U.S Marines with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s (MEU) Battalion Landing Team 1/6, conduct Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) training on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, March 30, 2023.
MOUT training increases the lethality of the MEU’s infantrymen through live-fire drills, room clearing procedures and small team tactics in order to prepare for their upcoming deployment.
CAMP LEJEUNE, NC.
03.30.2023
Video by Cpl. Michele Clarke
26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
Capt. Eric Helgen, commodore, Coast Guard Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFORSWA), Lt. j.g. Matthew Carmine, executive officer, Coast Guard Cutter Glenn Harris, Senior Chief William Moody, Maritime Engagement Team, and Seaman Laura Rose, crewmember,
USCGC Glenn Harris, discuss the Coast Guard’s mission and their experiences in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Dec. 9, 2022. The PATFORSWA squadron currently consists of six 154-foot Sentinel Class Fast Response Cutters, one 110-foot Island Class Patrol Boat, a cutter relief crew, and a 150-member mission support detachment who conduct maritime operations across the Middle East for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
MANAMA, BAHRAIN
04.07.2023
Video by Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles
U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters
U.S. Central Command and the Saudi Armed Forces conduct a multilateral exercise between the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This exercise is designed to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to GCC partners, and regional security and stability.
Eagle Resolve 23 (ER23) is conducted bi-annually with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations to exercise and develop a GCC and U.S. Combined Joint Task force (CJTF) capable of linking multiple agencies to build and develop a regional approach for Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) to protect population and infrastructures.
Exercise objectives include developing coordination and cooperation processes between military governmental organizations to implement crisis management initiatives; enhance and synchronize military cooperation between Partner Nation armed forces to address a regional crisis; develop command, control and communications systems in a multi-service and international environment; and plan to deliver military support for government ministries and institutions.
The MARTAC T-38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vessel in the Arabian Gulf participated fully in the exercise.
The slideshow below provides some views of its participation and of manned ships involved in the exercise as well.
U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker with 351st Air Refueling Squadron, 100th Air Refueling Wing, offloads 53 thousand gallons of fuel to a U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress during a Bomber Task Force mission in the United States Africa Command Area of Operations on March 14, 2023.
Bomber Task Force missions are U.S. Strategic Command’s means of conducting Dynamic Force Employment in support of the National Defense Strategy and demonstrate the ability to maintain a high state of readiness proficiency, and validate our always-ready, global strike capability.
GHANA
03.14.2023
U.S. Africa Command
By Robbin Laird
MARTAC has been working on autonomous maritime systems for more than a decade. They have worked from the beginning on USVs that worked together rather than simply being lone wolf systems; they operate as wolfpacks.
In the past decade, they developed two workhorse USVs and have taken these worldwide to evolve their capabilities and to work with various navies in shaping the payload-platform combinations which these customers desired. The two systems the MANTAS and the DEVIL RAY have provided two different form factors for a USV. The MANTAS being a 12-foot boat and the DEVIL RAY T-38 a 38-foot boat.
These boats are catamarans, not V-shaped hull vessels. Clearly, V-hulls have the advantage of cargo space for there is a top deck and a lower deck which is usually necessary for the personnel that operate them. The small boat catamaran being unmanned clearly does not need a lower deck, so we start with that simple point. The inherent speed advantages of a catamaran hull are clearly obvious as there is no need to support manpower with a lower deck.
And the aerodynamics are different between the two hull forms. As Bruce Hanson, the CEO of MARTAC, argued: “The V-hull operates by splitting through the water; the catamaran by creating an air cushion between the two hulls and the water. This air cushion adds stability to the operation of the boat for this air cushion operates as a shock absorber as well as providing lift. As you increase the speed of the catamaran in operations, the ride gets smoother as well because of the air cushion it creates. In other words, the speed which a smaller catamaran is capable of allows it to operate properly from an aerodynamic design point of view. The more air also provides for less wetted surface and thus less drag.”
