CSBA "Third Offset" paper

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sferrin said:
Still don't see how that would take eleven years (given the propellant being used isn't new, or even if it was). And "firecracker" it is compared to land-launched missiles fielded by just about everybody else. (No, I'm not bitter, of course not.)

To be fair, I don't know if anyone in the West has tried to IM qualify a land-based tactical SRM (and overall system) of that size before.
So maybe the Army is justified in a being conservative with the schedule.
 
marauder2048 said:
sferrin said:
Still don't see how that would take eleven years (given the propellant being used isn't new, or even if it was). And "firecracker" it is compared to land-launched missiles fielded by just about everybody else. (No, I'm not bitter, of course not.)

To be fair, I don't know if anyone in the West has tried to IM qualify a land-based tactical SRM (and overall system) of that size before.
So maybe the Army is justified in a being conservative with the schedule.
Here is my proposal stolen from Aviation Week Archive circa late 1970's
 

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bobbymike said:
marauder2048 said:
sferrin said:
Still don't see how that would take eleven years (given the propellant being used isn't new, or even if it was). And "firecracker" it is compared to land-launched missiles fielded by just about everybody else. (No, I'm not bitter, of course not.)

To be fair, I don't know if anyone in the West has tried to IM qualify a land-based tactical SRM (and overall system) of that size before.
So maybe the Army is justified in a being conservative with the schedule.
Here is my proposal stolen from Aviation Week Archive circa late 1970's

50,000 lbs of payload?!!
 

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Army eyes vision for future operations, capabilities
September 02, 2016

The Army is crafting a concept of operations to guide its efforts in a future operational
environment -- to include anti-access/area-denial threats -- which will
influence decisions on which capabilities to pursue, according to the service's
top budget programmer.

During an Aug. 29 interview, Lt. Gen. Mike Murray told Inside the Army that Training and
Doctrine Command is developing the CONOPS, while his office works to create a
new equipping strategy for the service.

The TRADOC work envisions Army operations as part of a joint force, and to that end the Army is
engaging in discussions with the Joint Staff J-8 and has revived a dormant
working group with the Marine Corps. The work will also include collaboration
with the Navy and Air Force.

Gen. Robert Brown commander of U.S. Army Pacific, told ITA in July that Army Chief of
Staff Gen. Mark Milley is crafting the service's capstone doctrine, which
incorporates multidomain battle and cross-domain fires, as well as joint
combined arms maneuver. He contended that multidomain battle "has the potential
to be as significant as AirLand Battle," referring to the doctrine that guided
the service from the early 1980s into the late 1990s.

Murray likened the ongoing efforts to the simultaneous development of AirLand Battle and the "Big
Five" programs in the 1980s: the AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, M1 Abrams,
Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and the Patriot missile system. "The doctrine's going
to drive capabilities, and as capabilities increase or improve . . . it's going
to drive changes in the doctrine," he said.

He explained, "our equipping strategy for the last couple years has been written with resource
constraints firmly in mind." That approach will continue, he said, "but I'm
going to be a little more optimistic in terms of what we should be
doing, not only what we can do."

While Army readiness remains Milley's top priority, Murray said the chief is confident he
has that on the right path, and is able to turn his attention to another
priority: the future force. This requires considerable deliberation, he noted,
because "you can't afford to get this wrong. We're just talking too much money
if you're talking new systems."

The three-star acknowledged that the Army has not had much in the way of new development,
noting that even Mobile Protected Firepower, for which the service hosted an
industry day in August, is "a non-developmental with minor modification."

Murray cited the historical cycles of funding and end strength levels as contributing to the
patterns of materiel development. In wartime, he noted, "it takes time for next
equipment to catch up. We may not have that time the next time we need to peak
again, both in end strength and capability," he warned. "So that kind of lends
itself to the argument you maintain as many programs as you possibly can, and
it's easier to just throw money at an existing program than try to start
something new. And that gets you only so far."

By contrast, Murray said, a next-generation tank or fighting vehicle is "going to be a huge bet, and
we're going to have to stop doing some stuff to fund it." To that end, senior
leaders are working with Milley "to get his mind wrapped around concepts, what
the future operational environment's going to look like. And I think we're
getting pretty close -- close being six months or so, maybe longer -- he'll be
willing to start to say, 'these are my bets on the future.' Knowing they won't
be perfectly right, but just as long as it's not totally wrong."

Since 2011, Murray noted, the Army has focused largely on priorities established by Milley and his
predecessor, retired Gen. Ray Odierno: "preserving structure, the structure
that the chiefs . . . believed was necessary, and preserving readiness for that
structure.

