War Developing and Upcoming Military Technology - Something new at least 3 times a week.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 5, 2020

Helicopter double-header:

Israeli Defense Minister Presses For Israeli V-22s
Earlier this year, the purchase of 12 tiltrotors was indefinitely postponed for lack of funds. Now the new defense minister – and prospective prime minister – wants to change that.

{ A Special Operations CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor refueling in-mid-air }

TEL AVIV: Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz is pushing for the purchase of Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys, an acquisition long desired by the Israeli Air Force but put on hold in February over budget concerns.

Gantz, a retired lieutenant-general who advocated for the V-22 buy during his time as Israeli Defense Force chief of staff, became defense minister in May as part of an unusual coalition deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under which Gantz will become prime minister in November 2021. The Israeli government is in turmoil after three general elections in less than 12 months, disrupting the V-22 budget and other official business. On top of that, Gantz and Netanyahu — while coalition partners — are frequently at odds.

An important potential ally for Gantz in the Ministry of Defense? The former IAF commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, is now the MOD’s director general.

{ MV-22 Osprey in hover mode }

Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, who now holds Gantz’s old job as IDF chief of staff, has publicly said that Israel needs 12 to 14 V-22s. The tiltrotor is a hybrid aircraft that combines the long range of a turboprop airplane with a helicopter’s capability to take off and land without a runway. That makes it attractive to the IDF for high-speed, long-range raids and for emergency evacuation of Israeli’s gas pumping platforms in the Mediterranean. The Israelis have given Boeing & Bell a list of desired modifications, including enlarged fuel tanks and mid-air refueling capacity to extend their range, as well as avionics and other features found on the US Special Operations version of the aircraft, the CV-22.

In August, the IDF even issued a formal Price & Availability (P&A) request for the V-22 to the US Navy International Programs (NIPO), which oversees exports of the tiltrotor. But the IDF’s simultaneous needs for new fighters, aerial tankers, and heavy-lift helicopters ended up squeezing the V-22 out of the budget.

Last week, Gantz met with senior officers on the IDF general staff and ordered a reevaluation of February’s decision to postpone the purchase.

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Israeli politics is weird. Not as bad as Lebanon, but still really weird.
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Boeing wins $265 million to build more special ops Chinook helos

The Army has minted another deal with Boeing for more special ops Chinooks.

www.defensenews.com

Boeing wins $265 million to build more special ops Chinook helos

{U.S. soldiers enter an Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter at an Afghan National Army combat outpost in Afghanistan on June 23, 2015. (Tech. Sgt. Joseph Swafford/U.S. Air Force) }

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has awarded Boeing a $265 million contract to build nine more MH-47G Block II Chinook helicopters for the service’s Special Operations Aviation Command, according to a July 31 Defense Department contract announcement.

The company is now under contract to build 24 of the G-model Chinooks. The service is expected to buy 69 special operations variants.

The original plan was to procure 473 F-model Block II helicopters for the active force as well, but the Army decided in its fiscal 2020 budget request not to buy them for the conventional force and only field the latest variant to special operations, which was very much in need of a replacement for the variant.

The service’s decision to cut the aircraft from the active force was based on the need to free up future cash to cover the cost of a plan to buy two new future vertical lift aircraft for long-range assault and attack reconnaissance missions.

Congress has since opposed the move, injecting $28 million in FY20 funding into the program to purchase long-lead items to manufacture F-model Block II Chinooks for the active Army. The Army’s FY21 budget again provided no funding for the program. A similar plus-up in the congressional FY21 spending bill could continue to push the service back in the direction of buying more Block II variants.

The contract award is the third in a series of awards to buy G-model Chinooks. Boeing also received contracts in 2018 and 2019.

The Army approved the Block II effort to move into the engineering and manufacturing development phase in April 2017, and the program officially began in July 2017. The aircraft began flying in tests in mid-2019.

The upgrades in the Block II version include newly designed rotorblades, major changes to the drive system and other improvements like non-segmented fuel cells. The aircraft is expected to buy back roughly 4,000 pounds of additional load capacity, and it adds range capability.
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We will have to see where this goes. The Helicopters are needed, but when it is competing against all the other Army priorities, the Army thought that what they had could hand on. I couldn't really tell you what the right answer is.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 5, 2020

Big piece of the day:
Army Shows First-Ever Footage Of New Hypersonic Missile In Flight And Impacting
The Army and Navy are jointly developing the weapon, which is set to be both services' first-ever operational hypersonic missile.

The U.S. Army has released new video footage of a hypersonic missile test it carried out in cooperation with the U.S. Navy earlier this year, including clips of it in flight and impacting the designated target area. That launch, dubbed Flight Experiment 2, was in support of the development of a common hypersonic boost-glide vehicle that is set to eventually go on top of ground and submarine-launched missiles.

Army Lieutenant General L. Neil Thurgood, the Director for Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space and Rapid Acquisition within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, showed the video as part of a virtual briefing on Aug. 4, 2020. The presentation was part of the annual Space and Missile Defense (SMD) Symposium, which is being held online this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The brief video starts with footage of the test missile sitting on the pad at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii, on the day of the launch, Mar. 19, 2020. It then cuts to the missile blasting off. The clip of the launch itself was previously released. At the time, the Army and Navy said that this "test builds on the success we had with Flight Experiment 1 in October 2017," which involved firing a prototype from an unspecified Ohio class submarine.

https://twitter.com/Missile_Defense/status/1290723940529246214

"Army shows video of March 2020 Common-Hypersonic Glide Body flight test @SMDConference:"

"It gets off the pad pretty quick," Lieutenant General Thurgood said, narrating the footage, but without giving any specifics about its exact speed. "It gets pretty high pretty fast."

Hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, including the Army and Navy's Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), are unpowered and typically use rocket boosters to propel them to optimal speed and altitude. After that, they glide down toward their target at hypersonic speeds within the atmosphere along a varying trajectory. They are capable of maneuvering laterally, as well.

This gives hypersonic boost-glide vehicles an unpredictable flight profile compared to reentry vehicles on traditional ballistic missiles, even maneuverable designs. This, combined with their extreme speed, in turn, makes it very hard for an opponent to defend against these weapons or reposition or otherwise take cover before they hit. You can read more about the development of the C-HGB and the general principles behind hypersonic weapons in these past War Zone pieces.

{ A model of the C-HGB. }

The video then moves on to showing a portion of the actual flight of the C-HGB. It was "not a very long flight," Lieutenant General Thurgood noted.

The Army has still not said how fast the C-HGB flew during Flight Experiment 2 or how far it traveled. The Pentagon has previously said that this weapon would allow the Army and Navy to "strike targets hundreds and even thousands of miles away" and that it will get up to a speed of Mach 17.

Thurgood's video montage ends with a clip of the boost-glide vehicle actually hitting its mark. "That is the explosion at the other end," the Lieutenant General said. It's not clear whether this shows the detonation of an actual explosive warhead or simply the kinetic effects of the vehicle slamming into the target area at hypersonic speed.

https://twitter.com/TheDEWLine/status/1290709166588334080

" LtGen Neil Thurgood today narrates a video of Flight Experiment-2 from March, including blast impact down range. He declines to provide accuracy, but President Trump said last month that the impact was 14 inches from the “center point.” "

The Army officer said he could not go into the "classified pieces of this," but added that the weapon was "very accurate...over the distance that we were asked to go." Aviation Week's Defense Editor and good friend of The War Zone Steve Trimble noted that President Trump, in talking about the Army-Navy weapon in June during his commencement speech at West Point, said it could hit "within 14 inches from center point" of the intended target. Trump has also referred to this weapon as a "super duper missile."

It's not clear when the next flight test of the C-HGB might take place. The Army is hoping to conduct a test of its full ground-based system in 2022 and have the first unit equipped with it reach initial operational capability the following year. The Navy plans to field its version first on its Block V Virginia class submarines, the first of which is not due to enter service until later in the 2020s.

