Robbin Laird, Author at Second Line of Defense

The Maritime Patrol Reconnaissance Enterprise and Man Machine Teaming

Posted on June 28, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

06/28/2020

By Robbin Laird

With the coming of the P-8/Triton dyad the U.S. Navy is paving a way ahead for collaborative concepts of operations between manned and remotely piloted aircraft operating in the Pacific.

But also, the US Navy’s MPR community is working man-machine teaming with regard to its P-8 as well.

Man-machine teaming is a key part of the way ahead for the P-8 as a software upgradeable aircraft, as well as being part of reworking decision making onboard the aircraft as well.

Although much of the focus on artificial intelligence is upon its future within autonomous systems, a real-world use which is evident in the MPR community is the evolution of decision aids through automating repetitive action tasks.

I had a chance to discuss these developments during my visit to Jax Navy with Lt. Sean Lavelle, a key player in the effort on man-machine teaming in the MPR community.

In an earlier piece, I highlighted the context within which Lt. Lavelle’s work was unfolding.

And in that article, I highlighted the discussion which Lt. Lavelle had in a podcast with Eric Lofgren.

According to Lofgren:

I was pleased to speak with Navy Lieutenant Sean Lavelle on the Acquisition Talk podcast. He is the founder and lead of the iLoc development team, which rapidly deploys valuable software capabilities to the Navy’s P-8 fleet. During the episode, Sean describes how P-8 aviators took it upon themselves to code new applications that could solve hard problems with software rather than pencil and paper. One application reduced reporting errors by 90 percent.

Sean provides a compelling vision of the future where operators also take on duties as software developers or product managers.

This doesn’t require everyone to have coding skills. The P-8A’s organic software team only has six rotating developers. Sean argues it is better to have many users involved in defining the business logic with a small team of software developers rather than a large software team with little access to user input.

The result is a continuous process where knowledge from the military operators can quickly get embodied in software and deployed to the entire fleet. Sean calls this “software-defined tactics,” and it’s a compelling concept indeed.

One of the many benefits is that it decreases the burden of training as operators are constantly involved in small changes. This is in contrast to the large and infrequent software drops from contractors, where increased capability often comes at the expense of increased complexity. It usually takes 3 or 4 years, for example, to train a P-8 tactical coordinator.

However, with the iLoc tools, a trainee of 6 months can reach a level of proficiency that used to take two or more years. Agile in-house software development vastly decreases complexity at the same time in generates new capabilities, allowing the U.S. military to scale much more rapidly in the event of conflict with a great power.

In that article, I highlighted importance of the kill web approach to provide for transient software advantage as conceptualized in the featured graphic above.

After writing that article, I spoke with Lt. Lavelle who explained how he saw the relationship of transient software advantage to a kill web versus kill chain approach.

Software-defined tactics are the key to quickly adding capabilities to different assets that are supposed to work together. It’s kill chain vs kill web for acquisitions.

In the kill chain – you devise a new weapon for a shooter, then figure out the sensor you need for the ISR node, then you figure out the network that makes the most sense for data transmission, then you write the messages you’ll send from sensor to shooter. After that, you have to try to sequence all the capabilities so that they arrive roughly at the same time.

Then when you add a sensor or a weapon, you have to teach the sensor asset what the new weapon brings to the table, or vice versa, and how they can maximize it. It’s hard for a community to get good at operating their own new sensors or weapons. It’s harder to get good at helping another community employ their capabilities.

All of that adds so much time to acquiring and fielding new capabilities, so you end up buying weapons and sensors much slower than the pace of what is technologically possible.

In the kill web – you buy whatever improves your capability as a sensor or a shooter. Period. If there isn’t a perfect network to transmit information right away, it’s okay. Just write a software-defined tactics application that can leverage information from a basic data-link, has some basic modeling assumptions, and can give the task force a good, ad hoc plan that gets to a local maximum solution. The force can figure out the absolute best way to work together as they experiment, we just need an acceptable way to work together that can get the ball rolling.

We actually just did this for a new sensor/weapon combination in less than 20 hours of software development. The application we fielded solved the entire coordination problem for a completely new concept and optimized the sensor/shooter team. It lets the sensor act as a cloud processing node for the team, even if the human in the sensor aircraft isn’t really an expert in what the shooter brings to the table.

This process means the limiting factor in technology adoption is not the acquisitions process as is typical, but the actual science.

During my visit to Jax navy the week of June 14, 2020, I finally met Lt. Lavelle and to discuss with him the way ahead with regard to the man-machine software redesign dynamic.

Lt. Lavelle is part of the Weapons School and an officer working the kill web capabilities of the force.

The basic software upgrade dynamic operates around block upgrades which are planned long in advance.

He explained: “The ideal acquisitions process is to conduct operations, learn from those operations and then decide what we want to buy based on that experience. The paradigm that the FAR forces us into doesn’t always lend itself to that sort of iterative, learning-oriented acquisitions process.”

He then noted that to break that paradigm, they were focusing on a different approach to software upgradeability.

As he explained: “Rather than trying to fix the entire contracting process, we are focused on finding ways to in-house talent to get more rapid software upgrades driven by operational experience.

“We want a tighter coupling of operations and software development than is really possible with current acquisitions regulations.”

They are focusing on ways to in-house software development under PMA-290, the Program Office for the P-8.

Within PMA-290 is an office called the Software Support Activity, which Lt. Lavelle and his team work with.

There they are focused on building a system on the P-8 where mission system data, including data links, and information generated by the sensor networks goes to the “sandbox” which is a secure computing environment that can take data, process it and generate decision making recommendations for the operator or alert them to tactical problems.

It does not directly push data to the aircraft, so it is divorced from safety of flight software considerations.

According to Lt. Lavelle: “This allows us to push updates to the sandbox on timescales measured in days or weeks, rather than years.

“The Weapons School is building the software for the sandbox based on operators’ experiences, while the traditional acquisitions enterprise builds the infrastructure to allow that development.

“The process is that we observe the fleet’s problems, we write code to solve those problems, send the finished application to PMA-290, they do a security analysis and then they push it back to be integrated onto the aircraft.

“We are funding this process operationally rather than on a project basis. We have four to six people at the weapons school at any one time who are trained to write software for the sandbox.

