Spain to modernise air defence capabilities with new NASAMS acquisitions

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  3 juillet 2018 | International, Terrestre

  US Army’s interim short-range air defense solution crystallizes

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army's interim short-range air defense system, which will urgently fill a capability gap identified a few years ago in the European theater, has crystallized. The Army had already decided the Interim Maneuver-Short-Range Air Defense system would be developed around its Stryker combat vehicle, but it has now chosen Leonardo DRS to supply a mission equipment package that will include Raytheon's Stinger vehicle missile launcher, according to Col. Chuck Worshim, program manager for cruise missile defense systems with the Army's Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, who spoke to Defense News on June 28. General Dynamics Land Systems — which produces the Stryker — will be the platform integrator for the IM-SHORAD system, he added. The Army went through a selection process through the Department of Defense Ordnance Technology Consortium to determine the best collection of vendors to build prototypes. A Boeing-GDLS team was a front-runner for an interim SHORAD mission package, unveiling before any other vendor a solution in August 2017 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. Using an Avenger system on top of the Stryker, which was the team's solution, sought to take what was already in the Army's inventory to create a system. And a SHORAD demonstration at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, last September saw more possibilities for the interim solution including Rafael's Iron Dome and South Korean defense firm Hanwha's Flying Tiger. But a dark horse emerged at the Association of the U.S. Army's Global Force Symposium, also in Huntsville, in March. Leonardo DRS showed an unassuming small-scale mock-up of its concept at its booth at the symposium that featured its partner Moog's Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform. The platform would provide a choice of sights, direct-fire weapons and missiles, Ed House, DRS Land Systems' business development manager, told Defense News at the show. The system would be able to integrate both Stinger and Longbow Hellfire missiles, requirements for the service's IM-SHORAD solution. It also would come equipped with a complement of direct-fire weapons and sights to include the M230 chain gun and the 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. But the solution also has non-kinetic defeat capabilities and Rada's onboard multimission hemispheric radar. And that dark horse has won the opportunity to provide the mission equipment package for the IM-SHORAD prototype program. The system will also have Hellfire rails as well as an onboard sensor, according to Worshim. The Army decided to choose DRS to provide the mission equipment package because of the flexibility of its reconfigurable turret, which allows for growth opportunities should the threat change or something else change that requires a new interceptor or another capability, Worshim said. The solution also posed less intrusion to the existing Stryker platform, he added, and provided an increased level of protection as the crew reloads ammunition, which can be done under armor. While the Avenger solution was deemed technically acceptable and met requirements, one of the reasons the Army decided against using the Avenger on Stryker as the solution was because the government felt it would require major modifications to the Stryker, according to Worshim. The Army has a desire to keep the Stryker as common across the fleet as possible, Worshim said. Boeing was also looking to the government to supply Avenger turrets, of which a limited amount of those exist readily in the service's inventory, which would have been problematic when considering the Army's goal to deliver 144 IM-SHORAD systems by fiscal 2022, he explained. Now that vendors have been selected, the Army will move into a negotiation period expected to wrap up in mid- to late July. The service expects to officially award the contract to build nine prototypes by Aug. 31, but has the intention to possibly move that date up, Worshim said. Once the contracts are solidified, DRS will provide the first mission equipment package, complete with a new digital Stinger missile launcher in February 2019. Then GDLS will fully integrate the SHORAD prototype by April 2019. The final prototypes will be delivered to the service by the first quarter of fiscal 2020. As the prototypes are coming along, the Army will conduct prototype testing to see if the systems are meeting requirements. “From there, the Army will decide if this solution truly meets requirements in this respect,” Worshim said. If the solution does meet requirements, production efforts to build 144 systems — a total of four battalions — will move forward. The Army's goal is to provide the first battery no later than the fourth quarter of 2020, but that will depend on funding. If funding is lower than expected, the Army will deliver the first platoon by about that time, according to Worshim. The service has moved from receiving a directed requirement in late February 2018 to selecting vendors for the IM-SHORAD solution in just about four months, which, Worshim noted, is moving at “lightning speed” for a typical acquisition process. The hope is the process to build an IM-SHORAD solution will be used as a model for Army procurement that incorporates the “fly before you buy” concept and creates a way to rapidly understand capabilities moving forward, he said. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/06/28/us-armys-interim-short-range-air-defense-solution-crystallizes/

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  13 septembre 2019 | International, C4ISR

