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Red Flag-Alaska 24-3 a Pacific Air Forces directed field training exercise for U.S. and international forces flown under simulated air combat conditions and took place out of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Aug. 14-30, 2024.
It is conducted on the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex with air operations flown primarily out of Eielson AFB and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. RF-A exercises are focused on improving the combat readiness of U.S. and international forces and providing training for units preparing for air and space expeditionary force taskings.
I attended the Euronaval exposition held in Paris the week of November 3, 2024.
I had a chance to visit the Finnish booth at the show and watch the launch of their report on Finnish technologies in the Baltic Sea presented to the show.
And then I had the opportunity to talk with Tuija Karanko, the Secretary General of the Association of Finnish Aerospace and Defence Companies.
As the abstract contained in the report sums the report up:
The Baltic Sea presents a uniquely challenging operational environment for naval defence due to its shallow waters, complex archipelagos, and harsh climatic conditions. These geographic and environmental factors, combined with the increasing strategic importance of the region, demand specialized technologies and innovative solutions to ensure maritime security, protect critical infrastructure, and maintain uninterrupted sea lines of communication.
This document outlines the key challenges posed by the Baltic Sea and highlights the advanced solutions developed by the Finnish defence industry to address them. If it performs in Finland’s challenging conditions, it will perform anywhere.
The narrative focuses on three critical areas: securing sea lines of communication, naval mine warfare, and mission enablers.
Securing sea lines of communication requires comprehensive surveillance and anti-submarine warfare capabilities to monitor both surface and subsurface threats in the region’s congested and shallow waters. Naval mine warfare leverages the region’s natural geographical features, making it an effective method for area denial and protecting vital assets, with advanced Finnish mine technology playing a central role.
Mission enablers, such as ice-capable vessels, resilient ship technologies, and advanced damage control systems, ensure that naval operations can continue in the region’s demanding conditions.
Through these technological innovations and strategic solutions, the Finnish defence industry is contributing to enhanced naval defence capabilities in the Baltic Sea, ensuring the security and stability of this critical maritime region
Since we last talked two years ago at the previous Euronaval show, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO and Russian aggression against Ukraine has created a very clear threat of Russia to Europe.
But for Finland this is no shock as the country has never focused on peace dividends nor lowered its guard in the Putin period.
Now the Nordic countries are all in NATO and working together in key ways to integrate their defense efforts.
As Karanko highlighted now the three European countries in the High North can work more closely together in the region.
She noted: “When we think of the northern region of the Nordics, an area which we call Lapland in Finland and Sweden and Finnmark in Norway which is basically the area above the Arctic Circle, now the three countries can work closely together. Previously, only Norway was in NATO but now the three countries can shape NATO capabilities in the region.”
She pointed out that Finnish technology has been designed for this harsh environment and has been built to NATO standards for a considerable period. Now their technology can appeal to a larger market.
Of course, Nordic defense integration efforts certainly preceded the ascension of Sweden and Finland to NATO. For years, Sweden and Finland, for example, have worked together on operations and on enablers for operations.
Finnish defense companies are growing due not only to Finland joining NATO but due to the serious security situation facing Northern Europe.
Frankly, whatever happens in terms of settling the war in Ukraine, Putin has stimulated what was impossible before his deliberate armed aggression against modern Europe – Northern Europe working together on defense and security within a NATO framework.
And this is especially important given the importance of the high North in terms of resources and of the opening of the northern passage through which the Chinese now operate as well.
See also our comprehensive look at the return of direct defense in Europe which highlights the significant role which infrastructure protection will play in shaping the way forward.
U.S. Marines with Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron (VMGR) 152, Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing participate in Exercise Evergreen 2024 on and around Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Aug. 9-29, 2024. Exercise Evergreen 2024 allows VMGR-152 to conduct various training, including joint training with the U.S. Army and Air Force, to maintain the squadron’s high level of proficiency in supporting 1st Marine Aircraft Wing operations in the Indo-Pacific region.
