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Drones, the Air Littoral, and the Looming Irrelevance of the USAF


3 ID developments prior to heading to Europe.

Armour
As part of the Army’s plans to field new equipment, the division recently swapped out a glut of legacy equipment for new M1A2 System Enhancement Program version 3 (SEPv3) Abrams main battle tanks, M2A4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, M109A7 Paladins, Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) and more.
Soldiers in the 1st ABCT are the first to use the Army’s new tracked combat APMV, designed to replace the M113 family. Norrie and 1st ABCT commander Col. Jim Armstong didn’t go into detail about how the new vehicle might change infantry tactics, but said it has enhanced command and control integration, in part, because the field artillery digital fire system is inside that vehicle.

Command and Control - decoys, fibres, relying on assets that are not "on the board"
Communications will work because they have to be made to work. There aren't any options when spanning theatres like the IndoPacific.

The unit has also completely changed up how it distributes and hides its command posts across the battlefield. For that training exercise in California, for example, the unit kept the “main” larger servers back at Ft. Stewart, Ga., and soldiers back there conducted defensive cyber operations, Armstrong explained.

Smaller servers were then moved forward, allowing the unit to organize command posts differently. Soldiers out of the range of fire set up a command post focused on intelligence, targeting and logistics. Then smaller, more nimble command posts were then disturbed across the battlefield alongside fake ones, making it more difficult for the opponent — this time played by the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, also known as the Blackhorse Cavalry — to find the right “needle” in the haystack to strike, the two-star general said.

“Those efforts were extremely effective at masking our own formations while drawing the enemy out so that they could then be targeted here as well,” Norrie added. “All of that was informed by experiences in Europe.”

RELATED: The cloud, fiber optics and hiding in basements: Army races to adapt to new command post threats

“Just a few years ago, our brigade level command posts took on average 14-plus hours just to tear down. We were issuing lengthy orders just to get our units on the move, we weren’t thinking about drones or kind of the threats in the airspace, and we weren’t considering the electromagnetic spectrum,” Norrie said separately.

As part of the Army’s effort to test the effectiveness of new equipment and operating constructs under the “transformation in contact” initiative, those smaller command posts were designed to be set up and broken down in 15 minutes. As for minimizing their electromagnet signature, the Army has been setting up antenna farms several kilometers away from the smaller command posts and then using a fiber cable to link them to soldiers.

Drones -
Anduril Ghost and PDW C-100 moving into the Company Echelon
Skydios are Squad/Platoon vehicles
Switchblade LAMs are in the works

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Drones are also playing a more prominent role, with soldiers from the 1st ABCT, 3rd ID showing up in California with 90 platforms, and carrying along systems to shoot the opponents drones down too. The goal? Find new and innovative ways to organize around those weapons and use them, Armstrong said.

“We had battalions and squads with UAS that had not had them in that volume or at those echelons before,” Armstrong said. “We endeavored to make contact with unmanned systems first, right? That was our goal, to make contact with unmanned systems first, to only aggregate and unmask our indirect fires and put our soldiers in direct-fire contact at times and places of our choosing.”


3D Printers in the field

While Armstong and Norrie didn’t disclose if the ABCT used 3D printing this summer out at the training center, the service is continuing to test out the best way to push the capability forward on the battlefield and into armor formations. Part of the work to get there was tested out at a separate training event, this one with soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division on their recent stint at the Joint Readiness Training where they had a 3D printer on the mock battlefield printing out a small plastic replacement part.

During a Sept. 20 interview with Breaking Defense, the acting commander general for Army Materiel Command, Lt. Gen. Christopher Mohan, explained that his team is taking lessons from that event and attempting to iron out the kinks to make it easier for soldiers to print replacements on the future battlefield.

“Our digital repository is too hard to get to [for that] user in the field because it is something that has been established to operate at the strategic, OIB [organic industrial base] level,” Mohan said. “We have to make it easier for units to access it from the field, and then we have to train the right people to know how to access it.”
 
