VMM-261 Training

02/12/2021

Airmen with the 165th Air Support Operations Squadron (ASOS) conduct a casualty evacuation exercise with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (VMM-261) at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, Dec. 7-16.

Marines with VMM-261 trained with airmen in shore-based operations in an unfamiliar environment prior to an upcoming deployment in Spring 2021.

VMM-261 is a subordinate unit of 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, the air combat element of II Marine Expeditionary Force.

SAVANNAH, GA,

12.14.2020

Video by Lance Cpl. Yuritzy Gomez

2nd Marine Aircraft Win

ADMM-Plus 10th Anniversary

02/11/2021

On December 10, 2020, Minister of Defense Kishi attended the ceremony for the 10th Anniversary of the Founding of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (hereinafter referred to as “ADMM-Plus”), the 7th ADMM-Plus, and the 6th ASEAN-Japan Defence Ministers’ Informal Meeting via a videoconference.

What is ADMM-Plus?

The ADMM-Plus is the only meeting hosted by a government and attended by defense ministers in the Indo-Pacific region, including ASEAN and Plus countries.

Member countries include: ten ASEAN member states and eight Plus countries (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia, and the U.S.)

The Experts’ Working Group (EWG) was established under the ADMM-Plus to implement practical initiatives such as joint exercises to respond to security issues in the Indo-Pacific region.

10th Anniversary Ceremony of ADMM-Plus

The online ceremony of the 10th Anniversary of the Founding of the ADMM-Plus was held with the attendance of H.E. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Prime Minister of Viet Nam, Minister-level participants from ten ASEAN Member States and eight Plus countries, and the Secretary-General of ASEAN. H.E. Mr. Phuc, H.E. General Ngo Xuan Lich, Minister of National Defence of Viet Nam, H.E. Dato. Lim Jock Hoi, Secretary-General of ASEAN, and H.E. Mr. Atul Khare, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support, all delivered speeches looking back on the development of ADMM-Plus over the past decade. Minister Kishi and H.E. Mr. Rajnath Singh, Minister of Defense of India, also made commemorative speeches on behalf of the Plus countries.

Minister Kishi noted that the ADMM-Plus has made steady progress as the only framework for government-hosted meetings of Defense Ministers within the Indo-Pacific Region, and underscored his deep respect for ASEAN’s efforts in establishing and maintaining such an open and inclusive regional framework, noting ASEAN’s role as the driving force behind dialogue given its part in leading a diverse framework comprising ASEAN and Plus countries.

Minister Kishi emphasized that Japan has consistently honored ASEAN’s regional leading role and supported its initiatives to tackle non-traditional security challenges. He also stressed that Japan has advocated for participating countries overcoming regional security challenges through reason and dialogue. Minister Kishi expressed his strong expectation that ADMM-Plus will continue to be a platform for confidence-building, and pointed to Japan’s determined commitment to furthering security cooperation in the region as a responsible Plus country.

This article was first published by the Japanese Ministry of Defence.

Sally B’s Maintenance in a Very Strange Year

02/10/2021

By B-17 Engineer Steve Carter

Following the installation of the newly overhauled No 3 engine, the work had progressed well right through the winter. The work also included the removal, inspection and repair to the flaps, the wing trailing edge and the No 4 engine turbocharger.

There was great anticipation for a lovely summer season of flying, for memorial flypasts and airshows but then all of a sudden, the first COVID-19 Lockdown descended upon us all!

To continue working on Sally B during lockdown, careful safety measures had to be put in place first. Once this was done, we could continue our work on Sally B. This was welcome news for the engineering team who were eager to return.

Painting Sally B

With all this extra time in hand, Stuart Vincent came up with the great idea to give Sally B a new coat of paint – Elly thought it was an excellent idea and thus, with Peter Brown on board, the preparation of painting the aircraft was made.

Soon after the massive undertaking of completely repainting the aircraft began, led by professional painter Stuart with the help of dedicated members of the team among them Ian Wilson and John Jeffrey.

The painting continued on Sundays throughout the summer and will continue during the winter months.