The Air Force had previously also been part of the C-HGB program, which would have been fitted to a large air-launched missile, but the service announced plans to shelve that effort indefinitely in its latest budget request for the 2021 Fiscal Year. Instead, it will focus on the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), another hypersonic boost-glide vehicle design, which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece and could enter service on the B-52 bomber as early as 2021.

No matter what, the Army and Navy are certainly continuing to make progress in the development of what are slated to be their first operational hypersonic weapons.

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A Hyper-sonic Conventional warhead launched from a mobile Transporter Erector Launcher, or submarine. Seems like a perfect decapitation weapon against our dear old friends in the Upper Korean Peninsula.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 5, 2020

New ISR technology:

https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/08/03/with-this-new-sensor-blackjack-drones-can-monitor-an-entire-city-at-once/

With this new sensor, Blackjack drones can monitor an entire city at once

{ A new sensor could give the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps the ability to view an entire 5 square miles at once using an RQ-21A Blackjack drone. (Lance Cpl. Rhita Daniel/U.S. Marine Corps) }

WASHINGTON — A new wide-area motion imagery sensor could make the R1-21A Blackjack an even more powerful tool for the war fighter, allowing the small UAV to simultaneously monitor 5 square miles.

Logos Technologies announced July 28 that it was awarded a $6.7 million contract to deliver two wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor prototypes to U.S. Naval Air Systems Command in September. Dubbed Cardcounter by the Navy, the 28-pound infrared sensor is adapted from the company’s commercial BlackKite product.

Blackjacks are used by the Navy to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance coverage day or night. Able to launch without a runway, the Blackjack has a range of about 50 kilometers and can stay in the air for up to 16 hours. Blackjack drones already host a number of sophisticated sensors, including full-motion video, infrared marker, laser range finder and a communications relay package, but Cardcounter offers a new capability: the ability to view a city-sized area.

“What really makes WAMI special is the fact that it can monitor all of the movement — both dismount and vehicles — in a city-sized area. You can kind of think of it like live Google Earth with [digital video recorder] capability,” Doug Rombough, vice president for business development at Logos Technologies, told C4ISRNET. “Prior to WAMI, you had simply the full-motion video sensors; and obviously full-motion videos are awesome because they are very high resolution. They can zoom in on an area. The challenge with FMV is you’ve got that very narrow field of view, kind of like looking through a soda straw.”

Used together, WAMI and full-motion video allow operators to take in the big picture of what’s happening on the ground and zoom in on areas of interest. Cardcounter will be able to store six hours or more of that data for later analysis, but it will also be able to transmit portions of that imagery to users on the ground in real time.

Logos Technologies, a company that specializes in WAMI, has worked to miniaturize that capability, making it as lightweight as possible for any manned or unmanned aircraft.

{ A BlackKite sensor is shown attached to a wing in a test pod. (Logos Technologies) }

“There are very few WAMI sensors that have been developed that can fly on unmanned aircraft,” said Rombough, noting that the only other one he knows of in use today is carried by the relatively massive MQ-9 Reaper. A Reaper has a wingspan of 66 feet. A Blackjack has a wingspan of 15.7 feet.

Flight testing of Cardcounter wrapped up July 31 in North Carolina, said Rombough. A demonstration of the new sensor for the U.S. government is slated for next summer, followed by a field-user evaluation.

“I will tell you that we are waiting on the next delivery order — they’ve already told us that they want to build an additional two for a total of four because they want to send four of them out on a [field-user evaluation],” Rombough said.

He added that the Army, Special Operations Command and the Air Force expressed interest in adapting the BlackKite/Cardcounter sensor for their platforms, and Logos Technologies could be demonstrating their sensors to SOCOM around the fall/winter time frame.
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While not quite a flashy as a Reaper or a Global Hawk, drones like these will prove to be critical assets to brigade commanders. The bigger drones will be to busy being tasked with Theatre wide recon operations and won't be able to focus on specific fronts. That is where a UAV like the Blackjack comes in. Being able to survey an area very deeply for long periods of time, without being too critical to lose.

Goodbye to the old, and hello to the new:

https://defence-blog.com/news/u-s-marine-corps-4th-tanks-battalion-deactivates-after-77-years.html

U.S. Marine Corps 4th Tanks Battalion deactivates after 77 years

Dozens of Marines gathered to pay homage with their families and say goodbye to 4th Tanks Battalion as they officially completed their sundown after 77 years of supporting operations around the world, in a deactivation ceremony at Lafayette, La., on Aug. 2, 2020.

4th Tanks has served in every war the Marine Corps has fought in since its inception in 1943.

4th Tank Battalion was an armored battalion of the United States Marine Corps Reserve. Their primary weapon system was the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank.

The Marine Corps is divesting its tank battalions following the commandant’s guidance in Force Design 2030.

The 15-page document outlines a plan to modernize the Marine Corps in accordance with the National Defense Strategy, and doing so within the financial means available. It is also being conducted with respect for the history of the Corps.

The Marine Corps is moving from a “second land army” back to its maritime roots of defending ships at sea, island-hopping and battling for contested coastlines, in preparation for potential conflict with near-peer adversaries such as China.

Last week, some 200 West Coast-based Abrams tanks, M88 Recovery Vehicles and other equipment began moving through the Corps’ logistics base in Barstow, Calif., en route to Army depots in California and Alabama.

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https://defpost.com/u-s-navys-12th-epf-vessel-usns-newport-completes-integrated-sea-trials/

U.S. Navy’s 12th EPF Vessel USNS Newport Completes Integrated Sea Trials

The U.S. Navy’s twelfth Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) vessel, USNS Newport (EPF 12), successfully competed Integrated Sea Trials, on July 30.

Integrated Trials combine Builder’s and Acceptance Trials, allowing for the shipyard to demonstrate to the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) the operational capability and mission readiness of all the ship’s systems during a single underway period.

During trials, the shipbuilder Austal conducted comprehensive tests to demonstrate the performance of all of the ship’s major systems. The USNS Newport is the second Spearhead-class EPF ship to undergo the Integrated Trial, signifying the stability and maturity of the shipbuilding program.

The trials are last significant milestone before delivery of the vessel, scheduled for August 2020.

“Achieving this milestone is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the shipbuilding team and our partners in industry,” said Tim Roberts, Strategic and Theater Sealift program manager, Program Executive Office, Ships. “We are eager to press forward with delivering USNS Newport to the fleet this year and to enhance the operational flexibility available to our combatant commanders.”

Austal Chief Executive Officer David Singleton said the successful completion of acceptance trials for EPF 12 was yet another important milestone for a program that has seen 11 vessels delivered to the US Navy in less than 8 years.

“Austal’s EPF high-speed catamaran is a true success story, proving to be an invaluable addition to the US Navy’s sealift capability worldwide,” Mr Singleton said. “Newport will soon join a fleet of 11 EPF vessels that are making a real difference to communities around the world, through a variety of missions and exercises conducted by US Military Sealift Command for the US Navy.”

The Spearhead-class EPF is a 103 metre high-speed aluminium catamaran with a large, 1800 square metre cargo deck, medium-lift helicopter deck and seating for 300+ embarked troops, providing a fast, high-payload transport capability to combatant commanders around the world.

EPFs are designed to operate in shallow waterways and are capable of a wide range of activities. The vessels are versatile, non-combatant, transport ships that are being used for high-speed transportation of troops, military vehicles, and equipment. Their missions’ include overseas contingency operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, support of special operations forces, theater security cooperation activities and emerging joint sea-basing concepts.

EPFs are capable of transporting 600 short tons 1,200 nautical miles at an average speed of 35 knots. Each vessel includes a flight deck to support day and night aircraft launch and recovery operations. The ships are capable of interfacing with roll-on/roll-off discharge facilities, as well as on/off-loading vehicles such as a fully combat-loaded Abrams Main Battle Tank.

