CSBA "Third Offset" paper

[sferrin]

I'll believe Lockheed fusion when I see it. If they do succeed in pulling a rabbit out of a hat I'll be the first to shout, "whoo-hoo".

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2017/Fall/4Fox17.pdf

A Solution Looking for a Problem: Illuminating Misconceptions in Maneuver Warfare Doctrine

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2018-02/simulate-tomorrow%E2%80%99s-battles-ai

 

[bobbymike]

https://mwi.usma.edu/new-national-security-innovation-base-charting-course-technology-war/

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/02/how-to-implement-the-national-defense-strategy-in-pacific/

The National Defense Strategy rightly prioritizes great power competition as the biggest threat to U.S. security. This is perhaps its most significant contribution; waking us up from the collective security mindset that has captured the thinking of policy-makers following every major conflict going back to World War I.

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf

DNI Worldwide Threat Assessment

 

[Flyaway]

This thread seems about the best for this article.

Google is helping the Pentagon build AI for drones

Google has partnered with the United States Department of Defense to help the agency develop artificial intelligence for analyzing drone footage, a move that set off a firestorm among employees of the technology giant when they learned of Google’s involvement.

Google’s pilot project with the Defense Department’s Project Maven, an effort to identify objects in drone footage, has not been previously reported, but it was discussed widely within the company last week when information about the project was shared on an internal mailing list, according to sources who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the project.

Project Maven, a fast-moving Pentagon project also known as the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT), was established in April 2017. Maven’s stated mission is to “accelerate DoD’s integration of big data and machine learning.” In total, the Defense Department spent $7.4 billion on artificial intelligence-related areas in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported.

https://gizmodo.com/google-is-helping-the-pentagon-build-ai-for-drones-1823464533

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2018/March%202018/US-Services-on-Cusp-of-Integration-Wilson-Says.aspx?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=

The Defense Department is close to moving beyond the joint fight to one that is fully integrated, said Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson on Monday.

Her comments came at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event, where she appeared alongside Army Secretary Mark Esper and Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, both of whom struck similar notes.

The various services, she said, are “on the cusp of becoming integrated,” she said “not just interdependent, not just joint, but integrated in our operations,” adding that such a relationship will allow the services to gather information faster, make decisions faster, and act faster on the information, allowing the US to prevail in 21st century conflict.

 

[bobbymike]

http://aviationweek.com/future-aerospace/darpa-60-still-working-prevent-more-sputnik-moments?NL=AW-05&Issue=AW-05_20180314_AW-05_541&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2&utm_rid=CPEN1000000230026&utm_campaign=13952&utm_medium=email&elq2=450548370caa41438419a0a367f3f137

In 1958, in the wake of Russia’s Sputnik launch, the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency was formed to prevent any further “technological surprises” and create a few of its own. Sixty years on, what is now DARPA finds itself operating in a world where the commercial market is as likely to generate surprises as the U.S.’s military rivals.

The pace of development in commercial electronics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI), and their potential for nefarious use, is as much a concern for DARPA today as Russia’s and China’s advances in hypersonic weapons, electronic combat and space warfare.

The research agency is not responsible for developing defenses against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new array of nuclear and hypersonic weapons: That falls to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), says DARPA Director Steve Walker. But DARPA is pushing for the U.S. to step up development of its own hypersonic weapons and has provided MDA with all its know-how about Russia’s and China’s capabilities.

“DARPA has been developing hypersonic technologies and capabilities for a while,” he says. “Last spring we went to the deputy secretary of defense and laid out where the U.S. is, where its peer competitors are, and tried to convince him of the need for a national hypersonics initiative.” The result was an increase in funding in the fiscal 2019 budget—“Not everything we wanted, but a good first step,” Walker says.

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/the-end-of-the-american-way-of-war-the-cold-war-really-is-over/?utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=61551330&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--WwWGOBKlG4n4Nkc8MX5yPRGwWUOUM4d9s-AjCM55IzyDL96Fa8wie8-_-Hoo5g7Ph8LZbU5tDm0ptx24Sga-NMfn_4Q&_hsmi=61551330

The American way of war — using overpowering industrial might, crushing firepower, and owning the sea and skies — may have come to an end, a top Pentagon official says.

