3 août 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
The Army's first iteration of new network tools, known as Capability Set '21, was heavily influenced by existing network gaps identified by the 82nd Airborne on more than a year's worth of deployments.
According to Capt. Brian Delgado, S6 of the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, the “biggest game changer” for soldiers in the field provided in the integrated tactical network kit of Capability Set '21 was the secure but unclassified environment.
The SBU environment allows soldiers to more easily share and receive information. In the current network, information that flows through the network is classified, and many lower-level users don't have proper clearances.
“Army operational construct requires battalion formations to conduct combined arms missions, but today's network does not support the battalion's organic capacity to deconflict an air picture, nor an ability to combine dismounted, mounted, fires, intelligence and air pictures into a combined operating picture (COP),” Delgado said. “Part of this challenge is due to the fact that dismounted and most mounted COP tools like Nett Warrior (NW) and Joint Battle Command-Platform resided on the Secret enclave. The vast majority of users at the tactical level do not possess Secret clearances, which makes sharing and receiving key information difficult.”
Capability Set '21 lets soldiers securely share controlled unclassified information across the network, allowing war fighters on the ground to receive important information regardless of their security clearance. With the new tools, the Army moved from a 100 percent classified network to a 75 percent SBU network.
“This means we now were able to use software applications at the Unclassified level in a tactical environment. SBU allowed the utilization of tactical software like the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) to provide a [combined operating picture] down to the lowest level of leaders,” Delgado said.
Col. Garth Winterle, project manager for tactical radios at Army Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical, said in a May interview with C4ISRNET that the SBU architecture ”opens the door for a lot of different things,” including improved information sharing with coalition partners.
The integrated tactical network kit also unifies the disparate operating picture into a single digital operating picture. The combined operating picture “directly reduces risk in the clearance of fires, combat air support and maneuvering in widely dispersed formations,” Delgado said.
“It allowed battalion commanders to fight teams in a dispersed manner that would have been impossible with legacy systems, and therefore greatly reduced the risk to the battalion combat power that enemy indirect fires commonly present,” Delgado added.
Capability Set '21 was focused on solving immediate network capability gaps with current technology, while also making network hardware far more expeditionary and while improving network transport capabilities. The capability set includes new radios as well as smaller and lighter servers and satellite terminals. It was designed through collaboration between Army PEO C3T and the Army Network Cross-Functional Team.
The Army completed critical design review of Capability Set '21 earlier this year and started procuring new tools this month.
Right now, the “majority” of the Army's command-and-control systems sit on large vehicles that aren't useful on expeditionary operations, Delgado said. With the new technology, the integrated tactical network “separated these systems from vehicles, allowing for more network access during early expeditionary operations that we performed,” reducing the reliance on vehicles and allowing soldiers to dismount systems based on needs.
Delgado said the new integrated tactical network, or ITN, hardware is “orders of magnitude” smaller than existing tools, providing more flexibility in how units choose command-and-control equipment for operations.
“We were able to load a battalion tactical operations center worth of equipment onto a nonstandard small tactical vehicle, and then move it in a matter of hours onto a UH-60 [Black Hawk helicopter] to function as a true command aircraft,” Delgado said.
The Capability Set '21 ITN kit also includes radio waveforms that are more resilient, and it allows for data transmission. The 82nd Airborne has previously been reliant on the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System as well as the Soldier Radio Waveform for tactical radio communications, but Delgado said that both had “limitations regarding their effectiveness and survivability for distributed formations,” and that they didn't allow for SBU transmissions.
The Army is investing several new radios with more resilient waveforms as part of its modernization initiative, including the two-channel leader radio.
“The ITN presents a significant increase in radio resiliency while operating in a contested environment. Most noteworthy are a resistance to tactical jamming, and a near-complete inability of the enemy to ... find radio broadcasts,” Delgado said.
15 novembre 2022 | International, Autre défense
European Union defence ministers paved the way on Tuesday for Britain to join an EU project aimed at facilitating the swift movement of troops and military equipment across Europe, as war rages in Ukraine for a ninth month.
7 mars 2022 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
The U.S. Navy didn't sit tight when it reached a Pentagon goal to make 80% of its F/A-18E-F Super Hornets mission capable. It raised the bar.
