Sponsored by Spectra Group
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08 Jul 21. Raytheon Intelligence & Space to begin Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band production. Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a Raytheon Technologies business (NYSE: RTX), has been awarded a $171.6m contract for Low-Rate Initial Production Lot I, or LRIP I, of the U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band. The award advances the program from the development stage into production and deployment.
NGJ-MB is the Navy’s advanced electronic attack system that offensively denies, disrupts and degrades enemy technology, including air-defense systems and communications. NGJ-MB uses the latest digital, software-based and Active Electronically Scanned Array technologies. This allows operators to non-kinetically attack significantly more targets and at greater distances.
“With its power and ability to jam multiple radars simultaneously, NGJ-MB will fundamentally change the way the Navy conducts airborne electronic attack,” said Annabel Flores, vice president of Electronic Warfare Systems for RI&S. “NGJ-MB will increase the survivability and lethality of fourth-and fifth-generation fighters, making naval aviation that much more effective.”
The award follows last week’s Milestone C decision, advancing the program into the production and deployment phase. NGJ-MB has completed more than 145 hours of developmental flight-testing using mission systems and aeromechanical systems. The program has also completed over 3,100 hours of anechoic chamber and lab testing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, and Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California. Chamber tests evaluated the system’s performance both on and off the EA-18G Growler aircraft, in addition to jamming techniques and reliability testing.
08 Jul 21. US Army postponing network’s Common Modular Open Suite of Standards until 2025. The US Army is delaying plans to roll out a Common Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) as part of its network modernisation initiative, the Integrated Tactical Network (ITN), in 2023, and will wait to field the capability two years later.
The service is rolling out ITN iterations in two-year intervals with Capability Set 21 (CS21) in 2021, CS23 in 2023, and CS25 in 2025. Army leaders have billed CS21 as the benchmark for where its tactical network needs to be, in order to fight on the modern battlefield, and is fielding it to infantry formations. It will then spiral in additional capabilities as they mature and expand the fielding plan.
For example, CS21 integrates cellular 4G and other communication networks, coupled with legacy system upgrades operating on a secure but unclassified (SBU) architecture, to facilitate dismounted combat manoeuvres. With CS23, the service plans to roll out the capability to Stryker formations to enable soldiers to transition between mounted and dismounted operations.
As part of CS23, the army had initially planned to integrate CMOSS for electronic warfare (EW) and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) operations into this stage. However, after a preliminary design review (PDR) in the April timeframe, the service decided it would need to wait until the 2025 iteration.
“The CS23 preliminary design review balanced technical maturity, operational relevance, integration readiness, and affordability,” the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications – Tactical Director of Public Communications Paul Mehney told Janes on 1 July.
(Source: Jane’s)
07 Jul 21. DIU green lights 3 secure cloud solutions. The Defense Innovation Unit has selected three Secure Cloud Management (SCM) prototypes that will help DIU give users fast, secure and controlled access to software-as-a-service apps directly over the internet.
The three solutions – from Google Cloud with partner Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler and McAfee Public Sector — received success memos that will allow Defense Department organizations to contract with them for these SCM solutions without needing to recompete.
The prototype solutions were installed at DIU in May 2020 and then assessed by third-party organizations based on criteria developed by DIU, according to a June 1 press release.
The selected solutions leverage zero-trust principles, which will help other DOD units with their own zero-trust plans, DIU officials said. The solutions all include Secure Access Service Edge services, which are a convergence of several related network security functions with wide-area network capabilities. Zero trust principles are core to the SASE security framework.
“The solutions provide equivalent security and control to the DoD’s Cloud Access Point (CAP) while delivering real-time performance, which is critical for such things as videoconferencing and file sharing,” said John Chen, interim CIO for DIU.
Google’s multi-cloud solution features the company’s Anthos managed application platform, Istio’s service mesh for secure service communication and Netskope for cloud security. It will allow DIU to run web services and applications across Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure while being centrally managed from the Google Cloud Console, the company said last May when it had been selected to build a prototype.