The wings and horizontal stabilizer upper surfaces, the fin and rudder and most of the upper fuselage have now been painted, and Sally B is starting to look terrific.

We’re sure you will agree when you next see her.

More TLC for our B-17

Over the summer, this winter’s maintenance work also began; a calendar driven task, even though she has not flown this year. Some of this involved the very skillful hands of Stu Hicks and James Langley, helped by Luke Morgan and Thomas Carter-Pettit. They have, among other jobs, been checking for corrosion and replacing rivets all over the aircraft.

Darren Smith has also been busy, helped by Callum, his son, who is now of age. We find it essential that the younger generation are encouraged to get involved with practical preservation and in sharing our experience with the engineers of tomorrow.

We are proud that Sally B has played a significant part for several young people over the years, and Callum is one of those. Also, it may surprise you, but Sally B’s engineering team have over a century and a half of collective engineering experience on the B-17 alone.

With so much work, care and attention given to her, we hope that when you next see Sally B outside, she will look all the more the iconic aircraft we all know she is.

Not forgetting our Tug, GPU and Stores It’s not only Sally B that’s been getting the TLC treatment, as some of her support equipment is also receiving much needed attention.

The Tug has had a great deal of work done to it, including new lights, repaired seats, new electricals, carburetor and engine work and an overhaul of the braking system, with much of this work being undertaken by Ian Wilson.

The ground power unit (GPU), has also received attention by Graeme Douglas, included a whole new inlet and exhaust system. We’re hoping it will be a lot quieter?

Perhaps it’ll be so quiet, that we’ll forget she’s even running!

We also hope that after all this, there will be enough paint left over from painting the aircraft, to give both the tug and the GPU a sprucing up.

Over the summer, much work has also gone into improving our stores area and making better use of the available space.

We sincerely hope that 2021 will allow us to get Sally B out of the hangar and fly her for you, but we will have to wait and see.

Editor’s Note: For a chance to contribute to support the Sally B, please see the following:

https://www.sallyb.org.uk

 

Reshaping Nordic Defense Capability to Meet the Russian Challenge

02/08/2021

By Robbin Laird

In our recently released book entitled The Return of Direct Defense: Meeting the 21st Century Authoritarian Challenge, we highlighted that the focus of European defense was emerging as nations with defense capabilities oriented to operate integrated operations as “coalitions of the willing.” There is no single defense challenge, but a range of challenges, with NATO providing common standards and training and key states shaping ways ahead for their own defense along with key partners in providing for direct defense.

No “coalition of the willing” is more suggestive of the way ahead than Nordic defense cooperation in shaping a key role in the evolving Arctic to UK to North American defense corridor. With the Kola Peninsula as the location of the most concentrated military capability in the world, it will be a key focus for defense of the United States, and as such a key focus for the American forces to protect their own country. Increasingly, for the Nordics a key way ahead is to shape greater defense cohesion and joint capability to defend against any Russian invasion force by ensuring that there is a more effective local balance of military power.

In other words, rather than viewing the Nordics as defended by friendly forces come to the region, the ability of these states to combine capabilities to deter the Russians from a direct operation against them becomes a key part of the way ahead. As a Finnish official put it during the recent phase of Finnish defense modernization: “The timeline for early warning is shorter; the threshold for the use of force is lower.”

Time might be too short for non-Nordic NATO forces to show up to reinforce their direct defense effort: therefore, how can the Nordics prepare for direct defense reinforced by the United States and other European forces in times of crisis but to do so with a credible direct defense capability?

During my recent visit to France, I had a chance to visit Denmark “virtually,” and discussed such an approach with Hans Tino Hansen, the founder and CEO of Risk Intelligence. His firm is working an assessment of what the Russians can project into the region and how the Poles, Balts and Nordics can collaborate more effectively to provide a defense belt which can absorb a Russian shock, slow it down, and prepare with NATO allies to reinforce the region and ultimately if necessary, to take back any lost territory. It also looks into the role of Ukraine and Belarus in an armed conflict and how it impacts on Russian options.

