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U.S. Marines with Marine Rotational Force – Darwin 24.3, Alpha Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, and Royal Australian Air Force members with 24th Squadron unload personnel and equipment from a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III with 62nd and 446th Airlift Wing during Rapid Deployment Exercise at Royal Australian Air Force Base Edinburgh, SA, Australia, July 11, 2024.
REDEX is a 1st MARDIV training exercise, with this year’s iteration planned in conjunction with MRF-D 24.3, to rehearse the ability to rapidly deploy capabilities from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, U.S., to Australia. 1st LAR tested the logistical efficiency and unit readiness required to rapidly deploy a heavy equipment unit within the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command theater by strategic lift and rail to participate in Exercise Predator’s Run 24.
ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE BASE EDINBURGH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA, AUSTRALIA
On July 10, 2024, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) celebrated its 83rd birthday. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Bryan Giraldo) (Music licensed from DeWolfe Music)
07.10.2024
Video by Lance Cpl. Bryan Giraldo
2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
I had a chance to follow up with Jennifer Parker on her excellent presentation at the 26 September 2024 Sir Richard Williams seminar which focused on the evolving threat environments in the littorals and insights to be gained from operations in the Black Sea, Red Sea and the Philippine’s Sea.
She argued in that presentation that new capabilities, notably USVs and UAVs used by the Ukrainians and the Houthis posed new challenges to capital ships in the littorals. And that capital ships clearly can still be effective but ongoing modernization of their defensive systems in the new context on an ongoing basis was critical.
In our discussion, she underscored that the threat from land systems was of enhanced range, and new threats posed by unmanned maritime systems introduced additional threats to capital ships as well.
What this meant for her was the absolute importance of ongoing modernization of the combat systems aboard surface ships. Rather than viewing updates as occurring in long periods of block upgrades, there needs to be an ability to weave in upgrades based on the rapid evolution of offensive threat systems from various operational theaters.
It is crucial to have very credible threat information from a diversity of deployments by the Royal Australian Navy and its allies, and to be able to weave that information into ongoing upgrade efforts of combat systems.
She referred in the seminar presentation to her recent paper she published in the Australian Naval Review concerning the USVs used in Ukrainian operations against the Russian Black Sea Fleet. In that article, she made the important point that these were NOT autonomous systems but remotely piloted ones.
Earlier in the week I met with one of the ADF’s leading practitioners of the art of unmanned and autonomous systems and he reinforced her point by underscoring that far too often the ADF or the Australian government referred to remotely piloted systems as autonomous systems. And the core point is that significant manpower is involved in operating remotely piloted systems – such as with Triton – compared to a very different con-ops involved with autonomous systems.
She called for precision in analysis of any lessons to be learned from Black Sea operations. This is how she put it in her article:
The USVs employed by Ukraine are what this article would consider light (less than 5 tonnes), remotely controlled attack USVs. This is important, as the lessons from the Black Sea are not necessarily scalable to large USVs (greater than 1,600 tonnes) or even small USVs such as the United States’s Sea Hunter (approximately 500 tonnes).
The USVs employed by Ukraine are not autonomous, which is often misunderstood. The ease at which Ukrainian USVs have targeted some surface ships through remote control using electro-optical and infrared sensors cannot be scaled to supposed developments in autonomy.
The lessons from Ukraine’s employment of light attack USVs are different from the lessons you would learn regarding employment of light USVs such as a sail drone, Bluebottle or similar USVs that are being trialed for intelligence and surveillance capabilities.
The significant effects which the Ukrainians have had using their USVs in the Black Sea clearly showed that countries without much of a capital ship force could still pack a punch in the littorals.
But actions in the Black Sea also demonstrated that the Russian fleet was not prepared with proper defence systems and training against such a threat. And this means that viability for capital ships operating in such waters clearly need to have such systems and such training.
But then we focused on the significant question of how capital ships can be combined with autonomous ones in shaping new combined arms capabilities at sea for a maritime force. It simply makes little sense to send our most advanced destroyers into harm’s way into the littorals to fight the Houthis.
She expressed her concern that both the U.S. Navy’s LUSV program and its RAN counterpart were not perhaps the most credible addition. It is in effect an optionally manned arsenal ship with launch tubes to add to the strike capability of the fleet.