The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange platform includes Zscaler Private Access, a network access service that connects trusted users directly to trusted cloud applications, and Zscaler Internet Access, a secure internet gateway solution.
McAfee’s prototype features its MVISION Unified Cloud Edge solution, which integrates its next-generation secure web gateway, cloud access security broker and data loss prevention capabilities into one cloud-native platform.
“We have seen widespread interest in our SCM effort from Services and DoD agencies that are looking for solutions to similar challenges,” said Rick Simon, contractor and DIU project lead. “These successful prototypes will give Services and agencies several independently-assessed choices, especially as they implement zero trust architectures.”
DIU said it plans to select one provider for its unique needs and will procure a long-term SCM solution through a Production Other Transaction contract. (Source: Defense Systems)
07 Jul 21. US Army to test electronic warfare coders at the edge during upcoming exercise. The Army will pilot a new idea to place coders and software developers at the tactical edge to reprogram electronic warfare and radio frequency systems.
The pilot, dubbed Starblazor, will try to identify gaps in Army capabilities and provide information for its doctrine and policies.
Mainly, Starblazor will help the Army learn what is needed to train the cyber and electronic warfare operators with existing equipment and what these personnel will need for a future fight, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Eric Colon, CEMA technician at Army Cyber Command, told C4ISRNET.
The Starblazor effort will take place this summer during the larger Defender Pacific, a division-sized war game for joint multidomain operations in support of Indo-Pacific Command, which will also test new technologies and concepts.
Recently, the Army created a new military occupational specialty within its cyber branch dedicated to software development. Those specialists sit alongside operators and build tools on the spot to keep up with the dynamic environment of cyberspace.
Now, as the Army is gearing up to field a raft of electronic warfare equipment — including combined cyber and signals intelligence — it needs to be able to rapidly reprogram the systems to exploit new signals it may find over the course of a conflict.
If the Army finds itself in a conflict with a top nation-state, it will likely come across signals it hasn’t seen before. This presents problems for the force because it won’t know how to exploit or defeat those signals until it captures and classifies them. In the Cold War, this could take years, but now with software-defined systems, new signals can be deployed, detected and tweaked in weeks.
Starblazor is aimed toward the Army’s new 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion, which consists of 12 expeditionary cyber teams to augment brigades with additional cyber and electronic warfare capabilities, which the Army is still experimenting with equipment and staffing.
One intent of the group is to be able to go anywhere, utilize brigade-organic equipment and exploit hard targets by capturing a signal of interest, reverse engineering it and delivering an effect in months rather than years.
Starblazor efforts during Defender Pacific will only look at the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large platform, first organic brigade electronic attack asset mounted on an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone. The Army, however, in its most recent budget request zeroed out procurement funding for the system leaving its deployment to units in jeopardy, despite continued research and development funding dedicated to it.
Starblazor will help determine what new code developers need and provide information for capability development for large acquisition programs while they’re still in the research and development phase.
Army coders can help inform the development cycle of these platforms much earlier in the process, officials said. However, they said that significant software changes in a week or two would likely be unrealistic, but some tweaks could be made in that timeframe, which is significantly faster than the traditional acquisition cycle. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
07 Jul 21. DOD Aims for New Enterprise-Wide Cloud by 2022. The Defense Department announced it’s going in a new direction for enterprise cloud services to provide capabilities to warfighters across the joint force. This new effort is called the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability. The new contracts are expected to be awarded by April 2022, said the department’s acting chief information officer.
“We are launching what we call the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, or JWCC, which will be based initially on direct awards to fill our urgent, unmet requirement for a multi-vendor enterprise cloud spanning the entire department in all three security levels with availability from CONUS to the tactical edge, at scale,” said John Sherman during a media discussion at the Pentagon.