Various wargames conducted by think tanks during the last five years have resulted in reported quick defeats for the exposed Baltic countries and NATO forces in the region due to the time lag of NATO reinforcements arriving to the region. With a more coordinated and comprehensive approach to collective defense in the region it would be possible to do more with Nordics shaping more effective integration to thereby contribute more together.

As Hansen puts it: “We value and support a dialogue with the Russians. But the history and political culture of Russia, not just from the Cold War, is that the Russians respect strength and only from such a position a meaningful dialogue is possible.”

He then sketched out how the Nordic integration process could more effectively shape a dialogue from strength strategy even if two countries are members of NATO and two are not. He started from the fact that Russia is not the Soviet Union and does not have the advantages which flowed from Warsaw Pact geography or the forces of the Cold War.

“We have been looking at the conventional air-ground forces which could move into north-eastern European territory primarily from the Russian Western Military District. We have at the same time looked at how the national efforts of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Nordics, if integrated more effectively, can provide for a more capable defense against different levels of direct action by the Russians.

“Our study is not yet ready, but the initial findings suggest that if you do such a correlation, there is almost a balance between the two even without NATO reinforcements in the basic and early scenarios of a conflict and not counting in the operational-strategic level assets on the Russian side. Furthermore, the Russians have at the present a significant advantage of readiness, training and large exercises in higher levels of formations, electronic warfare as well as C2.

“To get a good outcome, it is crucial to have the kind of integration tools such as C2 which allow for a cohesive defense approach, but what such a process underscores is that integrated defense in the region holds great promise for shaping a stronger hand for the countries to initially defend themselves and to dialogue with Russia from a position of strength.”

He underscored that the Ukrainian piece of this effort was crucial, because stronger Ukrainian defense would require the Russians to have forces in place to deal with that challenge that could not be used elsewhere. At the same time the Belarus military and geography adds to the balance of Russia. Finland can mobilize a significant force to hold Russian forces at risk within the broader Nordic context and enhanced Swedish and Finnish collaboration creates new conventional capabilities which can affect Russian actions in the Baltic as well.

We discussed Kaliningrad which is most often considered a source of strength for Russia and a danger to NATO and allied operations in the Baltic, but it is at the same time a source of vulnerability as well as strength for Russia. For example, the Russian enclave could if faced with a significant regional missile strike capability combined with a range of other conventional air, naval and land capabilities, face a formidable threat to its enclave. Hans pointed out that the Nordics and Poland have to acquire such a capability, but that Denmark, for one is on the way to do so with the current study on strike missile capability as part of the current defense material acquisition plan.

We discussed a key missing piece as well which is the role of long-range artillery. By adding significant long range artillery capabilities, Russian forces can be targeted in the enclave, as well as in terms of forces they would move into the Baltics, and in other areas where they would wish to project ground forces. I added that the U.S. Navy and USAF are clearly looking to add longer range conventional strike and an ability to provide such a strike capability to an enhanced integrated air and ground capability by the national forces in the Northern region would provide a significant deterrent to the Russians.

Hansen underscored that the United States is a key part of Northern European defense, but what he is suggesting is that the approach needs to change. “By reducing what we need the United States to do in our defense in the initial period of armed conflict, the capabilities which the American can build for stand-off strike and defense capabilities as well as strategic capabilities becomes more important and part of the integration package.”

He argued that “we need the right capability mix in the wider region. We need to be able to do both defensive and offensive (in a defensive context) operations for a period of time without having to depend initially on the UK or the United States.”

And he returned to the evolving collaboration between Finland and Sweden and its impact. “If Swedish/Finnish defense cooperation really takes off, it actually means that the soft bottom of the Kola Peninsula is clearly exposed. With strong integration of the Finnish and Swedish forces, that they are in a much better position to be defend their airbases which can be available as well to other Nordic defense forces and NATO forces as well in an armed conflict. It means that the Russians cannot take these areas, especially if the Finns and Swedes start to work together in a more coherent fashion. We’re looking is some kind of web of cooperation between Sweden and Finland and between the NATO countries and these two key nations.”