Frankly, I am very skeptical that such a program is going to change the nature of the fleet anytime soon given the concern one has over firing authorities and defensive systems. Precisely the concern which Parker raised regarding the need to upgrade defensive systems on capital ships would apply to an LUSV as well.
We then focused on how UUVs and USVs as autonomous systems could enhance the manned maritime fleet.
In my view, the way ahead is shaping a maritime kill web force. And UUVs and USVs are not platforms but really payloads encased in a carrying system. Or put in other terms, what specific mission capabilities do they add to the manned force? Or how can they work as part of a combined arms maritime operation?
Parker added that it has been overstated what small numbers of these systems can bring to the fight. And clearly, from an operational perspective these systems need to be put in the hands of operators to determine how to use what additive or replacement capabilities these systems can provide.
The software nature of AI maritime systems requires operators and the company/government team writing the code to work closely together in the evolution of desired and effective capability. By taking a combined arms perspective rather than a manned-unmanned teaming perspective, the focus is specifically on what a specific payload carried by an autonomous carrier contributes to a specific operation and operational capability.
But then we closed by focusing on a key organizational barrier to this route. The RAN and the U.S. Navy are focused on distributed maritime operations, but hierarchies in the defence bureaucracy have made it increasingly difficult for local decisions to be made by the operational force.
In an interview I did with a senior U.S. Admiral last year, he put this challenge bluntly: “When I do mission rehearsals, I find gaps that need to be filled. We can identify gap fillers we should be able to buy to make the distributed fleet more lethal and survivable.”
But of course. he cannot do so given the policy and acquisition hierarchy blocking the innovation which the ready force can discover and implement readily.
If this is not remedied, the promise of autonomous systems for rapidly improving the lethality and survivability of the ready force will not be fulfilled.
Featured graphic: From Jennifer Parker, “An Evolution or Revolution in Naval Warfare in the Black Sea,” Australian Naval Review (Issue No.1, 2024).
U.S. Marines with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 (Reinforced), Marine Rotational Force – Darwin 24.3, drop cargo from an MV-22B Osprey at Mount Bundey Training Area, NT, Australia, July 9, 2024. Marines participated in the air delivery exercise in preparation for Predator’s Run Warfighting Exercise.
MOUNT BUNDEY TRAINING AREA, NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA
07.09.2024
Video by Cpl. Juan Torres
Marine Rotational Force – Darwin
On September 26, 2024, the most recent seminar of The Sir Richard Williams Foundation was held. It was entitled: “Enhancing and Accelerating the Integrated Force: An Operational Perspective.”
This seminar focused on how the force in being or the ready force was focused on improving its capability, its survivability and lethality for the fight tonight.
For such a focus, one needs a sense of urgency for how to improve the force in the short to mid-term, rather than over emphasizing the long term future and future force structure planning.
Here is a podcast generated by Google’s NotebookLM system which provides an AI summary of the 26 September 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation Report.
The September 26, 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation focused on accelerating the capabilities of the ready force.
Defence industry in Australia is obviously a key player in the ability for the government to find ways to enhance the ready force.
A panel of six industrial representatives discussed this challenge lead by Katherine Ziesing of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation as the facilitator.
The six panelists in order of providing presentations were as follows: Andrew Doyle, Director, Business Area Lead, Aeronautics from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics; Nick Leake, Head of Satellite and Space Systems, Optus; Derek Reinhardt, Director of Engineering and Operational Excellence, Northrop Grumman Australia; Dr. Brad Ferguson, Joint Battlespace Systems Technical Director, Raytheon Australia; Daniel Reinger, Engineering Manager MQ-28A Ghost Bat Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA), The Boeing Company; and Dr. Gary Eves, Principal Technology Officer of CAE Defense and Security.
The first speaker, Andrew Doyle, underscored how he viewed industry and its role in Australian defence resilience.
The critical enablers to growth in industry capacity–your experienced workforce, your facilities, and your capital equipment– have lead times of years to establish the scale that Australia will potentially need.
