Space Force training takes shape as service turns 3

ORLANDO — Space Training and Readiness Command knew it had a difficult road ahead.

When it began its work in earnest in August 2021, the Space Force’s new training branch was immediately faced with pulling together scattered pieces of the Pentagon’s nearly 80-year-old military space enterprise into a singular training hub.

STARCOM boss Maj. Gen. Shawn Bratton spent that first year hashing out how to bring people into the service, whether as a new recruit or from elsewhere in the military.

Now Space Force guardians need to get good at their jobs.

In its second year, STARCOM is turning to the problem of specialized training: what skills to teach and how to provide them — and how to make it better than before, when space training fell under the Air Force.

That’s raised a flood of new questions: How should the Space Force measure the readiness of its troops? What training is best done virtually, and what should remain in the real world? How does the service build a high-tech National Space Test and Training Complex that can keep up?

“We own spacecraft we can fly … but that traditionally never happened until you showed up in your operational unit,” Bratton said Tuesday at the annual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference here.

“I think we’re considering now moving the needle back into training with live operations, but I don’t know how to measure the value of training that’s done live, actual sorties on a spacecraft, versus training that’s done in the simulator,” he added.

That need for real-world practice reflects an increasingly offensive posture among military space units and a growing awareness of the cyber and physical threats their systems face.

For example, Bratton said live training could add new depth for guardians practicing to fend off attacks on orbiting satellites — without being there in person.

“You can go to sea, you can put the aircraft in the air … but unless you’re one of just a handful that becomes an astronaut, no guardian is ever going to go into the domain,” Bratton said.

To better understand the Space Force’s options, Bratton visited an organization that’s prepared people to work in the cosmos for decades: NASA.

There, he was struck by what sustained investment in detailed, modern virtual training can accomplish.

“When you talk to an astronaut, he’s like, ‘The first time I dock at the [International Space Station] is the first time I’m flying in that … vehicle,’” Bratton said. “The infrastructure they built and the dedication to training and the ability to replicate, even down to the smallest detail, what happens when you’re in the capsule, shows the dedication of that organization to training.”

The Defense Department needs to stop shortchanging training to fund other programs instead, he said: “We have to stop giving that away.”

Guardians must also learn to work as a team to fly their GPS satellites and manage their missile-tracking radars. So, Bratton is looking to the sea rather than the stars.

“I think we need to really, probably, go spend some time with the Navy,” he said, likening the situation to working on a ship. “How do you train as a crew that operates a single vehicle or, in our case, a constellation of spacecraft? … None of our spacecraft are operated by a single individual.”

Space, cyber and intel specialists handle those spacecraft together, he said, but they don’t train as a team until later in the process. Starting that training earlier could make units more cohesive and responsive when they get to a real ops floor.

Simulators that let those teams work together in the digital realm, regardless of their job or where they sit, would move that forward as well, he said.

That’s one goal for the National Space Test and Training Center that’s now in the works. Setting up the infrastructure for such a massive endeavor is among STARCOM’s greatest technical challenges, Bratton said.

Despite the Space Force’s fledgling reputation as the most digital-forward military service, Bratton still isn’t sold on how some of the most buzzy technologies could help train guardians.

“I haven’t seen an implementation of it that I can point to and say, ‘That’s the thing that we need,’” he said of artificial intelligence. “I’ve seen a lot of ideas of what could be realized with AI, but … it’s not quite mature enough in implementation.”

And though he’s pushing for cutting-edge simulation tech, he’s conscious of its limits for uses like large-scale, joint combat exercises.

Bratton’s team will hash out those details as the Department of the Air Force decides on a permanent home for STARCOM. He’d also like Congress to pass overdue federal spending legislation so the Space Force’s work can move forward.

“[Fiscal] ‘23 is the first budget year for STARCOM. Everything’s a new start for me,” he said of programs that are on hold without initial funding. “It really is painful in these early years for the Space Force.”

Here’s the new Marine Corps strategy for training future troops

ORLANDO — The Marine Corps’ top officer in charge of training on Tuesday outlined the service’s sweeping new strategy that promises to modernize how troops learn and ready them for a faster, more connected era of combat.

The three-part plan looks to bolster the service’s occupational training, professional military education, unit-level training, advanced individual training and service-level exercises, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Iiams, head of the Marine Corps’ Training and Education Command.

