22 août 2018 | International, C4ISR
Computers on the battlefield take a beating.
Beyond the everyday wear and tear, they also must endure extreme temperatures and often violent vibrations. To help ensure its systems give soldiers and commanders the information they need, the Army relies on its Mounted Family of Computer Systems program. Known as MfoCS, pronounced em-fox, the program covers detachable tablets to fully-loaded, vehicle-mounted workstations.
C4ISRNET spoke recently with Bill Guyan, vice president of business development for Leonardo DRS, about advances in battlefield computing.
C4ISRNET: We hear a lot about a new emphasis on the hardening of security of contractors. And not just contractors, but primes, and then their contractors. Obviously this has become a point of concern for DOD leadership.
Bill Guyan: One of the big areas of emphasis for the Army in the procurement of the [Mounted Family of Computer Systems] (MFoCS) and particularly MFoC2 II, were areas related to security, both from a cyber security standpoint and the ability to assure that the system was free from malware or any external threat. So there's a very comprehensive supply chain risk management strategy put in place and for this program we believe that this is the most secure edge computing system that the Army's ever purchased.
It's absolutely critical that it be so, since ultimately there will be somewhere between a 100,000 and 125,000 of these systems fielded across the Army and Marine Corps, at the edge of the battlefield with each one of these systems serving as potential on ramp to the network and in an area of situational awareness that is absolutely mission critical. There was a time when we derived quick benefit from having an advantage and a capability that our opponents didn't. And over time the capability has evolved from a nice to have capability to a mission critical capability that we'd be hard pressed to fight without.
C4ISRNET: The Army has put a lot of emphasis on size, weight and power. Can you explain how that manifests itself on the battlefield?
Guyan: We optimize size, weight and power in two ways. At the hardware level we optimize by staying at the leading edge of available technologies, available commercial technologies and rapidly adapting and adopting them for employment in this mission critical extreme environment. The computers and displays are the soldiers' path to the network. It has to work at -40 centigrade and it has to work at 80 degrees centigrade. It has to work in extreme vibration and it has to work in contested EMI environments. It has to work all the time.
For example, we led the charge in the adoption and fielding of solid state hard drives versus rotating media, which allowed us to not only improve the resiliency of the system, but also to reduce size, because we no longer have to isolate the rotating hard drive from the shock and vibration.
We also migrated from the old backlight technology to an LED backlight, which is much more reliable, particularly in shock vibration at temperature extremes. But it also requires far less power.
The other thing that we've been able to do is rapidly adapt the latest processor technologies when they're available. Of course, processors continue to get faster, smaller, and use less power. We're able to make sure that every generation of system can deliver more computing capability for less power, and less power means less heat.
Full article: https://www.c4isrnet.com/show-reporter/technet-augusta/2018/08/21/what-reduced-size-weight-and-power-mean-on-the-battlefield/
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Military.com 9 May 2018 By Oriana Pawlyk HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. -- "That's the sound America makes when she's angry." That's how Col. Tom Palenske, commander of the 1st Special Operations Wing, characterized the AC-130 gunship after two aircraft fired hundreds of rounds from their 40mm and 105mm cannons and 25mm Gatling gun in the skies above A-77, a range specially made for target practice. Palenske, also the installation commander here, says crews can't wait for the next best thing: the AC-130J Ghostrider. "It's going to be awesome. It's our big gun truck. It's going to have more powerful engines, a more efficient fuel rate, and also has a more precise fuel capability so you know exactly how much gas you've got on board," he said. Palenske caught up with Military.com during a tour of Air Force Special Operations Command aircraft and a live-fire training exercise on ranges used by Hurlburt and neighboring Eglin Air Force Base as part of Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson's recent trip to AFSOC. "You can keep the sensors on the bad guys longer," Palenske said, referring to the J-model's ability to stay airborne longer due to better fuel management. Along with the 105mm cannon the U-models