One additional Spearhead-class EPF is under construction at Austal USA’s shipyard; the future USNS Apalachicola (EPF 13) while the future USNS Cody (EPF 14) is scheduled to commence construction in August
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Times are changing.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 5, 2020

Last bit for today:

https://news.usni.org/2020/08/04/navy-marines-locate-sunken-aav-human-remains

Navy, Marines Locate Sunken AAV, Human Remains

{ Undersea Rescue Command deploys the Sibitzky Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) from the deck of the Military Sealift Command-chartered merchant vessel HOS Dominator on Aug. 3, 2020. Undersea Rescue Command is aiding in recovery of the missing seven Marines and one Sailor from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. US Navy photo. }

The Navy and Marine Corps identified the location of the amphibious assault vehicle that sank off the coast of San Clemente Island last week using a remotely operated search and rescue system.

Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard ships and aircraft had been searching for the vehicle and seven missing Marines and one sailor since an AAV began taking on water during a July 30 training incident, as the vehicle was leaving the California island and heading towards USS Somerset (LPD-25). The Navy’s Undersea Rescue Command joined in the effort with its Sibitzky Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) operating from the deck of the Military Sealift Command-chartered merchant vessel HOS Dominator.

The services announced today that they confirmed the location of the AAV and that the ROV confirmed the presence of human remains at that location.

“The Navy has expedited the movement of assets to recover the remains of the Marines and Sailor, as well as raise the AAV. The equipment to properly and safely perform the recovery from the sea floor will be in place at the end of this week, and a dignified transfer of our Marines and Sailor will occur as soon as possible after the conclusion of recovery operations,” reads a Marine Corps news release.

“The AAV sunk to a depth of approximately 385 feet after taking on water during a shore-to-ship maneuver approximately 1,500 meters off the coast of San Clemente Island,” the release adds, correcting its original statement that the AAV sank in about 600 feet of water.
“One Marine was pronounced dead at the scene, and seven missing Marines and one Sailor were subsequently presumed dead Aug. 2 as search and rescue efforts ceased.”

The Marines and the Navy hospital corpsman in the AAV during the accident were assigned to 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which falls under I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and was training ahead of a deployment with the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (ARG).

{ Sailors from Undersea Rescue Command deploy the Sibitzky Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) from the deck of the Military Sealift Command-chartered merchant vessel HOS Dominator on Aug. 2, 2020. Undersea Rescue Command is aiding in recovery of the missing seven Marines and one Sailor from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. US Navy photo. }

The Marine Corps has paused all AAV operations until the service better understands what led to the sinking of the aging but safe ship-to-shore connector.

San Clemente Island sits about 78 miles west of Camp Pendleton and is managed by the Navy. It is home to live-fire gunnery and bombardment ranges, a naval special warfare training complex, an airfield and several beaches Marines use for amphibious assaults training.

Dominator happened to already be in the water when the mishap occurred and was able to quickly join the search, USNI News previously reported. Dominator is contracted for use by San Diego-based Submarine Squadron 11 and the Navy’s Undersea Rescue Command and is based at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, Calif.

“Undersea Rescue Command was underway conducting routine training operations near San Clemente Island when they were diverted to aid in the search and rescue efforts,” according to a statement provided to USNI News.
“For this particular search and rescue mission, Undersea Rescue Command used the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to survey the seafloor of the affected area.”

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At least they have been found.

NerdShamer · Aug 5, 2020

Regarding the 3D printer, it almost sounds like it was designed to be used in the Middle East.

Snekposter · Aug 6, 2020

Just about everything is these days. We've got any European conflict locked down hard since that would be pretty conventional, and a land war in Asia would be with... China, who are currently a bit preoccupied with their own issues, and should things go south even more, would be far more likely to balkanize than reach outwards. That leaves the MidEast for the thing we really need to be prepping for because we still aren't as prepared for it as we are for anything in Europe or Asia. Also, there's been a lot of low-level shit going down in Africa for a long time now, and these shelters would be good for that as well.

@BONE_Buddy whatever happened with the F-15's FAST equipment? As a layman those sorts of conformal packages seem the solution to the F-18's FLIR woes that were talked about earlier.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 6, 2020

Snekposter said:
@BONE_Buddy whatever happened with the F-15's FAST equipment? As a layman those sorts of conformal packages seem the solution to the F-18's FLIR woes that were talked about earlier.

I had to do a bit of reading:

So, as you probably know, the FAST system was a Conformal Fuel Tank, with semi-modular bays for Sensor technology (or more fuel if not used). Hence "Fuel And Senor Tactical." You will be happy to hear that it is still going strong with the Strike Eagle variants, but they are simply called Conformal Fuel Tanks now and it is rare not to have them on the aircraft.

The Senor bit of the FAST system has largely been overshadowed/replaced by the LANTIRN pods thereby freeing up some room in the CTF for more fuel. This may be different for air to air roles however.

Sources:

McDonnell F-15C Eagle

McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_fuel_tank

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As for why the F-18 doesn't go for the same solution, the answer is rather simple:

The IRST capability started development as part of the Block II upgrade program. CFTs are going to be a packaged deal with the new Block III F-18s. The IRST pods will be backwards compatible, the new CFTs will not be. The new Super Hornets have had changes to their frame made to reduce RADAR cross-section, so the CTFs which are finally being bought will only be able to fit them.

I would also speculate that because of the position of the CTF, they probably would not make the best mounting points for something that needs a very wide field of view. I wouldn't quote me on that though, I am hardly authoritative on the subject.

Sources:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21045/here-is-boeings-master-plan-for-the-f-a-18e-f-super-hornets-future

https://defensemaven.io/warriormaven/sea/navy-adds-stealth-like-conformal-fuel-tanks-to-f-18-super-hornet-sY3Bji7Og0aNwhRr3sXfoA

Snekposter · Aug 6, 2020

Yes, I know they're CFT's, but that's a less awesome name and not exactly something suitable for a VF-01. I was mostly just wondering about the lack of CFT's (ugh) on the F-18 currently, which you explained quite well with the upgrade package mention, and I guess I'm just wondering what's going to happen with LANTIRN since all this sensor needs is a laser designator and LANTIRN is obsolete.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 6, 2020

Snekposter said:
Yes, I know they're CFT's, but that's a less awesome name and not exactly something suitable for a VF-01. I was mostly just wondering about the lack of CFT's (ugh) on the F-18 currently, which you explained quite well with the upgrade package mention, and I guess I'm just wondering what's going to happen with LANTIRN since all this sensor needs is a laser designator and LANTIRN is obsolete.

Well, one has to remember that LANTIRN consist of two pods, one is a targeting pod, which as you say is getting pretty obsolete. On the other hand is the low level and night navigation pod, and it still works well. Even as new technology comes out, LANTIRN is still going to be flying on legacy F-15/F-16s for a long time to come.

But almost all of the LANTIRN pod duties are being taken over by single podded Sniper ATPs complete with laser designation capabilities. Sniper Extended Range is starting to come down the pipeline as well (even coming as standard as an internalized subsystem for the F-35. ) Overall it is a good trade, less drag for better performance.

