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18 Aug 21. US joint forces participate in exercise on decommissioned frigate. The exercise involves sinking the vessel’s hull in at least 6,000ft of water. US joint forces have participated in a live-fire sinking exercise in the Hawaiian Islands Operating Area in the Pacific Ocean. The exercise saw the participation of units from Vinson Carrier Strike Group (VINCSG), 1 Marine Expeditionary Force/3rd Marine Air Wing, III Marine Expeditionary/3rd Marine Division, Submarine Forces Pacific, and the US Army Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF).
The units conducted coordinated multi-domain, multi-axis, long-range maritime strikes during the exercise on the decommissioned Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate ex-USS Ingraham (FFG 61).
US 3rd Fleet commander vice-admiral Steve Koehler said: “Lethal combat power was effectively applied to a variety of maritime threats over the last two weeks in a simulated environment as part of the navy’s large-scale exercise and expertly demonstrated Sunday with live ordnance.”
Former naval vessels that are used in sinking exercises are referred to as ‘hulks’.
The event requires participants to sink the hulk in at least 6,000ft of water and some 50nm from land.
Following this, surveys are conducted to protect people or marine mammals against possible harm caused during the event.
Before being transported for participation in a sinking exercise, each hulk is put through an extensive cleaning process for environmental safety.
In January 2015, the US Navy decommissioned its last Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Ingraham following 25 years in service.
In a separate development, the US Navy/US Marine Corps (USMC) Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System successfully hit its target in support of Marine Corps Forces during Large Scale Exercise.
Some of the concepts of the USMC’s Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) were validated. This capability ‘facilitates sea denial and control while persisting within the enemy’s weapons engagement-zone’. It provides the Marine Littoral Regiment with a ground-based anti-ship capability. (Source: naval-technology.com)
18 Aug 21. CTI launches software integration and training services for government platforms. CTI is an Open-Source Developer of Advanced Technology Solutions for Military and Security Applications. CTI, a leading government software and systems development company, is launching its new Training and Integration Services program. CTI now offers customized Team Awareness Kit/Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) and RaptorX training to improve and maintain TAK user proficiencies and provide custom integrations for third-party platforms requiring component integrations with TAK, Raptor, and Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) government platforms.
Training Services
CTI’s Training Service will leverage the team’s combined experience within Special Operations and Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations to provide hands-on instruction of TAK and RaptorX to the end-user, maximizing mission success in the field. CTI trainers rapidly develop customized curriculums to meet mission requirements and conduct instruction both in classroom and field training venues to support the needs of the user community.
John Goodson, a Naval Special Warfare veteran and CTI’s Director of Products, elaborates further on the need, “Every unit has several power users that maintain TAK proficiency across the team, but as the those individuals naturally transition into new roles, that knowledge leaves the organization, impacting mission readiness. The training services provided by our team of ex-military TAK and RaptorX subject matter experts fills that gap by expanding the team’s knowledge and ensuring that it is consistently maintained regardless of personnel turnover.”
Integration Services
With over 20 years of developing open, government-owned platforms, CTI is expanding its expertise to third-party partners that require integration of their unique technologies into government-open platforms. Offering this turnkey integration service enables our partners to focus on their technology value, leveraging CTI’s experience navigating platform intricacies, government approval processes, and ensuring testing and validation is complete prior to new versions being released.
“From adding complex Electronic Warfare (EW) sensors into TAK within days at training exercises to full systems integration considering networks, protocols, sensors, emerging cloud infrastructure, and operational concerns informed by our veterans — CTI is the impartial glue that makes things work smoothly for our Warfighters,” says CTI’s Product Solution Architect, Steven Turner. No matter how difficult the integration, CTI is ready to bring our experience to reduce developer and user frustration, ensuring the adoption of technologies into government applications across all warfighting domains and commercial markets that may benefit from open, government-owned applications.
