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  31 décembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  The Army’s ‘triad of opportunity’

  By: Mike Gruss Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford is quick to remind his audience that the United States Army is one of the largest organizations in the world. Crawford understands the scope because, as the service's top uniformed IT official, any way the Army wants to take advantage of the revolution taking place in information technology must go through his office. Crawford became the service's chief information officer in August 2017 and since then has focused on the move to the cloud, hiring staff and protecting data. “A lot of things that we're looking at are aspirational, but what I will tell you is institutionally we are fundamentally in a different place than we were just 12 months ago,” he said. Crawford spoke recently with C4ISRNET Editor Mike Gruss. C4ISRNET: Talk about the Army's enterprise network and the major muscle movements taking place. LT. GEN. BRUCE CRAWFORD: For about the last 18 months, the Army's been focused on the tactical network. We really needed to take a step back from 17 years of continuous combat and say, “Have we properly networked the soldier?” Of course, the answer was “No.” In terms of the enterprise, there are about three big pieces to it. One has to do with our data. It's not just about storing our data. How do we better protect our data? If you pay attention to a lot of the research, 90 percent of the data that exists in the world today has been generated just in the last 24 months. You combine that with investments in cloud. So today it's about $200 billion. By 2020-2021 it's supposed to go to about $500 billion. One of the big focus areas has to be shifting from defending our networks to how do we protect our data. C4ISRNET: What else? CRAWFORD: I call it a triad of opportunity: you have got cloud, identity and access management and credentialing. Once we put our data in a secure, accessible, elastic environment, then how are we going to make sure that we can authenticate who you are, but you can actually access that data? So, taking on the issue of identity, credentialing and access management is the second leg in that stool. Last, but certainly not least, is the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The real value of that data is your ability to analyze that data, to predict what some of the challenges may be. C4ISRNET: Do you expect to see two-factor authentication or biometrics being used on the battlefield? CRAWFORD: That technology is here today. The vast majority of our Guard and Reserve forces don't get a government-issued Blackberry. When they come to work, they bring their device. So why shouldn't they be able to leverage their personal device and get access to information that has been put behind a two-party authentication firewall? One of the efforts that we have ongoing is to do exactly that. We're looking at the next six months before we have that capability, at least able to test it and put it in the hands of soldiers. C4ISRNET: Some of those technologies will rely on the cloud. How does the cloud help the Army make decisions faster? CRAWFORD: Right now, the Army has 1,112 data centers. Our goal is to have about 296 centers by 2022. So, you've got to ask yourself, with cloud technology available, do we even need data centers? Being able to aggregate that data, allowing the deployed soldiers to not have to take servers to the battlefield with them. Giving them the ability to be lighter and more mobile and being able to access that data from anywhere they are on the battlefield. It's pretty powerful in terms of increasing their mobility and the survivability of their data. C4ISRNET: How does cybersecurity fit into the Army's modernization process? CRAWFORD: You've heard about this concept of multidomain operations. It's not moving from this domain to this domain to this domain; it's organizing ourselves as an Army and posturing ourselves as an institution to be lethal in all these environments at once if we had to. So this idea of cybersecurity is critical to that. It has to be a part of our DNA as we move forward. The vast majority of the intrusions and vulnerabilities are human error. Cybersecurity has to be a part of who we are. The position now is that every domain that you're operating in is a contested environment. That requires a culture change to remain lethal. C4ISRNET: We hear a lot about Agile and Waterfall development. What's needed across the Army to make sure that it happens? CRAWFORD: A shared understanding of the problem. We recognized software optimization was a problem. The Army's expending a considerable amount of resources just on software sustainment over the [Future