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
Paris – Companies around the world have noted the significance of the uncrewed surface vehicle (USV), or sea drone, as could be seen at Euronaval, an international trade show for every kind of military vessel and maritime kit, which ran Nov. 4-7.
The market potential for the USV stemmed from Ukraine’s necessity proving to be a near mother of maritime invention, with locally built USVs used to deadly effect against the Russian navy in the wake of the 2022 invasion ordered by Moscow.
Ukrainian civilians working in a garage after that Russian incursion allowed Kyiv to deploy USVs cobbled together from remote controlled speed boats with an ad hoc communications link and an explosive warhead.
That effective use against the Russian fleet, seen as one of the world navies, pointed up the sea drone as a weapon which carried a critical marketing label, namely combat proven.
There has been a “technology evolution” on drones, Pierre Eric Pommellet, chairman of Gican, said Oct. 24 in a virtual press conference on Euronaval. Drones were previously mostly in aeronautics, he said, now they were used for surveillance and combat at sea.
That could be seen with maritime drones in the Red Sea and Black Sea, he added.
The Houthis irregular force, based in Yemen, have sailed USVs loaded with explosives to strike commercial shipping and Western warships on patrol in the Red Sea, Reuters reported July 3. The Iranian-backed militia may have been inspired by Ukrainian sea drones, the news agency reported, with the prospect of shipping companies paying higher war risk premiums for sailing in the Red Sea.
Pommellet is also executive chairman of Naval Group, a builder of warships and submarines, is majority held by France. Electronics company Thales holds a minority stake in NG.
MARTAC Adds To Devil Ray Offerings
There were press briefings and announcements on sea drones, which were on display among reduced scale models which included aircraft carriers, frigates, attack submarines, and auxiliary tankers at the show.
Maritime Tactical Systems, or MARTAC, announced Nov. 2 the commercial launch of its Devil Ray T18, an addition to its offerings of Devil Ray USVs. The 5.8-meter sea drone could be used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).
The new sea drone shared a common operating system with the T12 and T24, said Stephen Ferretti, chief marketing officer, and that offered interoperability, with operators moving from one model to another.
The T18 could also operate as part of a swarm, he said. The new sea drone could be transported in a 20-foot box container, allowing stealthy shipping, he said. A standard Conex box container allowed the sea drone to be transported by aircraft such as V-22 Osprey tilt rotor, CH-53 helicopter, or C-130J transport plane.
The T18 offered speed and endurance, with “60 plus” knots, sailing 300 nautical miles and a payload of 750 pounds, he said. The drone, which could sail in sea state of three to five, had undergone months of extensive tests. The USV was due to go into production in 2025.
The drone was equipped with a collision avoidance system, required “very low maintenance,” and the architecture encompassed the use of artificial intelligence, he said. The drone was based on commercially available technologies.
MARTAC, based in Melbourne, Florida, presented its smaller Mantis T12 sea drone at the 2022 Euronaval show.
That Mantis range was designed for littoral or near-littoral use, while the larger Devil Ray range was intended for 300-1,000 nautical miles.
The company had clients operating its USVs in some 12 nations, including the Asia/Pacific.
USVs effectively served as naval scouts, a defense analyst said, capable of feeding data into a warship’s fire control system, such as Aegis. They were “pieces of a puzzle,” he said, providing sensor input to a “mesh network.”
USVs could be launched from the land or from other vessels, serving as extension of the capital ship with “off-board capabilities,” the analyst said.
“Technological change leads to behavioural change,” the analyst said.
Naval Group’s Combat Sea Drone
Naval Group, its Sirehna unit, and industrial partner Couach announced Nov. 5 on the NG stand the commercial launch of Seaquest S, a sea drone billed as its “first unmanned surface vehicle for combat operations.”
The 9.3 meter vessel was designed for ISR and targeting missions, and could carry various mission packages, including weapons. Couach built the hull.