  How the Army is modernizing the old, introducing the new

  By: Mark Pomerleau Maj. Gen. Randy Taylor led the Army's sustainment efforts for the past two years as leader of Communications-Electronics Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. CECOM works to repair, restore and maintain all the Army's communications, electronics, cyber and intelligence equipment once it's been used by soldiers. In June, Maj. Gen. Mitchell Kilgo took over Taylor's position at CECOM and Taylor departed for U.S. Strategic Command. Before he left, Taylor spoke with C4ISRNET staff reporter Mark Pomerleau. C4ISRNET: You are leaving CECOM this summer after two years. What's changed? MAJ. GEN. RANDY TAYLOR: Fifty-five to 70 percent of, not just time, but expense is in sustainment. Every dollar that we don't use appropriately on the sustainment side takes a dollar away from [new programs]. One simple, but not glamorous thing that has made a tremendous impact is just making sure that — when it comes to sustaining C5ISR on the battlefield — the parts we need are at the right place at the right time. We've gone from, no kidding, like 77 percent supply availability with these parts two years ago to now this year we are currently at 90 percent and we're going to finish this fiscal year at 93 percent supply availability. Transformational. In our world, a part — the piece of a complicated platform or just the mission command system — might be the difference between it working or not, between somebody fighting or winning or not ... living or dying. C4ISRNET: Are you using any emerging technologies to get those parts in the right place at the right time? TAYLOR: We're looking at these platforms that already have built-in sensors and built-in discipline of really getting that feedback on usage, on wear and sustainment demand. We're starting there when it comes to applying AI to sustainment. I see C5ISR being a natural progression of that, but not the best place to start because even though things are becoming more and more connected, a lot of this is still very disparate networks, the disparate ability to monitor usage and age, etc. C4ISRNET: What about using AI with the network? TAYLOR: That's incredibly interesting because it is so tempting for us as an institution to go out and modernize the network by buying the latest and greatest, spiral develop it — field a different capability set every two years and get all this new stuff and all the varieties between different units and this piece of network gear and that piece of network gear and then forget about sustainment in our hubris or excitement to modernize. Then this all comes crashing down a couple years from now because we didn't have the demand history to know how to start the parts, train the technicians, and different units have different equipment. Organically, we just haven't prepared ourselves to take all that on. So, on the new modernized network, we have a mnemonic device to help remember this: Five-three-one. Starting with five: that is acquire these new C5ISR capabilities with a five-year warranty from the manufacturer. Even though that doesn't sound exciting, it is very significant. Most of the time this stuff just comes with a one-year warranty. And these warranties cost money and every dollar a program manager spends on a warranty is one less dollar he can put toward a quantity increase. That five-year warranty gives us the lead time we need as an Army and at CECOM; it gives us lead time so by year three — that's the three in five-three-one — the Army makes a decision to keep or kill. Basically, to sustain or not the thing we just modernized. Some of it we'll kill by saying, “Okay, that technology is perishable, Moore's Law. We want to replace it with the next best thing so why sustain it?” Or we might say, “It's low cost; it's essentially disposable.” C4ISRNET: Is that a new approach from years past? TAYLOR: Absolutely. Institutionally, we do a terrible job deciding to end things. We have a tendency to perpetuate indefinitely until there's some kind of compelling decision point that forces us to that. We're not really designed now to think about it that deliberately, that early. So, we're working with Army Futures Command, who can help lead that decision-making. And then — if the Army decides to sustain it, keep it past its warranty period ... five years in most cases — we have to decide, okay, then who's going to sustain it? Most of that will be sustained by CECOM. Then we have to work out a plan to transition it over to sustainment. C4ISRNET: Does that change how the network will look? TAYLOR: The network writ large, for as long as this discussion is relevant, will consist of new parts and old parts. Modernized network cross-functional team parts and legacy? That's already in the field that will be out there in some form. The biggest thing on an enterprise level that's keeping the rates from being higher is the fact that a large amount of what is fielded in the network has never gone back to the depot for reset, repair, overall, anything like that. When you pick that apart, the reason it hasn't gone back is we've made it, in the past, too hard to get it back to the depot. It's taken too long. All of the legacy radios. All of the WIN-T components to include Point-of-Presence and Soldier Network Extension, radars, generators, night-vision devices ... Back under the [Army Force Generation] model when we had about six months to reset, this was alright. But still, people didn't turn their stuff in. Nobody wanted to be without their equipment for six months because we were taking all of six months and then some at the depot to turn this thing and send it back to them. We've since completely changed that. C4ISRNET: How so? TAYLOR: Now, the C5ISR units can bring in basically all their major C5ISR platforms, turn them all in and then almost immediately drive away with something that's been totally refurbished. We've started already to do that in partnership with Forces Command, which gives us the priorities. We've seen a big spike in turning this stuff around, which really helps improve operational readiness. At the same time, we're doing all that. We made great strides in something we call “repair cycle time.” Take something like a Satellite Transportable Terminal. We used to take over six months to turn an STT to overhaul it, send it back. We do that now in less than two months. But units don't even have to wait that long because they have a repair cycle flow. Everything is accelerated now so that we can better modernize the old, introduce the new and keep this capable as we go forward. C4ISRNET: What kinds of challenges are ahead in software? TAYLOR: A big challenge with software is intellectual property. It used to be the way we looked at intellectual property rights is we kind of saw it as a binary decision. The government either bought it or we didn't. Most times we didn't because it was very expensive to buy it ... They developed it, they give us capabilities we contracted for, but they own the inner workings of it. Same thing on the hardware side. We have someone build a platform, they give us a platform, but they don't give all the engineering diagrams and all the specs on how to build the subcomponents. But we found we were at these very vulnerable points where something became obsolete, meaning we had a part on a platform and then, for example, the manufacturer stopped making it because there was no business case or maybe a sub vendor went out of business, and now we had to manufacture it organically or hire someone else, but we didn't have the intellectual property. So, it took forever to re-engineer it. C4ISRNET: And the same with software? TAYLOR: Same thing on the software side. We didn't have the code and it would just be too expensive then to try to figure it out on our own. What we do now is we have an agreement saying if any of these trigger events occur in the future, I'm going to have rights to this intellectual property you developed. I, the government, will have rights, and it's going to be at a pre-negotiated price. And what we're going to do to protect each one of us here is we're going to hold your intellectual property with a third, neutral party that will hold your software. You'll be required to update it, keep it current, they will protect it from the government or any competitor seeing it until these trigger events occur and then I will pay you for what I need when I need it. That is a brand-new way of doing business. It's been in practice a little bit in industry but not in the Department of Defense. C4ISRNET: That's important if a new radar signature comes up and you need to make a quick change. TAYLOR: Absolutely. Anything. The threat environment changes, you've got to get in there. C4ISRNET: What about software licenses? TAYLOR: If you look at the trend of how software sustainment was going, before we did a big course correction, we were approaching the point theoretically where all our sustainment dollars would go to software and [we would] have nothing left for the hardware. We got that under control now. A big part of that rebalancing is reducing the licensing cost. It first started with getting to fewer baselines because it kind of got away from us in the surge and in the war years. We had so many different versions of different software and different platforms. So, we worked with the [program executive offices] and consolidated that down to the minimum feasible number of baselines. We've also negotiated some better enterprise licenses and there have been some efficiencies there. Right now, on the sustainment side, the folks that go in and make these modifications for the government, we're going from what was 43 contracts now being reduced to 34 sustainment contracts. That's still a lot but that's a huge inefficiency there. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2019/09/12/how-the-army-is-modernizing-the-old-introducing-the-new