We’re already operating in a contested environment in terms of competing with other national priorities. With defence, where government is typically the owner, the operator and the regulator of defence systems, there’s definitely a role for government to play in fostering that ecosystem for defence industry to be able to grow the scale and depth that Australia needs to be calling upon in the future.
To do this requires a well-considered investment strategy and in my view, a partnership with industry whereby industry can make investments that lead to capacity for them and capability for the ADF. Any disruption in investment ensures that capability will not be there for the ADF.
Doyle put his assessment this way:
I will now talk about industry’s role in building a resilient and scalable national defence ecosystem which starts with the basics of depth of industry presence and a close degree of integration between industry and defense. Industry needs to have the appropriate degree of insight into defence plans and capability and preparedness requirements for defence to leverage the additional mass and scale that industry can bring.
The key to success is communication and close partnerships to ensure that we’re getting alignment of resources and actions to best affect where industry can contribute to the operational viability of the integrated force…
Andrew Doyle, Director, Business Area Lead, Aeronautics from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics,
The second panelist was Nick Leake. He underscored that the ADF cannot operate effectively without secure C2 and ISR, and that in today’s world this means secure access to space and to satellites. He noted that Optus currently operates three geo satellites, one of which carries defence payloads.
Leake then highlighted the coming of the Optus 11 satellite which he indicated would be the first software-defined satellite in the region. He underscored: With these new spacecrafts you will have fundamental intelligence on board, and you will be able to configure that satellite in terms of its capacity and where you’re actually pointing that capacity.
Putting a chip on board the spacecraft obviously then opens up further issues with cyber security, because you’re putting intelligence in space, and you have to protect that asset the best you can.
He then highlighted Optus working on in orbit servicing which will allow the satellite service life to be extended as fuel tanks are replaced on the satellite in orbit.
He next discussed the LEO revolution which is obviously a significant transformer of the space satellite eco system but indicated that Optus worked with partners to leverage LEO constellations and to shape an adaptive network.
Leake highlighted the importance of Dr. Davis’s presentation on the need for enhanced sovereign space capability and indicated that Optus was a key part of any such effort.
Nick Leake, Head of Satellite and Space Systems, Optus
The third presenter was Derek Reinhardt from Northrop Grumman Australia. His focus was on their work in enhancing the efficacy of sustainment in support of the ready force. NG is involved in the sustainment of the KC-30, the C-27J, the VIP fleet and the Triton.
About two years ago, we were trying to bring all of our programs together and have them work in a more consistent way. To do so, we set about building a sustainment delivery model which was really intended initially to align our programs, but it’s providing us interesting insights into the information that moves within a sustainment environment: the speed that that information needs to move, the decisions that hang off that information and how the enterprise combines to be able to do so.
He then when on to describe their creation in effect of a digital twin of the sustainment system. He went to argue that through this effort they have enhanced their ability to focus on the critical enablers for managing the information flows for decision making in the sustainment enterprise.
He noted: What we’ve really learned to be successful, the architecture, the cyber-worthiness, and the whole concept of the data fabric is absolutely vital.
When applied to the challenge of sustainment in a contested environment or contested logistics, this led him to the conclusion: How the data fabric is architected is crucial for it to continue to operate.
Derek Reinhardt, Director of Engineering and Operational Excellence, Northrop Grumman Australia
The fourth speaker was Dr. Brad Ferguson from Raytheon Australia. He certainly underscored the importance of enhancing the sense of urgency and speed to turn innovations into combat capabilities.
This is how he put it: We need to adapt our architectures to support plugins for new capabilities, new technologies to support the rapid growth and leverage those technologies, everything from AI to quantum to hypersonics to directed energy to autonomy, these things will shape the future battlefield.
He argued that the challenge and opportunity is to combine international cooperation with Australian delivery of capability. He then provided an example of this approach.
We started with the NASAMS system fielded in nine other countries, and then we built it from the ground up, integrating it with Australian innovation.
Working with over 30 companies across Australia, we integrated CEA radars, novel electrooptic infrared systems, new tactical data links to integrate with the Australian internet and military teams, integrating new missiles to leverage in service munitions, and ended up with the most capable short range ground-based air defence system in the world.
Some of those Australian innovations are now making their way back into the global community, supporting our allies and allowing for export opportunities.
