US UAV and UCAV Technology

Yes, external carriage would be a nay-sayer unless they have the math for it. But are we sure the late Fury doesn´t have any wb?
 
TomcatViP said:
Yes, external carriage would be a nay-sayer unless they have the math for it. But are we sure the late Fury doesn´t have any wb?
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It could be primarily intended as an off board sensing station and decoy, and if they use peregrines for the external weapons it might make more sense. (Replace AMRAAM in picture with peregrine)
 

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Grey Havoc said:
www.airandspaceforces.com

Experts: CCA Drones Could Cost Less Than $1,200 per Pound

Contractors want Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) to cost less than $1,000 per pound, panelists said at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
www.airandspaceforces.com www.airandspaceforces.com
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Interesting info at the bottom of that report:

Even if CCAs were not “affordable mass,” they would be worth pursuing because they open up new tactical possibilities and allow the Air Force to “take risks we wouldn’t take with something that has a person in it.”

Kunkel noted that an experimental unit has been created at Nellis Air Force Base to put CCA technology in the hands of operators and let them experiment with it to find new possibilities for battlefield use.

“This is not a test unit, this is an operational unit. And the thought is, bring in our warfighters that have some experience with this from all different backgrounds. And not only the flyers that would actually fly and develop tactics, but also folks on the ground, so we can learn exactly what we need from an autonomy perspective.”
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Also
View: https://youtu.be/opGGj1ViJos
 
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Fury never was an OBSS platform. Changing AMRAAMS for [non-existent] Peregrines will add a little + in terms of Cx and RCS if any.
 
flateric said:
Fury never was an OBSS platform. Changing AMRAAMS for [non-existent] Peregrines will add a little + in terms of Cx and RCS if any.
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And XQ-67 was never A2A, but here we are. This all honestly makes me feel a bit nervous about the effectiveness of increment 1, but I guess the goal here is to drive down costs as much as possible and get started on doctrine and strategy for the whole kill-web thing, not create the best possible version of it by 2040.
 
XQ-67 was for OBSS, but demonstrated the 'genus' system's common drone core. The Fury was a target drone/simulated enemy but integrated Anduril's Lattice AI hardware. They're both being shown off as CCA's but they were originally designed for similar but different roles. The thing that was supposed to tie them all together was the NGAD manned component, but that seems to have fallen through or been delayed. Nothing says that an airframe has to do the job it was designed for, but if it was designed for the job it's doing it'll probably do it better. I'm somewhat optimistic about the gambit system allowing GA to upgrade the airframe separately from a full procurement round.
 
www.airandspaceforces.com

CCA Contract Expected in Fall; First Versions Under Construction

The Air Force is expected to award one or two Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) contracts this fall, toward fielding hardware in two years.
www.airandspaceforces.com www.airandspaceforces.com
An industry source said AFRL also planned an Off Board Weapon Station (OBWS) program that would partner with the OBSS as a hunter-killer two-aircraft system—but that has been subsumed into the CCA effort.
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Explorer121 said:
And XQ-67 was never A2A, but here we are. This all honestly makes me feel a bit nervous about the effectiveness of increment 1, but I guess the goal here is to drive down costs as much as possible and get started on doctrine and strategy for the whole kill-web thing, not create the best possible version of it by 2040.
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They must stop thinking that CCA is the holy Grail , Lockheed say thay will not survive in a contested conflict if they have not a high degre of stealth, they must put the budget on the NGAD fighter what ever it is.
 
CCA's could be tied to any platform provided the host platform has the avionics and software to support the CCA mission package(s), not just the NGAD, whenever NGAD occurs. Hopefully, the CCA mission or missions are defined well enough. CCAs will probably be available well before an NGAD contract is let.

CCA is turning out to be much smaller UCAV-type air vehicles and "potentially" attritable. Definitely for air to ground, a standoff platform type of remote interceptor or ISR potentially. I know Long Shot or the Flying Missile Rail are also other mission aspects as well.

Then you have CCA Increment II which Boeing, NG and LM will be pursuing and probably will be larger airframes with more range and payload. It will be interesting to see how these programs progress. I still believe the disruption in the NGAD decision or it's configuration still may be smoke and mirror disinformation for our enemies, there have been some very large company infrastructure projects at LM and Boeing so NGAD may more along than anyone knows.
 
