Stinger and Javelin production can be boosted, says Army acquisitions chief. (Defense News) “Speeding or increasing production of the anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, though, involves heaps of considerations: long-lead procurement, ancillary equipment, field needs and supply chain concerns. Those “exact issues,” Bush said, are being looked at “right now.” “Congress provided a large amount of money in the omnibus to help us replenish our stocks, which we greatly appreciate,”… The legislation also sets aside $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine, $3 billion of which is dedicated to supplying new weapons — such as Javelins — to the besieged government… An $800 million security package announced March 16 included 800 Stinger and 2,000 Javelin systems.”
Ukraine tells the US it needs 500 Javelins and 500 Stingers per day. (CNN) “By March 7, less than two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US and other NATO members had sent about 17,000 anti-tank missiles and 2,000 anti-aircraft missiles into Ukraine… The new list comes as the Ukrainians have claimed they face potential weapons shortages amid an ongoing Russian assault — prompting some pushback from US and NATO officials who stress that more military aid is already going into the country… the United Kingdom announced it would ship 6,000 more missiles, including anti-tank and high explosive weapons, to Ukraine…. The list details several other urgent needs, including: jets, attack helicopters and anti-aircraft systems like the S-300.
- Note: In the FY 22 budget request, the army wanted 697, 768, and 376 Javelins in FY20 actuals, FY21 enacted, and FY22 request , while the Navy wanted 97, 98, and 1, respectively. Interested to see what the omnibus appropriated for replenishment.
Ukraine has unveiled loitering munition with an RPG-7 warhead. (Bulgarian Military) “The Kyiv-based company UkrJet develops and manufactures various types of unmanned aerial systems [AUS] and stray munitions and related targeting software called Dedalus… According to the manufacturer, the cruising speed is 120 km / h, and the maximum speed when approaching the target is 180 km / h. The maximum residence time in the air is given as 20 minutes. UkrJet emphasizes that Dedalus software means that the means of action can swarm and must have a high degree of resilience to electronic jamming measures. Both systems are also suitable for all weather conditions and are perfectly suitable for night battles… The manufacturer currently offers the RPG-7 warhead as an active charge, which can also be replaced by another payload.”
AI will design China’s future hypersonics. (Asia Times) “Chinese researchers claimed this month to develop an artificial intelligence system that can independently design new hypersonic weapons, a claim that if true could catapult China further ahead of the United States in the missile race. The Sichuan-based research team said that their AI system could identify most of the shock waves produced during hypersonic wind tunnel tests and that it had independently built without human intervention a knowledge base to develop new engines for hypersonic missiles or even in future planes. Hypersonic wind tunnel tests produce thousands of images per second, which then must be manually scrutinized pixel by pixel by researchers to uncover theoretical or engineering problems. As such, this traditional human method can be laborious, time-consuming and costly.”
Inside the Army’s distributed mission command experiments in, and over, the Pacific. (Breaking Defense) “Instead of the I Corps maintaining a single headquarters with several hundred staff shuffling around, the service is looking at breaking down the traditional headquarters infrastructure into “functional nodes” that would be distributed across the region but can remain in constant communication… In a recent experiment in Guam using four Strykers loaded with advanced communication capabilities, the I Corps worked to prove that it can pass important battlefield data, including fires and targeting information, between platforms, even while they are in transit in the air or on a boat… “So instead of having to bring a separate computer to do fires, a separate computer to do common operational picture and a separate computer to do logistics, we could actually access all those systems through one standard laptop.””
Army kicks off long-awaited SATCOM service pilot next month. (Breaking Defense) “The Army will hold an industry day April 20 for it’s long-awaited pilot program to explore buying satellite communication services in the same way that civilians subscribe to a mobile phone plan, with an eye on making awards in fiscal 2023. Over the past year, the Army held a series of demonstrations involving some 20 companies to prove that commercial providers could meet the service’s needs. Now the service is keen to gather specific industry ideas for how it might pay for access to bandwidth under the effort, called “SATCOM as a Managed Service (SaaMS).””