For the past two decades, “the Chinese and the Russians have been working to undermine that model,” said Elbridge Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development. By spending billions on modernizing their militaries and fielding new technologies like artificial intelligence and hypersonic missiles at a faster clip than the Americans, the two countries have changed the way the United States must approach future conflict.

 

[fredymac]

Another Air Force commercial about stuff they never actually deploy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLS84RI6EyI

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/03/22/the_army_needs_to_go_big_with_futures_command_113235.html

“A big announcement is coming.”

This is how the Association of the United States Army’s (AUSA) website is introducing its Global Force Symposium and Exposition to be held March 26 to 28 in Huntsville, Alabama. According to AUSA, “the Army will use the Global Force Symposium and Exposition as a platform to formally introduce the new United States Army Futures Command and the why and how of changes to Army modernization.”

 

[bobbymike]

Don't know if this fits here but how to get new technology to keep the US ahead of its adversaries is kind of a component of Third Offset

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/03/army-offers-much-higher-profits-for-fast-innovation-asaalt/

AUSA GLOBAL FORCE SYMPOSIUM: If you have innovative technology to sell the Army, the service’s acquisition chief wants you to make more money — if you can deliver, fast. Speaking to the Association of the US Army conference this morning, Bruce Jette announced he’d secured

new grants for innovative small businesses, which he started awarding at the conference; and
new funding to help promising technologies cross the “valley of death” between lab work and adoption by a weapons program.

 

[bobbymike]

As I've stated before (hoping other member don't mind) I am putting "strategy and CONOPS" posts here.

https://othjournal.com/2018/03/30/contested-skies-our-uncertain-air-superiority-future/

By: Peter Layton

In war, there’s a constant to and fro. At times defense dominates, at other times offence. Technologies arise and fall. Disruption rules. This is noticeably so in today’s arcane world of air superiority. While much investment has gone into the Australian Defense Force’s (ADF) air superiority capabilities—with more coming with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter—the operational environment isn’t standing still.

The skies are increasingly contested. Emerging threats are making our tanker and airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft more vulnerable, and advanced surface-to-air missiles, stealth-fighter technology, long-range ballistic, cruise missiles, and even hobbyist drones are proliferating. The US Air Force (USAF) recently studied what all this means in practice and determined that its ‘projected force structure in 2030 is not capable of fighting and winning against [the expected] array of potential adversary capabilities.’ If the USAF’s force structure is becoming stretched so, surely, is ours.

Some warn that the 2030 date may mislead, asserting that ‘Integrated Air Defense Systems covering areas in the Western Pacific … may now be able to deny access to all but the stealthiest of aircraft.’ The ‘stealthiest of aircraft’ refers to the flying wing B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and forthcoming B-21 Raiders. It seems that F-35s with their vertical tails have some vulnerabilities to emerging multiband digital radars. A RAND study echoes these concerns about current and growing air superiority shortcomings.

 

[Flyaway]

I suppose this kind of fits here if anywhere.

With finally some info on this payload.

https://twitter.com/flatoday_jdean/status/982337908395749377

Air Force/SMC identifies Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM (CBAS) as primary AFSPC-11 payload launching "mid-April" on Atlas V. In GEO, CBAS to provide communications relay capabilities to support senior leaders, combatant commanders, augmenting existing military satcom.

 

[Flyaway]

More to the above.

CBAS Space Vehicle Completes Launch Base Testing

LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla. -- The Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM, or CBAS, Satellite completed launch base testing March 15 in preparation for the payload’s scheduled launch aboard the AFSPC-11 mission.

The U.S. Air Force is scheduled to launch the CBAS satellite and the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) Augmented Geosynchronous Laboratory Experiment (EAGLE) satellite on the AFSPC-11 mission aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V EELV from Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in mid-April.

