Innovation

[Kirkhill]

EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon reveals 5 more funded RDER projects, including a top Marine priority - Breaking Defense

The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, brainchild of Pentagon CTO Heidi Shyu, has funded low-profile but high-value niche technologies the services couldn’t or wouldn’t, from robot boats to a multi-domain targeting node.

breakingdefense.com

High-Altitude Balloons - to carry surveillance gear and/or communications relays high into the air, above the reach of conventional anti-aircraft weapons.

Family of Integrated Targeting Cells - to combine traditionally distinct staff functions – specifically “operations, intelligence, and fires” – in a single command center, improving coordination of long-range firepower not just for the Marines but across the services

Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft - a small unmanned speedboat, about 16 feet long, now in service with a Navy Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron out of Coronado, Calif. Shyu’s staff describes GARC a “low-cost, attritable platform” that can be configured for a wide variety of missions, such as intelligence, electronic warfare, and communications

MQ-9 enhancements - improved communications and sensing to meet “unique USMC [United States Marine Corps] needs.”

Global Thunder - “enhancements” to improve “communications resilience” on 4th generation fighters.

Octopus - a Navy system for “underwater communications.”

Maritime Targeting Cell – Afloat. - improved “communications resilience” and “accelerated fielding” for MTC, a Marine Corps project for “multi-domain fusion of national, theater, and tactical sensors.”

Comms work-arounds seem to be the order of the day. I would assume that this would include GPS denial work-arounds.

 

[Kirkhill]

SNC wins Army contract for HADES spy plane - Breaking Defense

An Army official previously told Breaking Defense that a baseline HADES configuration will include moving target indication, high-end signals intelligence and other capabilities.

breakingdefense.com

Meanwhile the US Army, once again, ends up buying its own Air Force. After the fashion of the RAF's Global Express Sentinel and the older JSTARS programme.

It is curious to see the involvement of Leidos in the programme. They are one of the new firms showing up in all the UxV and AI projects.

Leidos: Innovative Solutions through Information Technology, Engineering and Science

Leidos is an innovation company rapidly addressing the world's most vexing challenges in national security and health. Our 47,000 employees collaborate to create smarter technology solutions for customers in these critical markets.

www.leidos.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Other AI leaders

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Foundational Software of Tomorrow. Delivered Today.™

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Anduril Industries, Inc. is an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems.

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Technology innovation for national security

Kratos develops transformative, affordable technology, platforms, and systems for U.S. National Security related customers, allies, and commercial enterprises.

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Innovation

Austal is a true leader in product and process innovation - with proven success in developing new ideas and creating designs, systems and services that provide practical solutions and add value to our customers’ operations. For more than 27 years, Austal has applied innovative thinking to every...

australia.austal.com

 

[Kirkhill]

MarineLink - Ship Monitoring and Control​

Austal's proprietary integrated ship control and monitoring system, ‘MarineLink’, allows extensive, customized real-time and remote monitoring and management of various onboard machinery, equipment, systems and processes.

MarineLink also provides superior data and information management by monitoring all systems required by class and enables effective, immediate, online access to all the vessel’s system user manuals, vessel drawings and other operation documentation.

Making uncrewed/optionally crewed ships possible.

 

[Furniture]

Making uncrewed/optionally crewed ships possible.

I suspect it's more about getting the Snr. engineering watch keepers off the ship and sitting in an office somewhere, where they can manage multiple ships at once. You still need someone on-site to fix the things that go wrong, and things pretty much always go wrong.

You'd likely be surprised by how impressed the USN folks who toured MAX were with how automated the AOPV's engineering plant is. Essentially, the plant runs itself, and can be monitored from the bridge. We still have watch keepers though, because as I said, things can and do go wrong.

 

[Kirkhill]

I suspect it's more about getting the Snr. engineering watch keepers off the ship and sitting in an office somewhere, where they can manage multiple ships at once. You still need someone on-site to fix the things that go wrong, and things pretty much always go wrong.

