immediately take the reins and Shanahan “could be there for a long time” in the acting defense secretary position, Trump said, according to Reuters, during his surprise visit to Iraq Wednesday. Mattis had intended to remain in place for two months to give the administration time to get through the 2020 budget hearings and give the White House time to find a replacement. Shanahan, a career Boeing executive, had been primarily focused on the Pentagon's inner workings, developing a space force and overhauling the building's business practices. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/26/trump-no-plans-to-name-mattis-replacement-soon

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  13 septembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  Massive simulation shows the need for speed in multi-domain ops

  FORT BENNING, Ga. – The Army tested its current and future equipment and warfighting methods for the potential next war in a massive, weeks-long simulated experiment that wrapped up recently. The Unified Challenge 19.2 experiment in August involved more than 400 participants working with 55 formations, 64 concepts and 150 capabilities, said Col. Mark Bailey, chief of the Army's Futures and Concepts Center's Joint Army Experimentation Division. The exercise ran Aug. 5-23. The simulation allowed Army leaders to “understand some of the complex patterns” that come out of the very complex systems that the United States and its adversaries are using, or developing to use, in future scenarios, Bailey told reporters this week. Much of what was tested couldn't be done in the real world because it hasn't been invented yet. For example, the Army's priorities in the Cross Functional Teams, from Future Vertical Lift to the Next Generation Combat Vehicle, are years away from fielding their platforms to the force, but through mathematical models and algorithms, researchers can plug in the day and play out a very detailed set of events. And the scope of the experiment dove deeper than what a typical tabletop exercise or wargaming scenario might. It allowed experimenters to see down to the small unit level and all the way up to the division and corps level what would likely play out if those formations collided with a near-peer competitor on foreign turf in a battle for territory. Chris Willis, the chief of the Maneuver Battle Lab's Model and Simulations Branch, said that for the first time, experimenters were able to use “nonlethal effects” in a simulation — electronic jamming, cyber-attacks and other methods — to support maneuver warfighting. That helped them gather data on concepts that Army leaders have been considering and theorizing about for years. But the multi-domain operations tools that were used in simulation were not being flung about the simulated battle space by random privates. Currently, the experiments look at having commanders below the brigade level aware of what MDO tools are at their disposal and how to get access to them when needed from higher echelons, which would likely house them. “The brigade would get access to some effects but those wouldn't rest inside of the brigade proper,” said Col. Chris Cassibry, director of the Maneuver Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate's Concepts Development Division. Cassibry emphasized that at this stage it's more important for the brigade commander to understand what's happening across the battlefield and use those effects to execute maneuver. For instance, the idea is that by enabling space and cyber assets, ground forces can have more freedom to maneuver. That was assumed to be the case but the complex simulation has put some data behind the concept for researchers to now analyze. A lot of what presented challenges that will consume commanders of the future was creating “windows of domain superiority,” Bailey said. Converging effects The basic plan is to converge effects, fires or non-kinetic or other types, which create that window. Commanders can plan for that and they do. But to do that at the speed that leaders believe MDO will unfold presents a whole other set of challenges. “Things happen so fast you must have this flexibility to do that in a moment's notice so that when you identify a target on a battlefield and don't have the artillery tube in range you have to quickly identify what else you have in range to hit that target,” Bailey said. And also, to understand that even if you switch “guns” quickly enough to another asset, drone, missile, electronic warfare, that means the new tool you've chosen will now not be used on another quickly emerging target or threat. That's where artificial intelligence must fill the gap, by offering up those menus of options for commanders and identifying the targets so that the human can then fire. Unified Challenge is a twice a year event; this was the second. Though it provides a lot of data, it's not something easily replicable. That means that in the near term, smaller experiments will unfold using some of the lessons learned from the larger experiment, further refining concepts and next steps on many of the ways in which the Army goes after MDO. The next step will be for the Futures and Concepts Center to compile a report of lessons learned and recommendations moving forward with some of the platforms, capabilities and doctrine. That will be delivered to the center director in the coming months, and once approved, spread across the Army to inform smaller scale experiments with portions of the larger effort to develop MDO doctrine and materiel, Bailey said. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/09/12/massive-simulation-shows-the-need-for-speed-in-multi-domain-ops