15 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Tony Osborne The complex nature of intercepting hypersonic weapons may predicate air-breathing propulsion technologies to provide additional range, speed and energy. European countries have linked arms to develop a counter to the emerging threat of hypersonic weapons and enhance their ballistic missile defense (BMD) capabilities. The Timely Warning and Interception with Space-based TheatER surveillance (Twister) project, led by France and supported by Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, is one of 13 new multinational programs that were given the backing of the EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative in November. It says it aims to develop a European system that can “detect, track and counter” more complex missile threats and give member nations a “self-standing ability to contribute to NATO's ballistic missile defense.” Currently, only a handful of European nations can counter ballistic missiles, including European users of the Raytheon Patriot (Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and Spain), as well as France and Italy with the Eurosam SAMP/T. But none of those systems is ready to deal with the new generation of threats emerging from Russia and China, including hypersonic gliders, hypersonic and high-supersonic cruise missiles, and maneuverable next-generation combat aircraft. The U.S. has also begun examining technologies through its Regional Glide-Phase Weapon System (RGPWS), disclosed by Aviation Week in December, and the Hypersonic Defense Weapon System. “We have seen the hypersonic threat coming,” says Rainer Stockhammer, team leader for Twister at European missile manufacturer MBDA. “Over the last five years we have performed studies into these new threats, which are new in terms of both novelty and maneuverability, and now we are in a position to answer this PESCO call.” MBDA is now positioning itself for a role in developing the endoatmospheric interceptor that could be the backbone of the wider Twister system in the 2030s, describing the future system as “disruptive” and “technologically demanding.” The company will not discuss what architecture it is studying for the future interceptor, but Stockhammer says MBDA's experience with the Aster family of vertically launched surface-to-air missiles and the Meteor air-breathing, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile has given it a “good position . . . to be able to develop a solution.” The company's artist's impression depicts a missile clearly equipped with air intakes, which would suggest the use of a ramjet like on the Meteor. Use of a ramjet would provide not only more range and speed, but also more energy in the final stages of an engagement to maneuver against hypersonic gliders and other maneuverable reentry vehicles. “We know what kind of accuracy and range we need from the sensing part,” says Stockhammer. “Now we will look at a way to manage the unpredictability and look at engagement planning. . . . This is where we are investing.” MBDA has also been looking at the command-and-control mechanisms required for such a system and how it would interface with existing and future sensors. Individual governments will ultimately decide how they will equip with the future interceptor, but MBDA expects it to arm ships and a ground-based air defense system, with the expectation the system may have to squeeze into existing launch boxes and vertical launch tubes on surface ships. Securing the nod from PESCO is a major step forward for the program. The next step will be for the five nations to begin hammering out a concept and a high-level requirement. MBDA officials say they are working toward a timeline of the 2030s to produce an operational system. By working through PESCO, the five nations are hoping this will enable them to secure development funding from the European Defense Fund (EDF), which is expected to provide €13 billion ($15 billion) to support collaborative defense projects in 2021-27. It is unclear how much a program such as Twister could receive from the fund. Money will also be provided by national governments involved in the Twister program. Although MBDA lobbied in France for European nations to pursue an evolution of European BMD capabilities, prompting Paris to take a lead in what became Twister, the company is unlikely to be the only player in the program. The interceptor will be just one component of Twister. The PESCO initiative also calls for space-based early warning, but no details have emerged about the European industry approach to this yet. PESCO and EDF rules call for cooperation between industry, particularly small and medium-size enterprises, as well as between member states. “We would need to build an industry consortium that is clear, but it is too early to talk about how this might look,” notes Stockhammer. The PESCO initiatives allow for additional nations to join and observe the programs, although it remains unclear whether the EU will allow so-called third countries, which will include the UK after Brexit, to participate in such projects. Denmark, Malta and the UK remain outside of PESCO. Twister is the second missile initiative pursued by PESCO. The other is for a beyond-line-of-sight development of MBDA's MMP man-portable guided missile, a program proposed by France and supported by Belgium and Cyprus. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/european-states-plan-hypersonic-defense