Snekposter · Aug 6, 2020

I mean, this new sensor looks like it can do the IR navigation and targeting duties of LANTIRN, and I'm not sure on how widespread ground-following radars are outside of that pod. If this sensor and fuel tank combo sees widespread adoption (I'm crying because it won't because reasons), the navigational part of LANTIRN isn't needed, and the newer Sniper can do the rest. And like the original article talked about, so much of what the first-gen IRST did was with thirty year old tech, minimum, so they pretty much had to scrap most of the internals for the new pod. Honestly, I'm just disappointed by the bureaucratic mess, both civilian and military, that forces these sorts of incremental upgrade packages that are so wildly disparate in function instead of everyone just sitting down at a table and saying "Okay, what can we do with what's been developed in the last few years since this was first done, and what can we realistically shove in all at once for a major upgrade?" That's one thing the USSR did right, IMO.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

Got a new load for all of you:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35458/taiwans-f-16s-begin-flying-patrols-with-live-harpoon-anti-ship-missiles-to-deter-china

Taiwanese F-16s Begin Flying Patrols With Live Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles To Deter China
The armed anti-ship patrols began amid concerns over expected Chinese island-grabbing exercises in the South China Sea.

Two Taiwanese F-16A Vipers have flown air patrol missions armed with live AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Taiwan’s Liberty Times said the missions were launched amid fears of imminent Chinese military exercises that are expected to be designed to simulate capture of the Taiwan-administered Dongsha Islands, in the northern area of the South China Sea.

The Taiwanese Air Force, also known as the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF), launched two F-16s from the 5th Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) based at Hualien Air Force Base, both of which carried a pair of the anti-ship missiles. Aviation reporter Roy Choo, who goes by the Twitter handle of @RXRoy, posted the Viper photos and provided brief details of the mission. “The 5th TFW F-16s at Hualien are usually tasked with anti-shipping missions with the Harpoons while the F-16s from the 4th TFW at Chiayi Air Force Base are usually seen employing AGM-65 Maverick missiles for anti-surface roles,” Choo told The War Zone.

The pairing of F-16 and AGM-84 Harpoon is a key element in Taiwan’s ability to defend important strategic waterways and territorial claims against a maritime opponent. The ROCAF operates a mix of older Harpoons plus the newer Block II AGM-84Ls. You can read more about Taiwan’s AGM-84s here and about the missile in general in this past War Zone piece.

Here are the photos of the F-16s carrying the missiles on patrol:

https://twitter.com/RXRoy/status/1291253843758477313

Ahead of a potential PLA island-seizing exercise, purportedly representative of the Pratas Islands, the ROCAF launched two 5th TFW F-16As on CAP this morning, both fitted out with air-launched AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Photos: LTN / Yu Tailang

The Hualien unit is also tasked with reconnaissance patrols when Chinese vessels transit the Taiwan Strait. RF-16s assigned to the 12th Tactical Reconnaissance Group are equipped with the Phoenix Eye photo-reconnaissance pod, which is based on the AN/VDS-5 pod. The ROCAF is seeking to upgrade its F-16 reconnaissance capabilities through the procurement of UTC Aerospace Systems MS-110 long-range oblique photography pods.

Until recently, Taiwanese F-16s carrying live AGM-84s had been a very rare occurrence. Aside from live-fire drills, ROCAF Vipers have only been observed flying with live Harpoons when the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) aircraft carrier Liaoning transited the Taiwan Strait in 2016/2017. It is thought that the forthcoming Chinese exercises could include both PLAN aircraft carriers.

During road-runway flying training exercises in recent years, ROCAF F-16s have been seen armed with inert AGM-84 training rounds. On July 29, 2019, drills in the Taiwan Strait also included a pair of F-16s armed with live Harpoons simulating an attack on a high-value maritime target off Taiwan’s southeast coast. The Liberty Times said that two decommissioned ships were used as targets. Two F-16s simultaneously launched Harpoon missiles. This was reported as being the first time since 2001 that the ROCAF had live-fire tested aerial-launched AGM-84 Harpoon missiles.

This most recent instance of Taiwanese Vipers flying with live Harpoons can be seen as a clear sign of the determination of the island’s government to defend its territory. The U.S. Marine Corps recently flew similar missions with live Harpoons that also appeared to be a signal to Beijing, the details of which you can read in this previous report by The War Zone.

As far back as May, there have been reports that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was preparing for landing drills near Hainan Island in August to simulate the capture of Pratas Island, which is located in the Dongsha Islands group. Primary concerns hinge upon China’s strategic ambitions to seize territory in this strategically important location as this archipelago is located close to routes from Chinese naval bases on Hainan Island to the open Pacific.

In addition, Taiwan’s F-16A/B Block 20 aircraft are currently undergoing a long-awaited $5.3-billion upgrade. Taiwan’s Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) has partnered with Lockheed Martin’s for the work at its new facility in Taichung. Taiwan was the launch customer for the F-16V upgrade, known locally as the Phoenix Rising program. A total of 140 F-16A/Bs are being modernized locally under serial upgrades between 2018 and 2022, with initial deliveries being made to the 4th TFW at Chiayi. The upgraded aircraft feature the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-83 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar and a host of other improvements.

Taiwan has also purchased 66 additional Block 70 F-16s after protracted plans were finally approved by the Trump administration in August last year. The new F-16s will replace the Taiwanese Air Force’s F-5E/Fs currently stationed at Chihhang AFB in Taitung.

{ A live AGM-84D Harpoon being loaded onto an F/A-18. }

Taiwan has stated that it also wants to procure land-based Harpoons to counter China’s growing naval might, the details of which you can read here. It is not clear which versions of AGM-84 Taiwan is looking to procure to boost it’s coastal defenses, however, reports suggest Taiwan may be looing to procure the Block II version of the missile, though this is not confirmed.

Taiwan has requested to buy Lockheed Martin F-35s, with no guarantee this will be sanctioned by Washington at any time soon. The stealth fighter would open up a whole new set of capabilities for the ROCAF. In the meantime, it’s the Harpoon-toting F-16s that form a key component of Taiwan’s ability to fend-off potential Chinese territorial advances.

If a war between the two countries were to break out, these weapons would be absolutely essential in providing Taiwan with any hope of slowing an all-out advance by the People's Liberation Army Navy. As such, the patrol of F-16s armed with live Harpoons isn't just a show of force, it will likely increasingly become an increasing necessity deterrent as tensions between Taipei and Beijing continue to increase.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

More in the same vein:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taiwan-drones-exclusive/exclusive-taiwan-in-talks-to-make-first-purchase-of-sophisticated-u-s-drones-sources-idUSKCN25221C

Exclusive: Taiwan in talks to make first purchase of sophisticated U.S. drones - sources

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is negotiating the sale of at least four of its large sophisticated aerial drones to Taiwan for the first time, according to six U.S. sources familiar with the negotiations, in a deal that is likely to ratchet up tensions with China.

The SeaGuardian surveillance drones have a range of 6,000 nautical miles (11,100 km), far greater than the 160-mile range of Taiwan’s current fleet of drones.

While the sale of the unmanned aerial vehicles has been tacitly authorized by the State Department, two of the people said, it is not known whether the U.S. officials have approved exporting the drones with weapons attached, one of them said.

The deal has to be approved by members of Congress who may receive formal notification as soon as next month, two of the people said. Congress could choose to block a final agreement.

Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Thursday that would block the export, transfer or trade of many advanced drones to countries that are not close U.S. allies. Sales would be allowed to NATO members, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and Israel.

A deal with Taiwan would be the first drone sale after President Donald Trump’s administration moved ahead with its plan to sell more drones to more countries by reinterpreting an international arms control agreement called the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

While Taiwan’s military is well-trained and well-equipped with mostly U.S.-made hardware, China has a huge numerical superiority and is adding advanced equipment of its own.

Taiwan submitted its request to buy armed drones early this year, one of the people familiar with the talks said. The United States last week sent Taiwan the pricing and availability data for the deal, a key step that denotes official approval to advance the sale. It is, however, non-binding and could be reversed.

A deal for the four drones, ground stations, spares, training and support could be worth around $600 million using previous sales as a guide. There could also be options for additional units in the future, one of the people said.