How does he view the impact and outcome?

“The way I think about it is, we’re changing the learning cycle for a force.

“Right now when we identify a solution to a tactical problem, we allocate training effort to teach the fleet how to implement it.

“About 5% of that effort goes toward teaching operators the theory around the solution and how to implement it.

“The remaining 95% goes toward continuous training to retain currency. If you have to practice a technique in two simulator events per year to retain currency, which is an underestimate for most techniques, you’re looking at 8,000 man-hours per year given the roughly 1,000 operators we have in our force and 4-hour simulator events.

“That’s a huge amount of resources and the end result is that we are just good at the basics and never really advanced anything because it’s sort of a treadmill.

“You need to spend all of your time maintaining basic skills. Adding new skills just requires too many additional resources.

“With the new approach, we find a problem, we still do the initial effort to teach the fleet the theory, but then we write a piece of software that alerts the operator when that problem is presenting itself and gives them in-situ tactical recommendations.

“It is much easier to stay proficient at a task if a machine is helping identify problems and recommending a set of reasonable solutions the human can choose from.

“Instead of 8,000 man-hours per year, each individual might only need to practice a technique every other year, meaning we save 75% of the effort we would have spent and can add 4 times more new skills per year.

“We’ve already executed this new approach with several tactical problems.

“In one case, we reduced failures in a particular scenario from 20% of instances to less than 1%.

“Rather than a treadmill where we’re constantly teaching the basics, we can have a baseline level that’s of performance that’s very easily maintained.

“And then we can advance from there much more quickly.”

In short, part of the innovation being done in the MPR community is about reaching towards a much more rapid process of software upgradeability and integrability for the distributed force.

Enhancing Expeditionary Logistics with Emerging Technology: The Impact of Unmanned Surface Vessels

Posted on June 28, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

By George Galorisi

Over 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu noted, “The line between disorder and order lies in logistics.” While logistics may not stir a great deal of passion among Navy and Marine Corps warfighters, one doesn’t need to be a historian to understand the importance of logistics to warfare over many millennia. From Alexander the Great, who noted, “My logisticians are a humorless lot…they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay,” to Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, who said, “Logistics are as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work,” to Lieutenant General Fredrick Franks, USA, 7th Corps Commander during Desert Storm, who noted, “Forget logistics, you lose,” to many others, successful military leaders know the value of logistics.

Some years ago, General Robert Barrow, then-Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, coined a phrase that is still a staple of U.S. War College curricula, “Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” More recently, at the 2019 USNI/AFCEA “West” symposium, Brigadier General Arthur Pasagian, USMC, Commander, Marine Corps Systems Command, noted, “Logistics is a key enabler for all we do.”

Armed with the experience of two-decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military is focusing more intently on logistics than it has in some time. This includes maritime logistics, a subject that has been addressed in a number of recent articles in professional journals. Here is how one active duty naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Collin Fox, put it in the pages of the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings earlier this year:

The great diversity of challenges that threaten the U.S. Navy in the near term – spanning all domains and all levels of warfare – has led to an unequal concentration of effort, leaving some areas unaddressed. Maritime logistics ranks chief among them…Great maritime powers have always sought the capacity to interdict their enemies “vital lines of communication” while protecting their own. Fleet Admiral Ernest King’s strategic retrospective still applies: “It is no easy matter in a global war to have the right materials in the right place at the right time in the right quantities.”

Second Line of Defense has featured a number of articles focused on logistics and the supply chain. The majority of these have focused on “big picture” logistics issues, for example, Robbin Laird’s, “The US Logistics Systems: The Challenge of a Strategic Reset.” SLD has also featured articles about expeditionary operations, especially those conducted by the U.S. Navy-Marine Corps team, such as, “Presence, Economy of Force and Scalability: The New Amphibious Task Force.”

Moving from the macro to the micro, from the strategic to the operational and even tactical, it is no accident that many of the logistics-focused quotes above come from Marine Corps officers. Amphibious operations represent perhaps the one area where logistics cannot fail. Once Marines are on the beach, if their logistics breaks down, they have few options to continue the fight, and might even have to withdraw.

The Challenge of Amphibious Logistics

Last year, two RUSI research fellows, Dr. Sidharth Kaushal and Dr. Jack Watling, published an insightful article in RUSI Defence. Their overarching thesis was captured in the title of their piece, “Amphibious Assault Is Over,” and amplified in the article’s subtitle: “The conduct of amphibious operations is currently undergoing a drastic overhaul in response to an array of emerging threats.” Two phrases in their piece caught my eye: “The prospect of assaulting a hostile shore today is more daunting than ever,” and “The capacity of Marines to push inland must depend on the security of their logistical support.”

While Drs. Kaushal and Watling surfaced many valid concerns regarding the efficacy of conducting opposed amphibious assaults in the face of, “sophisticated anti-access/area denial (A2AD) capabilities that threaten our strategic reach and operational freedom of maneuver,” their thesis was not that amphibious assault operations are dead, but that we must design platforms, systems, sensors and weapons that help ensure that the assaulting forces can successfully conduct their challenging mission.

The Navy-Marine Corps team has been proactive in pushing the edge of the envelope in leveraging new technologies to make the nation’s expeditionary assault force more distributed, lethal, survivable and sustainable. Many of these technologies have aided high-end and highly visible missions, but others have looked at missions conducted by the Navy-Marine Corps team that are typically “below the radar.” Given the importance of logistics to the success of any amphibious assault, the sustainability function is one that is ripe for new technology insertion.

To be clear, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps don’t have a monopoly on leveraging new technology to support the logistics function. The U.S. Army – having suffered significant human loses in fuel convoys in the Middle East conflicts – is leading the way in this area, experimenting with unmanned fuel trucks to perform this vital logistics task.

Enhancing Expeditionary Logistics with Emerging Technology

Navy-Marine Corps exercises such as a series of Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) events and the annual Bold Alligator series have looked at a wide-range of emerging technologies that can make expeditionary assault forces more lethal, agile and survivable. Other events have examined different missions conducted by the Navy-Marine Corps team, specifically the logistics and sustainment function.