“While we have progressed all of these in the past couple of years, it’s time to take new steps,” he said during a panel of senior leaders at the annual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference here. “Everything has to be about lethality and war-fighting, and then rigorous, repeatable standards.”

New simulation tech heading to 5 Marine bases by 2025

“Training and Education 2030″ is the latest of three blueprints that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger has drawn up for organizing, training and equipping the future force. Earlier strategies have focused on talent management and force design.

It comprises three overarching projects dubbed “Triumph,” “Trident” and “Tripoli,” Iiams said.

The first, “Triumph,“ is a directive to offer more options for personalized learning that Marines can do at their own pace.

Technology from iPads to cloud-based lesson libraries promise to transform military education for the long haul. Officials hope those tools are a key to retaining members who may otherwise have felt boxed in or overwhelmed by more regimented, classroom-based lessons.

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Though not foolproof, proponents argue a digital-first approach can help fast learners move on sooner and allow slower learners to repeat lessons as needed.

“How do we put more instructors in the field that can instruct across all of these modalities?” Iiams said.

The second initiative, Project Trident, aims to more tightly integrate the processes and systems that the Navy and Marine Corps use to track and strike targets.

Military forces long have struggled to share data across their patchwork of hardware and software, leading to myriad efforts to resolve the problem like the Army’s Project Overwatch and the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System.

Cross-service communication issues loom particularly large as the Pentagon contemplates the prospect of a fast-paced war in the Pacific.

Commentary: Talent Management 2030: Flawed foundation, flawed document

“How do you use multiple sets of precision munitions to close a kill web on an advanced adversary, peer-level threat?” Iiams said.

He continued: “We don’t have those right now, but we need the curriculum and we need our current naval forces … to train our future forces and our future Marines and sailors exactly how to do that.”

The Marine Corps announced its third effort, dubbed “Project Tripoli,” in April.

Tripoli is the latest iteration of a yearslong attempt to build a networked training system that lets troops “fight” together in the digital realm despite operating different simulators.

Marine Corps Times reported in May that an initial version of the service’s Live Virtual Constructive Training Environment was almost ready to debut at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California.

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Officials expect five Marine Corps installations to receive the technology by 2025, followed by the broader ability to connect to airmen, guardians, soldiers and sailors sometime in the future.

“We’re not just training our individual Marines and our units, but we’re training decision-makers with AI to the high end, so that when we do have the next fight … that we’re going to be ready, relevant and capable,” Iiams said.

He envisions future Marines as resilient, “stand-in” forces who can infiltrate enemy territory to disrupt their activity from the start of a conflict.

But even as the mission evolves, he said, “the alchemy of what it takes to make a Marine cannot change.”

Auditors flag fiscal vagaries in UK military-buying plans

LONDON — The British government’s budget watchdog says a newly published Ministry of Defence ten-year equipment plan is affordable but fails to account for the country’s difficult economic situation.

“While the plan continues to serve a useful purpose in reporting to Parliament on planned expenditure, the volatile external environment means this year’s plan is already out of date,” the National Audit Office said in its report on the 2022-2032 defense spending plans released by the MoD on Tuesday.

The government expects defense equipment spending would total £242 billion ($290 billion) over the next ten years, compared to an estimated £238 billion ($285 billion) in last year’s program.

“The department faces significant and growing cost pressures which will have an immediate impact on its spending plans,” auditors wrote. “The department believes it can manage these pressures but has left itself limited flexibility to absorb any cost increases on equipment projects, or across other budgets.”

The equipment plan is based on data submitted by the end of March this year and does not take account of the impact of exchange rate changes, rampant inflation, fuel costs and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

The MoD, though, says its plans remain relevant.

In a foreword to the equipment plan Defence Secretary Ben Wallace acknowledged there were difficulties ahead on equipment spending.

“The plan is not immune to risk, we have set ambitious savings targets and made hard decisions in spending priorities across the commands,” he wrote. “We are confident, however, that the capabilities we are investing in, and spending decisions made in the last year, remain in line with the developing defense landscape and ensure we have a stable financial footing for this and future plans,” said Wallace.

Just how relevant the plans will be going forward remains to be seen.

In September, then-Prime Minister Liz Truss commissioned the MoD to reconsider the details of an integrated review published 2021in light of changing security circumstances.

That work continues under the new government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and is expected to be complete during the first quarter of next year.