He noted that the Austral LCS in comparison does not operate at speeds that take full advantage of the speed and stability attributes of the smaller boat catamaran form. In comparison to the Austral LCS (as cargo and personnel truck), the MARTAC USVs perform like a fighter jet that can operate at higher speeds efficiently,
Hanson then pointed out that the catamaran smaller boat form provides for significant stability as well for the payloads onboard which can include humans if a special operation requires them. “The single point of the V-hull operates like a gymnast on a balance beam. With the catamaran design the gymnast now has two feet on the ground with much greater stability.”
And if you want the USV to go ashore, the catamaran smaller boat form can go directly onto the beach, for example. The catamaran will still stay flat when you’re running onto a shore.
Autonomous USVs are operating in an innovative area when one understands the legacy platform-payload dichotomy. In legacy systems, departments of defense work with contractors to build that platform through a long process of systems engineering and production. And there are paired through the process with core payloads for which the platform was designed to carry.
USVs are entering a new area in which platform and payload become conjoined into a much flexible and rapid upgrade process. They should be understood as platforms which can operate a variety of payloads swapped out rapidly to enable various mission threads for the combat forces.
As Commodore Darron Kavanagh, Director General Warfare Innovation, Royal Australian Navy Headquarters, put it in my recent interview with him in his office in Canberra, Australia: “One of the issues about how we’ve been looking at these systems is that we think in terms of using traditional approaches of capability realization with them. We are not creating a defense capability from scratch. These things exist, already, to a degree out in the commercial world, regardless of what defense does. AI built into robotic and autonomous systems are in the real world regardless of what the defence entities think or do.
“And we have shown through various autonomous warrior exercises, that we can already make important contributions to mission threads which combat commanders need to build out now and even more so going forward.”
And that is really the next point. The use of maritime autonomous systems is driven by evolving concepts of operations and the mission threads within those evolving CONOPS rather than by a platform-centric traditional model of acquisition. CDRE Kavanagh pointed out that traditional acquisition is primarily focused on platform replacement, and has difficulty in supporting evolving concepts of operations.
This is how he put it: “We’re good at replacing platforms. That doesn’t actually require a detailed CONOPS when we are just replacing something. But we now need to examine on a regular basis what other options do we have? How could we do a mission in a different way which would require a different profile completely?”
Enter the Devil Ray T24. This is first fully “productized” MARTAC USV, according to Stephen Ferretti of MARTAC. What this means is that the T24 has been built from the ground up to operate as an autonomous maritime system which can carry a variety of payloads already demonstrated on the MANTAS and the DEVIL RAY. The Devil Ray T24 is built with both size and speed to accommodate new and evolving mission threads.
According to Ferretti: “We have built a system which is agnostic with regard to payload. It is designed from the ground up to swap out payloads as desired by the customer and dependent on their operational needs in the particular situation they are facing.”
Such a capability when combined with other innovative platforms can create true disruptive change.
For example, I argued that combined with tiltrotor aircraft one can envisage the following:
“With the innovations already underway with USVs, one can credibly envisage in the near to midterm and Osprey landing on an austere location with payloads for the USVs. The USVs then arriving at the austere location and the Ospreys and USVs operating together in that location for the desired time, and in which the team who landed with the Osprey operating the range of payloads which they brought with them with the USVs.
“With the U.S. Army now acquiring the V-280, there are clearly expanding opportunities for enhancing force distribution. And with the Army’s many working relationships with core allies in the region, the tiltrotor force could expand exponentially and with it the capabilities to operate a distributed force. And when one crosses tiltrotor with the autonomous revolution, there is a capabilities dynamic which can redefine what the multi-domain force can achieve.”
In short, introducing a productionized T24 can accelerate the kind of change which U.S. and allied force need now, not in some distant future. In fact, one could envisage their role being significant in a sea denial mission in the waters west of Taiwan in enhanced deterrence in the near term.
For an expanded look at the Devil Ray T24, see the following:
Multiple squadrons across Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma worked together to successfully execute a large force exercise March 24, 2023. 20 aircraft were launched including seven KC-135 Stratotankers, eight C-17 Globemaster IIIs and five KC-46 Pegasus’.