One doesn’t need to be a Clausewitz or Sun Tzu to understand the importance of logistics to warfare over many millennia. For the Navy-Marine Corps team, this plays out most prominently during an amphibious assault. The INDOPACOM Joint Exercise Valiant Shield exercise, overseen by Commander Marine Forces Pacific (MARFORPAC) and conducted on the Marianas Island Range Complex as well as the island of Guam, experimented with using emerging technology to provide sustainment to Marines on the beachhead during this critical juncture of an amphibious assault.

Marines in the fight use enormous quantities of fuel, food, ammunition and other material as they attempt to move off the beachhead. While many functions are important in an amphibious operation, once the assault is underway and Marines are on the beach, sustainment is crucial in ensuring their success. The mission will ultimately fail if the Marines are not able to have reliable and continuous sustainment.

Using manned naval craft for this sustainment mission puts operators at unnecessary risk of enemy fire, as well from near-shore obstacles that were not cleared prior to the assault phase. Using scarce manned craft to perform this mission also takes them away from more necessary roles. That is why this major Navy-Marine Corps amphibious exercise evaluated the ability of unmanned surface vehicles to conduct this sustainment mission.

MARFORPAC used USVs during Valiant Shield 2018 to resupply the landing force. The exercise coordinator used a catamaran hull, 12-foot MANTAS USV to provide rapid ship-to-shore logistics sustainment. While this small, autonomously operated, USV carried only one hundred and twenty pounds of cargo, the proof-of-concept worked and demonstrated that unmanned surface vehicles could effectively resupply troops ashore.

Using unmanned vehicles for the sustainment mission can be a game-changer for expeditionary assault forces. Beyond taking operators out of harm’s way, using USVs in this role frees manned craft for other missions. Additionally, having a continuous, preprogrammed, logistics resupply process to perform one of the dull, dirty and dangerous functions important in an amphibious assault means that there is one less thing for the commander to have to manage during these operations.

This proof-of-concept with a 12-foot MANTAS USV achieved positive results. That said, resupply in 120-pound increments is far less than is required to provide what is needed by the Marines on the beach. The Valiant Shield exercise provided the impetus and inspiration to continue to explore the use of USVs for amphibious force sustainment. Now, the Navy and Marine Corps are looking to “scale-up” small USVs and continue to experiment with using larger USVs to provide larger sustainment quantities.

“Scaling-Up” to Deliver Expeditionary Logistics

To undertake this scaling-up effort, the maker of the MANTAS family of USVs (Maritime Tactical Systems, Inc.) was asked by the Navy and Marine Corps to develop a larger proof-of-concept unmanned surface vehicle for this logistics sustainment mission using the same catamaran hull design as the smaller vessel used in Valiant Shield.

A 38-foot MANTAS unmanned surface vehicle will be demonstrated in the upcoming U.S. Navy Trident Warrior exercise. While this may not be the ultimate size for the USV the expeditionary assault force needs as a long-term solution, it will go a long way to advancing the state of the art in unmanned semi-autonomous or autonomous logistics support.

While there are a range of larger USVs that can be evaluated by the Navy and Marine Corps, the basic specifications of the 38-foot MANTAS (T38) will provide an indication of the ability of USVs to provide a steady, continuous stream of logistics support to Marines on the beach. The T38 can carry a payload up to 4,500 pounds. The vessel travels at cruise speed of 25 knots and draws just 18 inches of draft. Additionally – and importantly for an amphibious assault – the T38 has a burst speed of 80 knots. Given the speed and carrying capacity of the T38-sized USV, it is readily apparent on how it can fulfill this, and other important logistics functions.

The T38 is modular and can keep cargo dry in the turbulent surf zone. Additionally, given the fact that an adversary will endeavor to fire on unmanned craft attempting to resupply the landing force, each vessel can operate in “gator mode” where the main deck is awash and only equipment such as cameras and radar are exposed above the water surface, making each USV much harder to target.

Delivering Logistics Sustainment to Troops Ashore

As any observer can see from a hilltop near one of several U.S. Marine Corps bases, an amphibious formation typically stands no more than 15-25 nautical miles off the beach being assaulted. Using a notional stand-off distance of 20 nautical miles, an amphibious formation equipped with four T38s traveling at their cruise speed of 25 knots could deliver 18,000 pounds of material from the amphibious ships to the beach per hour, allowing the short time needed for loading and unloading the craft. Multiply that by twenty-four hours and you get a buildup of well-over 400,000 pounds of vital material per day, enough to support a substantial force of troops ashore.

During a recent Surface Navy Association (SNA) Symposium, NAVSEA’s Program Manager for Unmanned Maritime Systems (PMS-406), Captain Peter Small, explained the attributes most desired in maritime unmanned systems: (1) endurance; (2) autonomy and precision navigation; (3) command, control and communications; (4) payloads and sensors; and (5) platform integration. As the Navy continues to explore new missions – to include this vital logistics sustainment function – for unmanned surface vehicles, these qualities will help the Navy choose the optimal USVs that will provide our warfighters with a decisive edge in combat.

Beyond the current Trident Warrior exercise, the Navy and Marine Corps are planning an ambitious array of exercises in the years ahead: several ANTXs, Sea Dragon, Bold Alligator, Valiant Shield, Valiant Blitz, Large Scale Exercise 2020, and others. Based on the promising performance of small unmanned surface vessels in support of expeditionaryassault forces, the Navy and Marine Corps would be well-served to experiment further with larger USVs to perform this vital logistics sustainment mission.

In his address at the aforementioned SNA Symposium, Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, Director, Surface Warfare (N96) called for the Navy to use unmanned systems to better distribute its capabilities. In his keynote address at that same event, Commander, Naval Surface Forces, Vice Admiral Richard Brown called for a renewed focus on experimentation. Continuing the current initiatives to experiment with USVs to rapidly and reliably resupply amphibious Marines ashore fulfills both these objectives.

Those nations and navies with significant amphibious assault forces would be well served to leverage what the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have already demonstrated in exercises such as Valiant Shield and explore the advantages of using unmanned surface vehicles to rapidly, reliably and continuously resupply troops ashore.

Featured Photo: MANTAS USV being lowered for launch from a U.S. Navy ship. (Photo courtesy of MARTAC)

Editor’s Note: Trident Warrior 2020 is upcoming in early July.