The island is bolstering its defenses in the face of what it sees as increasingly threatening moves by Beijing, such as regular Chinese air force and naval exercises near Taiwan

Relations between Beijing and Washington - already at their lowest point in decades over accusations of spying, a trade war, the coronavirus and Hong Kong - could fray more if the deal gets the final go-ahead from U.S. officials. The Pentagon has said arms sales to Taiwan will continue, and the Trump administration has kept a steady pace of Navy warships passing through the Taiwan Strait.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring the self-ruled island under its control. Beijing has denounced the Trump administration’s increased support for Taiwan.

China’s sophisticated air defenses could likely shoot down a handful of drones, according to Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at CSIS, a Washington think tank. But she still expects “China to scream about even the smallest arms sale that the U.S. makes to Taiwan because any sale challenges the ‘One China’ principle.”

“They get particularly agitated if they think it’s an offensive capability,” she said, adding that she expected the Trump administration to be less cautious than its predecessors.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States did not respond to a request for comment.

“As a matter of policy we do not comment on or confirm proposed defense sales or transfers until they have been formally notified to Congress,” a State Department spokesman said.

ONLY FOR FEW U.S. ALLIES
The U.S. has been eager to sell Taiwan tanks and fighter jets, but the deal to sell drones would be notable since only a few close allies - including Britain, Italy, Australia, Japan and South Korea - have been allowed to purchase the largest U.S.-made drones.

Currently, the Taiwanese government has a fleet of 26 Albatross drones made by Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, a quasi-defence ministry research agency, that can fly 160 nautical miles (300 km), or 80 before returning to base, according to records kept by the Bard Center for the Study of the Drone.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc’s SeaGuardian has an airframe that can handle carrying weapons - but only if contractually allowed by the U.S. government.

The United States has sold France unarmed MQ-9 Reapers which are similar to SeaGuardians, and later here gave permission to arm them.

Last year, the United States approved a potential sale to Taiwan of 108 General Dynamics Corp M1A2 Abrams tanks worth around $2 billion as well as anti-tank and anti-aircraft munitions. A separate sale of 66 Lockheed Martin-made fighter jets also made it through the State Department’s process.

In recent weeks, China said it will sanction Lockheed Martin Co for involvement in the latest U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

Now for something completely different:

https://news.usni.org/2020/08/05/columbia-ssbn-program-doing-land-based-testing-to-avoid-past-shipbuilding-mistakes

Columbia SSBN Program Doing Land-Based Testing to Avoid Past Shipbuilding Mistakes

{Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite tours the General Dynamics Electric Boat (EB) Quonset Point Facility with EB Manager of Operations Walter Taft on July 8, 2020. US Navy Photo }

Past ship design and acquisition mistakes, such as those with the Ford-class carrier and Littoral Combat Ship programs, are leading to some extra steps in today’s shipbuilding programs to ensure no time or money is wasted again, two speakers said at a virtual naval engineering symposium this week.

Rear Adm. Jason Lloyd, the Navy’s chief engineer and the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) deputy commander for ship design, integration and engineering, said the service is taking steps to reduce the cost of shipbuilding while also ensuring it doesn’t create additional costs down the road or sacrifice warfighting capability.

One example he gave of cost-cutting gone wrong was a decision more than a decade ago to not build a prototype and land-based testing facility for the advanced weapons elevators (AWE) on the Ford-class carrier. First-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-7

still doesn’t have a working set of elevators three years after it was commissioned as a warship, and Lloyd attributed today’s pain to previous cost-cutting decisions.

“If you go back and look at it, I think it would have been significantly cheaper to build a prototype back then than it would to go through what we’re going through now with those weapons elevators on Ford. So I think we’ve got to be careful about making sure that we properly engineer the design of the ship and any capabilities before we try to build it,” he said while speaking at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ Technology, Systems & Ships (TSS) Symposium online.

In fact, last year lawmakers mandated more careful ship design reviews in the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Lloyd said the Navy is still working its way through that language, which requires that each class of naval vessel have a senior technical authority who is outside the chain of command – and therefore independent from influence for cost or schedule reasons, for example – who would be responsible for signing off on ship designs before they can move into the construction phase, among the senior technical authority’s responsibilities.

“We’re trying to work through that now, what that really means. That was kind of put in because there’s concerns with the fact that we may have built some ships before they were ready to be built. And we’re starting to see some of those issues come up as cost,” Lloyd said.

{ Artist’s rendering of the Columbia-class SSBN submarine. US Navy Image }

Citing a program with no margin for delay – the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program, which must be ready for the lead ship to go on an October 2030 first patrol – Lloyd said the Navy has learned from the Ford-class problems with the AWEs and is already doing land-based work. He said he recently toured a composite test facility in Philadelphia, where “we’re really taking that planned design and running it through the rigors to try to find problems before we go build the ship.”

In the following presentation, Rep. Rob Wittman (R.Va.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, said that oversight was a responsibility the committee took seriously. He said the committee learned a lot from watching the Littoral Combat Ship program run into problems with the ship design, the mission modules that provide combat capability and the operational concepts for how to use the ships to complement other assets in the fleet – and he said the committee wouldn’t make the same mistakes with current in-development programs such as the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel.

Wittman said USVs would be “critically important” for the future Navy fleet, but “what we want to make sure is that the Navy not only develops this concept in a single ship and determines that a single ship can operate autonomously, but the key with this is how do we incorporate unmanned ships into our fleet operations? And that’s going to be the key. We’ve seen in other instances where you have a concept that’s good by itself, and then as you begin to see how do we integrate it into a force projection concept, and all the sudden we have issues. A great example is the Littoral Combat Ship, which still is lacking mission modules that are still in the process of being developed. In fact, the Navy is saying, hey, we want to retire the first four ships in that class well before their anticipated operational window or their planned obsolescence. So we have to make sure that we’re getting that right.”

“What we have said this year is, build those unmanned surface vessels, but build them at the right pace so that we don’t end up with a whole fleet of vessels where we say, oh guess what, these aren’t doing the job that we anticipated that they would do,” he continued.
“We saw the Navy going down the road of an unmanned carrier aircraft, went through the testing and then sidelined it. Now we’re back on track with the MQ-25 on that, but again, we have to make sure that we get this right. I want to make sure that we are not wasting a penny.”

_________________________________________
About fucking time.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2020/08/05/heres-how-the-dod-plans-to-meet-its-ambitious-hypersonic-missile-test-schedule/

How the DoD plans to meet its ambitious hypersonic missile test schedule

A common hypersonic glide body (C-HGB) launches from Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, at approximately 10:30 p.m. local time, March 19, 2020, during a Department of Defense flight experiment. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy)

WASHINGTON — The Army — in conjunction with the Navy — is planning to conduct three flight tests of its hypersonic glide body in 2021, an ambitious schedule to initially field the weapon in fiscal 2023, according to Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, who oversees the Army’s rapid development of hypersonics, directed energy and space capabilities.

In March, the Army and Navy had a successful first flight test of its Common-Hypersonic Glide Body, which was launched and flew at hypersonic speed to a designated impact point.

Hypersonic weapons are capable of flying faster than the speed of sound — Mach 5 — and can maneuver between varying altitudes and azimuths, making it harder to detect.
The Defense Department has been jointly developing the body that will serve as the base of its offensive hypersonic missile. The test marks a significant step forward in accomplishing that mission amid mounting criticism that the United States is behind China and Russia in hypersonic weapons development.

The C-HGB will be made up of the weapon’s warhead, guidance system, cabling and thermal protection shield. Each service will use the body as the base while developing individual weapon systems such as launchers capable of firing the weapons from land or sea.

“I just have to tell you that the flight test program is very aggressive,” Thurgood told Defense News during its Space and Missile Defense Debrief Aug. 5 The event followed the SMD Symposium which took place virtually August 4. “And we need to be aggressive in order to keep on pace and really be competitive with our near peer competitors, namely Russia and China,” he said.