"So [modernization and installations are] where we have chosen to take some risk, and it has
created a hole. We're behind on modernization; there's no doubt about it. So
we've been incrementally upgrading capabilities -- and doing a pretty good job
of it, I think -- but in terms of new development and what most people would
view as the next tank, the next fighting vehicle, it's not there."

In reference to the "Big 8" or "Big 6+1" focus areas identified by the Army Capabilities
Integration Center, Murray emphasized the need for greater specificity. "It's
not going to be a hundred things we're going to be able to focus on. It's going
to be a handful of things, and we have to make sure they are the critical
capabilities for what we all agree the operational environment looks like 10,
15 years from now."

The current categories can be "a little too broad," Murray explained. "I think the
operational concept will help" to guide programmatic decisions. "The chief has
put a lot of thought into this over the last six, eight months, so I think
we'll get a focus, decide what we'll go after," he said.

Murray expressed his hope that the Strategic Portfolio Analysis Review slated for the fall will
help "to free up some resources to maybe go in, not totally different
directions, but fill some of the gaps that we know we have right now." --

Courtney McBride
 
marauder2048 said:
bobbymike said:
marauder2048 said:
sferrin said:
Still don't see how that would take eleven years (given the propellant being used isn't new, or even if it was). And "firecracker" it is compared to land-launched missiles fielded by just about everybody else. (No, I'm not bitter, of course not.)

To be fair, I don't know if anyone in the West has tried to IM qualify a land-based tactical SRM (and overall system) of that size before.
So maybe the Army is justified in a being conservative with the schedule.
Here is my proposal stolen from Aviation Week Archive circa late 1970's

50,000 lbs of payload?!!

Hah. Try the on based on the Saturn V.
 
sferrin said:
marauder2048 said:
bobbymike said:
marauder2048 said:
sferrin said:
Still don't see how that would take eleven years (given the propellant being used isn't new, or even if it was). And "firecracker" it is compared to land-launched missiles fielded by just about everybody else. (No, I'm not bitter, of course not.)

To be fair, I don't know if anyone in the West has tried to IM qualify a land-based tactical SRM (and overall system) of that size before.
So maybe the Army is justified in a being conservative with the schedule.
Here is my proposal stolen from Aviation Week Archive circa late 1970's

50,000 lbs of payload?!!

Hah. Try the on based on the Saturn V.
This should surprise no one as the attachment was always my choice for the GBSD (hat tip Scott Lowther)
 

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http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-next-great-arms-race-here-missiles-vs-missile-defense-17627?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
 
Some work on rocket technology being done.

http://www.realcleardefense.com/2016/09/09/air_force_advances_rocket_technology_285594.html
 
http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/multi-domain-battle-a-new-concept-for-land-forces/
 
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/will-the-us-army-get-serious-about-revolutionizing-long-17408
 
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/sub-launched-blackwing-uav-can-control.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+%28nextbigfuture%29&utm_content=FaceBook
 
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/09/us-army-projects-developing-more.html
 
https://www.army.mil/article/175464/dods_technological_superiority_depends_on_out_innovating_adversaries
 
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2016/October/Pages/ArmyPursuingAlternativestoHeavyVehicleArmor.aspx
 
bobbymike said:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2016/October/Pages/ArmyPursuingAlternativestoHeavyVehicleArmor.aspx

*sigh*
 
AFMC commander expects modest Third Offset funding increase in FY-18


NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The head of Air Force Materiel Command said this week it is unclear when funding for Third Offset technology will ramp up in the service's budget request, but she noted that it is important that the service develop the necessary expertise before it invests the money needed to transition new concepts into actual technologies.

The Pentagon earlier this year unveiled its Third Offset Strategy, its plan to pursue leap-ahead warfighting technologies in order to counter future threats. Funding and pursuit of those technologies is largely spread across the services and is expected to total about $18 billion over the next five years, based on the Defense Department's fiscal year 2017 budget request.

The Air Force's FY-17 budget includes approximately $2 billion that will contribute to Third Offset technology development, some of that funding was to continue work the service was already doing and some was to pursue new efforts in response to the strategy laid out by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski told reporters during a Sept. 21 briefing here at the Air Force Association's annual conference that the FY-18 budget will likely include "a modest ramp" to support experimentation through AFMC's newly formed strategic development planning and experimentation office.

"I hate to be evasive about it, but in the current fiscal environment, there are a lot of things that aren't sure," Pawlikowski said, noting that there may be a more significant funding increase in the service's FY-19 request. "You have to keep in mind that you can't do a major shift in science and technology investment overnight because you have to develop the expertise."