Here is the US Navy’s summary of Trident Warrior 2019:

SAN DIEGO (NNS) — Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) tested tools and techniques to rapidly equip the warfighter with advanced capabilities during Trident Warrior 2019 (TW19), which ended Sept. 19 off the coast of San Diego.

In its 17th year, Trident Warrior is an annual large-scale, at-sea field experiment where the Navy selects potential initiatives that address capability gaps and provide inventive solutions in an operational environment.

“We cannot expect victory fighting tomorrow’s conflicts with yesterday’s technologies,” said NAVWAR Commander Rear Adm. Christian Becker. “Experiments like Trident Warrior put the latest technologies into the hands of our Sailors so they can test and evaluate them for warfighting effectiveness and ultimately help us grow our advantage in the maritime domain.”

During TW19, NAVWAR joined government, military and academia to experiment with more than 16 key initiatives and concepts of operations. These initiatives focused on the rapid development and deployment of new capabilities to aid maritime forces in key domains of warfare including air, land, sea, sub-surface and cyber.

“Trident Warrior provides the recurring opportunity to work with partners across all domains and echelons in sourcing potential solutions to identified capability gaps and warfighter needs,” said Dan Hallock, Trident Warrior deputy director, Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific. “Trident Warrior also creatively repurposes existing technology in novel ways in order to increase our competitive advantage and effectiveness, helping accelerate the speed of technology adaption and adoption in today’s highly dynamic environment.”

During the event, participants experimented with a variety of technologies, including NIWC Pacific’s Cooperative Autonomous Systems for Standoff Maritime Inspection and Response (CASSMIR) system. CASSMIR uses unmanned surface vehicles to autonomously pilot remotely operated vehicles keeping operators out of harm’s way and away from underwater threats.

“CASSMIR helps the Navy to explore the autonomy and command and control of remotely operated vehicles,” said Anthony Jones, NIWC Pacific lead engineer. “During the experiment we were able to use an unmanned surface vehicle as an autonomous tender and command and control link to support the overall mine countermeasure mission.”

The Battlespace Awareness and Information Operations Program Office (PMW 120) conducted an Automatic Identification System (AIS) experiment to identify and examine anomalies in shipboard data for improved decision-making onboard Navy ships.

“AIS collects open-source AIS data that is broadcast from AIS transceivers on commercial shipping vessels,” explained Matthew Green, PMW 120 AIS cyber lead. “This data, combined with other intelligence and surveillance data, is used by Navy ships and submarines to improve safety of navigation and situational awareness.”

TW19 participants also experimented with NIWC Pacific’s Reverse Proxy and Network Address Translator System (RP-NATS).

RP-NATS is a government off the shelf (GOTS) ship-based software that tracks down internal irregular network behavior in a matter of minutes. Previously, this tracking could take personnel days to resolve, with some incidents never being fully tracked and adjudicated.

“NIWC Pacific engineers were able to successfully demonstrate RP-NATS as a GOTS solution that provides shore-based users with the ability to reverse look up internal asset IPs using fields such as time stamp, source and destination IP and ports,” said Henry Au, NIWC Pacific electronics engineer. “The system would directly reduce man hours and increase cyber situational awareness, using a common simple interface, resulting in big impacts for the Navy.”

Other TW19 initiatives ranged from maritime domain awareness, networks, information operations, and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) technologies.

Additionally, the NAVWAR Reserve Program (NWRP) had a number of Navy reservists providing expertise to support the event. NWRP Sailors leveraged their education, technical skills and military experience to address C4ISR systems tested during TW19.

“NAVWAR Reservists provide essential operational expertise and end-user feedback to events like TW19 to ensure technologies in the early phases of the acquisition process meet the needs of each and every warfighter,” said Operations Specialist Petty Officer 1st Class Joseph Hanovich.

NAVWAR is now working to analyze the data collected during TW19 to provide recommendations for future development and deployment of the tested technologies. NAVWAR is already planning for Trident Warrior 2020, scheduled for June-August 2020 in conjunction with the bi-annual Exercise Rim of the Pacific.

NAVWAR identifies, develops, delivers and sustains information warfighting capabilities and services that enable naval, joint, coalition and other national missions operating in warfighting domains from seabed to space. NAVWAR consists of more than 11,000 active duty military and civil service professionals located around the world.

A Virtual Tour of the USS Gerald R. Ford: Episode 4

Posted on June 27, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

06/27/2020

In this episode of The House of Wolverine, Lt. Robert Repp and AD1 Steven Lazio, both assigned to USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78) aircraft intermediate maintenance department, talk about their division’s responsibilities and the ship’s jet engine test instrument (JETI).

06.12.2020

Video by Seaman Apprentice Angel Jaskuloski

USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78)

The UK and France: Working together in the Mali Operation

Posted on June 26, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

06/26/2020

Murielle Delaporte in a draft chapter in our forthcoming book entitled The Return of Direct Defense to Europe: Meeting the 21st Century Authoritarian Challenge, underscored how the UK and France would continue to work together even in the post-Brexit era.

She wrote: Britain’s decision to leave the European Union could be compared to France’s departure from NATO in 1966. Paris left the integrated military command structure “but not the Atlantic Alliance” just as London intends to leave the EU “but not Europe.” But in defense terms virtually nothing is changing about how Britain works with France, with NATO or the European Union. British authorities have repeatedly gone out of their way to stress that the UK still belongs to the European continent and remains fully committed to its defense.

It’s this separation between national security and foreign relations that many observers have missed. Many of them are however worried that with the process of divorce currently underway between the UK and the EU, bitterness and tensions as well as the potential cost and time involved could drive the British Isles more inward and away from Brussels. Such a development would lead to a decoupling that only Moscow would value.

In spite of Brexit, significant cooperation will continue between France and the United Kingdom. For example, when examining the details of each government’s communique and speeches concluding the 35th NATO Summit, what differs is not the challenge but the order of priorities. Whereas London first emphasizes the French reinforcement to the UK-led enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup in Estonia in 2019 (a NATO commitment to contain Russian revival in the area), Paris focuses primarily on the migration challenge in Calais (a security concern affecting France and Europe as a whole). But, for both countries, the second priority listed is the pursuit of the fight against Islamic terrorism in Sahel.