Managed by the Military Satellite Communications Directorate of the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, the CBAS Satellite is a military satellite communications spacecraft destined for geosynchronous orbit to provide communications relay capabilities to support our senior leaders and combatant commanders. The mission of CBAS is to augment existing military satellite communications capabilities and broadcast military data continuously through space-based, satellite communications relay links.

The Air Force Space Command's Space and Missile Systems Center, located at the Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif., is the U.S. Air Force's center of excellence for acquiring and developing military space systems. Its portfolio includes the Global Positioning System, military satellite communications, defense meteorological satellites, space launch and range systems, satellite control networks, space based infrared systems, and space situational awareness capabilities.

http://www.losangeles.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1490064/cbas-space-vehicle-completes-launch-base-testing/

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.hudson.org/events/1540-regaining-the-strategic-advantage-in-an-age-of-great-power-competition-a-conversation-with-michael-griffin42018

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) recognizes a return of great power competition, stating that China and Russia are fielding military capabilities “designed to deny America access in times of crisis and to contest our ability to operate freely in critical commercial zones during peacetime.” Furthermore, the NSS contends that these countries “are contesting our geopolitical advantages and trying to change the international order in their favor.”

 

[marauder2048]

Some JSOW-ER developments:

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Precision Strike Weapons Program Office (PMA-201) intends to enter into sole source negotiations
and subsequently issue a sole source contract modification to N0001917C0059 for JSOW-ER Phase 3 Part B to Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS),
Tucson, AZ. This effort is estimated for award in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2018 for a performance period of twenty-four months.
This effort is to conduct Phase 3 Part B of the flight test demonstration of an extended range capability for the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW)
AGM-154C-1 All Up Round (AUR). The upgrade includes hardware modification to add a production representative engine/fuel/inlet system
to the AGM-154C-1 variant as well as software modification to optimize midcourse and endgame performance for the powered JSOW,
with laboratory, ground and flight tests.

 

[bobbymike]

https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/credibility-matters-strengthening-american-deterrence-in-an-age-of-geopolit

Credibility -- the degree to which an actor's threats and promises are believed by other actors in the international system--is an inherently intangible concept. Yet American credibility is nonetheless crucial to the stability of an international system that ultimately rests on U.S. alliance commitments and security guarantees.

If American credibility is strong, then adversaries will be deterred, allies will be reassured, and relative geopolitical stability will prevail. If American credibility is weak, then adversaries will be emboldened, allies will be unnerved, and geopolitical revisionism and aggression will proliferate.

Today, America confronts a deepening crisis of credibility in global affairs, due to the military buildups and revisionist strategies being pursued by U.S. adversaries--and no less to the missteps of the United States itself. This report outlines a multi-pronged agenda for shoring up the credibility on which so much of U.S. foreign policy and the international order depends.

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/06/sasc-seeks-sweeping-roles-missions-report-wither-the-marines/

WASHINGTON: The Senate Armed Services Committee has proposed the most sweeping reevaluation of the military in 30 years, with tough questions for all four armed services but especially the Marine Corps.

While its provisions cover topics ranging from swarming robots to “construction and maintenance of public works in Cis-Lunar Space,” its overwhelming focus is reorienting the military from a generation of guerrilla warfare to great power conflict with China and Russia. From reading Section 1041 of the draft National Defense Authorization Act, talking to Senate staff, and tracking years of SASC reform proposals, it’s clear SASC chairman John McCain thinks the services are making that shift far too slowly. McCain has long sought to revisit the landmark 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act which laid the foundation for the modern military, and now he may have found an ally in Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The first lines of Sec. 1041 take pains to praise Mattis’s National Defense Strategy, which marks “great power competition” against China and Russia as the top priority. The rest of the section charges Mattis with preparing a report — due in classified form with an unclassified summary by Feb. 1st — on making the four armed services more capable against those threats.

Today, SASC argues, the services are spending too much of their money on weapons systems that would work against the Taliban but might not last long against a high-tech adversary. That includes everything from manned aircraft — even stealthy ones — to lightly armored ground vehicles to pretty much everything the Marine Corps would use for an amphibious landing.