The JWCC will support such warfighter capabilities as joint all domain command and control, or JADC2, and the DOD artificial intelligence and data acceleration initiative, or ADA.
At the same time the department announced the launch of JWCC, it also announced the cancellation of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, request for proposals and initiated the process to terminate the JEDI contract.
“JEDI, conceived with noble intent and a baseline now several years old, was developed at a time when the department’s needs were different and our cloud conversancy less mature,” Sherman said. “The JWCC’s multi-cloud environment will serve our future in a way that JEDI’s single award, single cloud structure simply cannot do.”
As part of the JWCC, the Defense Department is looking at two primary U.S.-based hyperscale cloud service providers for direct solicitations. Those two companies are the Microsoft Corporation and Amazon Web Services.
While neither of the two companies will automatically win awards, it’s expected that by October both companies will receive direct solicitations from the department requesting proposals on how they might participate in JWCC.
The department hopes by April 2022 to have contracted for a multi-award, multi-vendor cloud solution with a performance period of no more than five years, consisting of a three-year performance base period and two one-year option periods, Sherman said.
Microsoft and Amazon will not be the only companies approached by the department, however. While Sherman said current market research indicates Microsoft and Amazon are capable of meeting the department’s immediate needs, he will also be reaching out to IBM, Oracle and Google.
“If we determine that additional vendors can also meet our requirements, then we will extend solicitations to them as well,” Sherman said.
But Sherman said he hopes that by early 2025 the department will have moved on to the next step: a full and open, competitively awarded multi-vendor contract providing cloud capability to the Department.
For now, though, Sherman said the JWCC will fill the urgent need the department has to bring cloud capacity to the joint force.
“The JWCC will serve that purpose and be a bridge to our longer term approach, allowing us to leverage cloud technology from headquarters to the tactical edge, which will bolster our knowledge even further as we move to a full and open competition,” he said. “We’re excited about the opportunities that JWCC will provide and are … ready to enable JADC2, ADA and all the other functions that rely on this critical capability.” (Source: US DoD)
07 Jul 21. US Army to outfit 64 Stryker vehicles with new network capability. Over the coming weeks the US Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment will begin outfitting 64 Stryker double v-hull vehicles inside Germany with a package of network technologies included under the service’s Capability Set (CS) 21 Integrated Tactical Network (ITN) umbrella, according to service officials.
The army plans to roll out ITN capabilities in two-year increments – CS21, CS23, and CS25 – and plans to wait until the 2023 iteration (CS23) to provide soldiers inside Stryker formations with the ability to operate over the Secure But Unclassified (SBU) enclave while transitioning between mounted and dismounted operations. In preparation, though, it is testing out different networking technology configurations available on these vehicles and hosted a demonstration at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland on 30 June.
“We’re taking what we’ve learned in the infantry brigades, as far as the value of multiple ways to connect and the way to move data, both from an unclassified enclave over to a classified enclave for a unified common operating picture, and moving that over onto a combat platform,” Program Executive Officer for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) Brigadier General Robert Collins said during the event. This common operating picture would include vehicle and dismounted soldiers locations, and enable dismounted soldiers to pinpoint locations of interest. (Source: Jane’s)
06 Jul 21. Cybint partners with CertNexus to add industry leading certifications to its skills-based cyber security programs. Deal to unlock new funding opportunities for Cybint bootcamp partners, easing military transition into cybersecurity careers. Cybint, a global cyber education training company, partners with CertNexus, a vendor-neutral certification body providing emerging technology certifications for IT and security professionals, authorizing the Cybint Cybersecurity Bootcamp for the CyberSec First Responder® (CFR) exam. The CFR certification is approved by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to fulfill Directive 8570/8140 requirements and the COOL (Credentialing Opportunities On-Line) program, which helps U.S. Service members translate their military training and experience with a professional certificate. Following this partnership with CertNexus, bootcamp students will be able to use COOL funding to pay for tuition.