The outcome of the review will dictate if, and when, the government finds additional money for the MoD to reflect the global security situation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Truss had promised the MoD an increase in defense spending from the current level of 2.1% to 3% GDP by 2030, but Britain’s dire financial position has thrown a shadow over the spending pledge.

“Before we make that commitment it is necessary to revise and update the integrated review, written as it was before the Ukraine invasion,” Hunt told Parliament Nov. 17 while delivering what is known here as the Autumn Statement.

But the equipment plan warned that without the extra cash the MoD would need to take an axe to capabilities and programs.

“Without additional funding it is clear that difficult decisions will be required to reduce the scope of the plan and funding profiles may need to be reshaped to align the delivery of key military equipment with objectives,” said the MoD document.

As it is, defense leaders are optimistically hoping to realize savings of over £13.5 billion ($16.2 billion) to balance the books on the equipment plan.

Most of those savings are based on the MoD renegotiating existing commercial contracts.

Auditors believe it is clear the MoD is facing significant and growing cost pressures and has left itself limited flexibility to absorb cost increases across equipment and other budgets.

The MoD will need to make difficult prioritization decisions to live within its means and retain enough flexibility in its plan to respond promptly to changing threats, said the NAO.

Moves have already been put in place to mitigate some of the cost pressures, including introducing changes to commercial policy to manage the impact of inflation.

“We are making greater use of index-linked, fixed-price contracts to prevent firms from either applying high premia on firm price bids or not bidding entirely. We are also ensuring early engagement with key suppliers to discuss how inflation will be treated in future contracts, including our view of what is reasonable for payroll costs,” said the MoD plan.

“Similarly, our unreserved contingency funding will also aid in offsetting some of this pressure,” it said.

Constraints across industry may also influence the ability of the MoD to keep programs and budgets on track.

The NAO said budgets shareholders in the MoD are beginning to report supply chain risks and industry capacity constraints, including skills gaps and, more recently, an increased demand for defense equipment in other countries.

This trend, they said, will likely make delivering projects within existing schedules and budgets more difficult.

Defense Intelligence Agency forms ‘China mission group’ to track rival

WASHINGTON — The Defense Intelligence Agency is pulling together a group of analysts and experts to monitor competition with China, a world power Pentagon officials consider the leading threat to U.S. national security.

John Kirchhofer, the DIA’s chief of staff, on Nov. 29 said his agency, which produces, analyzes and disseminates military intelligence, established a “China mission group” that will reach full operational capacity early next year.

“It’s as simple as this: We created a box and we called it China,” he said during a livestreamed Intelligence and National Security Alliance event. “If you are in DIA and you are working China, you’re in that box.”

Whereas the CIA is focused on providing intelligence of all kinds to the president, the DIA is the principal source of foreign intel for combat endeavors. The new mission group will become the agency’s repository for China knowledge and knowhow, meaning insiders including Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier as well as outsiders will know where to turn “for whatever deep expertise” is needed, according to Kirchhofer, the third-ranking officer.

“This is us integrating to the maximum extent possible on an existential threat to the long-term success of the United States,” he said.

After decades of fighting in the Middle East and investment in counterterrorism and technologies related to smaller-scale conflict, the U.S. is now focusing on China and the Indo-Pacific, a region home to some of the world’s largest militaries, ports and populations.

Advance work in Ukraine blunted Russian cyber advantage, US says

Defense officials in Washington are warning about the dangers posed by Beijing, and have rallied allies and partners to counteract its global ambitions. The annual China Military Power Report sent to Congress this week notes that China is the only country with the will and military capacity to eventually challenge what it called the U.S.-led “world order,” Defense News reported.

While much of the intelligence community “has been heavily focused in Europe, and that goes back decades,” Kirchhofer said, “that’s not necessarily where this long-term threat is coming from, even with Russia being as belligerent as they are today.”

DIA plans to move more resources — including people, communications and information technology — to the Pacific. Talks to extend the military intelligence agency’s footprint are already underway with friendly nations. The Army, Navy and Air Force are taking a similar tack.

The shift will help “with resiliency in the event of a crisis and some needed redundancy in the event of worst-case scenarios,” according Kirchhofer.

“It’s very exciting, and I think that is putting our money where our mouth is,” he said. “It really shows our long-term commitment to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the potential fight against China.”

China’s buildup more aggressive to Taiwan, but no imminent invasion

A new report from the Pentagon details China’s more provocative and aggressive actions toward Taiwan, but Defense Department officials say those actions do not mean an invasion will happen soon.