As the Army gets closer to its fielding goal for the Block I version in fiscal year 2023, every flight test needs to meet defined objectives. “We do it for distance, we do it for speed, we do it for accuracy and we do it for lethality,” Thurgood said.

And moving forward, the services will have to “dramatically” accelerate the pace of the program, he said. That means conducting a flight test in the middle of 2021 and another two later in the year.

“Next year, our intent is to do several flight tests versus where we basically have been done or have completed the flight test, kind of, once every three years,” he added.

“Our intent is to use all of those flight tests, not just for the engineering work, but also for training work for our soldiers,” Thurgood said. “It’s not just about pushing the red button, you know, making the missile go where it wants to. It’s about the kill chain, identifying targets, how we pass mission sets, and start training that at a speed at which we would be operating.”

The Defense Department, in this case, “cannot afford for discrete events, meaning events for a singular outcome,” Thurgood said. “We have to use our resources wisely and we have to apply as many things in each event as we can without driving the risk up for success.”

In order to carry out three tests next year, the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Technical Center is planning to beef up its personnel involved, and is partnering with other organizations such as the Missile Defense Agency within the DoD to bring in the necessary expertise, Thomas Webber said in another interview with Defense News during its SMD Debrief.

The technical center’s flight test director at the Ronald Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands oversaw the hypersonic test in March. The center manages the site and has direct links to conducting the test and collecting the data to determine successful flight test performance.

“When you look at a test of that complexity, the challenges are just numerous and it’s very complex,” Webber said. “But when using the disciplined approaches that we use and having a dedicated team of not just Army personnel, but this includes the Navy, the Missile Defense Agency, and our industry partners, those challenges are overcome.”

Webber noted that the sharing of people and resources “has just been tremendous across the services and across the [MDA]. I would also tell you that the contractor team has been tremendous.”

The Army is in charge of the building the non-existent hypersonic industrial base and has now trained Leidos’ Dynetics — through know-how at Sandia National Laboratories — to build glide bodies so the company can now design manufacturing plans around that expertise.

“That’s going to be a tremendous improvement to the speed at which we’re able to produce the hardware that we can test,” Webber said.

And the service also has designed dedicated teams to handle each flight test. One team will conduct one flight test, another team will handle the next one, and the first team will rotate back and conduct the third test, he said. “We will keep that cycle going to maintain that [operational tempo].

“It’s an exciting challenge to have when that test piece is [accelerated] because it really is the culmination of all the hard work and you see it come to fruition. I think this will be a fun next few years,” Webber added.
_

I hope this works.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

Last bit:

Stealth Is Put To The Test In Huge Exercise Teaming RQ-170s, F-35s, B-2s With Other Jets

This exercise is also the first confirmation that the Air Force's top-secret 44th Reconnaissance Squadron flies the reclusive RQ-170 Sentinel.

www.thedrive.com

Stealth Is Put To The Test In Huge Exercise Teaming RQ-170s, F-35s, B-2s With Other Jets
This exercise is also the first confirmation that the Air Force's top-secret 44th Reconnaissance Squadron flies the reclusive RQ-170 Sentinel.

The U.S. Air Force has revealed a major recent exercise involving a wide variety of different stealthy aircraft, including F-35A Joint Strike Fighters, F-22 Raptors, and a B-2A Spirit stealth bomber. Most notably, at least one RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone from the service's top-secret 44th Reconnaissance Squadron, which The War Zone was first to report on in detail, also took part in the event. The exercise focused on stealthy penetration into denied areas, suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses, and electronic attack tactics.

The 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, part of the 53rd Wing at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, led the so-called Large Force Test Event (LFTE), which cost approximately $1.4 million to put on. The exercise ran from Aug. 4 to Aug. 6, 2020 and was part of efforts to develop solutions to a number of "Tactics Improvement Proposals," or TIPs that the Air Force has identified as priority concerns. In addition to the stealthy platforms, Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle combat jets and U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft participated in the LFTE.

The 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, part of the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, provided the F-35As, F-22s, and F-15Es, while the B-2A came from the Group's 72nd Test and Evaluation Squadron. The Navy's Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9) supplied the EA-18Gs. The Air Force's 605th Test and Evaluation Squadron and the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center (NAWDC) were also involved.

In addition, the 44th Reconnaissance Squadron sent at least one RQ-170, which is especially notable given that this appears to be the first official confirmation that this unit flies these flying-wing unmanned aircraft. The War Zone previously published a deep investigation into this unit, about which little is still known, which you can find here.

{ An RQ-170 Sentinel at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. }

This mix of aircraft offered a "unique combination of joint platforms maximized the development and evaluation of combat-relevant capabilities," according to the Air Force's official press release. "As a result of the LFTE, the Air Force was able to explore [a] unique integration of tactics, techniques, and procedures that have never been tested together in select capabilities."

According to the Air Force, the exercise was centered around exploring tactics, techniques, and procedures to address four main areas of interest, which are as follows:

The use of fifth-generation stealth aircraft to conduct suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) in support of B-2A operations.
Advanced low observable ingress tactics.
Air Force non-stealthy fourth-generation aircraft working together with fifth-generation platforms for SEAD missions, including with other services and potentially with coalition partners.
Effectiveness of electronic attack tactics, techniques, and procedures between fourth and fifth-generation aircraft.

"This exercise is primarily focused on demonstrating LO [low observable; stealthy] platform effectiveness against advanced threats," Air Force Major Theodore Ellis, Chief of 53rd Wing Weapons, said in a statement. "We do this by utilizing emerging technology and tactics to minimize weaknesses and capitalize on joint capabilities."

“Through events like these, we continue to improve our joint 4th and 5th generation tactics, which enhances our abilities in an advanced threat environment,” Major Ellis continued.

The video below shows Air Force F-35As flying with Navy EA-18G Growlers during a past exercise. These were two of the types of aircraft involved in this recent LFTE at Nellis Air Force Base.

It will only be increasingly important for the Air Force, as well as Navy and Marines, to train and train together on how to defeat or otherwise mitigate the threats from ever-improving adversary air defense systems and the sensor networks that support them. There are real risks even to high-end stealth platforms that require a layered approach, including kinetic and non-kinetic attacks, as well as other tactics to safely infiltrate an enemy's air defense bubble.

Simulations and limited experiments can help evaluate certain components of this overall ecosystem, but large-scale exercises are still invaluable to get a true sense of how all the pieces do or do not fit together and what adjustments and new developments might be necessary. "The investment and trust in our team allowed the 53 Wing to evaluate the interoperability of leading-edge capabilities and develop TTPs that will ultimately strengthen our nation’s air dominance," Air Force Colonel Bill Creeden, the head of the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group, said in a statement.

It's also worth noting that we don't know exactly what role the RQ-170 was playing in this particular exercise. While there have been experiments in the past involving the drones conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in direct support of other stealthy aircraft, there is the possibility that the unmanned aircraft, in this case, may have been flying a different role.

A patch associated with the 732nd Operations Group, Detachment 1, the immediate predecessor to the 44th Reconnaissance Squadron, features a lightning bolt, which is typically representative of electronic warfare, as well as three drops of blood, which could be a reference to a kinetic attack mission. It also featured the phrase "forging the sword," which might reflect a mission to help develop new tactics, techniques, and procedures, some of which may be related to the employment of stealthy unmanned combat air vehicles. This would largely fit with the publicly stated objectives of this particular exercise.

We will hopefully begin to learn more about the 44th Reconnaissance Squadron and its activities, as well as the other extremely important work that the 53rd Test and Evaluation Group is conducting into bleeding-edge aerial combat tactics, techniques, and procedures that center of making the most of America's leading-edge stealth and electronic warfare capabilities, and more.

1Tonka_Truck · Aug 7, 2020

BONE_Buddy said:
The U.S. Marines recently tested a 3D printer capable of constructing entire buildings with quick-drying concrete. In just 36 hours, ICON's Vulcan 3D printer whipped up a concrete structure that can hold a HIMARS truck-mounted multiple rocket launcher system.