3D Printers in the field
Nothing new. We've had various trials on this too. Heck, over a decade ago, I had my 2LT bring in his hobby 3D printer and teach my ALSE techs all about additive manufacturing.

I'm always surprised at some of the stuff that gets posted here and how far behind reality it is. Then again the demographics of this forum are probably closer to retirement home than recruiting centre...lol.
 
Nothing new. We've had various trials on this too. Heck, over a decade ago, I had my 2LT bring in his hobby 3D printer and teach my ALSE techs all about additive manufacturing.

I'm always surprised at some of the stuff that gets posted here and how far behind reality it is. Then again the demographics of this forum are probably closer to retirement home than recruiting centre...lol.
The wider issue is that the senior military and govt folks who said 2Lts have to convince are also in that demographic.
 
Nothing new. We've had various trials on this too. Heck, over a decade ago, I had my 2LT bring in his hobby 3D printer and teach my ALSE techs all about additive manufacturing.

I'm always surprised at some of the stuff that gets posted here and how far behind reality it is. Then again the demographics of this forum are probably closer to retirement home than recruiting centre...lol.

Cheeky! 😄

In fairness the postings are usually of articles written by youngsters about developments in US and other forces.

Maybe those forces are due for the retirement home.
 
Nothing new. We've had various trials on this too. Heck, over a decade ago, I had my 2LT bring in his hobby 3D printer and teach my ALSE techs all about additive manufacturing.

I'm always surprised at some of the stuff that gets posted here and how far behind reality it is. Then again the demographics of this forum are probably closer to retirement home than recruiting centre...lol.
Well yes and no.

Yes, there is definitely new tech that most of the folks in the military don’t know about, or how widespread it is in the civilian world. Strictly keeping with the air side of things, part of the reason why I think we’re “behind” is not only because of the procurement cycle (though it plays a part), but the systems themselves have to be certified. I don’t think that the average Ukrainian soldier cares whether or not their FPV one-way attack drone has gone through OT&E.

However, (the “no” part), remember how some people were shocked that in the age of fast-moving communications, persistent ISR, etc that the RUS/UKR war had “devolved” into trench warfare? They are re-learning lessons (modified a bit) from WWI or before that. So I wouldn’t write off the “old folks” just yet.

I see this situation like the old generals back in pre-WWI (Foch’s quote about “airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value”) dismissing the new tech. But, while it created a completely different domain of warfare, the infantry, armoured, artillery didn’t just disappear.
 
More on 3 ID's work-up.


Before going to the training center, electronic warfare soldiers first spent time monitoring the 1st Brigade’s command posts and then briefed commanders on what their electronic signature looked like, said Col. Jim Armstrong, the brigade’s commander.

“Every time the battalion [tactical operations center] or the brigade [tactical operations center] went out for training, our [electronic warfare] platoon went out there and mapped them in the spectrum,” he said, speaking at the Fort Moore Maneuver Conference earlier in September.

The electronic warfare platoon was also given commercially available direction-finding equipment to locate enemy positions, and they trained with the unit’s reconnaissance squadron, Armstrong added.

The desert environment of NTC gave the unit no room to hide—if the soldiers who play the enemy saw a cellphone signal, there’d be little doubt it belonged to someone in the 3rd Infantry Division.

So Armstrong brought in fake devices that he hoped would deceive any watchful observers. “Instead of hiding in the clutter, we knew we would have to bring our own clutter to hide in,” he said.

As part of this effort, the unit used the knowledge they’d gained from monitoring the brigade’s command post to set up a decoy command post, complete with tents and their actual satellite trailer. The unit was able to stock the site with its own gear because the soldiers were running their real command post over new Starlink satellite terminals that offer better speeds.

The soldiers then keyed the fake command post’s communications network to emit transmissions as though it was a real command post. The unit also placed cell phones and WiFi pucks in the fake post.