You'd likely be surprised by how impressed the USN folks who toured MAX were with how automated the AOPV's engineering plant is. Essentially, the plant runs itself, and can be monitored from the bridge. We still have watch keepers though, because as I said, things can and do go wrong.

I have no doubt that the work done on the AOPVs is up to best modern standards.

That ability to move ships controls from the engineering space to the bridge, or out to the bridge wings can just as easily be moved off board to a ship in company.

I am guessing you don't have a problem with an AOPV or a CSC driving a couple of RHIBs remotely, or even a JSS driving a couple of LCUs. I am seeing the LUSV/OSV as a large RHIB. And if interventions are required occasionally, once every couple of weeks according to RimPac 22 and Autonomous Warrior 23 accounts, then software patches can be done remotely. Hardware patches may require sending a techie across by air or surface or may even require bringing the OSV alongside and doing a jacob's ladder transfer.

Or, alternatively

The vessels are capable of fully autonomous operations in the open sea and can be controlled from a shore-based operations center or from a nearby ship.

While the ships are autonomous, a civilian master mariner is always on watch on the bridge of each vessel.

“Other than transiting in and out of port we have used the ships in autonomy mode as much as practical,” he said.

New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

When we hear that the USN are ready to award a contract for a production line of USVs or UUVs, that's a great time to have an independent and critical look at the state of the technology, the CONOPs for the system, and decide then if those things make it a good purchase to achieve an effect that...

army.ca

If you want to keep a watchkeeper on board and accept the hotel/SOLAS penalties that come with that accommodation, then you could still pull the watchkeeper if you wanted to deploy the vessel into a particularly hazardous environment to reduce the risk to human life.

....

I am reminded of the Locomotives Acts

The most strict restrictions and speed limits were imposed by the 1865 act (the "Red Flag Act"), which required all road locomotives, which included automobiles, to travel at a maximum of 4 mph (6.4 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3.2 km/h) in the city, as well as requiring a man carrying a red flag to walk in front of road vehicles hauling multiple wagons.

Locomotive Acts - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Furniture]

That ability to move ships controls from the engineering space to the bridge, or out to the bridge wings can just as easily be moved off board to a ship in company.

100% it can be done that way, and will be/is being done with engineering watch keepers in the civilian world. It means the really highly paid experts can be kept at home, and monitor multiple ships at once. Great for commercial applications, but those ships still have "roundsmen" to physically go and do things while the highly paid expert advises from an office ashore.

I am guessing you don't have a problem with an AOPV or a CSC driving a couple of RHIBs remotely, or even a JSS driving a couple of LCUs. I am seeing the LUSV/OSV as a large RHIB. And if interventions are required occasionally, once every couple of weeks according to RimPac 22 and Autonomous Warrior 23 accounts, then software patches can be done remotely. Hardware patches may require sending a techie across by air or surface or may even require bringing the OSV alongside and doing a jacob's ladder transfer.

Correct, I have zero issues with RC boats as well. My issue with having USVs for the sake of having USVs comes down to this; To what end?

I am 100% in support of the use of USVs in applications that make sense, but having large ones that can sail around just to have them makes little sense. What specific tasks are you proposing a "large RHIB" do? If you put anything more advanced than a commercial radar onboard you now need security, or another ship nearby. If you need a ship there anyway, why not just use its sensors?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Essentially, the plant runs itself, and can be monitored from the bridge. We still have watch keepers though, because as I said, things can and do go wrong.

No. You still have watchkeepers because of what we have termed in the past "the engineering mafia" or union.

Little known story here (at least buried deep with few people still remembering): When the MCDV's were first conceived, the naval reserve faced the issue of now having much more modern and complex engineering systems and was wondering how you could train reserve DMechs into Mareng, a much lengthier training process.