The Marines have been playing with these 3D concrete printers for years. This is first time I've seen them build something that made sense. Someday these things are going to kill a significant portion of the precast concrete business. I'm really looking forward to that. I hate knockout boxes.

BONE_Buddy said:
Undersea Rescue Command deploys the Sibitzky Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) from the deck of the Military Sealift Command-chartered merchant vessel HOS Dominator on Aug. 3, 2020. Undersea Rescue Command is aiding in recovery of the missing seven Marines and one Sailor from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. US Navy photo.

Maybe this is the wrong time to have these feelings, but it annoys the fuck out of me there is a merchant vessel doing the salvage work. It's taken 10 years to get the keel laid on what is basically a COTS anchor handling tug. 2 of the Navy's 4 salvage tugs have been deactivated and put in long term storage since 2015. There are 2 salvage tugs for 7 fleets. On top of that, the Safeguard-class is 40 years old and can't do half of what 90% of similar sized OSVs can do. Hence why there are merchant OSVs on long term contract to cover the capability shortfall. I think that sums up nicely how fucked up the Navy's ship acquisitions in general are.

Snekposter · Aug 7, 2020

BONE_Buddy said:
“We’re trying to work through that now, what that really means. That was kind of put in because there’s concerns with the fact that we may have built some ships before they were ready to be built. And we’re starting to see some of those issues come up as cost,” Lloyd said.

Unfortunately I'm forced to add text, but I think us Kiwis know exactly what was said there.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

Hello Gentlemen ( I do amuse you are all men.) I got another news round up for you all. This time it is solely focuses on Air and Space Defense capabilities.

First up:

Troops To Test AFRL’s THOR Drone Killer This Fall

THOR puts high-powered microwaves to fry drone swarms' electronics in a rugged and deployable package.

breakingdefense.com

Troops To Test AFRL’s THOR Drone Killer This Fall
THOR puts high-powered microwaves to fry drone swarms' electronics in a rugged and deployable package.

{ The Air Force’s THOR high-powered microwave is designed to burn out swarms of attacking drones. }

WASHINGTON: The Air Force will send its Tactical High Power Microwave Operational Responder (THOR) overseas this fall for operational field experiments, with Army warfighters in particular keen to get their hands on drone-killing systems. In fact, the Army has so much confidence in the Air Force’s microwave experiments that it’s decided to focus its own R&D dollars on lasers and let the Air Force take the lead developing microwave weapons that might be used by both services.

Despite some complications and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the service is “in the process of sending systems over” for the test, Kelly Hammett, head of directed energy at Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), told Breaking D in an interview last week. “THOR is at Kirtland still — it’s going through checkout testing — [but] in the fall, it’s supposed to go.”

“The Air Force has done a lot of great work,” said Craig Robin, a former AFRL scientist himself who’s now the lead expert on directed energy at the Army’s Rapid Capabilities & Critical Technology Office (RCCTO). “Right now the Army’s not investing any money in high powered microwave systems,” he told Breaking Defense. “We’re working to coordinate … not only with the Air Force but with the newly established joint Counter-UAS office to ensure that we’re building a common high-powered microwave system.”

Hammett and Craig both spoke to Breaking Defense ahead of this year’s Virtual Space & Missile Defense Symposium.

Hammett demurred from providing details on the upcoming deployment citing operational security concerns — saying only that the idea is to operate THOR in theater against “active” real-world threats for a year.

However, Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, Joint Counter Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-sUAS) Office, said in March that Central Command was the priority for early prototyping of counter-drone systems. The C-sUAS office, which launched in January, is charged by Defense Secretary Mark Esper to winnow down the 40-odd counter-drone systems under development across DoD — ranging from net guns to lasers to HPM systems — to find the best matches to various warfighter needs.

THOR uses high-powered microwaves to shoot swarms of small unmanned aerial vehicles out of the sky. It was designed in-house by AFRL for the service’s high-priority base defense mission. As Breaking D readers are aware, enabling “logistics under attack,” including figuring out how to protect bases, is one of the Air Force’s top-four priorities for the future.

“We looked at a use case for a forward air base — a FOB — something like you might find in the Middle East,” Hammett said, and for protection of “a global strike, or a nuclear base, mission” to create the requirements for THOR.

The Air Force is still grappling with its base-protection requirements and plans, Hammett said, with Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) developing an acquisition strategy. But the Army is perhaps the most keen among the services to get its hands on microwave drone-killing capabilities.

Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, head of the Army RCCTO (and Robin’s boss), told the annual Space and Missile Defense (SMD) Symposium last August that the service was planning for to demonstrate a microwave weapon in 2022 and field four prototype vehicles in 2024. The Army wants a truck-mounted system that can be set up to defend “fixed or semi-fixed” sites like command posts and fuel depots. It’l be part of a larger system called the Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) that will include not only the microwave but a high-powered laser and conventional interceptor missiles.

Hammett and Robin explained that high-powered microwaves and lasers use very different physics, giving each advantages and disadvantages against different types of targets. A laser basically acts like a long-range blowtorch, applying heat to a precise spot — ideally something critical like a tail fin — until the target melts, burns, or just stops working. A microwave emits radiation that scrambles electronic circuitry.

“Imagine your wireless router at home, multiplied times a trillion, so instead of giving your cellphone and computer internet, it fries the electronics,” Robin said. “It’s not effective against dumb munitions like a mortar or even a rocket” — but drones can’t fly if their electronics don’t work.

HPM systems are particularly effective against large swarms of small drones because they can fire again and again in rapid succession, each zap affecting an arc much like a shotgun blast. Lasers are less effective against swarms because their needle-thin beams need some time to burn through the fuselage of each incoming drone in turn, taking down one target at a time

On the other hand, lasers can hit targets at significantly longer ranges — that makes them more suitable against higher-end drones that operate alone or in small numbers. The Army also wants the IFPC laser to be powerful enough to shoot down cruise missiles, a type of target that’s — at least for now — too difficult for microwaves.

AFRL is working with contractors BAE Systems, Leidos and Verus. They’ve been funded since 2018 by DoD’s Office of Research and Engineering (R&E) to prototype and test THOR, based on decades of painstaking research on various ways of generating microwaves, Hammett said. The money was provided through R&E’s rapid prototype program funding.

“It’s part of our secret sauce,” he said. “One of the benefits of having military laboratories is we actually do have in-house design expertise.

“We spent 20 years developing digital design codes that allow us to rapidly design microwave sources of various kinds, build prototypes, and then test in the laboratory and validate our models,” he explained. “If they work in the lab, then we can we put them in a catalog, and they’re available for later use to potentially go put into systems. And so that’s what we did here. We probably have 10 or 12 different designs of different types of microwave sources.”

The THOR program settled on an S-band source specifically tailored to defeat drones.

Housed in a 20-foot shipping container that’s transportable on a C-130, THOR can rapidly ‘refire’ extremely high-power pulses of microwave energy while slewing across sectors of the sky to rapidly take down swarms of Group 1 and 2 drones — those weighing less than 55 pounds, operating below 3,500 feet, and at speeds below 250 knots.

THOR isn’t the only directed energy C-sUAS system currently undergoing operational field testing, however. The Air Force’s Strategic Development Planning & Experimentation (SDPE) Office, which leads service field experiments, announced in April that it was also deploying Raytheon’s High Energy Laser (HELWS) and High Power Microwave (PHASER) prototypes for overseas testing.

Hammett said THOR’s key differentiator from comparable systems is that it was designed specifically for the needs of military operators in the field. For example, he said, it’s robust enough to withstand wide temperature swings and operate rain or shine. And it’s easy to set up.

“Basically, it comes in a big box — a 20-foot transportainer and it fits entirely in that box,” he said. “The pedestal rises out of the box, and the antenna consists of six metal plates that can be fastened together by two guys with a screwdriver and a wrench.”