One way the service is developing that expertise is through a renewed focus on developmental planning and experimentation. The service over the last 18 months executed its first enterprise capability collaboration team, which was tasked with evaluating, testing and experimenting with technology solutions to air superiority challenges identified by the warfighter. This summer, the service finished that process and released a plan for developing capabilities to address future air superiority threats in a document called Air Superiority 2030.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein announced last week that the second enterprise-wide study will focus on multidomain command and control. He told reporters here Sept. 20 that the service hasn't determined whether that study will also look forward to the 2030 threat environment, but acknowledged "there may be some synergy between looking at 2030 for air superiority and 2030 for multidomain command and control."

Goldfein said the study will also include a joint perspective on multidomain C2 because each of the services is working on options for future innovation in this area.

"The question becomes if we're all going to move forward on our own individual efforts to get at this command-and-control piece, what's the connective tissue?" Goldfein said. "I believe that's something that we can help the joint team with because it's something we already do."

The Air Force's top military acquisition official, Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, told reporters this week that the service's developmental planning and experimentation process will also be helpful as it looks ahead to future modernization efforts, to include a KC-Z tanker. Air Mobility Command chief Gen. Carlton Everhart this week discussed his interest in fielding a stealthy tanker in the 2035 time frame, and Bunch said the concept would likely be wrung through planning mechanisms and experimentation campaigns down the road.

"That would be something we would have to look at both from a science and technology perspective as to what advances do we need to make, how do we need to evolve the technology?" Bunch told reporters during a Sept. 21 briefing. "We would have to build, like what we're doing right now with Air Superiority 2030 -- build experimentation campaigns, build developmental planning, focus our research and development dollars, so we're doing that early S&T to advance things."

Bunch confirmed that in the near term, the Air Force is planning to launch an experimentation campaign to explore the possibility of buying a fleet of light-attack aircraft to mitigate its fighter aircraft shortage and boost readiness. The plan has not been approved, but Bunch said the service is working through the approval process.

"Once we go through the process for approval, we're about 120 to 150 days before we can turn everything on," he said.

Bunch said the service has no firm plans to buy aircraft, but is focused now on "trying to set up an environment where we can see and have demonstrated what the capabilities are that are off the shelf."

He said the service is not necessarily emphasizing affordability, but he noted that "one school of thought" is that a low-cost aircraft that can operate in a permissive environment may help the service take some strain off its other fourth-and fifth- generation platforms that have been heavily used in recent years.

"That's not saying that's where the Air Force is definitely going," Bunch said. "Until we get some information in on what industry's capabilities are, what's really available in a timely manner and right off the shelf, we can't make a decision. So we have to get information in to inform and then we would set a strategy."
 
InsideDefense Newsstand

ARCIC chief highlights combat, tactical vehicles as key modernization priorities

September 27, 2016

The Army must prioritize "close combat overmatch" and ground vehicles in its modernization efforts, according to the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, housed within Training and Doctrine Command.

The service has to address a "bow wave of Army modernization" while operating in an environment of budget constraints, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster told reporters in a Sept. 27 roundtable. "Our instinct will be to spread less and less money over the same amount of programs, and we’ll get less and less for our defense dollar," he said.

To avoid this fate, "We have to really try to prioritize as best we can within these areas, which is what we’re endeavoring to do," he continued. "It's hard, though, and I think that risk is increasing."

Identifying his areas of greatest concern, McMaster said, "I think we've got to do more to assure our command and control and mission command capabilities, but we really are behind, as I mentioned, in some critical areas like combat vehicles."

"Sometimes people say, 'Wow, you know that Army capability is kind of expensive, like counter defilade capability like the XM25.' But expensive compared to what, like a nuclear submarine? And then if you think about where the fight is fairest, and where we take the most casualties, and where American servicemen and women are at greatest risk, it's in close combat. And so if you look at where we've invested, we've invested in, really, everything but close combat for a long time."

"So if you asked me where we ought to prioritize, I think it's in the area of close combat overmatch." He characterized this as "an area that I'm really most concerned about, because we've been on this modernization pause for a while."

He explained that ARCIC is "starting with the soldier and with the forward-most unit, or the unit that's in close contact with the enemy, as our main focus." He noted that the emphasis on close combat marks a shift from past efforts.

During the 1990s, for example, he said the Army was "very much captured by the idea of the Revolution in Military Affairs, dominant battlespace knowledge, and we were designing information networks and command posts -- which is all super-important work, and it's a big area of emphasis for us. But we are starting with close combat."