The sea drones would extend a ship’s capability, allowing detection earlier and further away, at reasonable cost, said Aurore Neuschwand, NG head of unmanned systems.
Seaquest could be “integrated” to a frigate, landing helicopter dock or supply ship, operating from ship or shore, she said.
NG posted a corporate video on a social platform, showing the Seaquest, in naval gray, speeding at sea before being lifted out of the waters and brought onboard the port side of a French navy FREMM multimission frigate.
Studies were under way for antisubmarine warfare (ASW), with the drone carrying NG light depth charges and Thales sonar buoys, the company said. The next step was to work on swarm operations.
The drone had remote and autonomous modes, and used the same fuel as the mother ship.
Development of the sea drone took less than a year, Patrick Pennamen, chief executive of Sirehna said. The drone was modular and scalable, with the four modules consisting of the platform, communications, sensors, and effectors. The drone was intended for day and night operations.
The drone carried a foldable mast, and was equipped with Rohde and Schwarz electronic warfare kit, and an Ericsson radar.
NG funded the project, which cost 10s of millions of euros. The company was looking for export sales, and the drone could fit on warships such as the Babcock Arrowhead 140 frigate, an industry executive said.
Babcock, a British company which maintains the Royal Navy fleet and builds warships, had its stand further into the vast exhibition hall. The Arrowhead 140 is the export version of the Type 31 general purpose frigate Babcock is building for the British navy.
The Type 31 is is based on the Odense Maritime Technology (OMT) Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate hull. This is a Danish company and a Danish frigate.
Saab Shows System Control
Saab gave Nov. 5 a media presentation of its Autonomous Ocean Core, a software package for system control of sea drones, both on the surface and underwater.
The company showed live video of a Saab CB90 Enforcer 3.2 combat boat under full autonomy in a Swedish fjord, some 1,800 km away. An aerial drone provided visual link for the Saab stand at the show. The C90 patrol boat carried a Saab Sea Giraffe 1X 3D radar.
The autonomy system was designed to make vessels and vehicles do “dull, dirty and dangerous” jobs, and keep people safe, said Peter Karlstrom, project manager for naval autonomy and artificial intelligence.
Autonomy was a “core technology,” he said, allowing “lean manning” to do more with fewer people. An autonomy package would deliver the “trinity” of perceiving information, making decisions, and taking action, he said.
April 27, 2023 marked the launch of the Ocean Core project, which was not fully mature, he said. The autonomy project was based on Saab’s Enforcer research and development project launched in 2018, also plugged into a CB90 patrol boat. R&D work on an Enforcer 3.1 boat was conducted in San Diego, with further work on the Enforcer 3.2 boat in Sweden.
Graphic representing SAAB Autonomous Ocean Core Control System. Credit: SAAB
The autonomy package has already been tested with a remote weapon system, he said. The next step was to develop sensors and effectors for surveillance, mine detection and weapons.
An assault mode for the system offered a high level of unrestricted autonomy, without continuous link, “intended for high-risk situations, needing maximum operational autonomy,” the company said on its website.
The other modes were local safety and external safety, with the former intended for training, and the latter bringing the vessel to a stop when connection was lost.
The autonomy package was “platform agnostic,” he said, and the software could be plugged into the combat management system on frigates.
Exail Expands DriX Range
Models of other new USVs included the DriX 0-16, a 12-ton sea drone from Exail, which joined the smaller DriX H-8. The latter came to the market in 2017. The unit price of a DriX 0-16 was around €6 million ($6.4 million) and was capable of staying seven days at sea in autonomous mode, with a range of 2,500 nautical miles.
The DriX family has sparked strong military interest for surveillance, mine countermeasures, and anti-submarine warfare, reported Mer et Marine, a specialist publication.
Exail is the company formed from the 2022 merger of ECA Group and iXblue, specialists in surface and underwater drones. The Exail chairman is Hervé Guillou, former executive chairman of Naval Group.