Military transitions mark the beginning of new experiences for veterans. They are armed with transferable skill sets that serve as the foundation for significant growth opportunities and earning potential in cybersecurity. “The US needs proficient, trained cybersecurity specialists to address the current cyber workforce shortage. The Cybint-CertNexus program is an ideal opportunity to reskill deserving and mission-focused service members. The combination of excellent Cybint training paired with the valued CertNexus CyberSec First Responder (CFR) credential provides an accelerated employment pathway for transitioning US Army veterans,” said William (Joe) Welch, Professor of Computer Information Technology Systems at Central Texas College.
“Cybersecurity is an excellent career path for veterans as there currently nearly 500,000 open positions in the US today,” says Jeff Felice, President of CertNexus. “Together with Cybint, we’re excited to do our part to help fill the employment gap while serving those who have served us by providing the skills to succeed as cybersecurity professionals.”
The Cybint Bootcamp is designed in accordance with the NICE framework (NIST SP 800-181) which specifies the knowledge, skills, abilities, and tasks required in each of 52 different cyber-related work roles. The CertNexus CFR exam certifies that the successful candidate has the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to deal with a changing threat landscape and will be able to assess risk and vulnerabilities, acquire data, perform analysis, continuously communicate, determine scope, recommend remediation actions, and accurately report results, according to the NICE framework.
“The need to fill the cyber gap is crucial in the post-pandemic world,” says Roy Zur, Founder and CEO of Cybint. “Cybersecurity is a lucrative industry, and military service members and veterans have that extra edge needed to succeed. It’s an honor to partner with CertNexus to help make it happen, and we look forward to expanding this partnership in the near future.”
To launch their new partnership, companies are teaming up for a remote bootcamp in New York that includes a CFR exam. Successful graduates will be issued a bootcamp graduation certificate and a CFR certification. For more information about upcoming Cybint Bootcamp start dates, please visit: https://bootcamp.cybintsolutions.com/bootcamp-landing-page/
About Cybint
Cybint is a global cyber education company with a commitment to reskilling the workforce and upskilling the industry in cybersecurity. With innovative and leading-edge education and training solutions, Cybint tackles cybersecurity’s two greatest threats: the talent shortage and the skills gap. The Cybint team is comprised of military cyber experts, industry professionals, and educators united under the vision of creating a safer digital world through education, training, and collaboration. Cybint is an authorized CertNexus training partner and a CompTIA education partner. For more information, visit www.cybintsolutions.com
About CertNexus
CertNexus is a vendor-neutral certification body, providing emerging technology certifications and micro-credentials for business, data, developer, IT, and security professionals. CertNexus’ mission is to assist closing the emerging tech global skills gap while providing individuals with a path towards rewarding careers in Cybersecurity, Data Science, Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning. Successful CertNexus certification candidates come from representative organizations such as Ahold Delhaize, Barclays, Canon, Cisco, Deloitte, Ingram, Kaspersky, Optum, PwC, Starbucks, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, Verizon, Xerox, Zappos, and universities spanning over fifty countries. (Source: PR Newswire)
06 Jul 21. DoD Kills JEDI, Pivots To Multi-Cloud. Acting DoD CIO John Sherman said Microsoft and AWS will likely be invited to bid on JWCC, and DoD will also look at the capabilities of other US-based cloud service providers, such as Google, IBM, and Oracle. A top critic of the Pentagon’s long-embattled 2019 single-source enterprise cloud computing contract believes the Defense Department is “moving in the right direction” with today’s announcement that it’s issuing a new multi-cloud, multi-vendor request for proposal (RFP) in October.
The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) RFP is being canceled, Acting DoD CIO John Sherman said, and the contract is being terminated. A new solicitation, dubbed the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC), will replace JEDI.
Sherman said the decision reflects the fact that “[The DoD] landscape has evolved,” and JEDI no longer meets the department’s requirements.