This joint perception and commitment stems from the fact that both France and the UK face in an enemy that knows no border. With the summit came a major announcement: the British are going to support the French military effort in Operation Barkhane to counter terrorism in Africa.

In other words, part of the Macron approach inherited from his predecessors, notably Sarkozy, has been the importance of shaping a joint strategic culture with Britain which aims at reconciling each member’s legitimate concerns with respect to their history and geographic location.

A case in point is the UK support for French-led operations in Mali.

According to a June 12, 2020 article published by the UK Ministry of Defence:

Personnel from RAF Odiham have been deployed in non-combat roles in Mali since 2018 with the aircraft contributing a unique logistical capability to the French-led operation.

The Chinooks and aircrew allow French troops to cover a much larger field of operations by moving personnel to the front-line of activity, eliminating the need for dangerous road moves, and help move vital support equipment to strategic locations.

Since arriving in Mali the RAF has clocked over 2,000 hours of flying and moved over 13,000 passengers and 1,100 tonnes of equipment. Currently, the Chinooks are being flown by aircrew from 18(B) Squadron and are supported by personnel drawn from across the RAF and British Army. The conditions are often challenging, with over 40 degree heat in the summer months and regular sandstorms.

Alongside international partners, French forces operate across the Sahel to counter the threat from militants linked to groups such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh. Forces deployed on this mission have had a number of successes and recently killed the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and several other high-profile members of the group.

June 12, 2020 Defence Minister James Heappey joined a remote conference with over 15 Defence Ministers of the Coalition for the Sahel to highlight our growing role in the region and help co-ordinate the international response.

The aim of the Coalition, launched by France, is to coordinate international activity in the Sahel and promote long-term stability in the region.

Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey said:

“West Africa is as important to the United Kingdom as it has ever been and we have many friends and allies in the region who share our desire to promote peace and prosperity.

“Combating extremism in the Sahel is vital for the security of the wider region and the UK will play it’s part tackling the declining security situation.”

The aircraft operate across Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Marked by chronic poverty, instability, high levels of gender inequality, and acute vulnerability to the effects of climate change, the Sahel is one of Africa’s poorest and most fragile regions. The scale and spread of terrorist violence and conflict continues to increase.

UK support to the region goes beyond military commitments, with the Government supporting development in the region and providing life-saving support and protection to those most in need.

The UK is one of the largest humanitarian donors to the region, and has contributed over £500m in bilateral development and humanitarian assistance since 2015. With COVID-19 now an additional challenge in the Sahel, a significant part of the UK’s £764m contribution to the global COVID-19 effort will be channelled to the region.

Later this year the UK will deploy 250 personnel to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali, also based in Gao. Responding to a UN capability gap, personnel from The Light Dragoons and The Royal Anglian Regiment will form a long range reconnaissance capability, providing greater awareness of possible threats and contributing to the protection of civilians.

Initially deploying for three years as part of a 12,500 strong international force, the UK contribution will assist the UN mission as it seeks to deliver long-term and sustainable peace in Mali.

By working to stabilise fragile states and tackle the root causes of conflict, the UK is helping to prevent conflict from spilling over to neighbouring states.

This deployment will, alongside the UK’s broader development and diplomatic efforts, help address the increasing instability in the region, protect the civilian population, and strengthen the authority of the Malian Government.

Elephant Walk 2020

Posted on June 26, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

F-22 Raptors assigned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, perform an elephant walk on the flight line to show readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The “Moose Walk,” more commonly referred to as an “Elephant Walk,” was so named to pay homage to both Alaska’s unique wildlife and to the C-17 Globemaster III, often nicknamed “The Moose.” This event displayed the ability of the 3rd Wing, 176th Wing and the 477th Fighter Group to maintain constant readiness throughout COVID-19 by Total Force Integration between active-duty, Guard and Reserve units.Video by Senior Airman Adriana Barrientos)

F-22 Raptors assigned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, perform an elephant walk on the flight line to show readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The “Moose Walk,” more commonly referred to as an “Elephant Walk,” was so named to pay homage to both Alaska’s unique wildlife and to the C-17 Globemaster III, often nicknamed “The Moose.”

This event displayed the ability of the 3rd Wing, 176th Wing and the 477th Fighter Group to maintain constant readiness throughout COVID-19 by Total Force Integration between active-duty, Guard and Reserve units to continue defending the U.S. homeland and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.

(Video by Senior Airman Adriana Barrientos)

Next Steps in Ch-53Ks Key Role in Support for Mobile Basing

Posted on June 26, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

By Robbin Laird

In our recent series on mobile basing, we highlighted the evolution of USMC capabilities which can enable ways ahead with regard to mobile basing.

We have argued that for the USAF and the US Navy, the capability of the USMC to provide chess pieces on the kill web chess board in the Pacific is a key contribution which the Marines can provide.

Logistics support for mobile and expeditionary bases is a key challenge and requirement for successful distributed force able to be integrated in a fluid battle space.

In a recent interview, we focused on the fact that with regard to }basing for the integrated distributed force, clearly there is a need for another layer, namely, the ability to sustain the force, including the fuel to drive the force.

“For the Marines operating from the sea, this clearly includes combat ships, MSC tankers and related ships, as well as airborne tanker assets.

“By deploying a relatively small logistics footprint FARP or ARP, one can provide a much wider of points to provide fuel for the combat force.

“And in Marine terms, the size of that footprint will depend on whether that FARP is enabled by KC-130J support or by CH-53E support, with both air assets requiring significantly different basing to work the FARP.”

That interview focused on innovations in terms of providing more mobility for FARPs and the role of new fueling solutions to the distributed force.

One takeaway from that interview was that innovative delivery solutions can be worked going forward.

When I met with Col. Perrin at Pax River, we discussed how the CH-53K as a smart aircraft could manage airborne MULES to support resupply to a mobile base.

As Col. Perrin noted in our conversation: “The USMC has done many studies of distributed operations and throughout the analyses it is clear that heavy lift is an essential piece of the ability to do such operations.”

And not just any heavy lift – but heavy lift built around a digital architecture.

Clearly, the CH-53E being more than 30 years old is not built in such a manner; but the CH-53K is.