Here are some of the key questions the Pentagon would be required to address:

Make the Marines a counterinsurgency force? The Senate starts by asking whether the military “would benefit from having one Armed Force dedicated primarily to low-intensity missions, thereby enabling the other Armed Forces to focus more exclusively on advanced peer competitors.” It quickly becomes clear that “one Armed Force” means “the Marines.” The bill questions the Army’s new Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) and suggest shifting that role to the Marines. It also questions the survivability of Navy-Marine flotillas in the face of long-range sensors and precision missiles — so-called Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems — and asked whether the Marines’ core mission, “amphibious forced entry operations,” should even “remain an enduring mission for the joint force” given the difficulties. It suggests replacing large-deck amphibious ships, which carry both Marine aircraft and landing forces, with small aircraft carriers that could carry “larger numbers of more diverse strike aircraft” (but not amphibious vehicles or landing craft). Separate provisions of the bill restrict spending on the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle (Sec. 221) and the future Amphibious Combat Vehicle (Sec. 128) until the Pentagon addresses the viability of amphibious landings.

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/technology-roulette

This report recognizes the imperatives that inspire the U.S. military’s pursuit of technological superiority over all potential adversaries. These pages emphasize, however, that superiority is not synonymous with security. Experience with nuclear weapons, aviation, and digital information systems should inform discussion about current efforts to control artificial intelligence (AI), synthetic biology, and autonomous systems. In this light, the most reasonable expectation is that the introduction of complex, opaque, novel, and interactive technologies will produce accidents, emergent effects, and sabotage. In sum, on a number of occasions and in a number of ways, the American national security establishment will lose control of what it creates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnpkwaldPg

 

[Moose]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/06/sasc-seeks-sweeping-roles-missions-report-wither-the-marines/

WASHINGTON: The Senate Armed Services Committee has proposed the most sweeping reevaluation of the military in 30 years, with tough questions for all four armed services but especially the Marine Corps.

While its provisions cover topics ranging from swarming robots to “construction and maintenance of public works in Cis-Lunar Space,” its overwhelming focus is reorienting the military from a generation of guerrilla warfare to great power conflict with China and Russia. From reading Section 1041 of the draft National Defense Authorization Act, talking to Senate staff, and tracking years of SASC reform proposals, it’s clear SASC chairman John McCain thinks the services are making that shift far too slowly. McCain has long sought to revisit the landmark 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act which laid the foundation for the modern military, and now he may have found an ally in Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The first lines of Sec. 1041 take pains to praise Mattis’s National Defense Strategy, which marks “great power competition” against China and Russia as the top priority. The rest of the section charges Mattis with preparing a report — due in classified form with an unclassified summary by Feb. 1st — on making the four armed services more capable against those threats.

Today, SASC argues, the services are spending too much of their money on weapons systems that would work against the Taliban but might not last long against a high-tech adversary. That includes everything from manned aircraft — even stealthy ones — to lightly armored ground vehicles to pretty much everything the Marine Corps would use for an amphibious landing.

Here are some of the key questions the Pentagon would be required to address:

Make the Marines a counterinsurgency force? The Senate starts by asking whether the military “would benefit from having one Armed Force dedicated primarily to low-intensity missions, thereby enabling the other Armed Forces to focus more exclusively on advanced peer competitors.” It quickly becomes clear that “one Armed Force” means “the Marines.” The bill questions the Army’s new Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) and suggest shifting that role to the Marines. It also questions the survivability of Navy-Marine flotillas in the face of long-range sensors and precision missiles — so-called Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems — and asked whether the Marines’ core mission, “amphibious forced entry operations,” should even “remain an enduring mission for the joint force” given the difficulties. It suggests replacing large-deck amphibious ships, which carry both Marine aircraft and landing forces, with small aircraft carriers that could carry “larger numbers of more diverse strike aircraft” (but not amphibious vehicles or landing craft). Separate provisions of the bill restrict spending on the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle (Sec. 221) and the future Amphibious Combat Vehicle (Sec. 128) until the Pentagon addresses the viability of amphibious landings.