A guiding principle of current efforts is that "all domains are contested," McMaster explained. "Another thing that's changed is that our enemies are moving into complex terrain and they're evading our long-range detection capabilities. And the combination of those two things -- the difficulty of targeting the enemy with long-range precision fires and the enemy's elusiveness -- means we're going to fight in close combat. We're going to have to close with and destroy the enemy."

In order to provide this overmatch, the Army has to provide its "infantry and small units the mobility, protection and lethality they need," he said.

The three-star outlined an approach to capabilities development that focuses on functional concepts, noting that an increasing anti-access/area-denial threat means "the future force requires the capability to deploy rapidly into unexpected locations and transition quickly into operations." While the Ground Mobility Vehicle is intended to address the expeditionary maneuver capability gap for infantry brigade combat teams for "early and forcible entry operations," its lack of armor could render it "vulnerable" on approach.

This issue can be addressed by sending forward the Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, he said, which "allows us to employ appropriate combinations of mounted and dismounted reconnaissance, make contact under favorable conditions with the enemy, ease the forward movement of those infantry, and prevent direct and indirect fire, and so forth." Army leaders have previously said the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle will serve as the LRV "for the foreseeable future."

Through wargaming and experiments, the Army identified another potential threat that required a vehicle solution: "Our infantry in close contact were often fixed by heavy machine gun fire and then had to apply fires," McMaster said. "That sounds like World War I -- we don't want that." Consequently, leaders envision using Mobile Protected Firepower as "a light tank, essentially, that can ensure freedom of movement and action for infantry and close contact."

Finally, he said, "in the context of these operations, all of these vehicles have to have reduced logistics demand" to facilitate sustainment in theater.

According to McMaster, "the functional concepts are undergoing final review" due to recognition that these "weren't as integrated as we wanted them to be." The movement and maneuver concept is currently being rewritten under the supervision of Maj. Gen. Eric Wesley. Once complete, it will serve as "the keystone of the functional concepts" to guide revision "between now and January."

A forthcoming conference involving the Army's centers of excellence will serve "to line up those required capabilities and map them to warfighting challenges." The effort is intended to eliminate redundancies and help leaders develop and refine "a tight set of those required capabilities," McMaster said.

The general also addressed the Army's Abrams and Bradley fleets. "This is one of the first times -- the only time, maybe -- since World War I when the Army has not had a combat vehicle under development," he said. "And we're getting behind in this area. You can only hang so much stuff on our existing tanks and Bradleys before they're overburdened -- and they're already overburdened. And if we don't do something soon in combat vehicles, the vehicles we have are going to be overmatched by potential enemies. And there are a whole bunch of new technologies that can be integrated into combat vehicles now. So we really want to emphasize combat vehicle development."

In addition to upgrading the materiel employed by IBCTs, "We really need to work on our armored brigade combat team capabilities," he said. "Future Fighting Vehicle, we want to get into prototyping faster, so we can integrate these new technologies under innovative engineering concepts and then begin work on a replacement for the Abrams tank."
 
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/armys-multi-domain-battle-jamming-hacking-long-range-missiles/
 
LTG McMaster is of course the author of "Dereliction of Duty", a must-read for anyone interested in how and why we got into the Vietnam conflict.
 
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/09/mini-drones-bayonets-new-marine-warfare-concept/


https://news.usni.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Marine-Corps-Operating-Concept-MOC-long-version-media.pdf#viewer.action=download
 
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/5-shocking-statements-top-us-military-leaders-show-our-armed-17872
 
bobbymike said:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/5-shocking-statements-top-us-military-leaders-show-our-armed-17872

Par for the course. Completely ignore any issues with the military but demand they be there to answer the call no matter what. Like a person who drives their car like a teenager and never maintains it. What could possibly go wrong?
 
Speaking of their blunders: http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/04/mistake-pentagon-innovation/127504/
 
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/depsecdef-work-offers-dough-for-army-multi-domain-battle/
 
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/us-army-says-ground-warfare-is-on-cusp.html

http://www.arcic.army.mil/app_Documents/UQ/UQ16_Future_Force_Design_II-Report.pdf
 
On a side note, the term 'A2/AD' is now apparently out of fashion, at least as far as the USN brass is concerned: http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.ie/2016/10/the-beginning-of-de-buzzwordification.html
 
http://warontherocks.com/2016/10/the-united-states-needs-to-get-serious-about-artillery-again/

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html
 
http://science.dodlive.mil/2016/10/04/military-labs-developing-world-class-tech-for-conflicts-of-tomorrow/
 
Secretary Of Defense Carter Keeps Touting The Secret Weapons He Has Up His Sleeve

SecDef Ash Carter is all about the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, which is aimed at counteracting America’s shrinking force size and increased military and technological competition from abroad. This includes reimagining and redeveloping our military's existing platforms and capabilities, as well as implementing highly focused new strategic investments that can offer synergistic and disruptive effects on the battlefields of the future. As you can imagine, some of these initiatives are cloaked in secrecy—but that doesn’t mean Carter stays totally mum as to their existence.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5394/secretary-of-defense-carter-keeps-touting-the-secret-weapons-he-has-up-his-sleeve

RQ-180, the B-21 unmanned ISR wingman so to speak?
 