During the exercise the 97th Medical Group conducted patient loading and tactical combat casualty care training while airborne, the 97th Operations group executed aircrew training, the 97th Mission Support Group prepared the aircraft with fuel, airdrop pallets and aircrew transportation and the 97th Maintenance Group generated the aircraft. This exercise was conducted to demonstrate the capability of Altus AFB.
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, OK
04.07.2023
Video by Airman 1st Class Miyah Gray
97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
U.S. Navy Sailors simulate a ship-to-shore patient transfer using a MARTAC T-38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vessel (USV) in Aqaba, Jordan, March 9, 2023, during International Maritime Exercise 2023.
The USV transferred a mannequin from the Gulf of Aqaba to land, marking the first time the unmanned platform has been used to execute a medical evacuation training scenario.
AQABA, JORDAN
03.12.2023
Video by Spc. Aaron Troutman
U.S. Naval Forces Central Command / U.S. 5th Fleet
By Pierre Tran
Paris – The closed communications system of the F-35 posed problems for flying cooperative combat missions with the planned European Future Combat Air System (FCAS), Eric Trappier, executive chairman of Dassault Aviation, told French senators May 24.
“Collaborative combat” consisted of close links between fighter jets, effectively allowing the computer of one fighter to fire weapons of another fighter flying in a “raid,” he told the Senate defense and foreign affairs committee. That cooperative link extended to other capabilities on the fighters.
“Today, this can only be done between Rafales, in a Rafale patrol,” he said. “If you have an F-16 or F-35, that cannot be done. And I do not think it will be done.”
There is “interoperability” with the F-16 and F-35 fighters, he said, with exchange of data through the U.S.-designed Link 16, available to Nato forces. French fighters carry Link 16, giving them data link with an F-16.
“It is more difficult with the F-35 as the Americans, in an amazing feat, built an American, non-Nato standard,” he said. “It is closed.”
If allied nations wanted interoperability with an F-35, he said, it was simple – just buy an F-35, adding that remark might be something of a caricature, but it was just barely so.
Dassault sees the F-35 as a direct rival in export sales of the Rafale, a major source of revenue for the family-controlled company, which is prime contractor on the fighter and also lead industrial partner on the New Generation Fighter (NGF) at the heart of FCAS.
The plan is for the planned new fighter to replace eventually the Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon some time after 2040. France, Germany, and Spain are the backers of FCAS.
It remained to be seen how the F-35 will fly with the F-22, and how the British will fly the Eurofighter Typhoon with the F-35, Trappier said, pointing up the need for other aircraft and satellites to act as communication nodes for the fighters.
A powerful data exchange in “microseconds” of collaborative combat has begun with development work on the Rafale F-4 version, he said, adding that network capability will be extended on the planned F-5 model of the fighter jet.
“For FCAS, the ambition is for European aircraft to work together,” he said, but the problem arose when most fighters flown by European forces were U.S.-built.
“It’s a real subject,” he said.
“A solution has to be found,” said Jean-Pierre Maulny, deputy director of Institut des Relations Internationales et Stratégiques, a think tank.
The F-35 poses a problem, but the story is not over, he said.
Dassault is working with Dassault Systèmes on a “sovereign cloud,” Trappier said as an aside, and called on European nations to work on a common cloud computing to boost security, rather than rely on Google or Microsoft.
A high level of Anglo-French air combat cooperation was evoked by a French air force officer, major general Jean-Luc Moritz, at the future combat air and space conference held by the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, website Breaking Defense reported May 23.
“My dream is tomorrow Tempest could take control of an NGWS asset,” the report said. Moritz was referring to the British-designed future fighter and the Next Generation Weapon System at the heart of the FCAS. The officer heads the French air force team working on the European FCAS project.
NGWS comprises a Next Generation Fighter (NGF), remote carrier drones, and combat cloud, an advanced communications network linking up allied aircraft.
That wish for allied air cooperation included the planned U.S. Next Generation Air Dominance fighter being capable of taking control of “the fighter the U.K. will buy,” and the capability for Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, and Tempest to fly together, the report said.