Explicitly denying the Marines a peer-conflict role and confining them to the low-intensity conflicts seems like a sure way to absolutely destroy the Corps' morale. It would also likely be a lot more problematic than they seem to think to draw a line down the middle of the warfare spectrum and attempt to confine service branches to one side or another.

The potential for an LHD/A-to-CV transition, on the other hand, definitely seems to be getting more serious discussion since Sen. McCain's white paper (PDF) and CSBA's paper proposing a heavily revamped Fleet Architecture. I think it's a bit early to start cancelling America-class hulls, but I'm at the point where I wouldn't be shocked if we end up stopping short of the 11 planned and transition to something else.

 

[sferrin]

Hopefully this will go nowhere. D-day would have never happened with this kind of thinking. "It's going to be difficult? Well, never mind then." China certainly thinks it's viable.

 

[DrRansom]

Putting the Marines in charge of low-intensity operations is, in a way, a return to the historical norm.

 

[sferrin]

Putting the Marines in charge of low-intensity operations is, in a way, a return to the historical norm.

I'd hardly call the South Pacific in WWII "low intensity". From the Korean War to Vietnam to Desert Storm, when has the USMC only been involved in "low intensity" warfare?

 

[DrRansom]

Sorry - pre WW1 historical norm, Marines for all countries were light forces for colonial operations. If the US is going to routinely engage in colonial operations and prepare for high-intensity warfare, focusing the Marines on low-intensity operations might achieve necessary efficiencies.

 

[Moose]

Sorry - pre WW1 historical norm, Marines for all countries were light forces for colonial operations. If the US is going to routinely engage in colonial operations and prepare for high-intensity warfare, focusing the Marines on low-intensity operations might achieve necessary efficiencies.

Specialized Naval Infantry has existed since the Roman Republic, and even the direct precursors to modern Marines like the Dutch Regiment de Marine and Spanish Infantería de Marina were created to fight in major conflicts with peer adversaries. Sure, Marines of colonial/imperial powers frequently partook in colonial and other "low intensity" operations, especially in the 17th-and 18th-centuries, but that was due to their flexibility and availability not because that was their primary role.

 

[marauder2048]

The potential for an LHD/A-to-CV transition, on the other hand, definitely seems to be getting more serious discussion since
Sen. McCain's white paper (PDF) and
CSBA's paper proposing a heavily revamped Fleet Architecture.
I think it's a bit early to start cancelling America-class hulls, but I'm at the point where I wouldn't be shocked if we end up stopping short of the 11 planned and transition to something else.

CVLs have been a recurring theme in practically all of the "future fleet architecture" studies commissioned
by both houses over the last 20 years.

What stood out as a major difference this time around was that the CNO's office gave a lower-bound of 36 (!) strike fighters
for the projected carrier air wing.

 

[jsport]

“amphibious forced entry operations,” should always be an option even if not the first. air insertion is risky especially against a near peer nowadays. IADS may need to be suppressed w/ very long range guns.

The AAAV had such promise and some folks so botched it that now the USMC is suffering political ramifications..

 

[bobbymike]

Disruptive Capabilities for Future Warfare solicitation

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=1f51dce26e990a49d9fd56be0aa7986b&tab=core&_cview=0

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/06/gao-decision-threatens-us-military-dominance-reject-it/?utm_campaign=Breaking%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=64065746&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8G33DHV1l_ErkwzWty2AA8UrMSt6-2ACxS6pcD8qGrIKPjweq8tfqeNWFSZlpnbWwkQjqDSCqxuZ1nTA57cfSvbl7cFg&_hsmi=64065746

Bill Greenwalt is sort of the Pied Piper of military acquisition policy. Where he leads, others often follow. (Of course, there’s a major difference from the legend. Greenwalt is not making extravagant promises.) After he wrote a series of op-eds for Breaking Defense recommending major changes to the Pentagon’s acquisition system, Sen. John McCain lured Bill back to his old job at the Senate Armed Services Committee. Greenwalt rewrote the laws, shaking up Defense Department acquisition. Bill is back, pointing to new acquisition problems, this latest one with his former employer — the Government Accountability Office. It’s a doozy, as you’ll see. Read on! The Editor.