Ukrainian Sea Drones Strike Hard
Ukrainian USVs forced the Russian navy to pull back warships and support vessels from the Black Sea, opening up a sea link vital for Kyiv’s shipment of much needed grain to the world market.
The Ukrainian drone fleet included the Magura, Mamay, Mykola, Stalker, and Sea Baby. The Magura V5, named after a Slavic cloud maiden and warrior goddess, has hit 18 Russian warships, disabling or sinking the enemy vessels, Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian media outlet, reported Aug. 16.
Ukraine’s SBU security service sailed the Makura in swarms, a collective approach which kept drone warheads down to 250 kg while delivering “critical damage” to Russian warships, said the commander of special unit group 13, Kyiv Independent reported.
France to Decide on New Aircraft Carrier
The French authorities were due to decide in the next few months whether to fit two or three catapults in an order for a U.S.-built Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) for a planned next-generation aircraft carrier, said an officer of the Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office at the show.
That decision was expected by the end of the year or early next year, the DGA officer said.
If three catapults were fitted, that would be one more than the two U.S.-built, steam-powered launchers on the Charles de Gaulle carrier. The planned successor is due to enter service in 2028 after three years of sea trials.
The US state department approved in December 2021 the sale of electromagnetic aircraft catapults and arresting gear, worth an estimated $1.3 billion. France had requested procurement of one electromagnetic system with two launchers and one advanced arrestor gear, in a three-engine configuration, at that time.
The budget for manufacture of the carrier has doubled to some €10 billion from previous estimates, media reports said.
The armed forces minister is expected officially to launch the carrier program next year, although advanced orders were reported to have been placed in April by the main contractors, NG, Chantiers de l’Atlantique, and TechnicAtome. The latter will build the nuclear boiler.
The defense ministry displayed a model of the planned carrier, whose weight has risen 5,000 tons to 80,000. That model was older and simpler than the one on display at the NG stand.
Show Organizer
Sogena, which organized the naval exhibition and conference, is a unit of Groupement des Industries de Construction et Activités Navales (Gican), a trade association.
Some 480 exhibitors came to the show, 10 percent up from the 2022 exhibition, from 30 nations. There were 106 official delegations, with 25 navy chiefs of staff.
The French authorities, including the Armed Forces Ministry, the Navy, and Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office, backed the Euronaval show, which invited naval delegations from around the world.
U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Ryan Sohm, Charlie company commander with Battalion Landing Team 1/4, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, explains the Ground Combat Element’s part in making the 31st MEU a complete Marine Air Ground Task Force aboard the amphibious assault ship the USS America (LHA 6), in the Philippine Sea, Aug. 24, 2024.
The 31st MEU is operating aboard ships of the America Amphibious Ready Group in the 7th Fleet area of operations to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific Region.
F-35B Lightning II aircraft assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 242 conduct carrier landing practice during Exercise Resolute Dragon 24 at Ie Shima Training Facility in Okinawa, Japan.
In writing our book on the maritime kill web, a key point we emphasized was that payload innovation was a key driver to enhanced and viable combat capability. Rather than focusing force design on next generation platforms, a key focus now was to focus on rapid insertion of payloads and their innovation to create the desired combat effects.
When I visited the Naval Aviation Warfighting Center (NAWDC) in October 2024, my discussions with the MISR community underscored how they were addressing this opportunity and challenge. MISR stands for Maritime ISR and when I visited NAWDC the last time in 2020, they were focused in their core exercise called Resolute Hunter on how ISR collectors could support tactical decision makers more effectively and rapidly.
Now they were focused on how the platforms and payloads the Navy and their joint force partners had access to could provide the kind of surveillance and reconnaissance eyes to the decision maker brains at the tactical edge.
With such a focus, it seems evident that training was not just about shaping rote muscle memory, but it was about how innovation at the tactical edge could be enhanced.
A measure of the change is how the MISR team in Resolute Hunter now invites external participants to introduce new payloads into the training environment. This could drive much more rapid innovation in the ready force if acquisition approaches can catch up to what a training driven innovation regime can deliver to that force.