“They seem be moving in the right direction,” longtime SASC acquisition expert Bill Greenwalt said of the move to a multi-vendor indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract. “It sounds like they’ve learned [from JEDI]. The idea has been there for years.” In previous interviews with and articles for Breaking Defense, Greenwalt sharply criticized the Pentagon’s approach to IT acquisition, generally, and JEDI, specifically.
While the Pentagon currently has 13 fit-for-purpose clouds, including milCloud 2.0, none meet the technical requirements for a DoD enterprise cloud, Sherman said in today’s briefing with reporters. Enterprise cloud includes capabilities across classification levels (unclassified, secret, top secret), integrated cross-domain solutions, global availability to the tactical edge, and enhanced cybersecurity.
The JEDI contract was estimated to be worth approximately $10bn over 10 years. Sherman said JWCC will also be worth billions, but declined to provide a specific number today.
As Breaking D readers know, JEDI was awarded to Microsoft in October 2019, but the acquisition process has been mired in legal disputes, first from Oracle prior to contract award and then from Amazon Web Services (AWS) following the contract award.
These disputes have caused widespread delays in developing and delivering the types of enterprise cloud capabilities needed to support important DoD initiatives, such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Artificial Intelligence and Data Acceleration (ADA).
Sherman said Microsoft and AWS will likely be invited to bid on JWCC, and DoD will also look at the capabilities of other US-based cloud service providers, such as Google, IBM, and Oracle. Sherman said if these vendors — as well as any other US-based “hyperscale” providers — can meet DoD’s enterprise cloud computing requirements, they too could be invited to bid on JWCC.
Greenwalt said the apparent lessens learned from JEDI entail inviting in multiple vendors, which gives DoD choices over time, access to the newest technological capabilities, and reduces the likelihood of timely and costly contract protests, as happened with JEDI. “To me, this has always been the way to do IT,” Greenwalt said. “Get the entire qualified US industrial base involved and have smaller awards until you figure out what you want to do.”
This is precisely the direction DoD seems to be moving with JWCC. “A single vendor cloud does not meet our requirements,” Sherman said.
As for the path forward, Sherman said direct awards for the October RFP will be announced in April 2022. JWCC contracts will not exceed five years, with a three-year base and two one-year optional extensions. Under the IDIQ, all qualified vendors will then compete for work on a task-order basis.
“What we’ve laid out here is a clear path to meet the mission needs of our warfighters,” Sherman said. “We’re determined to get there. Every day this waits is a day too long.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
06 Jul 21. Future of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud Contract. Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) canceled the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud solicitation and initiated contract termination procedures. The Department has determined that, due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs. The Department continues to have unmet cloud capability gaps for enterprise-wide, commercial cloud services at all three classification levels that work at the tactical edge, at scale — these needs have only advanced in recent years with efforts such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Acceleration (ADA) initiative.
“JEDI was developed at a time when the Department’s needs were different and both the CSPs technology and our cloud conversancy was less mature. In light of new initiatives like JADC2 and AI and Data Acceleration (ADA), the evolution of the cloud ecosystem within DoD, and changes in user requirements to leverage multiple cloud environments to execute mission, our landscape has advanced and a new way-ahead is warranted to achieve dominance in both traditional and non-traditional warfighting domains,” said John Sherman, acting DoD Chief Information Officer.
Concurrent with the cancellation of the JEDI Request for Proposals (RFP), the DoD announced its intent for new cloud efforts. The Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) will be a multi-cloud/multi-vendor Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The Department intends to seek proposals from a limited number of sources, namely the Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements. However, as noted in its Pre-Solicitation Notice, the Department will immediately engage with industry and continue its market research to determine whether any other U.S.-based hyperscale CSPs can also meet the DoD’s requirements. If so, those Department will also negotiate with those companies. (Source: US DoD)
06 Jul 21. Pentagon cancels controversial JEDI cloud contract. The Department of Defense announced Tuesday it has canceled its enterprise cloud contract, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud.