For more information, please visit ctic.us
About CTI’s Solutions and Services
CTI’s solutions are the preferred standard in the mission space due to the team’s iterative, hand-on development with users, unique application of agile methodologies, and utility-driven design. CTI is focused on building solutions on open-source and open government-owned platforms. This corporate philosophy ensures that industry proprietary software or hardware tools do not stand in the way of the right capabilities being brought to bear in the field. Paired with our “Rapid” approach to solutions development, service delivery, and business execution, CTI continues to thrive in the defense marketplace. CTI is headquartered in California, MD and has offices in San Diego, Camarillo, and Santa Barbara, CA as well as Denver, CO, Honolulu, HI, and Chantilly, VA. Please visit www.ctic.us to find out more. (Source: PR Newswire)
12 Aug 21. The first-phase of the ZAPAD/INTERACTION 2021 joint military exercise between China and Russia began in northwest China on Tuesday. The first-phase drill of the ZAPAD/INTERACTION 2021, a joint military exercise between China and Russia, began in northwest China on Tuesday. The two-day drill was designed to guide military command organs from both sides to optimise their command activities, which are related to intelligence, decision-making, planning, and control and assessment. For the first time, a sub-command for Russian officers has been established within the joint command, and a command information system specially designed for the two militaries has been applied. The joint exercise kicked off on Monday at a combined-arms tactical training base of the People’s Liberation Army in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and is set to continue until Aug. 13. It aims to deepen the joint anti-terrorism operations between the two militaries and demonstrate the firm determination and strength of the two countries to jointly safeguard international and regional security and stability. (Source: www.joint-forcescom)
17 Aug 21. Havelsan highlights latest Sniper Simulator. Following the use of Havelsan’s Sniper Simulator by Turkish SOF, the company is now showing the latest iteration at IDEF. One of the highlights of the IDEF show in Ankara on 17-20 August is the unveiling of the latest version of Havelsan’s Sniper Simulator. Launched last April, the simulator is now in service at the Isparta Mountain Commando School in central western Turkey. According to Havelsan, the version shown at IDEF ‘has been upgraded with feedback and suggestions from the country’s security forces, ensuring the product’s high effectiveness’.
The Sniper Simulator has been designed to teach students aiming techniques such as aiming off for wind, sight settings, range estimation and how to work with a ‘spotter’ – the sniper’s assistant. The latter uses binoculars that can also be integrated with the system.
The company said that the device ‘allows users to receive training in a repeatable and safe environment in a short time. It is also a cost-effective solution that increases the level of planning and mission preparation’.
A key element of the Sniper Simulator is its software-based ballistic model that is based on real ammunition and a specific weapon design.
As well as providing improved training before the sniper fires real ammunition, the Sniper Simulator can save resources through ammunition usage and range space allocation. Given that sniper engagements typically take place at distances of 500-800m, range safety templates have to be created, typically covering 3-6km².
Add to this the need for range sentries, and it is clear that training undertaken virtually has clear benefits.
In terms of export potential, Havelsan finds itself in a good position, given that few companies have made such devices in the past.
16 Aug 21. Red 6 lands contract to put augmented reality on a T-38 training jet. For the first time ever, a U.S. Air Force T-38 will be outfitted with an augmented reality training system that allows it to dogfight against simulated Russian and Chinese fighters projected inside the pilot’s helmet.
The Air Force awarded Florida-based tech firm Red 6 a contract worth up to $70m over its five-year period of performance, the company announced Monday morning.
During that time, Red 6 will integrate its Airborne Tactical Augmented Reality System with the Northrop T-38 Talon used to train fighter pilots, followed by the integration of ATARS onboard a fourth-generation jet such as the F-16.
A T-38 equipped with the ATARS system could be ready to begin flight tests anywhere from six to 12 months from now, Red 6 CEO Daniel Robinson said in an exclusive interview with Defense News.
“It’s a big, bold vision, but I think that big, bold vision is really fast becoming a reality,” Robinson said. “I think over the next 12 months, you’re going to see something that no one can deny is absolutely transformational.”
The ATARS system comprises a custom, full-color augmented reality headset designed to be worn with a standard HGU-55 helmet used by F-15 and F-16 pilots.
While everything a user sees in a virtual reality environment is simulated, augmented reality blends virtual simulations — in this case, realistic imagery of enemy aircraft — with the landscape a pilot is actually looking at outside the cockpit.
The company has its first meeting with Air Force stakeholders on Monday afternoon to begin to understand the technical requirements to integrate an augmented reality system with the T-38, Robinson said.
“We’ve got a really cool technological solution, but we’re putting it into airplanes with real pilots in there, and there’s always a tremendous amount of safety implications around that,” he said. “At the forefront of our mind [is], how do we do this to make sure the system is completely safe and able to withstand the rigors of military flight.”
Once Red 6 has integrated the ATARS with a single T-38, the company hopes to integrate a “multiplayer” version of the system where multiple aircraft see the same virtual adversaries and can work together to defeat them, Robinson said.
“Can I take a wingman up, and can we share and interact in a game space in the sky, and experience a game that makes sense to both of us?” he said. “That’s how we’re thinking about it in terms of logical steps forward.”
Although Red 6 is a relative newcomer to the world of military procurement, the company has garnered the interest of Air Force leaders and defense contractors.
Its board is led by Mike Holmes, the former four-star general who led Air Combat Command, and includes members such as Will Roper, the service’s top acquisition official during the Trump administration. Lockheed Martin’s venture capital arm also provided an investment of undisclosed value in June 2020.
Red 6′s latest contract is a Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract. The Air Force’s AFWERX innovation hub previously awarded the company SBIR Phase I and II contracts.