During my visit I met with a team from Lockheed Martin who were working with NAWDC on a payload which was onboard on Romeo and Sierra helicopters to add to the surveillance and reconnaissance data which could be available to the force.
After my return from NAWDC, I continued my discussion with a member of the Lockheed engineering team, Richard Whitfield. He is an experienced naval officer who retired in 2022 from the U.S. Navy, He now is a principal systems engineer at Lockheed Martin working research and development on the Romeo and Sierra.
I asked him how they developed the approach to working with NAWDC on shaping payloads for more rapid innovation in the operational force.
HSC Weapons School Pacific Tactics Instructor, LT J. Cull-Host, and HSC-23 maintenance personnel participating in a Lockheed Martin MH-60S rapid concept prototype installation for Resolute Hunter. 6 Nov 2024
He noted: “What we started doing a year and a half ago was looking at how we conducted our research and development inside the Lockheed Martin’s naval helicopter program. We wanted to include the flight suits on the flight line in the front side of the systems engineering where they get more feedback more often at the very beginning.
“One of the most expensive things in R and D is the actual flight time on the airfield. But if you develop a payload and can get input early on you can provide usable capability to the warfighter more rapidly and cost effectively. So the idea is, go from concept to a prototype in a box within 15 to 18 months. At the nine-month mark, if it’s not working out, we can scrap it, and nobody’s worse for the effort. And at the 15-to-18-month mark, the Navy is hopefully seen enough to determine that they want to invest more in it or shelf it.
“This allows for shaping rapid deployment kit that we can productionize, where it is either a roll on roll off capability on the helicopter or integrated into the helicopter’s combat system which we put into the next upgrade of the system.”
Whitfield underscored that in his experience in the Navy, the Romeo and Sierra communities are an effects-based community and as such were very open to the kind of payload innovation which a kill web force leveraged and optimized.
He added: “The helicopter is a truck. As such, they are easy to test things on. We just need to find more effective ways to do so.”
And leveraging training time to deliver new combat capabilities via payload innovations is certainly an idea whose time has come.
As Dr. Melissa Rhoads, Director ACT, Accelerating C2 Capability Transition, Rotary Mission Systems, Lockheed Martin highlighted regarding the work described by Whitfield:
“What Richard Whitfield has been doing with MISR is an outstanding exemplar of our focus on iterative development through collaborative experimentation. Through this partnership we’ve been able to bring capabilities that cross domains and demonstrate feasibility of new concepts. This allows us to get valuable customer feedback and better prioritize the capabilities that will have the greatest impact, as well as gain insight into some longer-term needs. It is exciting to be accelerating capability transition through collaboration and partnership.”
Featured Photo: (May 6, 2020) A Sikorsky SH-60S Sea Hawk, attached to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 26, conducts flight operations during a Photoex. HSC 26 is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of naval operations to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region, connecting the Mediterranean and Pacific through the Western Indian Ocean and three critical choke points to the free flow of global commerce. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Christopher Cameron)
There’s an understandable inclination at first blush to see the U.S. presidential election outcome as auguring difficult times ahead on the global stage.
President elect Donald Trump’s iconoclastic rhetoric on Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan, tariffs and more in the lead-up to the election, coupled with his transactional approach to business, alliances and international institutions, and of making America great again appear to be zero-sum propositions for which the world is bracing for impact.
Australia is a bit of an outlier on this, though, on a range of fronts. Public statements have invariably emphasized shared values, but it is enduring overlapping interests that will feature more prominently now.
Economically, Australian stocks are high. The biggest direct foreign investor in Australia is the United States – by a country mile. The U.S. retains a considerable trade surplus with Australia, which can be expected to act as a buffer for Trump’s tariff instincts. Thanks in part to the multi-trillion dollar super funds portfolio, the U.S. is a significant beneficiary of Australian funds investments. What’s more, Australian firms employ about 150,000 Americans and U.S. firms employ about 300,000 Australians.