Flyaway said:
Secretary Of Defense Carter Keeps Touting The Secret Weapons He Has Up His Sleeve

SecDef Ash Carter is all about the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, which is aimed at counteracting America’s shrinking force size and increased military and technological competition from abroad. This includes reimagining and redeveloping our military's existing platforms and capabilities, as well as implementing highly focused new strategic investments that can offer synergistic and disruptive effects on the battlefields of the future. As you can imagine, some of these initiatives are cloaked in secrecy—but that doesn’t mean Carter stays totally mum as to their existence.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5394/secretary-of-defense-carter-keeps-touting-the-secret-weapons-he-has-up-his-sleeve

RQ-180, the B-21 unmanned ISR wingman so to speak?

Are we still required to pretend that the "RQ-180" exists?
 
marauder2048 said:
Flyaway said:
Secretary Of Defense Carter Keeps Touting The Secret Weapons He Has Up His Sleeve

SecDef Ash Carter is all about the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, which is aimed at counteracting America’s shrinking force size and increased military and technological competition from abroad. This includes reimagining and redeveloping our military's existing platforms and capabilities, as well as implementing highly focused new strategic investments that can offer synergistic and disruptive effects on the battlefields of the future. As you can imagine, some of these initiatives are cloaked in secrecy—but that doesn’t mean Carter stays totally mum as to their existence.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5394/secretary-of-defense-carter-keeps-touting-the-secret-weapons-he-has-up-his-sleeve

RQ-180, the B-21 unmanned ISR wingman so to speak?

Are we still required to pretend that the "RQ-180" exists?

I don't know ask the Secretary of Defense. :eek:
 
Flyaway said:
marauder2048 said:
Flyaway said:
Secretary Of Defense Carter Keeps Touting The Secret Weapons He Has Up His Sleeve

SecDef Ash Carter is all about the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, which is aimed at counteracting America’s shrinking force size and increased military and technological competition from abroad. This includes reimagining and redeveloping our military's existing platforms and capabilities, as well as implementing highly focused new strategic investments that can offer synergistic and disruptive effects on the battlefields of the future. As you can imagine, some of these initiatives are cloaked in secrecy—but that doesn’t mean Carter stays totally mum as to their existence.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5394/secretary-of-defense-carter-keeps-touting-the-secret-weapons-he-has-up-his-sleeve

RQ-180, the B-21 unmanned ISR wingman so to speak?

Are we still required to pretend that the "RQ-180" exists?

I don't know ask the Secretary of Defense. :eek:

Well he's not the one who "invented" it. That guy was let go.
 
Bite your tongue. It's parked in Hangar 18 right next to Blackstar and Aurora.
 
marauder2048 said:
Flyaway said:
Secretary Of Defense Carter Keeps Touting The Secret Weapons He Has Up His Sleeve

SecDef Ash Carter is all about the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy, which is aimed at counteracting America’s shrinking force size and increased military and technological competition from abroad. This includes reimagining and redeveloping our military's existing platforms and capabilities, as well as implementing highly focused new strategic investments that can offer synergistic and disruptive effects on the battlefields of the future. As you can imagine, some of these initiatives are cloaked in secrecy—but that doesn’t mean Carter stays totally mum as to their existence.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5394/secretary-of-defense-carter-keeps-touting-the-secret-weapons-he-has-up-his-sleeve

RQ-180, the B-21 unmanned ISR wingman so to speak?

Are we still required to pretend that the "RQ-180" exists?
IMHO we are hiding advanced electronic/cyber weapons and I believe a space based targeting system that can actually detect everything including aircraft.

I think that's why China and Russia have gone all in on anti-sat weapons because there is nothing the US cannot see - and hit - on the battlefield.

Personally I want a hypersonic aircraft loaded with pure fusion weapons but that's just me. ;D
 
bobbymike said:
IMHO we are hiding advanced electronic/cyber weapons and I believe a space based targeting system that can actually detect everything including aircraft.

I completely agree with this supposition. My guess would be multi-static Space Based Radar or Space Based LIDAR/LADAR.
 
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=2328
 
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/new-army-long-range-missile-might-kill-ships-too-lrpf/
 
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