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18 Apr 24. AUKUS allies developing undersea capabilities they can field this year. Though the submarine portion of the AUKUS trilateral alliance will take decades to fully come to fruition, development of the advanced technology under the agreement is in full swing, as Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. seek quick wins for their fleets, officials said.
Pillar 2 of the agreement focuses on advanced tech the nations can develop and field together. There are eight working groups focused on cyber, quantum, artificial intelligence, electronic warfare, hypersonics, undersea warfare, information sharing, and innovation, each with a list of ideas to quickly test and push to operators.
Leaders told Defense News how this process is playing out in the undersea warfare working group and how they aim to bring new capabilities to the three navies as soon as this year.
Dan Packer, the AUKUS director for the Commander of Naval Submarine Forces who also serves as the U.S. lead for the undersea warfare working group, said April 4 that the group has four lines of effort: a torpedo tube launch and recover capability for a small unmanned underwater vehicle; subsea and seabed warfare capabilities; artificial intelligence; and torpedoes and platform defense.
On the small UUV effort, the U.S. Navy on its own in 2023 conducted successful demonstrations: one called Yellow Moray on the West Coast using HII’s Remus UUV; and another called Rat Trap on the East Coast using an L3Harris-made UUV.
L3Harris’ Integrated Mission Systems president Jon Rambeau told Defense News in March that his team had started with experiments in an office using a hula hoop with flashlights attached, to understand how sensors perceive light and sound. They moved from the office to a lab and eventually into the ocean, with a rig tethered to a barge that allowed the company’s Iver autonomous underwater vehicle to, by trial and error, learn to find its way into a small box that was stationary and then, eventually, moving through the water.
Torpedo tube launch
Rambeau said the UUV hardware is inherently capable of going in and out of the torpedo tube, but there’s a software and machine learning challenge to help the UUV learn to navigate various water conditions and safely find its way back into the submarine’s torpedo tube.
Virginia-class attack submarines can silently shoot torpedoes from their launch tubes without giving away their location. If submarines can also fill their tubes with small UUVs, they’d gain the ability to stealthily expand their reach and surveil a larger area around the boat.
During a panel discussion at the Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference on April 8, U.K. Royal Navy Second Sea Lord Vice Adm. Martin Connell told Defense News that his country, too, would accelerate its work on developing this capability. He said the U.K. plans to test it on an Astute-class attack submarine this year, and then based on what worked for the U.K. and the U.S., they’d determine how to scale up the capability.
Packer said this effort will “make UUV operations ubiquitous on any submarine. Today, it takes a drydock shelter. It takes divers. It takes a whole host of Rube Goldberg kinds of things. Once I get torpedo tube launch and recovery, it’s just like launching a torpedo, but they welcome him back in.”
He added that the team agreed not to integrate this capability onto Australia’s Collins-class conventionally powered submarines now, but Australia will gain this capability when it buys the first American Virginia-class attack submarine in 2032.
On subsea and seabed warfare, Packer said all three countries have an obligation to defend their critical undersea infrastructure. He noted the U.K. and Australia had developed ships that could host unmanned systems that can scan the seabed and ensure undersea cables haven’t been tampered with, for example.
Connell said during the panel the British and Australian navies conducted an exercise together in Australia involving seabed warfare. This effort took just six months from concept to trial, he said, adding he hopes the team can continue to develop even greater expeditionary capability through this line of effort.
Packer said a next step would be collectively developing effectors for these seabed warfare unmanned underwater vehicles — “what are the hammers, the saws, the screwdrivers that I need to develop for these UUVs to get effects on the seabed floor, including sensors.”
The primary artificial intelligence effort today involves the three nation’s P-8 anti-submarine warfare airplanes, though it will eventually expand to the submarines themselves.
Packer said the nations created the first secure collaborative development environment, such that they can all contribute terabytes of data collected from P-8 sensors. The alliance, using vendors from all three countries’ industrial bases, is working now to create an artificial intelligence tool that can identify all the biological sources of sounds the P-8s pick up — everything from whales to shrimp — and eliminate those noises from the picture operators see. This will allow operators to focus on man-made sounds and better identify potential enemy submarines.
Packer said the Navy never had the processing power to do something like this before. Now that the secure cloud environment exists, the three countries are moving out as fast as they can to train their AI tools “to detect adversaries from that data … beyond the level of the human operator to do so.”
For now, the collaboration is focused on P-8s, since foreign military sales cases already exist with the U.K. and Australia to facilitate this collaboration.