____________________________
Knock Knock Motherfuckers, the future is here.

As an aside, I wonder what this thing would do to cruise missiles? it could be a solution to a critical problem, or we might have to wait for the higher powered PHASER system.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

Now for the counterpart to the above system:

Army Starts Construction On Prototype Lasers

Contractors are already “bending metal” on components for both 50-kilowatt and 300-kW lasers, Army scientist Craig Robin said.

breakingdefense.com

Army Starts Construction On Prototype Lasers
Contractors are already “bending metal” on components for both 50-kilowatt and 300-kW lasers, Army scientist Craig Robin said.

{ An early experimental laser-armed Stryker vehicle, the MEHEL }

WASHNGTON: After years of lower-power field tests and more than one thousand hours of soldier feedback, the Army is on track to field-test two different types of high-energy lasers in 2022: a 50-kilowatt weapon to destroy enemy drones and incoming artillery rockets, and a 300-kW weapon that could potentially shoot down cruise missiles.

Key components are now under construction for both systems, the directed energy chief at the Rapid Capabilities & Critical Technologies Office said. And, Craig Robin told me ahead of today’s Space & Missile Symposium, the service plans many more “soldier touch points” to come on both programs, especially once the prototypes are built and available for field tests.

Furthest along is the 50-kilowatt laser, to be mounted on an 8×8 Stryker armored vehicle. It’s known in Army jargon as DE-MSHORAD (Directed Energy – Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense). Four prototype laser Strykers – a full platoon – will be fielded to an actual combat unit in 2022.

{ Craig Robin }

“That’s real hardware being built now,” Robin said. “The laser weapon hardware exists now; we expect to have them integrated on the vehicles by the end of December.”

In fact, there are two competing lasers being built for DE-MSHORAD, one by Northrop Grumman and the other by Raytheon. Each of those lasers will be integrated onto a different Stryker for a “shoot off” – officially, a “performance characterization” – at Fort Sill, Okla. in May 2021, when real soldiers will put both weapons through their places in a realistic combat scenarios.

Earlier Stryker-mounted lasers successfully shot down drones in prior field tests with real soldiers. Troops’ input in field tests, brainstorming sessions, and reviews of CAD designs, Robin told me, helped refine everything from the user interface controlling the weapon, to how equipment should be installed inside the Stryker so the crew wouldn’t hit it scrambling in and out. Power output has also risen rapidly in recent years, from just two kilowatts in 2016 to five, to 10, to the 50 kW weapons now being built.

Prime contractor Kord Technologies will integrate both the Raytheon and Northrop weapons, plus a power & thermal management system by Rocky Research, onto the Stryker, with assistance from the vehicle’s original manufacturer, General Dynamics Land Systems. The laser-armed DE-MSHORAD will operate alongside the Leonardo DRS IM-SHORAD variant of the Stryker – now in testing – which wields a more traditional anti-aircraft armament of guns and missiles.

{An early Army HEL (High Energy Laser) Mobile Demonstrator}

The Strykers, being off-road armored vehicles, are intended to follow the frontline M1 tanks and Bradley troop carriers. At the same time, the Army is also developing a second echelon of larger lasers mounted on heavy trucks, which trade Stryker’s mobility and protection for sheer carrying capacity. This IFPC-HEL (Indirect Fire Protection Capability – High Energy Laser) will work alongside a missile-armed IFPC variant and a high-powered microwave variant – probably based on Air Force experiments – to defend forward command posts and other key sites.

Starting with a truck-mounted 10-kilowatt weapon in 2012, the Army first proposed a 100-kW model and then – boosted by a collaboration with the Office of the Secretary of Defense – decided to go for 300 kW.

“We’re on track to demo the 300-kW system at the end of 2022,” Robin told me, probably around August or September.

Critical Design Review is complete and “we’re starting to bend metal,” he said. “We’re moving out and starting to build that demonstrator now, along with OSD.”

OSD’s assistant director for directed energy, Thomas Karr, is leading a multi-service push to scale up laser technology to 300 kW and beyond, enough to kill incoming cruise missiles. Karr has multiple contractors developing competing approaches, but under his aegis, the Army specifically is working with aerospace titan Lockheed Martin to build the laser itself and with Dynetics to integrate it onto an Oshkosh 10-wheeler truck, the Palletized Load System.

If the 2022 demonstration shots go well – and the soldiers’ feedback is positive – the Army plans to build and field four HEL-IFPC laser trucks as a combat unit in 2024.
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This is sci-fi stuff. It may not look like the future envisioned in fiction, but we are pretty damn close to making it reality.

BONE_Buddy · Aug 7, 2020

In somewhat related news, the Interim SHORAD system has finished developmental testing:

https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2020/08/05/armys-interim-short-range-air-defense-system-on-track-despite-minor-hiccup-in-tests/

Army’s interim short-range air defense system on track despite minor ‘hiccup’ in tests

WASHINGTON — The Army has wrapped up developmental testing for its interim short-range air defense system after experiencing a minor “hiccup” that, when paired with complications due to the coronavirus pandemic, set the program back by a few weeks, Maj. Gen. Robert Rasch, the service’s program executive officer for missiles and space, said Aug. 5.

It took just 19 months from the time the service generated the requirement to the first delivery of a platform for testing, answering an urgent call in 2016 from U.S. Army Europe to fill the short-range air defense capability gap. The service received the requirement to build the system in February 2018.

After a shoot-off in the desert of White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, and subsequent evaluations from various vendors, the Army selected a Stryker combat vehicle-based system that included a mission equipment package designed by Leonardo DRS. That mission equipment package includes Raytheon’s Stinger vehicle missile launcher.

“We went through our developmental testing, which is what we are supposed to do when we get a new system and we found some software things that we had to work,” Rasch told reporters during a media teleconference. “A lot of the systems and components had been integrated before in other ways but putting them all together on this platform, on a Stryker, was the first time.

“I know a lot of this has been made on that in the press,” Rasch said, “but it was nothing that you wouldn’t expect to see” considering it was the first time the Army has hooked up a Hellfire launcher that is traditionally an air-to-ground system with an upgraded digital Stinger launch capability with a new turret.

In an interview with Defense News in March, Col. Chuck Worshim, program manager for cruise missile defense systems within PEO Missiles and Space, said the Army was “learning some things, which testing is all about. We’re seeing where we will have to have some corrective actions put in place as we move forward into more operational testing.”

He would not detail those actions but emphasized they were “nothing that can’t be overcome in a short period of time” and “nothing that is so far out of the box that we have to go back to the drawing board.”

Rasch said, “We just had to work through some of those software bugs and the testing,” and as the team rolled out those “relatively minor software patches” the system has been “testing out very well.”

Brig. Gen. Brian Gibson, who oversees the Army’s air-and-missile defense modernization efforts, told Defense News in its Space and Missile Defense Debrief event Aug. 5, that the Army is still on schedule to make a decision on whether it will buy its first of four planned batteries by the end of the fiscal year.

He added that testing over the past few weeks ended in successful flight tests, but “we still learned some things in it that we need to go back and address in the new equipment training.”

That training has already begun at White Sands in preparation for an early user assessment in the latter part of the year, Gibson said, and the Army is learning “great things” from the experienced air defenders assigned to use the system.

“By the end of August,” Gibson said, “we are going to know everything that we probably can know, which will inform our recommendation.”
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It looks like we are going from a blank sheet of paper to deployed technology in 5 years. For a system like this, that is pretty fast, especially for peacetime.

Deployed Ships Underway	Non-deployed Ships Underway	Total Ships Underway
46	33	79

Fleet Forces	3rd Fleet	4th Fleet	5th Fleet	6th Fleet	7th Fleet	Total
3	1	2	23	15	56	100

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