US Navy considers alternatives to unmanned boats with missiles. (Defense News) “he study will compare the Navy’s preferred plan — a large unmanned surface vessel (LUSV) outfitted with vertical launching system tubes that can fire strike missiles — to other options. Four categories of options being considered are modifying existing naval ship designs, such as amphibious ships, expeditionary fast transports and expeditionary sea bases; modifying commercial vessel designs, such as container ships and bulk carriers; creating a new naval ship design; or creating a new commercial ship design, Aldridge said. A 2019 study on the future surface combatant affirmed the need for an LUSV with missile tubes, to supplement DDG(X)… [However,] The Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act limited the Navy’s ability to pursue an armed LUSV until a new analysis weighed alternatives.
Congress freezes $349 million for Army’s next generation goggles. (Defense News) “Nearly $350 million in IVAS procurement money has been frozen until initial testing and evaluation are completed and lawmakers are further briefed on the project… “We’ve got to work through ‘22 money they did provide. They transferred some funding to R&D, which we had asked for, and then how much procurement money is left,” Bush said. “So that’ll be a running conversation with them.””
Boeings newest AI combat drone gets a spooky animal name: Ghost Bat. (Gizmodo) [i.e., the MQ-28A] “The drone, which is being produced in Australia, utilizes artificial intelligence and is part of what was previously known as the Loyal Wingman project… “Selecting the Ghost Bat, an Australian native mammal known for teaming together in a pack to detect and hunt, reflects the unique characteristics of the aircraft’s sensors and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance abilities, and is a fitting name for this pioneering capability.”… The Ghost Bat is the first combat aircraft to be manufactured in Australia in over 50 years… “The three test flight series have been successful and with a range of 3,700 kilometers, it complements our deterrence objective to hold a potential adversary’s forces and infrastructure at risk from a greater distance.””
Making and implementing strategic choices is hard. (Strategy Bridge) “However, PPBE endures not just for its stated purpose of helping leaders make informed strategic choices between requirements and ensuring those choices are resourced, but because it is embedded in DoD process and it is aligned with military culture. While players in the budget game may not like the process, they have learned the game, and use it to support and defend parochial interests… OSD only looks at small fractions of the service programs in any detail each year and scrutiny of individual items is limited. DoD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation directorate is not resourced to do thorough analysis of every option.”
Grassley pushes for financial management oversight at Department of Defense. (Senate) “[DoD] remains the only major agency that has never been able to accurately account for and report on its spending or physical assets… Unless the underlying financial management systems are addressed, any efforts to reform the Planning, Programming, Budget, and Execution processes at the DoD would be a waste of time and money.”
Navy moving ahead with HII for small UUV program. (Breaking Defense) “The service announced its intent to buy HII’s drone, the Remus 300, for its Lionfish SUUV program in a presolicitation notice published on Friday… As its name suggests, the SUUV is only 150 pounds and requires just a few sailors to deploy it. It will be based on HII’s Remus 300, a “man-portable UUV” that is “designed for modularity… [and] can be reconfigured with a range of sensors and payloads to meet mission requirements,” according to a statement the company published last year when announcing the government of New Zealand had ordered four UUVs.
DoD Cloud exchange: Navy’s Aaron Weis on accelerating transformation. (Federal News Network) “So my Azure cloud storage that I have on my desktop is fully accessible there. All your documents are there. You have the full suite of Office 365 capability. It is enabled, CAC-less authentication.” In fact, the VDI is so powerful it turned his desktop using the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) from a dud to a stud. “I actually just fire up the virtual desktop and run it from the Pentagon on my NMCI machine, and I have a way better experience than I get with the native desktop that’s literally sitting under my desk.”… Next, the Navy plans to address the need for the CAC to access encrypted items and to log on to websites that want CAC-based authentication… As part of the move to enterprise services, the Navy is taking advantage of the Air Force’s Platform One offering to create Black Pearl, a platform to begin standardizing its approach to DevSecOps. Weis, however, fully admits the Navy will not have one DevSecOps platform for every mission area.”
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