The cancelation is the bookend for a dramatic yearslong saga marked by numerous delays. The cloud contract was marred by industry and political controversy since the beginning stages of the acquisition in 2017.
Citing the delays, a DoD spokesperson said the contract requirements no longer meet the department’s cloud needs. “With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD’s capability gaps.”
The JEDI cloud, potentially worth $10bn over a decade, was awarded to Microsoft over Amazon Web Services. In its announcement of the JEDI cancelation, the department also announced a replacement cloud called the “Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability,” an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract that will be a multi-cloud, multivendor contract. The government intends to seek proposals from limited sources, the department said, namely Microsoft and AWS.
“Available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements,” the DoD news release stated.
The JEDI cloud’s troubles extend back several years when pre-bid protests and a related court case delayed the contract award. After ultimately awarding the cloud contract to Microsoft over Amazon Web Services, largely viewed by experts as an upset, AWS sued the DoD in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in late 2019. AWS alleged the department erred in its technical evaluations and that then-President Donald Trump interfered with the source selection.
Last year, the court halted the department and Microsoft from building the enterprise cloud, delaying the cloud seemingly indefinitely. Earlier this year, the court ruled that it wouldn’t toss out AWS allegations of political interference, adding months of continued litigation and ultimately casting doubt over the future of the enterprise cloud.
Top IT staff in the Pentagon have consistently stressed the department’s need for an enterprise cloud to connect war fighters at the tactical edge with huge amounts of data. The department has stated that the JEDI cloud would be crucial to the Pentagon’s artificial intelligence, software development and data storage efforts. The JEDI cloud was supposed to house 80 percent of DoD systems.
In front of a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee last week, DoD Chief Information Officer John Sherman reiterated the Pentagon’s need for an enterprise cloud.
“We still have an urgent, unmet need for an enterprise cloud capability at all three security levels … that extends all the way from the headquarters all the way to the tactical edge and that has not gone away at this time,” Sherman said. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
05 Jul 21. Artificial Intelligence used on Army operation for the first time. The British Army has used Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the first time during Exercise Spring Storm, as part of Operation Cabrit in Estonia. Soldiers from the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade used an AI engine which provides information on the surrounding environment and terrain. Through the development of significant automation and smart analytics, the engine is able to rapidly cut through masses of complex data. Providing efficient information regarding the environment and terrain, it enables the Army to plan its appropriate activity and outputs.
The Army’s Director of Information, Major General John Cole said:
The deployment was a first of its kind for the Army. It built on close collaboration between the MOD and industry partners that developed AI specifically designed for the way the Army is trained to operate.
The lessons this has provided are considerable, not just in terms of our support to deployed forces, but more broadly in how we inform Defence’s digital transformation agenda and the best practices we must adopt to integrate and exploit leading-edge technologies.
This AI capability, which can be hosted in the cloud or operate in independent mode, saved significant time and effort, providing soldiers with instant planning support and enhancing command and control processes.
Announced by the Prime Minister last November, Defence has received an increase in funding of over £24bn across the next four years, focusing on the ability to adapt to meet future threats. Further outlined in the Defence Command Paper, the MOD intends to invest £6.6bn over the next four years in defence research and development, focusing on emerging technologies in artificial intelligence, AI-enabled autonomous systems, cyber, space and directed energy systems.
20th Armoured Infantry Brigade and user of the AI, Major James Mcevoy said, “This was a fantastic opportunity to use a new and innovative piece of technology in a deployed environment. The kit was shown to outperform our expectations and has clear applications for improving our level of analysis and speed at which we conduct our planning. I’m greatly looking forward to further opportunities to work with this. In future, the UK armed forces will increasingly use AI to predict adversaries’ behaviour, perform reconnaissance and relay real-time intelligence from the battlefield.”
During the annual large-scale NATO exercise, soldiers from France, Denmark, Belgium, Estonia and the UK used the technology whilst carrying out live-fire drills.