The annual China Military Power Report sent to Congress this week noted that the country’s military overhaul is continuing apace, including the modernization of its capabilities and the expansion of its nuclear arsenal. It comes amid heightened tension between China and Taiwan, and as President Joe Biden is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming months.

“I don’t see any kind of imminent indications of an invasion,” a senior defense official told reporters Monday. “We’re definitely very focused on this level of more intimidating and coercive behavior, and watching closely to see how things unfold.”

The report reiterates that China is the only country with the will and the military capacity, while still getting up to speed, to challenge what it describes as the U.S.-led “world order.”

The country has set 2049 as its goal for achieving a “world-class” military that could presumably rival U.S. capabilities, to be achieved through weapons modernization, expanded military basing and advanced warfare capabilities, to include information operations.

China is also getting into the multidomain game, according to the report, dubbing their “new core operational concept” with the eerily familiar “MultiDomain Precision Warfare.”

Like the U.S. doctrine, this approach involves advanced networking capabilities. Specifically, it “incorporates advances in big data and artificial intelligence to rapidly identify key vulnerabilities in the U.S. operational system and then combine joint forces across domains to launch precision strikes against those vulnerabilities,” the report reads.

Much of the focus on modernization is aimed at Taiwan.

Taiwan is squarely in China’s crosshairs, with an increase in 2021 of activity in the Taiwan strait, “to include increased flights into Taiwan’s self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and conducting island seizure exercises,” the report found.

China’s goal of modernization by 2027, to include “mechanization, informatization and intelligentization,” would make its military “more credible” in its efforts to bring Taiwan under its control.

Beyond Taiwan, China is also likely looking into developing more overseas bases, beyond its current hub in Djibouti.

“The PRC has likely considered Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan, among other places, as locations for PLA military logistics facilities,” according to the report.

Nuclear weapons and beyond

China is continuing its accelerated nuclear expansion and has an estimated stockpile of more than 400 nuclear warheads ― which still number fewer than America’s 3,750 nuclear weapons. At this pace, the third-largest nuclear armed power is likely to field a stockpile of 1,500 warheads by 2035, its target for “basically complete modernization” of its defense forces, the report said.

The country had kept its nuclear arsenal in the low hundreds for years, but last year’s report said it was on track to have at least 1,000 by 2030, essentially tripling its arsenal within a decade. It’s also building a land-sea-air triad of delivery vehicles similar to those of the U.S. and Russia ― including the H-6N air-to-air refuelable bomber, which it unveiled in 2019.

Pentagon warns of China’s progress toward nuclear triad

The U.S. acknowledged this month that China has fielding a new, intercontinental ballistic missile on six of its nuclear-powered submarines, meant to threaten the continental U.S. The senior defense official said Monday that China’s Jin-class submarines are on patrol with the JL-3 missiles, which let them hit the U.S. without traveling as far from protected Chinese coasts.

Pentagon officials said that the overall ramp-up, as Beijing resists U.S. efforts to draw it into arms control talks, suggests China may be moving away from its stated aim of having just enough nuclear weapons to maintain its national security.

“They’re going from what was often characterized as a minimum set of deterrence capabilities to one that’s much more sophisticated in scope and also larger in size. So they’re now kind of getting into the range of the middle nuclear powers here,” the official said.

The Biden administration is moving ahead with plans for a new bomber, the B-21 Raider, due to be unveiled next week.

It will be accompanied by the LGM-35A Sentinel, also known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, which will replace Washington’s aging Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine is due to come online by the end of the 2020s.

The administration’s defense strategy, released in October, voices concern that the U.S. will, for the first time, face “two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries,” which will “create new stresses on stability and new challenges for deterrence, assurance, arms control, and risk reduction.”

Biden National Defense Strategy tackles China, Russia, nuke deterrence

Last year, China added three new ICBM silo fields for a total of at least 300 new silos, the new report said. China’s launch of roughly 135 ballistic missiles for testing and training last year, “was more than the rest of the world combined, excluding ballistic missile employment in conflict zones,” the report said.

The report also flags Beijing’s test of a new hypersonic weapon system in 2021, “building on previous progress in hypersonic weapon development.” Pentagon officials have acknowledged China’s test in July 2021 of a hypersonic glide vehicle and fractional orbital bombardment system ― which achieved the greatest distance flown, 40,000 kilometers, and longest flight time of any Chinese test.