The solution: We wouldn't. The MCDV were built so that every piece of equipment could be started or stopped, or emergency stopped, or monitored from the console in the MCR. The DMechs would be reclassified as Marine Systems OPERATORS and would only be taught how to operate the plant from this remote location - with single person manning of the MCR. In case of problem, they would shut down the piece of equipment at issue and continue the operation with the rest. Considering the vessels have four main diesels, two diesel generator and an electric alternator, the chances of running out of power or propulsion was pretty low. A fully certified Reg F Chief ERA would also be part of the crew, together with ONE assistant and ONE Weapons tech for the electronics. Any and all repairs and maintenance was to be contracted out and carried out in harbour. Total engineering crew: 4 operators, 2 ERA's, 1 WTech = 7.

But the mafia got in on the act right from the start: Needs to have engineering roundsmen to go and check that the remote sensors are correct every hour, need to have the "engineers", all of them, knowledgeable of all the valves and buttons, trace the systems and be able to go and switch anything by hand, etc. etc. The result: the department rose to 11 or 12 (one third of the crew) and just about only permashads could actually train to and meet the standard, leaving reserve units with little in terms of qualified OPERATORS that could go to sea for their 2-3 weeks a year and actually fill a position as eng. watchkeeper.

Meanwhile, the merchant marine has multiple ships with unmanned engine rooms and the need for only two or three engineering mates who don't keep watch but only handle day to day maintenance or emergencies when they occur.

But in the RCN, any level of automation in the engineering spaces is irrelevant because that "mafia" will never relinquish any of their powers or methods as a result of such automation and will continue to insist on completely full manning of every position as if all was done manually.

 

[Kirkhill]

@Oldgateboatdriver

Would that Concept of Operations have been congruent with a Coastal Defence craft that was intended to work in home waters clearing and surveying channels and approaches adjacent to national harbours and Fleet Maintenance Facilities? Local sailors on local ships working in local waters.

Curiously, if I remember rightly, one of the first things the RCN did with their brand new MCDVs, as they did with the AOPVs, was send one of them on a Blue Water transit of the Panama Canal. The edifying result, IIRC, was demonstrating to San Diego the ship's ability to do donuts for days. Nanaimo wasn't it?

No slag of the ship or the crew intended. More of an observation on the tendency of the RCN to push the envelope generally. And within the CAF the RCN is not alone in that tendency.

If I can believe Wiki...

The main missions of the vessels are reservist training, coastal patrol, minesweeping, law enforcement, pollution surveillance and search and rescue.

There were five main criteria for the design. The ships had to be built in Canada, they had to be inexpensive to build, they had to be operable by naval reservists, the design had to have role flexibility included, and they had to be inexpensive to operate.

Kingston-class coastal defence vessel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Well, the ones destined for the West Coast had to be sailed there from where they were built, namely Halifax. But that isn't pushing the envelope. On the East coast, the gate vessels had sailed all the way down to Virginia or even to Bermuda, with reserve crews. On the West coast, where the powers that be we were less agreeable to night sailing, the GV had sailed all the way up to Ketchikan, Alaska or down to Portland Oregon. So driving around the continent through the Panama canal with brand new and modern coastal vessels was no big deal and well within the qualifications of naval reservists of that era.

The overall employments of the vessels got screwed up after the first two or three years, so they never became primarily reservists training vessels, as they were meant to be - mainly. I say mainly because four or five of them were supposed to replace the Reg Force operated PB's on the West coast as the training vessels for MARS (NWO) officers advanced navigation platform (second step after the YAG's). The Reg Force never took them over, forcing the reserve to man four to five more ships than it expected and man them year round, more or less forever, instead of only during reservists peak availability (ramp up early May, peak mid-May to Mid-August, ramp down to end of August).