Operation Cabrit is the British Army’s deployment to Estonia where British troops are leading a multinational battlegroup as part of the enhanced Forward Presence.
Artificial Intelligence has already been incorporated in a number of key military initiatives, including the Future Combat Air System, and is the focus of several innovative funding programmes through the Defence and Security Accelerator.
02 Jul 21. Singapore Army’s 3G force transformation achieves key milestone, introduces new capabilities. The Singapore Army has reached the apex of its 17-year long ‘3rd Generation’ (3G) transformation programme, which aims to develop an advanced and highly integrated fighting force capable of responding to a wide spectrum of threats, following the operationalisation of its 3G Combined Arms Division (CAD).
“The [CAD] is a key component of the Singapore Army’s transformation into the 3rd Generation Army,” the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) announced on 30 June.
“Through a capstone exercise conducted in March this year, the Singapore Army attained full operational capability (FOC) for the [3G] CAD,” added MINDEF. “This was a significant milestone building upon the wide array of capabilities operationalised since 2004.”
According to MINDEF, the capstone exercise validated the 3G CAD’s ability to field integrated manoeuvre forces comprising mechanised and motorised Combined Arms Brigades (CABs) as well as a Division Strike Brigade that can control strike assets such as the army’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and Republic of Singapore Air Force’s (RSAF’s) F-15SG and F-16 combat aircraft and AH-64D Apache attack helicopters.
These brigades are underpinned by the 3G Command and Control Information System (CCIS) and Battlefield Management System (BMS), which connect and synchronise tactical forces with brigade and divisional headquarters of the 3G CAD.
MINDEF noted that the culmination of the army’s 3G transformation journey marked the start of a new phase of the service’s modernisation efforts, which it calls the ‘Next-Generation Army’. (Source: Jane’s)
04 Jul21. Klas Telecom unveils expeditionary C5ISR network chassis. Klas Telecom’s newest expeditionary variant of its Voyager command, control, communications, computer, cyber, intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (C5ISR) networking chassis will allow – for the first time – plug and play capability for tactical ground vehicles without modification to the vehicle itself.
The Voyager 6 chassis, as designed, meets current Standardized A-Kit/Vehicle Envelope (SAVE) criteria for size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements and can be bolted into the SINCGARS MT-6352 mounting tray already in use by a large proportion of US armed forces combat vehicles.
“With Voyager 6, troops now have access to a tactical comms package that meets SAVE specifications SWaP [while] unlocking unlimited compute in a limited vehicle footprint,” Chris Ericksen, chief revenue officer for Klas Telecom’s government-focused directorate, said in a statement. End users can also “repurpose existing Voyager modules and chassis with the ability to easily incorporate new capabilities as the mission dictates” via the new Voyager 6 chassis, the statement added.
The Voyager 6’s plug and play capability into combat ground vehicles plays into the US Department of Defense (DoD) strategy to integrate Common Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) for new systems and platforms enabling electronic warfare (EW) and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) operations at the operational and tactical level. (Source: Jane’s)
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Spectra Group Plc
Spectra Group (UK) Ltd, internationally renowned award-winning information security and communications specialist with a proven record of accomplishment.
Spectra is a dynamic, agile and security-accredited organisation that offers secure Hosted and Managed Solutions and Cyber Advisory Services with a track record of delivering on time, to spec and on budget.
With over 15 years of experience in delivering solutions for governments around the globe, elite militaries and private enterprises of all sizes, Spectra’s platinum and gold-level partnerships with third-party vendors ensure the supply of best value leading-edge technology.
Spectra was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation) in 2019 for SlingShot.
In November 2017, Spectra Group (UK) Ltd announced its listing as a Top 100 Government SME Supplier by the UK Crown Commercial Services.
Spectra’s CEO, Simon Davies, was awarded 2017 Businessman of the Year by Battlespace magazine.
Founded in 2002, the Company is based in Hereford, UK and holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001:2013 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
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