The trick worked: the soldiers who play the enemy jammed the fake command post and also hit the fake site with simulated indirect fire, exposing their own position, Armstrong said.

The Brigade created a haystack of old needles, building fake comms nodes out of old gear and spoofers that emulated old gear while using fibre optics and Starlink to run their actual comms.

And the EW platoon was heavily engaged as part of the ongoing recce effort - including monitoring blue force.

....

Deconfliction of airspace has been an ongoing discussion on this forum.

It appears that the local commander made a decision.

Rather than try to constantly deconflict airspace for drones and helicopters, the unit also established that drones could fly any time, as long as they were under 150 feet, Armstrong said during his presentation at the Maneuver Conference.

One-way attack drones should be thought of as munitions for airspace-deconfliction purposes, Armstrong said. “If you’re going to fire a 203 grenade round, you don't call the brigade aviation element” for airspace deconfliction…It’s a mortar round with a camera that can fly.”
 
Yes, there is definitely new tech that most of the folks in the military don’t know about, or how widespread it is in the civilian world.

Yes. This is where education helps. It's unfortunate that we don't do as great a job as we should of having our officers properly educated. The Americans, for example, don't treat an MBA and MSc the same way. STEM degrees get more points. And the result is a leadership class that is a bit more scientifically and technologically literate.

I see this situation like the old generals back in pre-WWI (Foch’s quote about “airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value”) dismissing the new tech. But, while it created a completely different domain of warfare, the infantry, armoured, artillery didn’t just disappear.

Drones aren't a new domain though. They're an application of a type or class or group of tech in a domain. Namely, automation, control systems, sensors and modern batteries. And that same tech can be applied in the air, land, sea and space domains.

What we need aren't specialists in a new domain so much as a class of people who beat understand how to apply the latest tech to their domain.
 
The Brigade created a haystack of old needles, building fake comms nodes out of old gear and spoofers that emulated old gear while using fibre optics and Starlink to run their actual comms.
It's an interesting and perhaps a critical capability. It's one thing to work up a program like this for an exercise but its an entirely different thing to have it as a full-time integrated capability to operate continuously during operations. Strikes me what you need is an organization that's a mixture of sigs folks who operate the electronic side of the program and engineers and GDs who operate the physical components.

Now there's a whole new role for an ARes divisional battalion with a company tasked to each of the brigades and one to the DAA.

Someone should write a paper.

🍻
 
The intrusion of drones continues


https://www.army.ca/forums/javascript:void(0)
A prime spot to the left of the entrance was occupied by the company Anduril. Now in its second year as an exhibitor, the startup’s exhibit was as large as any of the major defence companies. Anduril’s 32-year-old co-founder, Palmer Luckey, made his first billions from a gaming accessory, enjoys Twitter catfights and regards Hawaiian shirts as business attire.

That might seem far removed from Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s commissioning of the bluest of blue-ribbon panels to rebuild the service’s modernisation plans. Members include three 21st century U.S. Air Force chiefs of staff (John Jumper, Norton Schwartz and Steve Goldfein) but also General Joe Ralston, Paul Kaminski and Natalie Crawford—some of the people who steered the USAF’s adoption of stealth more than 40 years ago.

But Anduril, Luckey and Kendall’s council of elders could not be more closely interconnected. Their linkage was represented on the AFA show floor by two full-size aeroplane models and one real aircraft. The models represented designs that Anduril and General Atomics were selected to build in April for the air force’s program for collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs)—small, fighter-like uncrewed aeroplanes that would fly with and support piloted fighters. (Such aircraft were formerly called ‘loyal wingmen’.) The real aircraft on the show floor was General Atomics’ XQ-67A prototype, also uncrewed.

CCAs are the disruptive agent in USAF force planning, which has invested heavily in a structure that risks being overmatched in the Western Pacific. The expansion of Chinese counter-air forces—fighters, missiles, airborne radars and air-warfare ships—presents more threats than the projected U.S. force can handle, regardless of quality or training.