The original idea was to have reservists on extended class B for a year or two operate them at the beginning (i.e. at commissioning - "plank owners") so that you would build a knowledge base in the reserves about their operation, after which time, they would go into the standard reserve training cycle. That cycle is Sept-Oct for deep maintenance, followed by Nov to March for training week-ends of reservists, followed by April's short work period to get ready for summer, then May to August, full time sailing schedule to train and qualify reservists in watchkeeping (bridge and engineering), seamanship and operations. That last part never happened. They became so useful to the Reg Force, and especially since they took little to no Reg Force crew, that the RCN leadership refused to relinquish them to reserve training, save as full time extended class B's, who were always the same people over and over, becoming "cheap" Reg Force personnel and ceasing to be reservists.

It almost destroyed the reserves.

We never got to the "equilibrium" point where 8 of them would have been on the West Coast, with four of them taken over by the Reg Force for training purposes (until the Orca's came along), so that the Reserves would have had four available for training on each coast, within the standard reserve training cycle as discussed above. That would have provided a good working base to produce a steady flow of Minor War Vessels Watchkeepers and Command Officer, together with sufficiently trained seaman, engineering operators and communications and combat information operators to provide the Reg force with a good starting base of personnel easy to train up to frigate levels quickly in case of war or national emergency requiring expansion, which is all you can really ask of true reservists in the naval side of things.

 

[Furniture]

No. You still have watchkeepers because of what we have termed in the past "the engineering mafia" or union.

Little known story here (at least buried deep with few people still remembering): When the MCDV's were first conceived, the naval reserve faced the issue of now having much more modern and complex engineering systems and was wondering how you could train reserve DMechs into Mareng, a much lengthier training process.

The solution: We wouldn't. The MCDV were built so that every piece of equipment could be started or stopped, or emergency stopped, or monitored from the console in the MCR. The DMechs would be reclassified as Marine Systems OPERATORS and would only be taught how to operate the plant from this remote location - with single person manning of the MCR. In case of problem, they would shut down the piece of equipment at issue and continue the operation with the rest. Considering the vessels have four main diesels, two diesel generator and an electric alternator, the chances of running out of power or propulsion was pretty low. A fully certified Reg F Chief ERA would also be part of the crew, together with ONE assistant and ONE Weapons tech for the electronics. Any and all repairs and maintenance was to be contracted out and carried out in harbour. Total engineering crew: 4 operators, 2 ERA's, 1 WTech = 7.

But the mafia got in on the act right from the start: Needs to have engineering roundsmen to go and check that the remote sensors are correct every hour, need to have the "engineers", all of them, knowledgeable of all the valves and buttons, trace the systems and be able to go and switch anything by hand, etc. etc. The result: the department rose to 11 or 12 (one third of the crew) and just about only permashads could actually train to and meet the standard, leaving reserve units with little in terms of qualified OPERATORS that could go to sea for their 2-3 weeks a year and actually fill a position as eng. watchkeeper.

Meanwhile, the merchant marine has multiple ships with unmanned engine rooms and the need for only two or three engineering mates who don't keep watch but only handle day to day maintenance or emergencies when they occur.

But in the RCN, any level of automation in the engineering spaces is irrelevant because that "mafia" will never relinquish any of their powers or methods as a result of such automation and will continue to insist on completely full manning of every position as if all was done manually.

While I have zero doubt about the mafia, having done some sailing myself, but there is a lot more to an AOPV than a MCDV.

They also aren't doing constant rounds, they are doing PM and CM on a watch, while also monitoring the plant. I'm not the expert on it, but it is nothing like how a CPF operates.

 

[Navy_Pete]

While I have zero doubt about the mafia, having done some sailing myself, but there is a lot more to an AOPV than a MCDV.

They also aren't doing constant rounds, they are doing PM and CM on a watch, while also monitoring the plant. I'm not the expert on it, but it is nothing like how a CPF operates.

They aren't actually 'on watch', more of 'on shift', with the MCR normally not crewed. It only happens during specials or emergency stations.

That works as long as we operate the ship within the concept of operations it's designed for, and the remote and automated functions work. The RCN deviates from the former routinely on most platforms, and the latter is a general issue (especially with a lot of things starting to prematurely fail or generally not well designed to start with).

