Paving the way for other F-35B customers globally, the UK has issued a contract for its procurement of the innovative strike missiles for the fifth generation aircraft.

According to a January 6, 2021 article published by the UK MoD:

Known as SPEAR3, the next-generation missile can travel long distances at high-subsonic speed and over the next decade will become the F-35’s primary air-to-ground weapon.

At 1.8 metres long, the missile system has a range of more than 140-kilometres and, powered by a turbojet engine, can operate across land and sea, day or night, to overpower enemy air defence systems, while the pilot and aircraft remains a safe distance away.

Its ability to attack moving targets will enhance the UK’s future combat air capability and provide immense lethal capability to the Queen Elizabeth class carrier strike group.

Defence Minister Jeremy Quin said:

“The development of this next-generation missile will allow us to protect our personnel and assets on the ground, from thousands of metres in the sky above.”

“Our commitment to this system will secure hundreds of highly skilled jobs across the UK and showcase British technology and weapon expertise on the world stage.”

Following a successful development phase, the new seven-year demonstration and manufacture contract with MBDA will support more than 700 UK jobs, including the creation of 190 highly skilled technology jobs in system design, guidance control and navigation and software engineering.

At the peak of the contract, 570 people will work on various aspects of the system’s development in Bristol, Stevenage and Bolton. Another 200 jobs are expected to be sustained along the supply chain that includes L3/Harris, Roband, Collins, EPS and MSB.

Colonel Martin French, DE&S’ Lightweight and Medium Attack Systems (LMAS) team leader, said:

“The placement of this contract marks the next major stage of the SPEAR3 weapon system’s development and is a result of months of detailed negotiations between MBDA and the LMAS project team.

“Building on the successes and technology achievements of the previous four years’ work with MBDA, we now enter the exciting and challenging demonstration phase where we start to prove the system against the UK’s requirements and ramp up activities to integrate this highly-capable weapon system onto the F-35B aircraft.”

With its unique combination of stealth, cutting-edge radar, sensor technology, and armed with SPEAR3, the F-35 will protect aircraft carriers from enemy ships, submarines, aircraft and missiles.

The UK currently has 21 fifth-generation F-35Bs, having received three new jets on 30 November. The platform’s Initial Operating Capability (Maritime) was recently declared and, later this year, F-35 jets will sail with HMS Queen Elizabeth on her maiden Global Carrier Strike Group ‘21 deployment.

The initial demonstration phase will assess the weapon system against the UK military’s requirement through, testing, simulation and trials, which will include controlled firings from a Typhoon aircraft.

The contract forms part of the Complex Weapons portfolio with MBDA, which is on track to deliver £1.2 billion saving to UK defence. It also allows the MOD and MBDA to maximise the export potential of complex weapons, including the first-in-class SPEAR3, which supports UK prosperity and the international agenda.

In an article published on October 18, 2016, we looked forward to the coming of SPEAR-3 as follows:

The US Navy has clearly articulated a way ahead for US and allied forces, namely to shape integrated capabilities for the distribute force able to deliver effects throughout a kill web.

The CNO has shaped a concept of the kill webs to describe the approach towards shaping a distributed joint and coalition force, which can deliver effects throughout the extended battlespace.

One of the key aspects of changes involves weapons in the kill web.

Target identification and weapons delivery will not be necessarily located on the same platform; indeed, the ability to deliver lethal effect in the electro-magnetic battlespace will be distributed throughout the kill web.

Weapons are distributed throughout the kill web and can be fired by platforms also operating throughout the kill web capable of firing weapons not carried by that platform.

Distributed strike will become increasingly significant as well as weapons modernization accelerates and the problem of providing new capabilities to the force, a force that is distributed in operations.

What might be called fifth generation weapons can be identified as their ability to be networked and provide selectable, proportionate effects ideally at extended ranges.

On the networking aspect, it is their capability to interact with the launch platform or with the controller in the battlespace, which can be another platform in the battlespace.

It is interactivity with the strike command elements deployed in the battlespace and an ability to operate with strike agility, which characterizes the fifth generation platform.

The challenge is integrate weapons within the kill web, to ensure that weapons are not simply fired from a close proximity source but can be used by the decision authority most capable of identifying and killing a threat.

As Rear Admiral Manazir has put it:

“C2 is ubiquitous across the kill web. Where is information being processed?

Where is knowledge being gained?

Where is the human in the loop?