Hence the watchwords for the CCA effort are ‘speed’ and ‘affordable mass’—the ability to generate credible threats for Chinese forces at a fraction of the cost of crewed aircraft and to start fielding in numbers by the late 2020s.



The U.S. Marine Corps says it has demonstrated new capabilities for operating future drones with high degrees of autonomy in expeditionary operations with another test flight of one of its stealthy XQ-58 Valkyries. Newly added capabilities leveraging the popular Link 16 network were central to the test. The Marines have now conducted three XQ-58 flight tests as the service continues to explore how it might use these or other drones in various roles, including as uncrewed electronic warfare aircraft, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, airborne communications relay, or wingmen for crewed fighters like the F-35.

The new Marine XQ-58 test “demonstrated newly added Link-16 capabilities for the uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft prototype, marking the first time the Department of Defense controlled an air vehicle using offboard expeditionary methods,” according to an official release. No further details were provided about the “offboard expeditionary methods” employed during the flight.


The Marines are searching for a high-performance computer that could be deployed on MQ-9 Reaper drones with authorization to operate at the top secret/sensitive compartmented information (TS/SCI) level.

The release of a sources-sought notice Wednesday is the latest signal by the service that it wants to enhance the capabilities of the largest drone in its arsenal.

The Corps is acquiring MQ-9 long-endurance unmanned aerial systems built by General Atomics to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities and to serve as a secure communications gateway and network bridge for the joint force. Officials envision the platforms exchanging data with satellites, other drones and aircraft, ships, expeditionary advanced bases, land maneuver forces, ground control stations and land-based sensors. The effort is expected to contribute to the U.S. military’s warfighting construct known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2).

A Marine Air Wing of Reapers and Valkyries for Expeditionary Operations?
 
The intrusion of drones continues
I guess it’s an “intrusion” if the dinosaurs (of all stripes) say it is so.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is like the era of horse cavalry transitioning to the tank. The horse folks probably didn’t like it very much because a part of their culture had links to the animal.

https://www.army.ca/forums/javascript:void(0)











A Marine Air Wing of Reapers and Valkyries for Expeditionary Operations?
This part is key for deployed ops, from the first article.

The vice president of Anduril’s air dominance and strike division, Jason Levin, pointed to work that went well beyond the aircraft’s outer mould line. The company’s philosophy is that ‘people should not have to interact with the aircraft in order to turn it around’, meaning pre- and post-flight checks on the ground should be automated.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems president Dave Alexander, meanwhile, argued the need to ‘get rid of scheduled maintenance, and design it so you don’t touch it in the field’—pointing to one aircraft from the company that had logged 7000 flying hours in a year.
That sounds great until things break down.
 
I guess it’s an “intrusion” if the dinosaurs (of all stripes) say it is so.

As I’ve mentioned before, this is like the era of horse cavalry transitioning to the tank. The horse folks probably didn’t like it very much because a part of their culture had links to the animal.


This part is key for deployed ops, from the first article.


That sounds great until things break down.


By and large I find myself leaning toward million dollar wooden rounds for the CCA programme. Essentially single use vehicles that can be recovered if necessary.

For artillery and infantry rounds I think we are looking for rounds in 1-20,000 dollar range.
 
$215k a shot vs potentially $10k drone is cheaper than most missiles, but still not on the right side of the financial equation.
What's a human life or a Patriot Battery launcher worth? This is not simply a A = B equation.
 
What's a human life or a Patriot Battery launcher worth? This is not simply a A = B equation.
Well yes and no.

If human lives or ships or whatever were worth whatever the cost, they would be flinging SM-6s and what not at any UAS coming their way. Defence departments wouldn’t be trying to make a cheaper mitigating thing against UAS.

A huge growth industry in CUAS is cheap effectors, because enemies can easily overwhelm defenses with UAS and they’re finding that it’s too expensive to be firing expensive missiles.

Also, if it gets too expensive or risky, the forces and ships would just leave the area.
 
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