And if such cooperation accelerates, this allows the Nordic states to focus more attention on their reach from the “green” Arctic to the “white” Arctic and to shape enhanced capabilities for extended Nordic defense into the “white” Arctic as well. For especially Denmark, which is stretching its limited military resources from the Baltic Sea across the North Sea, North Atlantic and via Greenland to the North Pole, cooperation with the United States and the other Nordic countries as well as other NATO countries will be key to in order to counter the increasing threat level of this vast area.

In short, significant change is underway as the “coalition of the willing” focuses on the challenges of direct defense and the offshore powers that reinforce European direct defense re-calibrate their forces and the contribution those forces could make in a timely manner.

Also, see the following:

A recent interview with Major General Anders Rex, the Chief of the Danish Air Force underscored a way ahead with the kind of C2 which Hansen emphasized in his interview.

The Future is Now for Enhanced Integratability: The Perspective of Major General Anders Rex

And the U.S. Navy is clearly working the long-range strike piece as a key American contribution to the support of European direct defense. Our interview with Rear Admiral Meier, head of the U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Force Atlantic command, centrally underscored that point.

The Way Ahead for the Large Deck Carrier: The Perspective of Rear Admiral Meier, Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic

And in our book, we focused on what we believed to be the importance of reshaping capabilities for the 4th Battle of the Atlantic, by shaping force integration from Poland to the Baltics to the Nordics and to the UK.

This is how we put it in our book:

“In effect, the core zone of interest for direct defense is to secure Poland and to work with allies which can aid in securing Poland but also operate defense in depth capabilities that can deflect, deter, or defeat Russian longer-range strike forces that are directed against the belt running from Poland through the Baltics into the Nordic region. This Northern–Baltic–Polish belt or arc is at the heart for the next few years will shape the direct defense of Europe against hybrid and conventional threats, with a reach back to the nuclear equation.”

USCG Refueling at Sea

The Coast Guard Cutter James (WMSL-754) crew conducts a replenishment at sea with Chilean navy oiler Almirante Montt (AO 52) in the Pacific Ocean Nov. 25, 2020.

The cutter James is deployed to the Pacific Ocean in support of enhanced counter narcotic operations. (U.S. Coast guard video by Petty Officer 3rd Class Erik Villa Rodriguez)

11.25.2020

U.S. Coast Guard District 7

Drone Warfare: Working Countermeasures

02/07/2021

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The use of low-cost armed drones in bloody conflicts in central Europe, North Africa and the Middle East highlights the need for countermeasures, while the UK is showing interest in ordering these cheap and deadly weapons.

Armed unmanned aerial vehicles were used to wreak havoc in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and military drones have flown in Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Interest may have been heightened following a Jan. 26 air attack on Riyadh, just days after a Jan. 23 interception of a missile or drone in the skies over the Saudi capital.

Those air attacks were just the latest attempts to hit Saudi Arabia, with the Yemeni-based Houthis insurgents previously having sent armed drones.

The market for armed tactical drones appears to be thriving.

The Azeri use of the Turkish TB2 drone against Armenian forces sparked UK  interest to acquire a similar weapon, daily The Guardian reported Dec. 29.

That type of UAV evades conventional air defenses, flying too slow and too low to be detected by older military radars and they escape missiles designed to hit fighter jets, incoming missiles and other airborne threats.

A lack of necessary kit fuels potential demand for countermeasures to detect, identify and disable the tactical drone.

In the pipeline of prospective threats, there are mini- and micro-drones carrying grenades, calling for further countermeasures, an industry executive said.

Lessons to be Learned

A Nov. 24 research note from the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, pointed up the need for Europe to learn lessons from the critical Azeri use of tactical UAVs in the Azeri-Armenian conflict.

The Azeri forces flew drones to locate Armenian forces and hit them hard.

Armenia is armed with three Russian surface-to-air missiles developed in the 1980s, namely S-300PT and PS, and 9K37M Buk-M1, said the note, titled Military lessons from Nagorno-Karabakh: reason for Europe to worry.

“While the missiles are still potent, their sensors are designed to detect, identify and track fast-moving fighters, and their moving-target indicators disregard small, slow drones,” the note said.