Where can core C2 decisions best be made and what will they look like in the fluid battlespace?

The key task is to create decision superiority.

But what is the best way to achieve that in the fluid battlespace we will continue to operate in? What equipment and what systems allow me to ensure decision superiority?”

With regard to weapons, this means ensuring that the weapons capability is in keeping with the evolution of the sensors and command elements in the kill web.

MBDA is currently making significant progress with two such weapons, the Meteor air-to-air weapon and the SPEAR 3 air-to-ground weapon. Both of these weapons have interactive data links and the capability to shift from a particular weapons platform, which launched it to another platform able to direct the target path.

Another core characteristic of what can be considered fifth generation weapons is that they are software upgradeable weapons, which are redesigned as both technology and combat performance evolve.

SPEAR 3 and Meteor are software driven, each can be enhanced further as lessons are learned or the threat evolves alongside their host platforms

These weapons can be carried by fifth generation aircraft which solves a problem identified by former Chief Air Force Scientist Mark Lewis: “Why are we putting 3rd and 4th generation weapons on 5th generation aircraft?”

Indeed, at the recent AFA annual conference, the ACC Commander, Hawk Carlisle, was asked that question and underscored that indeed this was a significant problem and one on which the USAF is working on.

MBDA’s approach has been to build its latest weapons to be useable by a variety of air platforms, including fifth generation ones, so that the flexibility of the kill web being shaped can be enhanced.

With regard to SPEAR this means that it can be carried by an F-35 which allows it to engage significantly more targets than if it used a legacy glide weapon or that Typhoon which will also most likely carry SPEAR 3 can contribute significant load out capability of this weapon for the platforms operating in the extended battlespace.

It is about what the weapon can do as an interactive data linked strike asset ON a platform; and yet be able to operate by OTHER platforms identified by the C2 authority to take over those strike assets and direct them to their final product.

This is about interactive capabilities; and a new approach to weaponization, which will transform how US or allied forces operate in the extended battlespace.

Spear 3 is a key example of how the UK is focusing upon the enhanced capabilities of the F-35 and Typhoon as strike platforms, but also shaping a way ahead for the kill web approach to weaponization.

And the Meteor air superiority missile operating off of the Typhoon, or Rafale l or Gripen can contribute not only to its own defense but through the kill web enabled strike complex contribute to the coalition force as well in terms of providing support functions. It is about re-framing what being a wing man is really all about in a fifth generation context

As then ACC Commander General Mike Hostage put the approach: “The 5^th Generation aircraft will enable the air combat cloud and allow me to use my legacy assets differently. Many of my 4th Gen fighters can be used to extend the network of linked systems providing reinforcing fires, and I can focus on the 5th Gen assets as the core nodes shaping distributed joint capabilities.”

At the heart of interactive change as well is the evolution of the platforms carrying the new weapons as the new weapons themselves become integrated into the platform.

For example, the Swedish Air Force’s Gripen has integrated the Meteor onboard the aircraft which the Swedish Air Force believes substantially increases the lethality and survivability of the Gripen. According to a press release from SAAB dated July 11, 2016, this synergy was highlighted between weapon and platform.

Speaking today at a the Farnborough International Airshow, at a ceremony to mark the Meteor’s entry into service, Major General mats Helgesson, Chief-of-Staff of the Swedish Air Force said, “After extensive testing by FMV and the Gripen Operational Test and Evaluation unit, all of the new MS20 functions including the Meteor missile are now fully integrated with Gripen.

The Swedish Air Force is now in its Initial Operational Capability phase with the Meteor.

The Meteor missile is currently the most lethal radar-guided missile in operational service, and the Swedish Air Force is the only operational user so far. I am very proud and satisfied to have the Meteor in the inventory of my air force.”

The complete MS20 upgrade is now flying with Swedish Air Force Gripens and MS20 enhancements will soon be implemented in the Gripens of the Czech Air Force. The upgrade delivers a host of new capability options for air-to-air, air-to-surface and ISTAR missions plus many improved mission systems and other changes. As ever with Gripen, operators are free to choose how, when and to what extent they implement the new capabilities that the upgrade enables.

A key element of Gripen’s MS20 capability expansion is full integration of the MBDA Meteor BVRAAM (Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile). Swedish Air Force Gripens are thus the world’s first and only fighters to be operational with this revolutionary European weapon system.