Year Defense Program]. Recognizing that it's an issue and then pulling together key stakeholders, not just the services, but organizations like the [National Security Agency] or organizations like FBI and CIA, which can innovate at a pace much faster than we can. My No. 1 concern when it comes to software optimization has to do with the resiliency of the applications developed by industry. A lot of the applications, they work great in the lab. But when you put them on a network, especially our tactical network, and then you have to try and extend that to the disadvantaged user at the tip of the spear? A lot of the applications don't perform as well as they would in a sterile environment. Applications have got to be more resilient. C4ISRNET: The storage of data is a challenge, but also the integration between networks or databases. What are the steps you're taking to make sure that soldiers can get all the information they need? CRAWFORD: One of the efforts that excites me the most has to do with this idea of a common operating environment. You're going to take 19 disparate battle command systems and collapse them onto three specific environments — a handheld environment, a mounted environment and a command post environment — and each is going to have the same look and feel. Now think about the infrastructure. If you can collapse these systems — all with their own server farms, all with their own standards, all developed by different people, all from different organizations — if you can collapse those all onto a common operating environment, think of the things that you can divest of, but also think of the complexity. We really need to remove the burden of integration from the backs of soldiers. There is a lot of value in that, to include increased mobility for the soldier. C4ISRNET: What are some of the technologies that get you excited? CRAWFORD: The U.S. Army is the third-largest organization of any kind in the world. You've got to ask yourself, “Do we have total asset visibility? Do we have the ability to know what's on our network?” Enterprise license agreements and the things of that nature. Imagine the power of that, if you had 100-percent visibility — not just of your network from a cybersecurity perspective, but when it comes to a term that I am calling information technology accountability, or investment accountability. If you had 100-percent investment accountability, meaning you knew every time an IT dollar was spent, who spent it and was that done against one of your modernization priorities. C4ISRNET: Those are a lot of the same problems that we see in the business world. You're not starting from scratch. You can use commercial products. CRAWFORD: Absolutely. So, there are several things that we are looking to partner more closely with industry. It's the technologies that give us total asset visibility and reduce the number of tools, reduce the number of enterprise license agreements, help us with better visibility of cybersecurity. Then there's another that I'm really interested in: it's talent. Do we have the talent, right now on board, to deliver the technologies that the Army's going to need in 2028 and the answer is no. We're in a race for talent. We've got an effort called “Workforce 2028” that is looking at the 13,600 IT professionals ... We've looked and asked, “OK, what skill sets are really required, based on what we know now, in the next 5 to 10 years?” That's a tough one. C4ISRNET: What do you hope to accomplish in the next 12 months? CRAWFORD: I talked about a race for talent. That's really important that we posture ourselves to get the right people on the team. C4ISRNET: How do you measure that, though? CRAWFORD: Well, you've got to measure it in terms of knowing what skill sets you need, so there's some work that has to be done upfront and we're doing that work now. And you either began — you created a process to allow you to iterate and field the skill sets — or you didn't. It won't be that difficult to measure, but it's got to be an institutional approach. It's not just in the Pentagon. I want to be able to tell you a year from now that we have created a process or leveraged an existing process, because we've actually been granted some authorities by Congress and others over the last couple of years to better posture ourselves. The other thing has to do with protecting our data. Over the next four years, I want to put 25 percent of 8,000 existing applications in a cloud hosting environment. And I've created a process that allows us to do that. It's in support of and synchronized with where the DoD, Mr. [Dana] Deasy is going with the JEDI effort. We live in times now where status quo can no longer be the norm. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/12/28/the-armys-triad-of-opportunity