What this means is that the CH-53K “can operate and fight on the digital battlefield.”

And because the flight crew are enabled by the digital systems onboard, they can focus on the mission rather than focusing primarily on the mechanics of flying the aircraft. This will be crucial as the Marines shift to using unmanned systems more broadly than they do now.

For example, it is clearly a conceivable future that CH-53Ks would be flying a heavy lift operation with unmanned “mules” accompanying them. Such manned-unmanned teaming requires a lot of digital capability and bandwidth, a capability built into the CH-53K.

If one envisages the operational environment in distributed terms, this means that various types of sea bases, ranging from large deck carriers to various types of Maritime Sealift Command ships, along with expeditionary bases, or FARPs or FOBS, will need to be connected into a combined combat force.

To establish expeditionary bases, it is crucial to be able to set them up, operate and to leave such a base rapidly or in an expeditionary manner (sorry for the pun).

This will be virtually impossible to do without heavy lift, and vertical heavy lift, specifically.

Put in other terms, the new strategic environment requires new operating concepts; and in those operating concepts, the CH-53K provides significant requisite capabilities.

So why not the possibility of the CH-53K flying in with a couple of MULES which carried fuel containers; or perhaps building a vehicle which could come off of the cargo area of the CH-53K and move on the operational area and be linked up with TAGRS?

Recently, the USMC-Navy team have completed sea trials with the CH-53K which provide a step ahead towards such a solution set.

NAVAIR issued this press release on June 24, 2020 about the sea trials:

The CH-53K King Stallion completed a two-week period of sea trials in the Atlantic earlier this month. This was the first opportunity to see the aircraft working in a modern naval environment.

Testing took place on the USS Wasp, a landing helicopter dock (LHD) amphibious assault ship operated by the U.S. Navy.

“I’m very pleased with how the ship tests went,” said Col. Jack Perrin, H-53 helicopters program manager. “We were able to assess the K taking off and landing day, night, and with night vision goggles and it performed extremely well.”

According to the CH-53K integrated test team, the sea trials are a series of tests to evaluate the performance of the aircraft at sea. Tests performed during the two weeks included: launch and recovery; rotor start and shutdown; blade fold; and shipboard compatibility testing – all in increasing wind speed and varying wind directions relative to the aircraft.

“The bulk of the testing was in launch and recovery,” said Perrin, “and we nailed it every time, no matter what the wind/sea conditions were. The 53K is now a “feet-wet” warrior from the sea.”

Ship compatibility testing includes towing the aircraft around the deck and in the hangar, performing maintenance while aboard the ship, ensuring the aircraft fits in all the locations it needs to around the ship deck and hangar, and evaluating chain/tie-down procedures.

The CH-53K King Stallion continues to execute within the reprogrammed CH-53K timeline, moving toward completion of developmental test, leading to initial operational test and evaluation in 2021 and first fleet deployment in 2023-2024.

The Sikorsky program director for CH-53K, Bill Falk, provided his judgement on the sea trials as follows:

“The CH-53K demonstrated exceptional performance through out its initial sea trials continuing the team’s progress towards initial operational test and evaluation in 2021 and deployment in 2023-2024.

“Executing 364 ship landings and takeoffs from all deck spots, expanding the wind envelope, performing multiple towing and hanger evolutions, and conducting multiple rotor blade spread, fold, engagement and disengagement operations, the CH-53K is right at home aboard a large deck amphibious ship and is one step closer to deployment.

“The King Stallion, the only 21st Century fully marinized heavy lift helicopter, excelled in the shipboard environment reinforcing its critical role allowing Marines the operational flexibility to move more material, more rapidly from ship to shore. “

And in a story published by USNI News on June 25, 2020 and written by Megan Eckstein, an interview with Col. Perrin was highlighted where he focused on the sea trials.

Col. Jack Perrin, the H-53 heavy lift helicopters program manager for Naval Air Systems Command, told USNI News in a June 24 interview that the sea trials were meant to test all the ways the helicopter interfaces with a ship: communications while in flight, the ability to land on all nine spots on the flight deck in all weather and lighting conditions, the ability to be towed around the flight deck and hangar bay, the ability to be folded up and tied down, the ability to be maintained at sea and more.

The helicopter conducted two flight periods a day, one in daylight and one at night – taking off, with the pilots recording notes on the difficulty and safety of that particular evolution; flying a mile or so from the ship; flying back in the traditional landing pattern to attempt a landing; recording notes on that landing; and then the ship turning into a new wind condition for the process to start over again.

Though sea trials with some other programs have exposed problems that needed to be addressed through technical or procedural changes, “we were very fortunate; we did not find that big thing that was going to cause us risk or delay or a big technical issue. With this, we have now gone through this program and hit pretty much everything that they aircraft needs to do in order to deploy. We still have some more data to take, we have some tests to finish up, but we’ve been to every big thing,” Perrin said.

“We’ve done the external loads, done the internal loads, we went out and did helicopter aerial refueling, and now we’ve gone to the ship and been out there and seen that. Our risk on this program, for the 53K not being able to go out and support that first deployment and get through [operational testing], is greatly reduced now because of the success we’ve had and the performance the aircraft has shown during this test and the test previous. So we’re pretty happy as a program.”

Perrin said that, having just come back ashore this week, the final report from testing wasn’t complete yet. There were likely some little ways where the program can make improvements ahead of handing the aircraft over to Marine Corps operational testers this fall, he said, but there were no “show-stoppers” that caused him concern.

About 98 people flew out to Wasp for the sea trials, with the integrated test team including representatives from the NAVAIR program office, manufacturer Sikorsky and the Marine Corps’ operational test community.

A key feature of the King Stallion compared to the CH-53E Super Stallion – aside from being able to lift more – is that it’s much easier to operate due to the fly-by-wire flight control system.

Perrin noted the ease of operations during the April 6 aerial refueling test with a KC-130 tanker, saying, “it’s usually a pretty difficult, demanding task, but the 53K handled that extremely well and we had very good handling qualities out of that.”

During sea trials, the colonel added, “the handling qualities of the aircraft at the ship were excellent. All the initial pilot feedback has been that the handling qualities of the 53K on all spots, day, night, in [night vision goggles], was very very good. They were all very impressed … (with) how much easier it was for the pilot to actually come back and land on the ship because of the flight control system, because of the fly-by-wire system on the 53K, which is very good….”