The ramjet-powered Meteor, developed by MBDA with Saab as a key partner, is an advanced, long-range and agile air-to-air weapon that is uniquely designed to counter the most sophisticated airborne threats of the 21st century.

Meteor is a tactical missile with strategic effect. Its extremely long range (beyond 100 km) and unrivalled no escape zone (three times greater than any current BVR missile) will dominate the future air-to-air battlespace, giving a decisive capability to Gripen and its pilots.

http://saabgroup.com/media/news-press/news/2016-07/gripen-leads-the-world-with-new-operational-capabilities/

The Swedish Air Force Chief, Maj. Gen Mats Helgesson underscored that “From our perspective, (the Meteor) is a game changer. This is something we have invested lots of money in and makes the C/D a really potent air defender again….We are not completely ready with all the tactics, but it is fielded.”

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/meteor-introduction-transforms-swedish-air-defence-425537/

The Typhoon is a more complex case as the multi-nation aircraft is being comprehensively transformed through changes in the cockpit, radar, helmet and targeting systems to handle a complex weapons load out.

The Typhoon will provide significant weapons mass for the new weapons being built by MBDA as well as some core legacy ones as well.

And this year, Typhoon has been progressing with its transition to a core air-to-ground role and as it does so integrating the key weapons which perform the strike element within that mission, Brimstone, Storm Shadow and the new SPEAR 3 missile.

For example, Eurofighter in a news story published on July 12, 2016, announced that the Typhoon successful fired a SPEAR weapon for the first time.

The SPEAR missile is being developed to meet the UK’s Selective Precision Effects At

Range Capability 3 (SPEAR Cap 3) requirement for the UK’s F-35 Lightning II aircraft, with the potential to equip Typhoon. SPEAR will precisely engage long range, mobile, fleeting and re-locatable targets in all weathers, day or night, in the presence of countermeasures, obscurants and camouflage, whilst ensuring a safe stand-off range between the aircrew and threat air defences.

https://www.eurofighter.com/news-and-events/2016/07/spear-missile-fired-from-eurofighter-typhoon-as-future-capability-development-continues

But it is the interactive modernization of the Typhoon with innovations in the weapons enterprise, which shape a new capability, one which is integratable into a kill web.

The interactive innovations in Typhoon were highlighted at a UK Eurofighter Typhoon display at the Royal International Air Tattoo earlier this summer.

According to a press release from Eurofighter dated August 10, 2016:

“A UK Eurofighter Typhoon, featuring the latest weapons fit, performed a spectacular display for crowds at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) and Farnborough

International Air Show, with BAE Systems’ Typhoon Test Pilot Nat Makepeace at the controls.

The display demonstrated the Eurofighter Typhoon carrying four Meteor Beyond

Visual Range Air to Air missiles, two ASRAAM infra-red missiles, six Brimstone 2 low collateral, precision strike missiles, and two Paveway IV GPS/laser guided bombs.”

https://www.eurofighter.com/news-and-events/2016/08/inside-the-cockpit-of-award-winning-eurofighter-typhoon-display

The point here is the significant load out on the jet which can be used by itself, by its traditional wingman or to operate as a wingman in a kill web, which means by assets not operating within the fighter formation itself.

The UK MoD has focused as well on ensuring that its own fifth generation aircraft has advanced air-to-air missiles for its own defense,.

The aircraft are different and will operate differently as well in terms of effect, but by having a missile that can operate cross platform in 21^st century combat environments, weapons innovation is not narrowly scoped to a platform or single platform dependent.

This is why the MoD signed a major contract this Summer with MBDA for its advanced air-to-air missile, ASRAAM. In discussions with Australian pilots who fly aircraft with ASRAAMs on board they particularly like the capability to fire the weapon and have it destroy targets behind it, which is clearly anticipating the data link enabled weapons world.

According to an article published on the UK MoD website on August 16, 2016:

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has awarded a contract worth around £184 million to ensure the UK’s new supersonic stealth combat aircraft will continue to be equipped with the latest air-to-air missile. Designed and manufactured in the UK,

ASRAAM is an advanced heatseeking weapon which will give Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy F- 35B Lightning II pilots, operating from land and the UK’s two new aircraft carriers, the ability to defeat current and future air adversaries….. ASRAAM, which uses a sophisticated infra-red seeker, is designed to enable UK pilots to engage and defend themselves against other aircraft.