Hydroman said:
CCA's could be tied to any platform provided the host platform has the avionics and software to support the CCA mission package(s), not just the NGAD, whenever NGAD occurs. Hopefully, the CCA mission or missions are defined well enough. CCAs will probably be available well before an NGAD contract is let.

CCA is turning out to be much smaller UCAV-type air vehicles and "potentially" attritable. Definitely for air to ground, a standoff platform type of remote interceptor or ISR potentially. I know Long Shot or the Flying Missile Rail are also other mission aspects as well.

Then you have CCA Increment II which Boeing, NG and LM will be pursuing and probably will be larger airframes with more range and payload. It will be interesting to see how these programs progress. I still believe the disruption in the NGAD decision or it's configuration still may be smoke and mirror disinformation for our enemies, there have been some very large company infrastructure projects at LM and Boeing so NGAD may more along than anyone knows.
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How cool would it be if they build NGAD in secret? Frisbees of Dreamland vibes. It's probably impossible to build a multi-hundred-billion-dollar project without anybody knowing, though. Too many people involved, facilities too large, too many contracts, too much money appropriated. Even China probably couldn't do this without anybody figuring out (or making an educated guess) what's going on.
 
joshjosh said:
How cool would it be if they build NGAD in secret? Frisbees of Dreamland vibes. It's probably impossible to build a multi-hundred-billion-dollar project without anybody knowing, though. Too many people involved, facilities too large, too many contracts, too much money appropriated. Even China probably couldn't do this without anybody figuring out (or making an educated guess) what's going on.
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We've done it before. You can complete the design, integration, flight test vehicle assembly/ground test then classified flight testing but after that you may have to acknowledge the program, maybe. The so-called RQ-180 is a good example, all developed, flight tested and probably operational in secret except for some lucky sightings with photos in which the USAF won't comment. The NGAD demonstrator(s) 12-month project was/were done in this manner.
 
I was just reading the Mitchell Institute's CCA wargame study from February of this year. The takeaway is that the BLUFOR players wanted cheap, expendable CCAs at the start of a Taiwan scenario to attrit PLA airpower and sap their combat strength in the first 2 days. These cheap CCAs would be ground-launched from distributed bases in the Phillipines and Ryukyu islands and air-launched from B-52s and F-15s. Most would carry 2 AMRAAMS, while a few would carry EW equipment. They would weaken the PLA A2AD bubble prior to air superiority and SEAD/DEAD missions from F-22s and F-35s in day 3 and beyond. Notably, even in the following weeks of the conflict, the BLUFOR wargamers did not elect to use a single exquisite CCA. The most expensive they would go were non-afterburning, non-dogfighting, sub-$40M CCAs to accompany F-22s and F-35s.

Lockheed said that their Increment 1 CCA offering was "too exquisite" and that they might offer something cheaper and more attritable for follow-on increments. The DOD seems to be pretty clear that an exquisite CCA is not going to happen.

Screenshot 2024-10-13 014801.png Screenshot 2024-10-13 014831.png Screenshot 2024-10-13 014840.png

 
breakingdefense.com

General Atomics could produce CCAs at a rate of one-per-day, exec says - Breaking Defense

General Atomics could scale to build a drone wingman every two days “without lifting a finger” at its existing 5 million square foot production plant in Poway, Calif., the company’s head of aeronautics told Breaking Defense. To go faster, the company would need to expand.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com

AUSA 2024 — General Atomics could ramp up production of autonomous combat drones to a rate of one aircraft per day in two to three years if given the signal by the Defense Department, the company’s head of aeronautics told Breaking Defense.
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At peak production, the dronemaker manufactured one aircraft from its unmanned fleet every three days, for a rate of about 100 per year, Alexander said. “It’s not a far stretch for us to turn that into one per day on a single aircraft with productionization and automation, which we’re investing in today.”

General Atomics could scale to build a CCA every two days “without lifting a finger” at its existing 5 million square foot production plant in Poway, Calif., Alexander said. To go faster, the company would need to expand its footprint with additional facilities, but the level of capital investments required would be “not huge,” he added.
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