As with last year’s report, the Pentagon acknowledged China’s fielding in 2020 of the DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile, equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle designed to evade American missile defenses. Citing open source reporting, the report said the weapon appears designed to “strike foreign military bases and fleets in the Western Pacific.”

For military modernization and attaining more credible military tools to annex Taiwan, China has set 2027, 2035 and 2049 as its milestone years. To that end, its air force is rapidly catching up with the west, with more realistic training and exercises but also air-to-air missiles and other air defenses, the defense official said.

In a sign of China’s strides in domestic production, its J-10 and J-20 fighters are set to switch to Chinese-made WS-10 engines by the end of 2021. The report forecasts that China’s first domestically produced high-bypass turbofan, the WS-20, will “probably” replace Russian engines by the end of 2022 after entering flight tests for its heavy transport aircraft.

Prevent the mistakes of history by passing the fiscal 2023 NDAA

I sometimes get asked: “Why is America spending so much to help Ukraine?” My response is to Google “Rhineland, 1936″ or “Sudetenland, 1938.” Those were places where Adolph Hitler started his war across Europe, and where any level of resistance could have stopped his bloody march — and might well have saved the over 50 million lives lost in World War II.

Along with our European allies, America failed to see the threat and stem the tide of the Third Reich. Today, as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his illegal, unprovoked attacks against Ukraine, with his sights set on the rest of Eastern Europe, history must not be allowed to repeat itself.

From the 1930s onward, it’s become ever clearer that a strong national defense is essential to protect the cause of freedom and save lives. That’s why the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act makes historic and necessary investments in the defense of America and the free world. Among other important provisions, such as raises for the troops, rebuilding a modern navy and upgrading our nuclear capability, the legislation includes the critical weapons and logistics support Ukraine needs — because if Putin is not stopped now, our allies in the Baltics, Poland and large swaths of Europe will be next.

Providing these tools to Ukraine is at the very crux of what it means to be a global leader. We must exercise this leadership to avoid mistakes of the past — and prevent a larger war in the future.

Our country has an enormous responsibility — whether we like it or not — as the leader of the free world. To avoid another global conflict, we must have the capacity to inflict unacceptable costs on any potential adversary and the will to impose those costs if necessary; simply put, our potential adversaries must fear the consequences of their actions. This concept of deterrence has been the heart of our defense strategy for over 70 years and is the guiding principle of the bill currently before us.

Included in the bill are initiatives to deter the global ambitions of dictators and autocrats by modernizing America’s nuclear defenses. It’s become clear to me while chairing the Senate Subcommittee on Strategic Forces — which oversees our nuclear triad — that the United States has failed to pace the threat. We must pass the NDAA to overhaul these essential deterrents and meet the growing threats of new weapons like hypersonic missiles and increased competition from Russia and China — not to prepare for nuclear war, but to prevent one.

These commitments do not come without cost, and while it is true that the United States spends more on defense than any other nation, no other country in the world has our global responsibility.

So, yes, our global leadership role means we spend more than other countries, but this needs a bit more context. In 1952, during the Korean War, about 70% of the federal budget went toward defense (it was even higher during World War II). And according to Congressional Research Service data, it has steadily trended downward over the decades. By 1987, it was about 28% of the federal budget. Today, our defense spending is only about 13% of our total federal spending. This is among the lowest levels in the last 70 years.

Similarly, defense spending relative to our total gross domestic product has been trending downward. Again, going back to 1952, defense spending as a percentage of GDP was around 13%, and in 1987, nearly 6% of our economy was committed to defense.

Today, only about 3% of our total economy is committed to defense spending, which few can argue is unreasonable given our uniquely global responsibilities and the magnitude of the threats we face.

We are living in a historic moment. As we have seen in our collective global history, had Hitler been confronted earlier — before he completely rebuilt the Nazi war machine — World War II might well have been avoided.

Less than 15% of our federal budget to fight off a brutal autocracy, prevent another war across Europe and save thousands if not millions of lives? To me, that’s one of the most important investments we could possibly make because the cost of war would far exceed these investments.

There’s no more solemn responsibility we have than to provide for the common defense. It’s part of the very preamble to the Constitution. So let’s learn from the mistakes of history, meet our global responsibility and pass this critical bill.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, chairs the Subcommittee on Strategic Force and serves on the Seapower and Airland subcommittees.