It is capable of engaging hostile air targets ranging in size from large multi-engined aircraft to small drones…..

ASRAAM is currently in service with RAF Typhoon and Tornado aircraft and is being carried daily on missions over Iraq and Syria as part of the coalition fight against Daesh.

The updated missile variant being secured under this new contract is expected to enter service on RAF Typhoon aircraft from 2018 and on RAF and Royal Navy F-35 aircraft from 2022, when the current variant will be taken out of service.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive/411-million-investment-in-new-missile-for-uks-new-jets-sustains-700-uk-jobs-19052016

The entire kill web approach affects the modernization and acquisition of platforms and weapons as well as the high-end training necessary to shape an integrated force.

According to Rear Admiral Manazir: “The key is continually evolving combinations of capabilities that enhance the defensive and offensive power of the platforms that you put into the kill web.

We are very focused on the evolving man-machine relationship, and the ability of manned and unmanned systems, as well as kinetic and non-kinetic systems, to deliver a broader spectrum of capability to the force.

We are aiming to use the machine for the OO (Observe-Orient) part of the OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) Loop and optimize our human capabilities to do the DA (decide-act).

Fighter pilots have always been “thinking aviators” but we are adjusting what we expect from them as they become key nodes and crucial enablers in the kill web. Becoming a Top Gun pilot in this world will be quite different than in the legacy one.”

It is clear that MBDA is building weapons for this new age Top Gun pilot.

 

By Robbin Laird

As the United States and core allies build out the way ahead for an integrated distributed force, a key challenge is shaping C2 systems which fully enable such a force.

C2 and ISR have been historically treated as separate terms but increasingly the sensor networks are integrable with C2 systems, and with the focus on a distributed  force, how best to connect the distributed force with joint or allied forces which provide the critical combat mass to prevail in a crisis?

In my view, the kill web approach recognizes the reality of current C2 systems, which are that a combat cluster needs to take its C2 capabilities with it for that force to integrate in operations. The reach back to a larger force depends on networks – both ISR and C2 – which it does not directly control and may be denied in a crisis.

The force package needs to have its own integratability built in; the broader reach to other force elements will shape how a particular force package can affect the wider battlespace.

With the challenges facing U.S. and allied force with the forces being built by core adversaries, the importance of flexible basing is being highlighted. Sea basing is a core advantage along with an ability to operate multi-domain forces from a variety of bases which can intersect and operate with the sea bases.

For the Marines, this means that the reworking of the amphibious forces along with new approaches to basing are key elements of the force mix being worked.

At the heart of the challenge for force effectiveness is how C2 can be shaped to enable more effective force capabilities to be built and operate in a contested combat environment.

During my visit to 2^nd Marine Aircraft Wing in early December 2020, I had a chance to discuss these challenges with the C2 professionals in Marine Air Control Group 28. We had a wide-ranging conversation on the intersection between the evolving tactical environment and C2 and will highlight a number of takeaways from that conversation.  To be clear, these are my conclusions shaped by the discussion, but I am not attributing these conclusions to the group.

The first point draws upon my discussions with Col. Gillette at Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1.

We discussed during my visit in September, and in earlier conversations, the challenge of shaping more effective Marine Corps integration with the Navy, and he highlighted the key questions: how can the Marines most effectively assist in sea denial and sea control missions, and how can the Marines help in controlling sea lines of communication?

These questions highlighted the key challenge of defining the tactical missions of the Marines in providing support for a strategic maritime campaign.

What they highlighted was that the focus was operations short of total war, and the importance of escalation management and control.

We discussed this during our session and the importance of shaping C2 approaches which would allow for the command of such missions posed as a key challenge.

How will different types of crisis situations be managed in which the force is distributed?

How best to ensure that the force can be integrated to the extent necessary to deliver the right kind of crisis management effect or deterrence?

The second challenge is simply moving from where we are to where the force needs to be.

This certainly can be seen with regard to the amphibious force. The amphibious force has not been built with the most advanced C2 available to the U.S. Navy, and the insertion of force from amphibious ships ashore has not been built around the construct of the sea-base managing the force ashore.

This means that two immediate challenges in the shift to flexible basing is the need to have more robust and flexible, from an expeditionary point of view, C2 onboard the ships making up an amphibious task force and new capabilities to connect the expeditionary force ashore with the expeditionary force afloat.