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  11 juillet 2023 | International, Terrestre

  Caracal: Germany and the Netherlands enter €1.9 billion framework contract with Rheinmetall for 3,058 airmobile vehicles

  As a first step, a firm order from the framework contract has been placed for 1,508 vehicles worth approximately €870 million, including value added tax

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  9 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre

  Raytheon, Rheinmetall partner to offer new Lynx fighting vehicle to US Army

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Lynx 41 infantry fighting vehicle made its public debut in the springtime drizzle at a Parisian land warfare exposition in June this year. German defense company Rheinmetall took pains to show its vehicle on scene was not a mock-up, but a real vehicle that came with available footage of its rigorous test campaigns. Ben Hudson, the head of the company's vehicle systems division, told Defense News at the expo that Rheinmetall was “highly interested” in the U.S. Army's Next-Generation Combat Vehicle program, and said to stay tuned on how Lynx might break into the U.S. market as a serious competitor for NGCV. Fast-forward four months, and Rheinmetall has found a high-profile partner in Raytheon to bring Lynx to the U.S. They will participate in what is shaping up to be a competitive prototyping effort with the NGCV program, to replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle with an Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. Developing a family of next-generation combat vehicles is a top priority of the U.S. Army as part of its modernization strategy focused on multi-domain operations. In fact, it's the second highest priority, underneath bringing Long-Range Precision Fires into the force. “We knew we wouldn't be able to compete for a program as prestigious and large in the U.S. without a strong U.S. partner,” Hudson told Defense News in an interview leading up to the Association of the United States Army's annual conference. “Since Eurosatory, we have been working through that.” The partnership gets after “essentially the best of both of our companies,” Hudson said. It “brings together the world's leading infantry fighting vehicle technology, the vehicle and turret from Rheinmetall,” with Raytheon's capabilities from a systems integration standpoint, he said. “A lot of the gaps that we had in our business to really create that next-generation solution are easily covered by the strengths and capabilities Raytheon has, and some of those things are electronic warfare, signals intelligences, missiles capabilities ... and sensor systems like the third-generation FLIR that are a key plan of the Army going forward,” Hudson said. To bring on Raytheon's technology, the vehicle won't have to be changed much because it was designed from day one to be modular and adaptable. In fact, the company switched configurations at Eurosatory to a hybrid command variant in a matter of hours. The vehicle will be “a U.S. product, U.S. made and, ultimately, we will move to a U.S. engineered platform,” Hudson said. The fact that the Army is ready to dive head first into replacing the Bradley, with plans to have companies compete for a chance to rapidly build prototypes for the OMFV program, makes the partnership with Rheinmetall attractive, said Kim Ernzen, Raytheon's vice president of land warfare systems. Because Lynx already “exists, that is one of the most compelling pieces to this relationship,” she said. But Raytheon and Rheinmetall also share the same philosophies when it comes to company culture and innovation and “how we look at technology that comes to play not only today but, more importantly, has that growth path for the future,” Ernzen said. This aligns with the Army's path to get a next-gen combat vehicle to the field quickly but continue to evolve its technical capabilities to keep pace with evolving threats. This isn't the first time Raytheon and Rheinmetall have partnered on programs. Most recently, the pair unveiled an integrated suite of air-defense capabilities they think could meet the entire portfolio of German air-defense needs, going up against Germany's current development plans to buy a missile defense system from Lockheed Martin. And the duo has also worked to integrate Raytheon's Patriot air-and-missile defense system on Rheinmetall trucks for an unnamed Scandinavian country, among several other efforts. The impact of emerging threats and new requirements drove Rheinmetall to build Lynx to fill a gap in the market. Defeating today's and tomorrow's threats means having a vehicle that weighs well above 50,000 kilos — or more than 110,200 pounds — or one that is rapidly reconfigurable to support different missions. The Lynx KF41 with a Lance 2.0 turret “rebalances the key requirements in the areas of survivability, mobility, lethality, capacity, adaptability and transportability,” Hudson said in June, and is reconfigurable using open-architecture systems and a modular and open mechanical architecture. The vehicle design is “highly scalable,” Hudson said, with more than 18,000 kilos, or more than 39,000 pounds, of reconfigurable payload and an internal volume that allows for the turret and up to nine seats in the back. The new vehicle is fitted with an 850-kilowatt power pack that uses the Liebherr engine and Renk transmission. Additionally, in order to power the digital backbone and all the other weapons systems, more than 20 kilowatts of electrical power is stored on board. The turret also has two flexible mission pods on either side, to allow customizable subsystems such as anti-tank guided missiles, non-line-of-sight loitering munitions, UAVs or an electronic warfare package. Raytheon will provide the third-generation FLIR, fielded on Abrams tanks and also meant for the Bradley A5 upgrade, which has since been canceled to make way for the OMFV. The company also plans to provide other sensor suites, particularly an active protection system that is already being developed and built to be compliant with the Army's future APS system. While Rheinmetall has its own APS — the Active Defense System — that it's been trying to break into the U.S. market as an interim solution for combat vehicles now, the company sees Raytheon's APS offering as “unparalleled” and the plan is to incorporate the capability into the offering. Raytheon and Rheinmetall plan to submit a proposal when the Army's draft request for proposals drops — potentially as soon as this month, but it could slip to November or December, according to Ernzen. Proposals are due in May. The Army plans to follow a similar procurement route as it did with the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle and downselect to two competitors who will build 14 prototypes in an engineering and manufacturing development phase in the first quarter of fiscal 2020. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2018/10/08/raytheon-rheinmetall-partner-to-offer-new-lynx-fighting-vehicle-to-us-army