How Israel is preparing the next generation of cyber soldiers

BEERSHEBA, Israel — Israel’s new cyber defense training school is set inside a high-tech park in the southern city of Beersheba. Opened in August, the modern campus is part of the J6 and Cyber Defense Directorate, and it’s part of a broader move by the Israel Defense Forces to shift units south.

Defense News spoke with three senior officers at the training center to discuss their goals and how cyberspace is changing how Israel’s military functions. Capt. Noa Givner, who leads the school’s department of data science, has served with the IDF for seven years; Maj. Noam Bright, head of the department of computer science, has served for 12 years; and Maj. I, chief of the department of cybersecurity, has served for 10 years. (The full name of Maj. I was not provided for security reasons.)

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

What is the school’s purpose?

Maj. Noam Bright: We are here in the school of data science of the J6 directorate, of the C4i [command, control communications and computers/cyber and intelligence] forces. What we are doing is taking 18 year old and making them special technology experts. What we do the best is training them in all the high-tech fields — from data center management to cloud-centered training to programming and being the best software engineers.

Our graduates go to all the technological units across the army — from the Air Force to the Navy and the Ground Forces — and here in the school we train more than 1,500 students a year. We don’t focus on pre-knowledge, but on the way they think. There are exams to get into the school; if they think well, we take them to our school and we are responsible to train them well, and our graduates become entrepreneurs and end up in startups.

We moved here three months ago from Ramat Gan [in central Israel]. What we are doing here is not just changing the base and location but creating an ecosystem to empower this region and the children here to come to our school and have access to technological fields.

Capt. Noa Givner: They teach Python [a programming language], and we give them tools so they can train here and get a profession in high-tech fields and serve in technological units. There is also a program that trains soldiers on the spectrum [or those with autism].

Maj. I: Our goal is to provide opportunities to many social groups in Israel, not just in the Negev but also to promote women and others in society, and give them the opportunity to empower themselves in the army and outside of the service.

Bright: We have many special programs, such as a women’s preparation course; 52% of our soldiers are women, and the head of the school is a woman.

Were these fields previously dominated by men?

Givner: Yes. But here in Basmach Maslul Alpha, [the name of the school in Hebrew], women are in charge. Out of five colonels, four are women. The next brigadier general of the tech division is a woman.

How has the demand for technology and this kind of training changed over the last decades?

Bright: The demand for tech in the army was less than we see now; we see a big increase, by three or four times than when I was recruited. It used to be four units’ worth was recruited for technology, and now [we recruit for] 10 units.

Givner: People are going into the field to make decisions with data. They are serving now, and not just in the technological units; they have to help the army base decisions on data for the next battle or escalation. Now there are data analysts at the division level.

Maj. I: We don’t go only by foot with tanks; we attack from the air and on networks, we attack using different fields. Cybersecurity entered the army [in a big way] five years ago to defend the networks.

Givner: The next battle and threat is on the net, such as with Iran.

Bright: The number [of soldiers we are training] has increased because the demand has grown. For instance the army nowadays is based on technology — whether operations or non-operations, from logistics to human resource management. This demand has grown a lot, especially in the last two to three years.

In terms of software and applications, is the army creating applications itself?

Maj. I: It’s complicated. Some systems we buy, some we develop for our needs. And if we buy something, we adjust for the army’s needs, and it is classified.

What about artificial intelligence and the five-year modernization plan Momentum?

Givner: We are planning for the future in the data department. In the next [several] years, the IDF will own an AI lab so it can bring in the future things [needed] in the army. [Artificial intelligence] needs to be more developed. We can see that AI systems can make good decisions, and not just for commanders. In the end, we are humans, and we can’t make decisions like machines. It will help in the future combat field.

Bright: It’s not just in the data sector. In programming, we train [soldiers] to make algorithms based on AI and neural networks. We have exercises that deal with AI … to identify things from pictures.

Maj. I: The army started with programming and cyber and DevOps — and the data field is a new one. When you combine all of this, [it’s] AI.

How would you characterize digitization in the IDF?

Maj. I: In the past, the Navy and the Air Force did not work together. Digitization is about cooperation and technological change. Thanks to the systems we built in tech units, they can work together and shorten the fire circle [closing the gap between sensor and shooter].

How do you train for launching cyberattacks against adversaries?

Bright: We can’t speak about that.

How do you deal with an overreliance on technology? For example, units in the field might become dependent on certain applications.

Bright: It’s not related to our school. You always have a plan B, and offline there are alternatives; people plan for not having a network.