Moritz said, “To reach this dream we need everything on the table from industry,” the report said.
A large digital communications network is needed on FCAS as the Link 16 system is already saturated, a French air force officer has said.
That networked approach posed security problems, which needed to be addressed, Trappier said, as the more the fighters were connected, the more vulnerable they became.
Onboard mission computers needed to be “totally independent” from other computers on the fighter, to avoid cyber attack, he said. The sooner standards were specified, the better it would be.
The Dassault chief executive also made clear his resistance to reports of Belgium looking to join the three European partner nations on FCAS.
“It is complicated bringing people on board FCAS,” he said. “I have heard talk of the Belgians.”
That reluctance stemmed from Belgium ordering the F-35, along with Germany, which saw a need to order a batch of the Lightning II fighter, to carry the U.S.-built nuclear bombs for Nato forces.
Adding partner nations risked slowing the FCAS project with more negotiations, Trappier said, and the present phase 1B was already hard to manage.
There will be a new contract for phase 2, with the same share of work, he said. Bringing Belgium in would mean a new work share plan, to which he objected.
“I hear that we could give work to Belgian companies right now,” he said. “No. If that is imposed on me, I will fight back.”
It was clear the F-35 was the uninvited guest to the FCAS industrial partnership, with Trappier pointing up the prospective loss of jobs in French factories and design offices, with work going “to people who have chosen the F-35.
“I do not see why I should give work to the Belgians today,” he said.
That view appears to clash with those of the French armed forces minister, Sébastien Lecornu, who has told parliamentarians that bringing in partners would be a “good way to manage taxpayers’ money,” and would be of industrial and military interest, the Public Senat website reported.
There are estimates the FCAS program could hit some €100 billion ($107 billion), shared by the three partner nations. The budget for phase 1B and phase 2 is a total of some €8 billion.
The aim was to fly an FCAS technology demonstrator, which will require negotiating a phase 2 contract, Trappier said, adding that it looked “optimistic” to say the fighter would enter service in 2040.
The plan is for a fighter demonstrator to fly around 2028/29 – already a couple of years late – along with a loyal wingman remote carrier drone and a simpler, lower cost drone, with FCAS entry into service in 2040.
The U.K. expects to fly the Tempest fighter in 2035, backed by partner nations Japan and Italy in the global combat air program.
The government has slashed orders for the Rafale to 137 units from 185 by 2030, “which is no small matter,” the chairman of the senate defense committee, Christian Cambon, said in his opening remarks.
He was referring to the draft 2024-2030 military budget law, which is going through debate in the lower house National Assembly. The Senate will debate the bill next month, with the government hoping for adoption in July, in time for the Bastille day national holiday.
The defense ministry has said the Rafale will be flying at least 30 years with the FCAS new generation fighter, the Dassault CEO said, pointing up the need to update the former.
The government has added an amendment to the seven year military budget bill, with the Rafale F5 flying with a combat drone based on the Neuron demonstrator for an unmanned aerial combat vehicle (UCAV), said senator Yannick Vaugrenard, Public Senat reported.
That future Rafale F5 version might fly with remote carrier drones or a Neuron type UCAV, Trappier said, and it was up to the government to give more details. The government has pushed back the F5 version to 2035, slightly later than the 2032 previously expected, he said.
Deliveries of the Rafale are due to resume for the French air force, with 13 units to be shipped this year, 13 in 2024, 12 in 2025, and one in 2026, he said, adding that the government has long delayed these deliveries.
Dassault expected a fresh order for 42 Rafales this year, of which 30 were a long-awaited domestic order, boosted by 12 to replace those flown by the French air force and sold second-hand to Croatia. Export prospects for the fighter lay in India – which required patience – Trappier said, and South America. Indonesia was expected to place further orders in the next few months, as part of a deal for 42 units. Jakarta has already ordered a first batch of six Rafales.
Dassault led the Neuron demonstrator project, with France working in partnership with Italy, Greece, Spain, Switzerland.
Photo Credit: https://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/