Those missiles were modern, but the Armenians lacked computer systems for  “plot fusion,” namely gathering and combining raw data from different radars to give a “aggregated situation report,” the note said.

That lack of radar network meant Armenian forces failed to detect and track advanced drones or stealthy aircraft, the report said, and they also lacked jammers to disrupt signals linking the Azeri drones to ground controllers.

It was only in the last days of the fighting, the Russian forces used an electronic warfare system, dubbed Krashukha or Belladonna, to disable Azeri drones on deep strike mission, the report said.

Those Azeri drones were supplied by a Turkish manufacturer, Bayraktar, Asia Times reported Oct. 20.

The Azeri forces deployed another weapon, the Harop drone from Israel Aerospace Industry, the ECFR note said. The Harop, known as a “loitering munition,” flew over the combat zone, waiting for an opportunistic strike, with no need for a command and control link to a ground station.

The outlook is that regional powers Israel, South Africa and Turkey, as well the major powers China, Russia and the US, will learn from the Azeri operations to develop artificial intelligence and lethal autonomous weapon systems, the note said. That is in contrast to a European move toward outlawing such deadly autonomous systems.

A military victory allowed Azerbaijan to secure control of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the retreat of Armenia from the disputed region.

The low-cost Turkish drone used in that Caucasus conflict drew UK interest in acquiring similar aircraft, The Guardian reported. Such an acquisition could be in the five-year defense review due to be unveiled in the coming months.

The UK defense minister, Ben Wallace, said in December the Turkish TB2 drones showed how other countries were “leading the way,” the report said. Those drones had destroyed hundreds of armored vehicles and even air defense systems, he said. There was also video evidence suggesting the drones killed many people in Nagorno-Karabakh, the report said.

A TB2 drone was estimated to cost $1 million-$2 million per unit, far less than the unit price of almost $20 million the UK was paying for the General Atomics Protector next-generation drone, the report said.

Drone Wars

The proliferation of UAVs is such that the skies over Libya were “possibly the largest drone war theater now in the world,” the UN special representative to Libya, Ghassan Salame, said Sept. 25.

Both sides of the civil war flew drones, hitting civilian targets with a “collateral effect” of creating 120,000-130,000 refugees, he said.

On the one side, the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar, flew the Chinese Wing Loong drone, while on the other side, the Government of National Accord flew the Turkish TB2, broadcaster Al Jazeera reported May 28.

Ankara intervened in Libya December 2019 to support the UN-backed GNA, deploying the TB2 to counterattack the LNA seeking to seize Tripoli.

Those Turkish drones hit ground targets and provided air cover for GNA troops, helping to turn the tide against the advancing LNA forces.

Some of the Turkish know-how in drones has its roots in the engineers who worked with Airbus on the Talarion project for a European medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, the executive said. Following cancellation of Talarion, the Turkish engineers were recalled, bearing knowledge of how to build a drone.

Meanwhile in Yemen, the Houthi rebels flew a bomb-bearing drone to strike the government in Aden, CBS News reported Dec. 30, reporting Al-Arabiya, a Saudi television channel. That UAV was downed.

Saudi Arabia bristles with weapons against air threats, with Patriot, Hawk, Crotale and Shahine missiles, backed by counter battery radars.

The air defense in September 2019 failed to prevent cruise missiles and drones hitting two Aramco installations, shuting down half of Saudi oil production.

That air strike effectively opened a sales window for anti-drone weapons.

Seeking Countermeasures

The ECFR note pointed up a general lack of European capability to fight back against drones — apart from France and Germany.

The need is for the right kind of radar, command and control systems, and weapons to detect, identify and “neutralize” low-flying, low-speed UAVs, the industry executive said. Satellites can also help fight against drones.

Hensoldt is delivering a first batch of 10 Spexer 2000 3D radars to Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace for the counter-unmanned aerial system for the German army, the German electronics company said in a July 28 2020 statement.

The Spexer anti-drone radar and remote control machine gun are on a Boxer armored vehicle, meeting Nato requirements for a very high readiness joint task force for 2023.