Perrin said one of the highlights of sea trials was having Foxton and a dozen other operational test Marines out on the ship, with pilots in the cockpit, crew chiefs in the back of the helo and maintainers on the ship – all getting a sneak peak at how this helicopter compares to its predecessor.

“They now understand what it can do and what tactics, techniques and procedures, or TTPs, that they’re going to need to adjust from what we do with the 53E to how the 53K operates. So they are getting a complete heads start on having those tactics, techniques and procedures developed, so that when they go to the official IOT&E or initial operational test and evaluation, they’ve already been on the aircraft, they’ve already been flying the aircraft, they’ve already seen this,” he said.

“When they go out to the ship as part of the test – and they will go out to a ship as part of the IOT&E – they’re going to be running instead of learning at that time. They’re going to be executing. And that’s the key of an ITT or integrated test team, is that everybody gets to learn together.”

Carrier Support Begins a New Era: The Arrival of the CMV-22B to VRM 30

Posted on June 25, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

06/25/2020

By Robbin Laird

The first CMV-22B Osprey has arrived in San Diego at Naval Air Station North Island and is assigned to the “Titans” of Navy’s Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Squadron (VRM) 30.

The squadron was stood up in 2018 to operate the CMV-22B as a replacement for the Navy’s legacy C-2A Greyhound carrier onboard delivery (COD) aircraft.

I visited Amarillo Texas in February when the US Navy unveiled one of its first CMV-22Bs.

At that ceremony, Captain Dewon Chaney, Commodore of the Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing highlighted the coming of the new capability and what it meant for the US Navy.

What is the status of the CODs?

Every Carrier Air Wing Commander and Carrier CO has received that question numerous times from the Carrier Strike Group Commander while on deployment. And for good reason…

The COD, or Carrier On-board Delivery, aircraft is the only long-range aerial logistics platform providing logistical support for the Carrier Strike Group, ensuring its time sensitive combat capability.

Sure, there are ways to get some items to the carrier but that time lag in most cases is at the cost of readiness for the warfare commander.

The Navy saw the need to replace the aircraft providing this critical capability years ago and embarked on multiple efforts to inform that decision. The Navy selected V-22 as the future COD platform.

The ﬁrst aircraft is being delivered today (well actually a week ago but who is counting). And our ﬁrst deployment will be here in a blink of an eye!

But the devil in the details with this particularly accelerated program is making sure that the ﬂeet can man, train, and equip those at the tip of the spear potentially in harm’s way.

As of October, last year as the Wing Commodore, I have the honor, privilege and responsibility, given to me by Vice Admiral Miller, to be the lead for the Navy’s CMV-22 community along with our partners at well into the 2040s. Delivery of this aircraft is a major milestone on the path to initial operational capability in 2021.

The CMV-22 has the capability to internally carry the F-35C engine power module. This capability is a game changer for the Air Wing of the Future and drove the need to match up the F-35C and CMV-22 operational deployments.

The ﬁrst CMV-22 deployment is now less than a year from initial delivery of N3, which is scheduled for late June of this year.

Its success is key to maintaining combat lethality for the Air Wing of the future and our Navy,,,, CMV-22s will operate from all aircraft carriers providing a signiﬁcant range increase for operations from the Sea Bases enabling Combatant Commanders to exercise increased ﬂexibility and options for warfare dominance. If you’re in a ﬁght.. .it’s always good to have options!

Every month following the ﬁrst initial deployment, there will be a CMV-22 detachment operating with a US aircraft carrier somewhere in the world….

From another perspective, the CMV-22B is entering the US Navy as the entire fleet is going through a kill web transition.

I had discussed this transition with the US Navy Air Boss in San Diego a week before “Chainsaw” Chaney made his remarks in Amarillo, Texas.

VADM Miller discussed with me how he one might consider the change underway for the carrier Air Wing.

What is underway is a shift from integrating the air wing around relatively modest and sequential modernization efforts for the core platforms to a robust transformation process in which new assets enter the force and create a swirl of transformation opportunities, challenges, and pressures.

How might we take this new asset and expand the reach and effectiveness of the carrier strike group?

How might it empower maritime, air, and ground forces as we shape a more effective (i.e. a more integratable) force?

During a recent visit to San Diego, I had a chance to discuss such an evolving perspective with the Navy’s Air Boss, Vice Admiral “Bullet” Miller.

We started by discussing the F-35 which for him is a major forcing function change in the CVW.

But his focus is clearly upon not simply introducing the aircraft into the force but ensuring that it is part of the launch of a transformative process for shaping the evolving air wing….

The Air Boss is looking to focus his attention on enhanced combat lethality which the fleet can deliver to the maritime services and the joint force.

What is being set in motion is a new approach where each new platform which comes into the force might be considered at the center of a cluster of changes.

The change is not just about integrating a new platform in the flight ops of the carrier.

The change is also about how the new platform affects what one can do with adjacent assets in the CSG or how to integrate with adjacent U.S. or allied combat platforms, forces, and capabilities.

To give an example, the U.S. Navy is replacing the C-2 with the CMV-22 in the resupply role.

But the Navy would be foolish to simply think in terms of strictly C-2 replacement lines and missions.

So how should the Navy operate, modernize, and leverage its Ospreys?

For Miller, the initial task is to get the Osprey onboard the carrier and integrated with CVW operations.

But while doing so, it is important to focus on how the Osprey working within the CVW can provide a more integrated force.

Vice Admiral Miller and his team are looking for the first five-year period in operating the CMV-22 for the Navy to think through the role of the Osprey as a transformative force, rather than simply being a new asset onboard a carrier.

Hence, one can look at the CMV-22 innovation cluster in the following manner:

Such an approach is embedded in the rethink from operating and training an integrated air wing to an integratable air wing.