Do you deal with unmanned systems?

Bright: We train people to know their algorithms, but it depends. With units, we train them on the practical aspect, not theory. It’s 65% practical [training]. If a soldier goes to a program course, they go to learn bugs in code, for instance. We do a lot of trial and error.

Want to chat with a drone? Israeli troops could soon do that.

Are most of the soldiers coming here directly from high school?

Bright: Yes, but after this they can go to earn an academic degree while they serve.

Maj. I: In the last several years, the army understood it needs to move all the units to the Negev, and it created [a center for most of the J6 units]. We are creating many areas of cooperation between the army and Ben-Gurion University [in the same city as the training center], the municipality of Beersheba and the technological ecosystem here.

Givner: We collaborate with high-tech companies in the park here. They come to our students, and students get lectures about new technology.

We work with the Ministry of Education on the Bagrut [standardized exam for the end of high school]. We developed a new program for data science, not just computer science; now they have data science courses, and we bring teachers here to learn what students to better prepare for military service.

Is it difficult to join this training school?

Bright: We are open to all of Israel’s society, not just those with previous knowledge. We’ve see a 50% increase in demand to get into the training center, and the army understands the need for technology and has increased the number the army allows us to train during the year. We already doubled and tripled the space we have here.

Maj. I: And in a few months we will expand again.

Givner: We doubled all the courses — some from 20 to 60 students.

If there are more soldiers in technology units, what gaps are left over as a result in other army areas?

Bright: The army now knows to optimize where people go. In the past, the army may have had soldiers end up in positions that didn’t fit them, and they could have been programmers. Now we are able to fit the position to soldiers in their service.

Givner: In the past, if you were allergic to gluten, you’d be excused from army service. Now we implement adjustments to recruit [those who might have been rejected in the past].

Do those who join this training program take a special test?

Givner: Yes, to filter out the right candidates.

Bright: It’s very special ecosystem here. Last week, a U.S. two-star general was here and was fascinated by what we are doing and the way we teach, how we take 18 year olds to make them technological experts. [The general] wants us to go to California to teach them what we are doing here. They aren’t do a programming course in five months; theirs is a year.

Editor’s note: The IDF declined to name the U.S. two-star general.

What’s ahead for Navy unmanned underwater vehicle programs

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy submarine community is eager to boost its use of unmanned underwater vessels in the coming years, with several big developments almost ready to hit the fleet.

Though submarine leaders were early adopters of UUV systems a decade ago, challenges — particularly the difficulty recovering unmanned vehicles back into submarines — have led to UUVs being more commonly associated with surface ship operations.

Now, as the Navy seeks to become a manned/unmanned hybrid fleet, submariners are looking to two key milestones: delivery of an Orca Extra Large UUV test vehicle, and the completion of modifications that will allow the Razorback Medium UUV to be deployed and recovered from a submarine’s torpedo tube.

“The XLUUV is critical because it makes up, in some cases, for the lack of submarines. … It gives you additional capacity because you have a limited number of [attack submarines],” Vice Adm. William Houston, the commander of Naval Submarine Forces, told reporters at the Naval Submarine League’s annual conference earlier this month.

The Orca will be launched from a pier and go on long-duration missions. The Navy has said little about the clandestine missions this unmanned diesel-electric submarine will conduct, other than to say its first mission will be laying mines.

As for the Razorback, the first iteration of the MUUV can only be launched and recovered from a dry deck shelter — a manpower-intensive attachment to an attack submarine the Navy has in limited quantity.

With the addition of software that lets the UUV return to the submarine via the torpedo tubes, “every SSN will have the ability to serve as a UUV mothership,” Rear Adm. Casey Moton, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, said at the conference.

Orca XLUUV

Moton said the Orca program has seen significant production delays, but he remains confident the Navy will learn from the initial prototypes being built now and then move into a program of record.

The Navy awarded contracts to Boeing for one test asset and five Orca prototypes, filling an urgent operational need for advanced mining the Pentagon identified in 2015.

The Navy identified the XLUUV concept as the solution in 2017, according to a Government Accountability Office report, and selected Boeing for the program in 2019. Boeing “originally planned to deliver the first vehicle by December 2020 and all five vehicles by the end of calendar year 2022,” according to the GAO report.

Moton attributed the delays in part to pandemic and post-pandemic challenges: production delays, shortages in parts and forgings, supply chain backups for key components like lithium ion batteries.