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  23 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR

  The Army wants to build a better signals intelligence force

  By: Mark Pomerleau The Army's top intelligence official signed the service's new signals intelligence strategy July 16, a move that defense leaders believe leaves the Army better situated to better fight despite electronic warfare and cyber attacks. The new strategy ensures "our readiness to provide timely and relevant SIGINT-support [and meet] the commander's information needs in a large scale combat operation against a sophisticated adversary,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, said July 18 during an event on Capitol Hill hosted by the Association of Old Crows. Officials say the integration of SIGINT, electronic warfare and cyber is critical from a material, organization and doctrinal perspective. “Not only will our four lines of effort improve our SIGINT corps' capabilities and relevance in the face of rapid changes in the global security environment, it will also enable our electronic warfare and cyberspace effort to meet new challenges,” Berrier said. The four initiatives in the new strategy include: - Organizing and building the Army SIGINT force, - Educating the force, - Equipping the force, and - Developing doctrine. The new strategy increases the Army's ability to collect intelligence against peer adversaries, such as China and Russia, and provides a firm foundation for successful electronic warfare and cyber operations, Berrier said. A key component of the convergence includes the new Terrestrial Layer System (TLS), a SIGINT/EW system projected to be fielded on vehicles and used by new military intelligence-electronic warfare (MI-EW) companies the Army is working to stand up. The Army wants SIGINT, electronic warfare and cyber systems on the same platforms in the air and ground domain, Maj. Gen. Robert Walters, commander of the Intelligence Center of Excellence, said at the event. These systems, Berrier said, should be able to not only sense the environment but employ some type of action such as electronic attack or cyber capability. Why converge? Officials have stressed repeatedly in the last year the need for colleagues in similar disciplines throughout the Army to stay in touch and reap the mutually beneficial equities on behalf of commanders in the field. Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, the head of Army Cyber Command, said commanders shouldn't have to have something explained to them by the EW guy, the SIGINT guy and then the cyber guy. “What we decided is there's a better way, we have to pull it all together” for the commander, he said at the event. “We're going to have to work together because we all operate in the same space. And so do we really need three separate tools to plan operations in the spectrum? My argument would be no.” From an organizational perspective, the 29 series electronic warfare personnel will have deep knowledge in both cyber and electromagnetic spectrum operations. On the materiel side, especially with programs like the Terrestrial Layer System, the cyber and intel community are meeting regularly to integrate their requirements, officials said. In addition, Maj. Gen. John Morrison, commander of the Cyber Center of Excellence, told reporters in June that the Intelligence Center of Excellence is working with the Cyber Center to help ensure integrated formation and integrated capabilities. https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/2018/07/19/the-army-wants-to-build-a-better-signals-intelligence-force/