The third challenge is associated with forces inserted into expeditionary bases is ensuring they have the C2 capabilities needed to achieve their missions with the integrated force, and that they do not become combat orphans.

This challenge was highlighted with regard to building a web of C2 nodes or node basing, in the words of one participant in the conversation.

To be blunt, distributed C2 is hard to do in the first place. There clearly is growing effort to find ways to have rapidly stood up distributed C2 in an expeditionary basing sense which can reach to wider networks, but this is an aspiration more than a reality.

That is why in my view, working ways to integrate the amphibious task force is the preliminary challenge to be met, prior to being able to push small combat teams ashore and expect them with the current technologies to be able to manage C2 complexities putting them in the broader fleet wide firing solution sets.

The fourth challenge is the question of the decision-making authorities. 

If the focus is upon operating from a variety of bases, who makes the decisions at the tactical edge? And how to do so, notably with regard to fires solutions?

Mission command is clearly involved but that will not be enough when it comes to shaping integrated fires solutions with a mixture of launch points, including from expeditionary bases involved.

The fifth challenge is the reset of C2 and ISR acquisition itself.

With the historical focus on platform dominance over “seamless” C2 and ISR data flows, how indeed will the kind of C2 be built into the force that allows a distributed force to achieve the levels of integratability needed?

One question posed by one of the participants raised a key question about the combat geography and force structuring.

The question: how do you visualize taking expeditionary basing and applying it to across the Atlantic as opposed to the Pacific?

This is a great question on many grounds.

The first is that the Russians, in my view, pose the most direct threat to the United States, given Putin’s actions, his nuclear build up, and the key role which the forces projected from the Kola Peninsula play in directly threatening U.S. forces and territory.

There is nothing abstract here; this is a direct and current challenge.

This is why the 2^nd Fleet was re-established in 2015; and it is why the U.S. NATO relationship is deepening with what I called the UK-Nordic-Polish arc of defense in my recently published co-authored book, The Return of Direct Defense in Europe.

It also poses a very practical question of the relationship of 2^nd MAW to 2^nd Fleet going forward. In my own view, there are significant opportunities to re-shape that relationship and adopt some of the force re-structuring options on the table for the USMC.

Again, I would underscore that in my view the Russians are the most pressing direct threat, so ramping up capabilities for greater integration of 2^nd MAW with 2^nd Fleet make a great deal of sense to me.

The way I will conceptualize it is if one shapes an arc from North Carolina, to Norfolk, to Halifax and Newfoundland, to Iceland, to Greenland, to Norway and the Nordics, how best to deploy Marines in support of the naval integration missions being highlighted? 

That is the question and the answers clearly could be multifold. Force packages of Marines highlighting strike, ASW and anti-surface warfare missions, C2 and ISR support missions, could be shaped and deployed across the territory of the arc from Canada to the Nordics.

How best to use the air capabilities of the Marines centered on 2^nd MAW would be a key part of a reshaping function as well.

The lessons learned from this effort could be applied to the Pacific as well, and would indeed be different from island hopping approaches, but perhaps even more significant as well.

And the C2 side of this is crucial to shaping an effective integrable force.

And the way ahead would be paved by training, training, training as Admiral Nimitz ordered in the 2^nd World War.

Or, to put in the terms discussed with the Marine Corps C2 experts, exercises, exercises, exercises, to determine how best to shape a more effective distributed force which could be survivable, sustainable and effective to an overall maritime campaign.

As one participant put it: “We need to increase our C2 communication dynamics in our exercises. We need to exercise our vulnerabilities and to find ways to enhance our strengths.”

It is hard to argue with that conclusion and one very much which fits into the core focus of my work for 2020, which has been upon training for the high-end fight.

Featured photo: Lance Cpls. Byron Garcia and Andrew Beckett test the equipment for the Direct Air Support Center behind the Marine Air Control Group 28 headquarters, Dec. 1. The Marines will be participating in the Marine Air Command and Control System Integrated Simulated Training Exercise Dec. 14-16 2010  that will test the abilities of MACG-28 and subordinate units before deploying to Afghanistan.

12.01.2010, photo by Lance Cpl. Scott L. Tomaszycki, II Marine Expeditionary Force

Also, see the following:

C2 for Hybrid War: The Marines Preparing for Combat

We are publishing a book in the first quarter of 2021, which focuses on training for the high-end fight and the key role which innovations and C2 and ISR play in the evolution of full spectrum crisis management warfighting.