The trade off is resiliency, which works as long as you actually understand that weakness and monitor it (we don't really, and 'mitigate' by throwing non existent people at it). Warship crews aren't sized to be efficient, they are that big so you can work around a lot of broken stuff and still fight, and do multiple things at the same time. Non-combatants like AOPs built to commercial standards are intended to go from A to B and only really have enough people to do one thing at a time at a sustainable pace.

 

[PrairieFella]

Well, the ones destined for the West Coast had to be sailed there from where they were built, namely Halifax. But that isn't pushing the envelope. On the East coast, the gate vessels had sailed all the way down to Virginia or even to Bermuda, with reserve crews. On the West coast, where the powers that be we were less agreeable to night sailing, the GV had sailed all the way up to Ketchikan, Alaska or down to Portland Oregon. So driving around the continent through the Panama canal with brand new and modern coastal vessels was no big deal and well within the qualifications of naval reservists of that era.

The overall employments of the vessels got screwed up after the first two or three years, so they never became primarily reservists training vessels, as they were meant to be - mainly. I say mainly because four or five of them were supposed to replace the Reg Force operated PB's on the West coast as the training vessels for MARS (NWO) officers advanced navigation platform (second step after the YAG's). The Reg Force never took them over, forcing the reserve to man four to five more ships than it expected and man them year round, more or less forever, instead of only during reservists peak availability (ramp up early May, peak mid-May to Mid-August, ramp down to end of August).

The original idea was to have reservists on extended class B for a year or two operate them at the beginning (i.e. at commissioning - "plank owners") so that you would build a knowledge base in the reserves about their operation, after which time, they would go into the standard reserve training cycle. That cycle is Sept-Oct for deep maintenance, followed by Nov to March for training week-ends of reservists, followed by April's short work period to get ready for summer, then May to August, full time sailing schedule to train and qualify reservists in watchkeeping (bridge and engineering), seamanship and operations. That last part never happened. They became so useful to the Reg Force, and especially since they took little to no Reg Force crew, that the RCN leadership refused to relinquish them to reserve training, save as full time extended class B's, who were always the same people over and over, becoming "cheap" Reg Force personnel and ceasing to be reservists.

It almost destroyed the reserves.

We never got to the "equilibrium" point where 8 of them would have been on the West Coast, with four of them taken over by the Reg Force for training purposes (until the Orca's came along), so that the Reserves would have had four available for training on each coast, within the standard reserve training cycle as discussed above. That would have provided a good working base to produce a steady flow of Minor War Vessels Watchkeepers and Command Officer, together with sufficiently trained seaman, engineering operators and communications and combat information operators to provide the Reg force with a good starting base of personnel easy to train up to frigate levels quickly in case of war or national emergency requiring expansion, which is all you can really ask of true reservists in the naval side of things.

The CAF and strangling reserve capabilities in the cradle, name a more iconic duo

 

[Furniture]

They aren't actually 'on watch', more of 'on shift', with the MCR normally not crewed. It only happens during specials or emergency stations.

That works as long as we operate the ship within the concept of operations it's designed for, and the remote and automated functions work. The RCN deviates from the former routinely on most platforms, and the latter is a general issue (especially with a lot of things starting to prematurely fail or generally not well designed to start with).

The trade off is resiliency, which works as long as you actually understand that weakness and monitor it (we don't really, and 'mitigate' by throwing non existent people at it). Warship crews aren't sized to be efficient, they are that big so you can work around a lot of broken stuff and still fight, and do multiple things at the same time. Non-combatants like AOPs built to commercial standards are intended to go from A to B and only really have enough people to do one thing at a time at a sustainable pace.

Having sailed on an AOPV, I'd suggest the core crew is barely sufficient to get off the wall. I'm pretty sure every one of them is sailing at about 20 people over "core" crew on the regular.