sport, the AC-130J will be equipped with a 30mm cannon "almost like a sniper rifle ... it's that precise, it can pretty much hit first shot, first kill," he said. "It's also going to have AGM-176 [Griffin] missiles on the back, so you can put 10 missiles on the back of them. And two of the tubes are reloadable, so those missiles, they're sitting in the tube backward so the tail's pointing out, [and] they eject out of the airplane, right-side themselves and shoot like a forward-fired missile," Palenske said. The J-model will have the ability to launch 250-pound small-diameter bombs (SDB), GPS- or laser-guided, he added. The aircraft is expected to carry AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, interchangeable with the SDBs on its wing pylons. The model achieved initial operational capability in September. The fourth-generation J is slated to replace the AC-130H/U/W models, with delivery of the final J- model sometime in 2021, according to the Air Force. The service plans to buy 32 of the aircraft. Crews here expect the J to be deployed in late 2019 or early 2020 and are optimistic about its progress. In January, the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation said fire control systems associated with the plane's left-hand-side 30mm GAU-23/A cannon had issues, including being knocked out of alignment when fired and needing to be re-centered repeatedly by an operator. The AC-130W Stinger II and J-model are the only variants of the gunship to use the Orbital ATK-made cannon. "That was drastically exaggerated," Palenske said in response to the problems cited in the report. Officials said some of the issues were already being fixed by the time the report was made public. Now, "all of the gun actuating systems are electric as opposed to hydraulic. Hydraulic's sloppy," Palenske said, referring to the gun mounts that previously used hydraulics to aim the weapons. "And remember, we're just bringing this thing online. You can't expect to slap this thing together ... and have that thing come out perfect," he said. "From soup to nuts, it's all run by computers and computer programs. But it's going to [be] the most lethal, with the most loiter time, probably the most requested weapons system from ground forces in the history of warfare. That's my prediction," Palenske said. There are two electro-optical/infrared sensor/laser designator pods on the gunship, a significant upgrade from the U-model. The U-model "has an older Raytheon ALQ-39 and a L3/Wescam MX-15," Lt. Col. Pete Hughes, an AFSOC spokesman, said in a follow-up email. The J-model has two L3/Wescam MX-20 electro-optical/infrared sensor/laser designator pods. "The upgraded sensors provide greater resolution at longer distances," he said. The new sensors can zoom in well enough to identify a shoe on the ground and will be able to share information with fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, officials said. In the future, AC-130 crews also hope to incorporate a high-energy laser aboard the gunship. Palenske said the laser will be the ultimate ace in the hole, making disabling other weapons systems easier. "If you're flying along and your mission is to disable an airplane or a car, like when we took down Noriega back in the day, now as opposed to sending a Navy SEAL team to go disable [aircraft] on the ground, you make a pass over that thing with an airborne laser, and burn a hole through its engine," he said. Palenske was referring to Operation Nifty Package to capture and remove Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega from power in 1989, during which a SEAL team "disable[d] his aircraft so he couldn't escape." With a laser, "it's just like that. And you just keep going on, and there's no noise, no fuss, nobody knows it happened. They don't know the thing's broken until they go and try to fire it up," he said. The transition to the J-model will happen simultaneously in the AC gunship community and the MC-130 Combat Talon special mission community, as older C-130 models are divested "in an elegant ballet" to make sure commandos and ground forces are covered, Palenske said. The Air Force is procuring more MC-130J models -- used for clandestine missions; low-level air refueling for helicopter and tiltrotor aircraft; and infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces -- but is still using H-models in deployed locations. Palenske said having a standard aircraft in not only the gunship community but also the MC community will be less of a strain on maintainers. "Imagine the efficiency in the parts supply [for] the maintainers. You can keep less people in harm's way because the people that are going to maintain the systems on [both of] those, they can do it," he said. https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2018/05/09/special-operators-predict-ac-130j-will-be-most-requested-aircraft.html