Dr. Brad Ferguson, Joint Battlespace Systems Technical Director, Raytheon Australia
The fifth speaker was Daniel Reinger of The Boeing Company.
His presentation was short and succinct and focused on a key area of developing and incorporating autonomous systems into the ADF.
This is what he highlighted:
What we need to focus on is building something that’s built to adapt. That’s in the wheelhouse of the collaborative combat aircraft, because if we don’t build something that’s adaptable, it will be obsolete before we even get it fielded.
How do we evolve our thinking, so we actually build something that’s adaptable?
The answer that we’re coming to is embracing open mission system standards and embracing not just open architectures, but government defined open architectures.
What does that do?
It opens up a best of industry ecosystem where everyone can come to the party. It lowers the barrier of entry. When we talk about CCAs, we talk about machine autonomy, we talk about flight autonomy, we talk about crewed and uncrewed teaming.
It’s simply too much for any one company to build the platform and then pull all of that together in a coherent manner.
By expanding the ecosystem and lowering the barrier to entry, you can get smaller and more companies that have niche skills into the effort.
Daniel Reinger, Engineering Manager MQ-28A Ghost Bat Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA), The Boeing Company
The final presentation was by Dr. Gary Eves from CAE Defense and Security who highlighted the growing importance in training and innovations in training to enhance the operational capability of the ready force.
He started by talking about the challenge for today’s force in terms of training.
One of the things we need to understand is that the one size fits all approach just does not work for training. That requires a fundamental change in how we do things. What we are trying to do is evolve the capability of our young people to work with incredibly complex systems.
Now it’s not just a question of pure technical proficiency. They are decision makers. They’re operating in a highly complex environment that requires dynamic decision making en masse, in real time, maybe without support.
He highlighted the importance of training for effective operation by teams in performing key tasks and missions which not only lead to mission success but to more rewarding experiences which are important in being to retain the personnel which you want and need for the organization.
He also underscored the importance of shaping effective ways for training in a coalition environment. This especially challenging because of different historical, linguistic and cultural experiences.
CAE has worked and is working on a variety of approaches to succeed in the demanding training environments for the ready force operating in the new strategic environment.
Dr. Gary Eves, Principal Technology Officer of CAE Defense and Security
There was a Q and A session after the panel presentations but the key focus was on the crucial need to reshape the partnership with government both for defence and commercial firms.
As one participant put it:
Don’t try to design something in five years, because by the time you get it in five years, it’s obsolete. We need an agile approach whereby we can build a capability, and then, over the years, we can add to that capability. Governments have to take some of the risk, and stop chucking the risk onto industry, because a lot of industries, particularly small business, will just walk away. If we have a shared risk and investment approach, we can have an agile model of delivering capability.
And the concept of “relational contracting” was introduced in a discussion of sustainment and support for the ready force, but perhaps has a wider application.
As one participant put it:
Relational contracting is an environment of defining how we work together, rather than defining specific technical requirements.
Our best performing sustainment programs are those where you create the right relationship, you create the right dialog.
A shared situational awareness is created and shared understanding of who makes the right decision at the right time and with the right information which builds the trust that’s needed for the desired outcome.
Some time ago – more than a decade – I worked with Alan Dupas, the noted French space expert, on a project for a European space company on the future of space in 2020. We focused on the key point that although a space company was most closely identified with launchers and satellites, the future was its engagement in the global information society.
Let me say that we were not greeted with cheers and love. Rather the major company we were dealing with shuddered at the thought that its “things” might be overshadowed by a product – data, communications and information. This of course puts a space company into competition with a range of providers of data, communications and information.
Space is enabler of much which goes on in earth providing the nodes and networks of an information society. But space is costly, complex and governments are loath to invest more than they have to in such “esoteric” technology whose investments might cut into social spending or green energy or whatever the priority is for a sitting government.
This is certainly the case for Australia. Dr. Malcolm Davis at the September 26, 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminar provided a compelling case for Australian space investments and acceleration of engagement in the space sector.
This is how presented and discussed this important subject:
Space is contested and congested. When we’re talking about resilience, both being contested and congested are really becoming much more acute as a challenge.