That technology stems from radars for surveillance of desert borders and harbors in Saudi Arabia, deals won by the then EADS, the executive said.

Hensoldt was formed from the divestment of Airbus’s defense electronics business in 2018.

In France, there is radar which could spot drones, at the highly protected naval base for nuclear ballistic missile submarines at Ile Longue, western France.

European missile maker MBDA gave a demonstration Nov. 6 2019 to 15 foreign delegations the anti-drone capabilities of its Licorne command and control system, firing a Mistral missile against a UAV.

Communications & Systèmes, a systems integrator, has delivered two prototype “hard kill” weapon systems in the French Army’s Arlad anti-drone project, CS director Egidio Cau said Jan. 28.

These technology demonstrators are fitted on armored vehicles, which could  protect army bases and mobile deployments such as operations in Mali. CS delivered the first unit in December.

The first trials used conventional 12.7 mm machine gun rounds, with the next step of an armored vehicle firing a 40 mm canon with “intelligent munitions” programmed to explode in mid-air to create an airburst — a 5×5 meter cloud of metal — to destroy the drone in its flight path.

Trials on that airburst project are due to this year. There is a small amount of  government funding on that project.

For a longer range 10-15 km interception of larger drones, CS plans to give a demonstration this year of a missile guided by a Saab Giraffe radar.

Cau declined to say which missile would be fired. The Boreades anti-drone command and control system was “agnostic” on weapons, which could be from MBDA, Thales, Rheinmetall or an Italian company.

CS is also testing a drone with 15 kg of payload to intercept an enemy drone, to jam or blow it up.

The company delivered in 2018 18 Milad anti-drone systems with 30 jamming guns to the French forces, based on its Boreades system.

CS is working on an overall command and control system to track drones and  various anti-drone weapons, highlighting the need for interoperability as there are several anti-UAV defenses.

Other means to down drones are high powered electromagnetic and microwave weapons to disrupt the drone’s signals. Electronic countermeasures can be used to blind the UAV, interfere with its GPS self-positioning, and redirect its flight.

There is work on wiring artificial intelligence into C2, seeking to make detection, identification and classification more sure.

The difficulty is to find countermeasures for micro and mini drones such as the Parrot and Quad, hard to detect and which could be adapted to carry a grenade.

Lasers Work In Progress

Lasers are also being developed to take down drones.

Cilas was testing its HELM-P laser weapon against UAVs at the Direction Générale de l’Armement Biscarosse missile base, southwest France, the technology office Agence d’Innovation de Defense said Nov. 9 on social media.

Cilas is a unit of the Ariane space rocket group.

“The first results are promising,” AID said in a statement, adding that the laser could eventually be extended to hit rockets, artillery, and mortar rounds.

Cilas leads a 16-strong TALOS (Tactical Advanced Laser Optical System) consortium, in a three-year, €5.4 million study for a high-powered laser. The European Defense Agency backs that research project, a step toward development of a weapon.

MBDA is working in three laser projects, with Germany leading the way, a defense source said.

MBDA and its partner Rheinmetall won a German contract for a demonstrator for a naval laser weapon, the missile company said Jan. 28.

The deal, worth in the low 10s of millions of euros, will see Rheinmetall supply the laser and MBDA delivering the tracking, operator’s console, and plugging the laser into the command and control system. The demonstrator is due to be tested onboard the F124 Sachsen frigate next year.

In the second project, MBDA leads the UK Dragonflyer consortium, which showcased a beam director turret at the 2017 DSEI trade show in London. That study is worth £30 million ($41 million) and the consortium includes Arke, BAE Systems, GKN, Leonardo, Marshall, MBDA and Qinetiq.

MBDA is also in the European TALOS study.

The drone threat has fuelled export sales of a mature air defense system dubbed ForceShield, said Jean-Philippe Hardange, Thales director of strategy for integrated airspace protection systems.

“There is a lot of demand,” he said, with sales growth in that sector clearly outstripping the two-three percent rise in defense budgets of Nato allies.

The UK is operating the system initially armed with Starstreak missiles, then with Lightweight Multi-role Missiles.