Connell, without specifying the nature of the AI tool, said the U.K would put an application on its P-8s this year to enhance their onboard acoustic performance.
Packer noted the U.S. is independently using this capability on an attack submarine today using U.S.-only vendors and algorithms, but the AUKUS team plans to eventually share the full automatic target recognition tool with all three countries’ planes, submarines and surface combatants once the right authorities are in place.
And finally, Packer said the fourth line of effort is looking at the collective inventory of torpedoes and considering how to create more capability and capacity. Both the U.S. and U.K. stopped building torpedoes decades ago, and the U.S. around 2016 began trying to restart its industrial base manufacturing capability.
“The issue is that none of us have sufficient ordnance-, torpedo-building capability,” Packer said, but the group is looking at options to modernize British torpedoes and share in-development American long-range torpedoes with the allies — potentially through an arrangement that involves a multinational industrial base.
Vice Adm. Rob Gaucher, the commander of U.S. Naval Submarine Forces, said during the panel discussion that these AUKUS undersea warfare lines of effort closely match his modernization priorities for his own submarine fleet.
Pursuing these aims as part of a coalition, he said, strengthens all three navies.
“The more we do it, and the faster we do it, and the more we get it in the hands of the operators, the better. And then having three sets of operators to do it makes it even better,” Gaucher said. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
18 Apr 24. US Army aims to complete multidomain task force structure by FY28. The U.S. Army plans to complete its multidomain task force structure by fiscal 2028, according to an internal service document obtained by Defense News.
While marked “predecisional,” which means decisions and plans described may change, the document lays out the service’s recent Total Army Analysis and its proposed force structure plans across the board.
The service’s first MDTF was experimental, but since then the Army has operationalized its first MDTF unit and will ultimately build four more. The Army established that initial one at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state around 2018. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command theater exercises with MDTF participation helped inform the Army’s Multi-Domain Operations warfighting concept, which has now evolved into doctrine.
The Army then established another MDTF in Europe in 2021, and another in Hawaii in 2022. The units are designed to operate across all domains — land, air, sea, space and cyberspace — and are equipped with the Army’s growing capabilities, including long-range precision fires.
According to the Army’s document, the service will consolidate Mid-Range Capability and Long-Range Hypersonic batteries under a Long-Range Fires Battalion (LRFB) headquarters and complete programming of the remaining Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) battalions over the next five years. The Army also plans to convert all brigade support companies to battalion design and complete stationing decisions for all MDTF formations in that same timeframe.
The first MDTF at JBLM, according to the document, will be fully established this fiscal year with a Multidomain Effects Battalion (MDEB), an IFPC Battalion, a Brigade Support Battalion and Long-Range Fires Battalion.
The most important part of the MDTFs are the Multidomain Effects Battalions that serve as the targeting brain, bringing together all source intelligence across domains and spectrums to share information with the joint force to enable targeting, U.S. Army Pacific Command’s commander Gen. Charles Flynn told Defense News in an interview last fall.
The second MDTF will be headquartered in Germany with an MDEB and also partially stationed at Fort Drum, New York, with an IFPC Battalion, a BSB and an LRFB, the document lays out. The MDTF will be fully established in FY25 with the addition of the LRFB in FY26. That MDTF will focus on supporting the European theater.
The third MDTF, headquartered in Hawaii with an MDEB, will also have a portion stationed at JBLM – an IFPC battalion, a BSB and an LRFB – by FY26.
Stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, but focused on the Pacific theater, the fourth MDTF will be established in full by FY27.
And the 5th MDTF will be stationed at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, where it will concentrate on regions as determined. The last MDTF will be fully operational by FY28.
Putting an MDTF at Fort Liberty, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said during an April 18 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, “is critically important” because it will bring lethal and non-lethal targeting along with other capabilities like long-rage fires and indirect fire protection to support the joint force and the rapid response capabilities resident in the 18th Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
18 Apr 24. Defense Innovation Board Holds Spring 2024 Meeting. The Defense Innovation Board (DIB) held its Spring Board Meeting virtually on April 17th, 2024. At 12:30 pm Eastern Time, DIB Executive Director and Designated Federal Officer, Dr. Marina Theodotou, called the meeting into session. The DIB Chair, Mr. Mike Bloomberg, and Board Members discussed the status of the two ongoing studies and heard from four invited guest speakers as follows:
The Allies and Partners study is examining how the DoD innovates with treaty allies and strategic partners. The DIB has engaged with a variety of DoD internal stakeholders, allies and partners, and industry professionals. Potential areas of focus include Department of Defense leadership in international engagement, capability integration, sharing technology and resources, collaborative investment in cutting-edge capabilities, export controls, and fostering a culture of trust with like-minded nations.