It hasn’t attracted much attention but a seemingly minor quasi-judicial ruling is a prime example of how our acquisition system serves as a means to self-inflicted unilateral disarmament.

Unless senior leadership in the Defense Department acts in the next few weeks, this Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) protest decision in favor of Oracle and against the Army and Transportation Command will ensure that China will dominate the future military application of quantum computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, data analytics, biotechnology, robotics and autonomous operations. Even before the recent GAO ruling the odds were daunting that the Pentagon could pursue the right policies to compete and win in what is now the arms race of the 21st century. Unless the Defense Department engages, those odds just got perilously worse.

Why would such a seemingly mundane judgment have such a wide-ranging impact? In one fell swoop, this decision kills DoD’s ability to access Silicon Valley and the rest of leading edge commercial innovators in the US and the free world. While it may not be obvious to many, the only way for the U.S. to compete with China in the next decade will be to harness the engineering talent and the lead that the commercial market currently has in emerging technologies. To understand the significance of this, note that six out of the eight technologies identified in the National Defense Strategy as vital to future national security are being led by the commercial marketplace. To provide for its security the U.S. needs to find a way to partner and contract with commercial companies that until now would not work with the Pentagon because of its massive compliance requirements, its excruciatingly slow acquisition and contracting processes and the way it treats intellectual property.

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/07/exclusive-what-multi-domain-c2-may-look-like-raytheons-rick-yuse/?utm_campaign=Breaking%20Defense%20Air%20&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=64605558&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8uWJHa5XSKG0k0lGy9MVspCtBJ3MZs9ufk583lfAqg3MMuhIxn-h24eg-rdoIimrXStpOxpAAaFgM2IyLdhpxvghfvhw&_hsmi=64605558

FARNBOROUGH AIR SHOW: One of the best parts about covering an air show is bringing some of the gee-whizzery of the defense industry to the broader public, stuff beyond the metal tubing that flies fast and does neat things in the air.

Raytheon has been relatively quiet about its plans to develop systems for multi-domain operations, the US military’s evolving concept for defeating high-end adversaries with a coordinated onslaught from all five domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. But in a low-key way, the company is touting upgrades of some systems it already fields to help the four services and intelligence community connect all the data from sensors and weapons around the world and in space.

The video above will give you an idea of what may become the combat center of the future, but one dispersed around the world, instead of being concentrated in a few hyper-secure (but potentially targetable) facilities.

 

[marauder2048]

Contracts for July 19, 2018

Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $10,686,543 modification (P00005) to a previously
awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee contract (N00019-17-C-0059) to conduct flight test demonstrations for the
Joint Standoff Weapon Extended Range (JSOW-ER) Phase 3a development, including hardware and software modifications.
Tasking includes hardware and software modifications with laboratory and ground testing to the existing JSOW AGM-154C-1.
Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed in July 2019.

 

[bobbymike]

https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/rebuilding-americas-military-thinking-about-the-future

America’s military—engaged beyond capacity and in need of rebuilding—is at a crucial juncture. Its current “big-leap” approach to preparing for future conflict carries great risk in searching for revolutionary capabilities through force-wide commitments to major single-solution programs. The Heritage Foundation’s Rebuilding America’s Military Project (RAMP) recommends that the U.S. military instead adopt an iterative, experimentation-heavy approach that can achieve revolutionary outcomes at less risk through evolutionary improvements that build on each other until transformative tipping points are reached. Critical to this is a military culture that is immersed in the study of war and a force of sufficient capacity to prepare for the future while also handling current operational commitments.

 

[bobbymike]

https://breakingdefense.com/2018/07/pentagon-sounds-alarm-over-sub-hunting-tech-shortage-hypersonic-funding/

WASHINGTON The Navy says it is running short of critical submarine-detecting sonobuoys, thanks to stepped-up submarine activity by Russia in the Mediterranean and around Europe.