“Innovation within training is needed now more than ever to remain competitive with our adversaries,” Winston Bennett, of the Air Force’s Airman Systems Directorate, said in a statement. “Red 6 is delivering a solution to current pain points in training, that if fixed, could solve several national security issues we face today.” (Source: Defense News)
14 Aug 21. Stealth Adversary Drone Contract Expected in September. Blue Force Technologies is expecting a contract next month to proceed with development of a stealthy, unmanned aerial system for US Air Force fifth-generation fighters to train against. The company expects to build four aircraft for a demonstration program, with first flight in July 2023.
The aircraft is being developed under small business development money with Air Force Research Laboratory and Air Combat Command, and ACC’s senior leader has endorsed the program.
ACC boss Gen. Mark D. Kelly touted the program in the recent Air Force Lifecycle Management Center’s Life Cycle Industry Days conference as the Air Force’s first “toe in the water” of low-cost, attritable aircraft technologies. He sees it as an affordable way to put up enough stealthy, maneuvering, fighter-like aircraft to really stress USAF’s fifth-generation F-22 and F-35 fighters. He said the program could potentially yield aircraft that provide high-level adversary training at only 25 percent of the cost of manned systems.
“That, to me, is low cost,” Kelly said.
The company, which has experience fabricating vehicles and structures for other firms, anticipates a cost per flying hour of about $4,000, versus $50,000 per hour for an F-22.
With a 5,000-pound max takeoff weight, the aircraft—known for now as “Red Medium”—will have modular payloads and open-systems architecture, allowing a wide array of threats to be simulated, the company’s founder and president Scott Bledsoe said. It will use a Williams FJ44-4 engine, a 4,000-pound thrust class “military trainer derivative of their biggest business jet engine,” he said. The 20-foot long, 17-foot span, carbon-fiber jet will be capable of attaining Mach .95 and turning at up to 9Gs, with a 4G sustained turn. It will also have persistence to fly two adversary engagements without landing to refuel.
“We can produce a high subsonic-class threat,” Bledoe said.
The company has already passed through preliminary design review and would enter critical design review in June 2022, assuming a next-phase contract in the next month. Bledsoe said the project has been nurtured by AFRL and AFWERX, and AFRL has even allowed the company to use some of its high-speed computer capability for design work. It would be two years to first flight.
Under a “Phase Two” contract that concluded last month, Blue Force demonstrated “we have an aircraft design that’s stable, controllable, meets performance requirements and meets cost requirements,” Bledsoe said. The company is ready to “go start cutting tooling and building it.”
The concept arose in 2016. While many small UAS companies were looking to meet Air Force intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance needs, the service was not yet ready to create a program of record. However, “Adversary air is a kind of wide-open field, nobody has a good answer, and the Air Force has this looming problem,” Bledsoe said. The company talked to fighter pilots about what they needed in an adversary system, collaborated with ACC, and launched the project. Creative use of USAF small business money, such as AFVentures’ Strategic Finance program, government matches, and other initiatives to draw in small business players made the project affordable and manageable, Bledsoe said.
Hermeus, another company getting Strategic Financing program funding, received a contract this week to develop hypersonic vehicles.
Blue Force Technologies has built a ground test model, completed last month, to verify and integrate systems with a ground control station, which will allow “burning down as much systems integration risk as possible,” Bledsoe noted. This has led to more ACC endorsements.
The jet will have an “open architecture” nose to allow reconfigurable threats that will look to Air Force jet sensors like adversary aircraft. In fact, standards have been published and the system is so open that “a third party can integrate the nose of the aircraft without even calling us,” Bledsoe said. “We were really first in the industry to take that approach.”
This was done because the Air Force may want to use the aircraft for something other than adversary work—it will be low observable—and in case “it needs to go places and do things that we don’t necessarily need to know about,” Bledsoe said.
Andrew Van Timmeren, a former F-22 pilot who is an adviser to Blue Force Technologies on adversary air, said the new aircraft will offer an opportunity for fighter pilots to get comfortable operating with an unmanned aircraft.
“We are 100 percent focused on designing and building an adversary replication platform,” Von Timmeren said. But “that doesn’t mean it’s not going to collaborate with the other Red Air players … trying to punish Blue Air mistakes. … If we can pretend to be adversaries pretty good, I think we can pretend to be the blue guys pretty good.”
“As a Raptor guy,” he explained, “I need to practice” manned/unmanned teaming in a non-lethal environment before going to war with such a system. Fighter pilots need to be able to trust an unmanned system not to “crash into me or crash into the ground.” Without that trust, “I’m actually going to ask you to just leave it at home, I don’t want it to go to war with me.” Right now, ISR systems don’t typically collaborate with fighters.