The Incentives for Tech Adoption study is assessing existing DoD incentive structures to identify gaps or misalignment with regards to enabling calculated risk-taking needed for innovation. The study is building on critical efforts such as Replicator, Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER), and Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT).
To inform the Allies and Partners study, the Board heard from Mr. Sander Oude Hengel, Defense Cooperation Attaché at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United States, and Chair of the Defense MoU Attaches Group. Mr. Hengel outlined the functions of the MoU body, and key challenges to promoting reciprocal defense equipment cooperation and defense trade with U.S. industry. The Board also heard from Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch, the Senior Enlisted Leader for the Intelligence Directorate at the United States Space Force’s Space Systems Command. Chief Master Sergeant Lerch discussed efforts to collaborate with international partners on defense technology and information security, the importance of clearly defined standards, and difficulty in sharing information with allied and partner nations.
To address the Incentives study, the Board heard from Colonel Kristin Saling, Chief of Innovation with the United States Army Recruiting Command. Colonel Saling discussed training ideas, approaches, and methods of innovative organizations, and ways to synchronize strategy and policy in people analytics and talent management. Lastly, the Board heard from United States Army (Ret.) General Paul Nakasone, former Commander of the United States Cyber Command from 2018 to 2024. General Nakasone discussed how to transition large organizations to ensure mission readiness amid changing information security and emerging technology threat environments.
Board Members will deliver their final recommendations on both studies at their next in-person public meeting in July 2024.
The DIB provides the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and other senior leaders with independent advice and recommendations on innovative means to address future challenges and ways to leverage strengths across the public and private sector to advance national security and economic security. (Source: U.S. DoD)
17 Apr 24. Brown: Joint Force Must Continually Drive Change as Threats Evolve. The Defense Department must continually drive change and anticipate emerging threats to meet evolving national security demands, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., said yesterday.
Speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association’s 2024 Missile Defense Conference in Washington, Brown encouraged warfighters and their enablers to eschew complacency and seek the initial discomfort that often accompanies true progress.
“If we’re comfortable, we’re probably not changing,” he said. “Leading-edge organizations are comfortable being uncomfortable because they anticipate, and they drive change.
“In this dynamic arena of global security, the joint force needs to be a leading-edge organization to stay relevant, to face challenges head on, to embrace change, to adapt and to innovate continuously,” he said.
Brown described an evolving national security landscape characterized by near-peer competitors and potential adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, who are actively pursuing and developing advanced capabilities to confront U.S. forces.
Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific
He noted China remains as the United States’ pacing challenge and the only nation with both the capability and intent to reshape the region and the globe.
“You see the People’s Republic of China continue to undertake aggressive military behavior in the South China Sea and throughout the Indo-Pacific and across the world,” Brown said.
He also cited Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Iran’s aims to extend its influence throughout the Middle East, and North Korea’s persistent destabilizing actions and provocative ballistic missile tests. These threats are further compounded as terrorist organizations seek to capitalize on instability to further their aims.
“Right now, we see all of these challenges active at the same time,” Brown said. “They’re not isolated; they’re interconnected.”
Addressing these combined challenges, Brown said, requires a strategic approach that addresses immediate threats while modernizing for future contingencies.
Brown’s remarks add to those of senior Pentagon officials who underscored, during the conference, the imperative for continued investments in missile defense and deterrence capabilities as U.S. adversaries increasingly seek to extend their offensive reach and threaten to upend global peace and stability.
Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, also a speaker at NDIA’s conference, said the threats posed by adversaries’ intermediate and long-range missile technologies are accelerating at a concerning pace.
Shyu noted frequent and ongoing missile tests by North Korea and China in describing the evolving threat. She also cited Russia’s airborne attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and the rise of missile and drone attacks by Iran and its proxies in the Middle East.
John F. Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, joined Shyu in focusing on Iran’s weekend attack on Israel as evidence of the evolving challenges in defeating airborne threats.
Iran launched more than 300 airborne weapons at targets in Israel. Those weapons, which were launched from locations in Syria and Yemen in addition to Iran, included more than 110 medium-range ballistic missiles, dozens of land-attack cruise missiles, and over 150 aerial vehicles.