Export clients bought the weapon with Ground Master 200 radar and C2 system. The radar could pick up a tactical UAV at a nominal range of 50-100 km, while a smaller drone could be detected at a nominal range of 15-20 km.

France has ordered the RapidFire 40 mm naval gun to arm four fleet auxiliary ships being built, and the gun could down drones and hit fast moving boats, he said. The first ship is due for delivery next year and enter service in 2023.

Thales gave a demonstration of a land based RapidFire in 2013. There were no immediate orders. A sales pitch could point out how army, air force and navy could use that version to protect land bases.

The gun is supplied by CTAI, an Anglo-French joint venture of BAE Systems and Nexter.

Be Selective

There is clearly a market for anti-drone weapons, with a range of technologies. The question is which approach is the most practicable.

“There are limits to technology,” said Henry de Plinval, director of the drone program at Onera, a research office specializing in aerospace defense. “Technology is not magic.”

The office expects to complete by the end of this year Shield its two-year study into the technology and operational aspects of anti-drone measures under development, he said.

The study aims to give expert opinion on the limits of technology, to point government and industry in the right direction for countermeasures.

The aim is to be “more precise,” he said.

In research for drone detection, Onera is drawing on work on passive radar, using the general background of electromagnetic signals for devices such televisions to detect UAVs.

There are studies of identification to confirm the object is a military drone and not a bird or a tree. That includes advanced research into laser imaging detection and ranging (LIDAR) for 3D identification of targets at long distance of “several kilometers,” he said.

To “neutralize” drones, there is the conventional GPS jamming, but there are strict rules on GPS, on which airlines depend, he said. A more sophisticated approach is GPS “spoofing,” to divert the drone to another flight path.

A “kinetic” hit is fine in open spaces such as deserts, but harder to use in urban combat, he said. Alternative measures will be needed.

There is an operational need, but technology needs time, he said.

Drones over the Med?

Meanwhile, tension between Greece and Turkey over territorial claims over the Eastern Mediterranean presents a marketing opportunity for drones.

A land and sea surveillance project dubbed Semaphore is seen to be of potential interest to the Greek forces, the executive said. That system offers a mix of border surveillance and flying mini UAVs over the sea.

Four fixed-wing drones, each flying eight hours, could provide 24-hour surveillance over the Eastern Mediterranean. A  Greek coast guard patrol boat could launch a drone by catapult and recover with a net, or a drone could be launched from one of the Greek islands.

An extended network of UAVs and radars would allow Greece to track Turkish naval activity, and follow Turkish moves on the island of Cyprus, close to mainland Turkey and the subject of long standing dispute.

Greece and Turkey are in dispute over claims of exclusive economic zone in that part of the Mediterranean, where Ankara is looking for oil and gas reserves.

Athens has ordered 18 Rafale fighter jets and missiles in a deal worth €2.5 billion ($3 billion), pointing up the tension with Ankara.

Featured photo:  The Turkish-made Bayraktar TB-2 drone.

Also, see the following:

 

 

 

The Future is Now for Enhanced Integratability: The Perspective of Major General Anders Rex

02/05/2021

By Robbin Laird

There is a growing emphasis on what is referred to as “multi-domain” C2 as a key means to be able to operate in the extended battlespace.

A new effort to do so is being spearheaded in the United States, which is referred to as Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). This is certainly an important effort and a key target to enable fully a future integrated distributed force.

But such a future force concept does not well describe what can be done now to enhance the capabilities of the United States and allied forces to deliver an enhanced capability to leverage data and C2 in operations for today’s forces.

Indeed, a number of new capabilities already introduced into the force are driving changes which can be leveraged now, such as the arrival of the F-35 global fleet.

In the view of the commander of the Royal Danish Air Force, Major General Anders Rex, there are already significant opportunities now to build out enhanced integration. In an interview done with him while I was in Europe in January, we discussed by teleconference his perspective and his approach.

According to Major General Rex: “For me, joint all domain C2 is clearly the future.

“But at the same time we have to work on enhanced capabilities with the current force.