Security-wise, the trusted collaboration is far more profound than most would appreciate.
Dating back multiple generations, to the dark days of the Second World War, if not to the shared crucible of war in 1918 in France, deep, trusted and trusting collaboration has seen the relationship go far beyond the ANZUS pact of 1951. That 800-plus word essay did not include a mutual defence clause, a headquarters, a commander or assigned forces. Today, though, the bilateral Australian-U.S. defence ties are surprisingly broad and deep, across the land, air, sea, logistics, intelligence, space, cyber and intelligence domains.
They are most tangibly evident in the Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap, which is a unique top secret facility operated and crewed 50 percent by Australians. Successive governments, when briefed on what it offers to Australia, have become its ardent defenders, largely because of the insights on the world it offers Australian government decision-makers. That’s not going away anytime soon.
Indeed, the intelligence ties are a super-enabler for Australia, not just in hard military sense, but in terms of access to advanced technology that enables the work of policing intelligence, financial intelligence and more.
Critics of AUKUS are easy to find, and already the sense is that this scheme may have left Australia unduly exposed. Yet indicators to date suggest that, while delays and costs may blow out, the U.S. remains committed to ensuring nuclear propulsion submarines are available and operate from and around Australian waters. Initially with U.S. Navy boats and eventually with Australian-owned ones as well. Viable alternatives are not easy to find. Indeed, the submarine base at Fremantle is becoming a more consequential “suitable piece of real estate”, equivalent in significance to not only the defence of Australia and its interests (as well as those of the United States) as that of Pine Gap.
Pursuing alternative options to AUKUS Pillar I (nuclear propulsion submarines) are effectively no longer viable as they likely would cost a great deal in terms of opportunity cost and more. We can realistically expect the current and future federal governments, of either persuasion, to follow through on this scheme, capitalizing on the considerable investment made in legislative and administrative reform designed to allow greater technology sharing with Australia.
Trump insiders have consistently indicated that, in terms of the art of the deal, AUKUS remains mutually beneficial. What Trump himself thinks, admittedly, has yet to be discerned and, no doubt will be a critical determinant for the future bilateral trajectory. If he changes course, then Australia’s predicament will be considerably more acute.
The prospect of Australia’s defence being dependent on a presidential whim points to the need for Australia to muscle up on its own, including with as much American-sourced technology as can be accessed, without waiting for another white knight, or great white fleet to come to the rescue.
AUKUS Pillar II is already starting to deliver benefits to Australia and the United States, with licensed hi-tech production and manufacture options in the pipeline. The momentum is growing and has been broadly and enthusiastically welcomed by Trump insiders.
Critics may decry the turn in U.S. domestic politics arising from the Trump administration. There are a number of aspects which the Australian government likely will wrestle with, particularly concerning initiatives linked to climate change, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion. Australians offended by such moves should keep things in perspective. Australia has sought closer relations with a number of neighbours with domestic and international policies which are not particularly well received in Australia.
But that has not stopped such initiatives from being progressed.
Now, perhaps, the U.S. will be less seen as a political city on a hill, as much as it ever was. The rhetoric of shared values likely will be toned down and the rhetoric on enduring overlapping interests will now come to the fore. If American soft power wanes as a result, the implications will be widely and deeply felt.
In 2017, shortly after the last time Trump came to office, the Australian Government issued a Foreign Policy White Paper – what I call Australia’s Foreign Policy Plan B. It’s time to re-read that and think further about how we deepen and strengthen the assortment of other regional security and economic ties, to offset the prospects of an unpredictable U.S. government adding to security and stability difficulties in Australia’s neighbourhood.
This article was first published by The Guardian on 7 November 2024 and this version is published with the approval of the author.
Professor John Blaxland, Colonel (Ret’d), BA (Hons), MA, PhD, psc (RT), SFHEA, FRSN, FAIIA, MSM (USA) is Director ANU North America Liaison Office, Washington DC and Professor of International Security & Intelligence Studies in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs of Australian National University.