U.S., Israeli and partner forces destroyed the vast majority of the airborne weapons before they reached their targets.
U.S. Central Command forces, supported by two U.S. Navy destroyers, destroyed more than 80 one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicles and at least six ballistic missiles.
Plumb noted that the attack underscored the multifaceted threat the U.S. and allies must contend with.
That threat is characterized by evolving tactics that have introduced a wide range of aerial platforms, distances and attack vectors by adversaries. Those evolving tactics and technologies allow adversaries to more easily conceal weapons and evade detection once launched.
Both Shyu and Plumb warned that the U.S. must not stop investing in and improving upon its missile defense capabilities as the threats continue to evolve.
Brown said the U.S. must meet the challenge head-on and continue to invest in capabilities that will ensure its warfighters are armed with an asymmetric advantage in any potential conflict.
“We can’t sit on our laurels,” he said. “We cannot predict the future, but we can certainly shape it.” (Source: U.S. DoD)
17 Apr 24. Austin, Brown Underscore Importance of Passing DOD’s Proposed FY25 Budget. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., testified to the importance of passing the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2025 budget request during a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing today.
The $849.8bn request aligns with DOD’s top three priorities of defending the nation, taking care of Defense Department personnel and their families and succeeding through teamwork, according to Austin.
“We made tough but responsible decisions that prioritize near-term readiness, modernization of the joint force and support for our troops and their families,” Austin said of the proposed budget, which he noted meets the mandatory cap of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
“The president’s request will invest in cutting edge capabilities across all domains,” Austin told the subcommittee. He then listed the following proposed investments in the nation’s defense:
- $167.5bn in procurement;
- $143.2bn for research and development;
- $61.2bn to reinforce the military’s air dominance;
- $49.2bn to modernize and recapitalize the country’s nuclear triad;
- $33.7bn to bolster the space architecture;
- $14.5bn for the development and fielding of advanced cybersecurity tools; and
- $13bn for Army and Marine Corps combat capabilities.
In addition to the budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, Brown and Austin also spoke in favor of approving a nearly $60 bn supplemental budget request for fiscal year 2024.
That request, which the Senate approved in February but has yet to be passed by the House, would provide aid to our partners in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — as well as investing in America’s industrial base, according to Austin.
“We don’t provide funds to Ukraine. We provide materiel in terms of weapons, vehicles munitions,” said Austin. “All of those things are replaced by us … And the replacements are designed and built in our industry, so that means good American jobs for the people of America.”
Austin added that the supplemental request would invest a flow of $50 bn across 30 states in the U.S.
Failure to pass the supplemental request would have an adverse effect on the joint force, according to Michael McCord, undersecretary of defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for DOD, who also testified at the hearing.
McCord said that DOD would have to work with the Appropriations Committee and other committees to try and reprogram funds; hopefully not from direct readiness, but from programs like facilities maintenance and equipment maintenance. “So, there is an impact on our forces and our readiness as well if we can’t get the supplemental passed.”
Brown said passing the supplemental budget request would show leadership on behalf of the U.S.
“I’ve been in this job six months and I’ve had about 150 engagements with my counterparts from around the world, and they often talk about U.S. leadership,” said Brown. “I can tell you it’s watched, it’s desired sending a message of where our commitments are.”
One such commitment proposed in the fiscal year 2025 defense budget is the allotment of $9.9 bn for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which is a program aimed at addressing the pacing challenge presented by China’s government.
Within the PDI, “Major investments and efforts across the are focused on strengthening Indo-Pacific deterrence and building a resilient security architecture as part of a modernized Joint Force,” according to the proposed budget.
“We’re investing in those things that are achievable,” Austin said, in response to being questioned about the status of the PDI. “I think there are always … additional things that we can go after; but I think we’ve made the right choices in investing in things that we can actually achieve here in the near term.”
As to making people a priority, Austin and Brown said the proposed budget includes raises in base pay and housing allowances, investments in better military housing, increased affordability of childcare and investments in combating suicide and sexual assault in the military.
“Enhancing the quality of service and the quality of life of our personnel is not just a moral obligation; it’s a strategic imperative,” Brown said. “We must create an environment where all can reach their full potential.”
“The single, greatest way that Congress can support the Department is to pass predictable, sustained and timely appropriations,” Austin told the subcommittee.
“The United States is the most lethal fighting force on earth; and with your help, we’re going to keep it that way.” (Source: U.S. DoD)
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