As a result, the service has asked Congress to reprogram $20 million to buy more of the detection devices in an Omnibus funding package the Pentagon sent to Congress earlier this month. The Omnibus says the air-dropped buoys — which can detect diesel submarines and transmit their location in real time back to monitoring units — are in critically short supply after experiencing “unexpected high anti-submarine warfare operational tempo in 2017 [which] resulted in unexpected high expenditure rate of all type/model/series.”

 

[jsport]

https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/rebuilding-americas-military-thinking-about-the-future

America’s military—engaged beyond capacity and in need of rebuilding—is at a crucial juncture. Its current “big-leap” approach to preparing for future conflict carries great risk in searching for revolutionary capabilities through force-wide commitments to major single-solution programs. The Heritage Foundation’s Rebuilding America’s Military Project (RAMP) recommends that the U.S. military instead adopt an iterative, experimentation-heavy approach that can achieve revolutionary outcomes at less risk through evolutionary improvements that build on each other until transformative tipping points are reached. Critical to this is a military culture that is immersed in the study of war and a force of sufficient capacity to prepare for the future while also handling current operational commitments.

There is barely an iterative, experimentation approach let alone and seeking of revolutionary outcomes or leap ahead.

Technology such as EM Guns (problem w/ energy density renders it questionable), EM Armor (maybe the same problem), and electric exoskeletons (maybe the same problem, even 16hrs is not enough especially if it only augments existing and does not drastically outperform regular human strength).

Another example is the ground work horse for the foreseeable future the JTLV (lacks frontal slope and side slope armor or active axle tech) therefore was obsolete when it was introduced.

Other examples include a ship manufacturing culture which appears not to be ready to produce the ships which need to prevail far across the beach or there is no 'early entry',and in the very high altitudes, and under & above the ocean, in all circumstances until 2060.

Lastly, a 'Model A' UAS culture w/ such doozies as Organic Precision Fires, which already has been outdone by ISIS multi-munition delivery UAS and general penchant for WWI era tube and wing airfoils (no stealth or dynamic maneuver dominance), and low efficiency & non stealth open props.

 

[Moose]

Other examples include a ship manufacturing culture which appears not to be ready to produce the ships which need to prevail far across the beach or there is no 'early entry',and in the very high altitudes, and under & above the ocean, in all circumstances until 2060.

I' got to ask you to restate or explain this sentence, as written I don't have a firm enough understanding of what you're on about to respond or otherwise comment productively.

 

[jsport]

Other examples include a ship manufacturing culture which appears not to be ready to produce the ships which need to prevail far across the beach or there is no 'early entry',and in the very high altitudes, and under & above the ocean, in all circumstances until 2060.

I' got to ask you to restate or explain this sentence, as written I don't have a firm enough understanding of what you're on about to respond or otherwise comment productively.

As a for instance the ability to support early entry w/ any degree of support can not be reached w/ single 125mm guns or the follow ons proposed, msles won't do it. Cant carry enough.. The frigate, destroyer, crusier paradigm is obsolete more like on-board power chooses the size just for survival let alone all spectrum dominance for instance. With the advent of multimission UAS what will be the difference between a Conventional carrier and uAS carrier which is the basis for Conventional carrier protectors etc. Is semi submersible the way to go etc.

 

[bobbymike]

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/22380/congress-demands-space-based-missile-defense-weapons-and-sensors-no-matter-what

U.S. lawmakers from the House and Senate have agreed on a final version of the approximately $716 billion defense spending bill for the 2019 fiscal year, which requires the U.S. military begin work on developing new warning satellites to spot incoming ballistic missiles and weapons to blow them up from space. The draft law requires the Missile Defense Agency to pursue these programs even if it argues against them in an up-coming ballistic missile defense strategy review, which might be setting the Pentagon up for a battle with Congress, but might also highlight the opinions of certain senior U.S. military leaders.

Legislators announced they had agreed on a single version of the law, formally known as the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, on July 23, 2018. The House expects to put the measure to a vote by the end of the month and then send it to the Senate in August 2018. If it passes both chambers, then it would go to President Donald Trump to become law.

 

[bobbymike]

Technology Roulette: Managing Loss of Control as Many Militaries Pursue Technological Superiority

Report at the link

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/technology-roulette