“We need focus on both in parallel. Denmark does not have the muscle to shape the future of all domain command and control, but we also need to drive the change – we need now to get the job done.

“What I have been focused on over the past couple of years, is to make our force better now. Today.

“We actually already have the capability to shape more effective networks of ISR and C2 without significant investments. For example, we are leveraging the joint range extension application protocol (JREAP) that requires modest investments, and it is a way for us, our allies and coalition partners to build a modest combat cloud linking our data.”

He argued that Denmark is building a national shared database structure to more effectively bring together Danish and allied assets. It can be forgotten by non-Danes that the Kingdom of Denmark reaches much further than Europe and extends into the Arctic to include Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

When I visited Karup Airbase in 2018, I spent time with the team which mans the Danish Joint Data Link Operations Centre. And in that visit, Major Knud Aagis Larsen, the director of the Centre, underscored the Centre’s role: “We design, establish and maintain the infrastructure necessary for exchanging Tactical Data between C2 units and fighting platforms. We are the hub between various C2 systems, different tactical data link systems as well as across different domains.”

As I highlighted at the time: “The expeditionary operations as well as Danish reach into the Arctic and into Greenland (see featured graphic below) provide a challenge of operating over distance, that a non-Dane might simply not include, within the challenges of linking and communication of the force or between the force and military and civilian authorities.

“But this means that the Danes have had to work non-line of sight capabilities for Link-16 which involves among other things ways to move Link 16 data over various other networks as well.

“And with the IP revolution, the Centre has found ways to send Link 16 data over various IP systems as well.”

When discussing the way ahead with Major General Rex, he underscored that what had been laid down at the Centre was a key part of shaping the national way ahead but in close coordination with NATO as well. “We are building our national shared database in close coordination with the NATO coalition shared database structure. Taping into this data base allows us to leverage for instance pictures which we have just uploaded from one of our sensors, allowing the warfighter to tap into that information, and we can do that now.”

He argued that learning how to best leverage information is part of the process of guiding near term innovation.

He provided this example: “We fly our helicopters off of our frigates and the captain of the frigate is using the helicopter in a certain operational way to achieve a specific operational goal. But data generated from the helicopters onboard systems can be employed to inform other security or warfighting elements in the operational area. Who can use information generated from those helicopters sensors and how do we best get it to them? This problem can be worked by shaping the operational networks to determine which data is usable by whom within an operational area.”

He also highlighted the importance of focused integration in a particular specific operational area as a key consideration as well. “We should not focus simply on building a gold-plated multi-domain C2 system designed to operate over very large geographical areas; we also need to have a system that is able to focus on local geographical areas, and for a certain amount of time.”

He underscored the importance of expanding the capability and willingness of allies to share data. He talked about how the members of the Danish Joint Data Link Operations Centre work closely with other data experts in NATO and how that shared experience drives innovation in terms of shared intelligence underscoring what building an integrated force can drive.

The future is now.

“With regard to JREAP we can tie the information we already have together using this technology. Let us just do that. And do it now. The networks that we already have, we have to be better at using them, and we have to distribute and share the information that we’re already gathering.

“We need to change the culture of our militaries so that we are in a giving mode rather than a receiving mode. Push of information rather than pull. And without that specific cultural change, new technologies will not matter as much as they could in shaping the way ahead for an integratable force.”

Major General Rex underscored that this was especially important because of the need to work effectively in the range of crises affecting Denmark, Europe and the NATO alliance.

“We need to deliver spectrum elasticity. The Russians do not think in terms of peace, crisis and then war; they have competition and war as their basic approach.

“The competition piece has a really wide range in which the use of all of a nations tools of power can be escalated or deescalated in time, intensity or geography collectively or individually – so essentially the degree of conflict can continuously be expanded or compressed.

“This means that we too need to be able to move with elasticity along the spectrum of conflict.  And our C2 and ISR systems need to enable and facilitate spectrum elasticity.”

See also, the following:

5th Gen Enablement and the Evolution of Airpower: The Perspective of Major General Anders Rex

Shaping a Combat Infrastructure for 21st Century Operations: Visiting the Danish Joint Data Link Operations Centre