Assuring space access for the ADF can be defined in different ways, but I would argue that it’s not just about being able to use a foreign provider. It is also about sovereign space capabilities.
Space domain awareness allows space control. If you look at the national defense strategy and integrated investment program, it highlighted space domain awareness. Then importantly made the point that space control is an important task for the ADF..
We can’t have assured access to space if we only rely on foreign launch providers to give us that capability. We need to prioritize our national space capabilities, including sovereign launch. We need to pursue space policy as a whole of nation endeavor.
We don’t currently have that.
It was started by the previous government. Those efforts were canceled by the current government. I would argue that we need to restore a whole of nation space strategy.
Space is an operational domain in its own right…
We’re seeing in the arsenals of our adversaries counter space capabilities. And these capabilities do not apply only in hot war scenarios. They could also be used in terms of gray zone operations as well…
We need to think in terms of how we defend against what the Chinese call system destruction warfare or how they can utilize counter space capabilities along with cyber attack, electromagnetic operations, and kinetic operations to take down critical Information Infrastructure as quickly as possible…
Part of resilience is managing space traffic and that requires a new approach to how we think about space domain awareness, how we manage the increasing amount of material that’s in orbit.
Space is increasingly competitive in the sense that it’s no longer just the sole domain of the major powers. It is also about the activity of small to medium powers, including Australia, as well as commercial actors.
And space has become democratized through a combination of falling costs that are driven by new technologies which allows more states to do things in space than previously was considered possible or financially viable.
That means there is a greater possibility that you could get either non state actors, commercial actors or hostile state actors essentially using space in a way that’s inimical to our interests.
But it also brings opportunities in the sense that more states like Australia can actually do things in space that previously were beyond our capabilities…
We’re starting to think about space 3.0. Space 1.0 was the Apollo era of big space agencies and the activities were the taxpayer funded and government led.
Space 2.0 was the establishment and the emergence of commercial space activities which really transformed the space environment and global space activity,
Space 3.0 is that next step that beckons in the future. It’s that opportunity to do space-based industry and a manufacturing capability, a space based economy that exploits space resources and new environments such as lunar space.
We have to challenge the orthodox mindsets that I think currently exist within government which primarily thinks about space in terms of satellites and rockets and start thinking about how we can utilize space in radically new and different ways that generate prosperity and growth.
He then went on to discuss how adversarial actions in space (war in space) can bring down or dismantle space infrastructure and that this infrastructure is a key part of a functioning information system for Australia.
This meant that the Australian government needed to get out of any stoved-piped look at space and take a broader view which would include space policy in the whole of nation concept of defence.
A slide from Dr. Davis’s presentation at the September 26, 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation.
He then added:
The democratization of space technology means that space is no longer dominated purely by the major actors, so it’s far more unpredictable as an operating environment. Increasingly, counter space technologies are moving in radically different ways and posing direct threats to space assets.
For example, If you think back to the Cold War, there was no such thing as cyber warfare. Now we have the potential opportunity for cyber-attacks on satellites that can create scalable or reversible effects to disable or deny. And so suddenly, space weapons or space warfare or counter space capabilities become far more usable because it’s in the interests of our adversaries to use them.
And I think that our adversaries recognize that space warfare and counter space capabilities can generate decisive strategic effect.
Space is critical for maintaining how we fight wars and how we undertake joint and integrated operations across multiple domains, but it’s also vital for sustaining our information-based economies and societies…
Modern information-based societies depend on space capabilities to function, in particular through satellite communications, but also positioning, navigation and timing services. Everything that we do in a modern society from using information on our mobile phones, to our computers, to stock markets, logistics systems, all of that depends on the space capabilities.
That dependency will grow in the future, particularly as we get more and more reliant on processes of change associated with the Internet of Things and pursue the fourth industrial revolution. Such transitions demand that we have continued access to space
Dr. Davis then went on the identify the various means of space attack and degradation which adversaries have already demonstrated.
And his point was clear – If Australia wants to protect its free and open society, if it wants to support a “rules-based” order which in my view is shrinking globally, how can you do so without an effective space engagement policy?
Featured Photo: Dr. Davis speaking too the September 26, 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation.