SAN DIEGO (Oct. 10, 2019) Vice Adm. DeWolfe H. Miller III, Commander, Naval Air Forces, speaks at the Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing (COMVRMWING) 1 establishing ceremony on board Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI) Oct. 10. The Navy established its first CMV-22B Osprey squadron (VRM-30) Dec. 14, 2018 at NASNI. The Navy’s transition from the C-2A Greyhound to the CMV-22B Osprey is expected complete by 2028. U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Chelsea D. Meiller

Captain Dewon Chaney, United States Navy, Commodore, Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing

Captain Chaney was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Following high school, he enlisted in the Navy in 1993 and was selected to attend the Broadened Opportunity for Officer Selection and Training (BOOST) program following basic training. He earned an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College and commissioned via the NROTC program in the summer of 1998.

Captain Chaney was designated a Naval Aviator in July 2000 and then reported to HC-3 in San Diego for H-46 fleet replacement training after completing a brief H-60 qualification at HSL-40 in Mayport, FL. Captain Chaney’s operational assignments include his junior officer tour with the “Providers” of HC-5 in Yigo, Guam where he deployed on the USNS San Jose (AFS 7), USNS Kiska (AE 35), and twice onboard USS Essex (LHD 2). CAPT Chaney served aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) as the V-2 Waist Catapult Branch Officer and V-1 Flight Deck Officer. His department head tour was with the “Island Knights” of HSC-25 where he deployed to Basrah, Iraq. He commanded the “Wildcards” of HSC-23 and the “Merlins” of HSC-3.

Shore and staff assignments include Flag Aide to the 53rd Chief of Naval Personnel, a tour at the Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tennessee as the Helicopter Sea Assignments Officer, and a Pentagon tour as Military Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. In October 2019, Captain Chaney reported for duty as Commander, Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing.

Captain Chaney attended the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, completing his Phase I Joint Professional Military Education, and earning a Master’s degree in National Security and strategic Studies.

He has accumulated over 2,000 flight hours in various aircraft to include the H-46, H-60, and MV-22. His personal awards include the Defense Meritorious Service, Medal Meritorious Service Medal (2), Strike/Flight Air Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (4), the Army Commendation Medal, and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal and several unit, campaign and service awards.

FLEET LOGISTICS MULTI-MISSION SQUADRON THREE ZERO (VRM-30) is the U. S. Navy’s first CMV-22B squadron.

Based at NAS North Island, San Diego, CA, the “Titans” of VRM-30 were established to begin the Navy’s transition from the C-2A Greyhound, which has provided logistics support to aircraft carriers for four decades, to the CMV-22B.

The CMV-22B is the Navy version of the V-22 Osprey, a multi-engine, dual-piloted, self-deployable, medium lift, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) tilt-rotor aircraft, which has an increased operational range, faster cargo loading/unloading, increased survivability and enhanced beyond-line-of-sight communications compared to the C-2A.

For our look at the coming of the CMV-22B, see the following:

An FCAS Update: June 2020

Posted on June 24, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

06/24/2020

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The French, German and Spanish air chiefs signed two key cooperative documents on the Future Combat Air System and interoperability of the present fleets of fighter jets, the French air force said in a June 19 statement.

“General Philippe Lavigne, general Ingo Gerhartz and general Javier Salto, respectively chiefs of staff for the French, German and Spanish air forces, signed two documents relating to cooperation on the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program and on national programs for fighter jets prior to FCAS, which will mark the way ahead,” the service said.

In the first document, signed soon after a high-level May 7 virtual meeting, “the air chiefs set out their vision on the priorities for the missions” on the Next Generation Weapon System, said general Jean-Pascal Breton, French air force program manager for FCAS.

The Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) procurement office also fields an FCAS program manager.

These priorities set out a definition of the common operational criteria, such as success of a mission, acceptable level of loss, and allows the evaluation of risk.

“That evaluation of risk allows an evaluation of architecture,” he said.

Industry will propose concepts of potential architecture for the Next Generation Weapon System, which will consist of a Next Generation Fighter, remote carrier drones, and the combat cloud, a network linking up the manned and unmanned aircraft.

The work on architecture stems from a joint concept study awarded to Airbus and Dassault Aviation, industrial partners on FCAS. That two-year contract began Feb. 20 2019.

A couple days after the signing of the first accord, the air chiefs signed a document on a Common Understanding of Connectivity, which seeks to boost interoperability between the present fighters flown by France, Germany and Spain, and those flown by Nato and multinational partners in European defense.

Sweden, while outside Nato, is a European ally and flies the Gripen fighter.

That interoperability document for the NGWS combined project team “also seeks to pave the path to NGWS/FCAS with respect to connectivity,” the air force statement said.

That interoperability aims to boost communications between the French Rafale and the German and Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon. Spain also flies the Boeing F-18.

Interoperability will also be sought for the replacement for the German Tornado fighter.

There are expectations the work on interoperability be supported by the planned European Defense Fund, a European Union project to part-finance research and development in the arms industry.

On the studies of remote carriers, there are more than seven types of disposable and non-disposable drones being considered. The studies have been running for more than a year and seek to draw up categories of unmanned air vehicles, to fly with manned aircraft.

Regarding work on the FCAS, Onera, a research and development organization, is in talks with the DGA for contracts, but any direct work for the procurement office was not expected before 2021, Bruno Sainjon, chairman of Onera, said in Challenges business magazine June 22.

Onera has a small contract with Dassault on the FCAS, but the aerospace research office hopes it will win more contracts, he said, adding that it seems the DGA has asked other companies to contract work with Onera.

A perceived lack of government support for Onera has stirred political debate, with a view that France was slipping behind Germany in research for FCAS.

Members of the French senate expressed concern Dec. 5 on the government planned annual funding for the research office of €110 million ($124 million) respectively for this year and 2021, compared to €106 million and €107 million previously planned.

That planned increase was too small, senators on the foreign affairs and defense committee said.

That French funding compared to the €200 million of financial support DLR, its German equivalent, received from Berlin, the senators said. The DLR had already signed research contracts for the German national FCAS program, while the French DGA had yet to award contracts to Onera.

Airbus displayed a life-size mock up of a remote carrier resembling a cruise missile next to a concept model of a next generation fighter at the Paris air show last year.

MBDA, a European missile maker, is also working on concepts for remote carriers.

The featured photo is of the mockup of the FCAS fighter as seen at the 2019 Paris Air Show. Credit: Second Line of Defense

See, also the following:

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/06/with-fcas-french-air-forces-renaissance-begins/