But “this thing is going to roll around in the mud with me and my bros, my friends who are still flying, and if we can continue to develop that and develop data for future autonomous vehicle development,” that trust will be developed.
As an adversary, the jet will do the mission at low cost more effectively than any other way, he said.
“You can’t go to the boneyard to find something that’s relevant” to modern combat “versus being clean-sheet designed; that’s purpose-built,” Von Timmeran said. “This is going to cost less because it’s essentially all ‘commercial, off-the-shelf.’”
The company’s concept anticipates two of the aircraft being transportable in a single box, similar to the way MQ-1 Predator drones were transported. Blue Force is also looking at putting hardpoints on or in the aircraft if the Air Force should want an offensive version, the company said. (Source: UAS VISION/Air Force Magazine)
13 Aug 21. Bohemia Interactive Australia subcontracted by US Army. The US Army has subcontracted Bohemia Interactive Simulations (BISim) via Cole Engineering Services Inc. to deliver significant components of next generation collective training technology.
Key aspects of the contract will be delivered by BISim’s Australian business, Bohemia Interactive Australia, based in Newcastle in the Hunter Region of NSW, with the business doubling its engineering workforce and providing potential interoperability benefits to the Australian Defence Force.
CESI recently announced it had been awarded the Training Simulation Software/Training Management Tools (TSS/TMT) contract and plans to utilise all three of BISim’s primary products (VBS4, VBS Blue IG and VBS World Server) as part of the overall TSS/TMT solution.
The US Army’s Synthetic Training Environment (STE), of which TSS/TMT supplies the central software capabilities, is expected to allow units and leaders to conduct realistic, multi-echelon and multidomain combined arms manoeuvre and mission command, live, collective training anywhere in the world.
TSS/TMT could also converge live, virtual and constructive capabilities in a single, easy-to-use interface.
BISim first began working with the US Army on the STE-related programs in 2016 and, as prime contractor working with Cole Engineering Services (CESI) and 4C, developed a prototype for a cloud-enabled, virtual world training capability under the OTA1 contract in 2018.
According to Arthur Alexion, BISim CEO, the company has invested tens of ms of dollars in upgrading and modularising its technology in anticipation of STE-type requirements.
“VBS4 already supports all of the Army’s Games for Training capabilities, representing over one hundred US Army-specific training uses,” Alexion said.
“We are excited to bring BISim’s products and technical expertise in support of prime contractor CESI to jointly deliver the US Army’s next generation of virtual combat training technology in 2025.”
More than 500,000 military personnel are trained every year using VBS software products built by the global developer of advanced military simulation and training software.
Military leaders and instructors will be able to set up complex virtual battles, co-ordinating with thousands of AI-powered allies, and fighting against artificially intelligent or instructor-controlled adversaries, with realistic AI behaviours and at theatre-wide scale.
Soldiers will be able to repeat these training missions many times over, facing new challenges that will help them to better prepare for live training and enhance their readiness for operations.
More than 60 NATO and NATO-friendly countries and over 300 integrators/prime contractors use VBS technology, many making significant funding commitments to extend VBS product capabilities.
VBS products have become the world’s most widely used COTS product range in the military simulation sector, BISim customers include the Australian Defence Force, US Army, US Marine Corps, Swedish Armed Forces, French MoD and UK MoD and most major integrators.
This commonality between Australia and its major security partners can ensure greater levels of interoperability in simulation training between respective militaries.
The local project opportunity to deliver this capability to US forces will generate up to 15 new, skilled jobs in the Hunter region according to Bohemia Interactive Australia’s managing director, Ryan Stephenson.
“Our small team of Australian-based software and engineering experts will help to deliver this capability, which will be critical to ensuring the training and readiness of the US Army for future combat and operating scenarios,” Stephenson said.
“This contract provides a through-life benefit for our Australian customers, as capability improvements made under international contracts like this are translated into software updates to products in service with the Australian Defence Force.
“This contract will help build Australian sovereign capability in simulation training programs and bring interoperability benefits for the Australian Defence Force, who already operate a version of our VBS software.” (Source: Defence Connect)
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About InVeris Training Solutions
InVeris Training Solutions combines an agile approach with an unmatched expertise in training technology to design and deliver customized, cutting-edge, first-rate training solutions that keep military, law enforcement, private and commercial range clients safe, prepared and ready to serve – Because Seconds Matter™. With a portfolio of technology-enabled training solutions, and a team of 400 employees driven to innovate, InVeris Training Solutions is the global leader in integrated live-fire and virtual weapons training solutions. With its legacy companies, FATS® and Caswell, InVeris Training Solutions has fielded over 15,000 live-fire ranges and 7,500 virtual systems globally during its 90-year history. The Company is headquartered in Suwanee, Georgia and partners with clients in the US and around the world from facilities on five continents.
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