A Boeing spokesperson told Defense News “the Orca program is a development program involving groundbreaking technology.”

“There is no other commercially available XLUUV anywhere,” the spokesperson added. “Supply chain challenges combined with high quality requirements have affected timeline and schedule. The Navy has been informed and involved in the entire development program, including the analysis and thought process behind any delays.”

Despite the delays, Moton said Boeing is very close to achieving full integration on the test asset system, called XLE0, which will deliver to the Navy in early 2023. Boeing said it christened this vehicle in April and will relaunch it by the end of the year to allow for sea trials and delivery next year.

The test asset will reduce risk on the following five Orca prototypes, the last of which GAO says will now deliver in mid-2024.

Moton said he couldn’t discuss the timing of a program of record for Orca because that’s part of ongoing FY24 budget negotiations. But he said the test asset and five prototypes will give the Navy a good understanding of the XLUUV program’s anticipated cost and schedule.

Razorback and Viperfish MUUV

Two separate communities previously developed a medium-sized UUV: the submarine community’s Razorback, which proved to be less useful than anticipated due it being recoverable only with a dry deck shelter, and the explosive ordnance disposal community’s Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish, which EOD units have used in worldwide operations since it was first deployed to the Middle East in 2013.

Both systems now need to be updated, leading to a chance for two program offices to collaborate on a single MUUV design that can conduct two distinct missions.

Moton said Leidos and L3Harris Technologies were selected over the summer to build the new MUUV and have already completed an integrated baseline review. The program will soon execute a system requirements review and a system functional review.

For the EOD community, this new UUV will be able to operate in deeper waters and conduct longer-duration missions, meaning expeditionary mine countermeasures companies will be able to cover more ocean area faster.

For submariners, the ability to launch and recover from torpedo tubes is a gamechanger. Houston, the commander of the submarine force, called this launch and recovery capability “our biggest focus.”

Final demonstrations are coming up, he said, and “we think we will have something operational in the not-too-distant future.”

Rear Adm. Doug Perry, the Navy’s director of undersea warfare on the chief of naval operations’ staff, said at the conference the attack submarine fleet has 200 torpedo tubes, and this development ensures every single one can be used to launch and recover MUUVs if needed.

Indeed, he said, it gives every attack submarine the ability to have an advanced scout, to touch the seafloor, to conduct third-party targeting, and to aid in communications and the development of a near-real-time common operating picture — a challenge due to both the physics of being underwater and the submarines not wanting to give away their location.

Mine and mine countermeasures UUVs

Meanwhile, the Navy has a number of programs in the works for small mine warfare and mine countermeasures UUVs.

The Lionfish program will replace the Mk 18 Mod 1 Swordfish UUV the EOD community has used for more than 20 years. Moton said HII was selected to replace the Swordfish following a novel process that paired the Defense Innovation Unit with fleet EOD units for a rigorous assessment of competing UUVs. Moton said he liked the way the process played out and hopes to replicate it for other upcoming unmanned programs.

The Navy is working on the next iteration of its Barracuda mine neutralizer, developed as part of the Littoral Combat Ship mission modules program. Raytheon Technologies’ original Barracuda included a tethered neutralizer connected to a communications system that remained at the surface of the water. Moton said the updated Barracuda will not be tethered, “making it, really, a mine-identifying and -neutralizing UUV.”

For offensive mining, Moton said the Navy is nearing the start of acquisition for a Medusa UUV, a system Perry called “a mined, expendable, unmanned submarine asset as a replacement for the submarine-launched mobile mine.”

He said the Navy heard industry responses to a request for information in late October, which the program office is evaluating to understand the potential costs and schedules associated with the service’s requirements for Medusa.

Northrop’s B-21 is almost here. What’s next for the stealthy bomber?

WASHINGTON — The Dec. 2 rollout of the B-21 Raider will mark the world’s first glimpse at a bomber that manufacturer Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force see as a generational leap in aircraft technology and development.

The B-21 — the Air Force’s first new bomber in more than three decades — will be advanced enough to qualify as a sixth-generation aircraft, Tom Jones, president of Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems unit, said in a Nov. 22 interview with Defense News.

The technology used in the B-21′s testing — and the Air Force’s decision to conduct its flight tests with a production-representative aircraft instead of an experimental model — could provide a path forward for more rapid, less risky aircraft acquisitions in the future, Jones added.

He explained that the B-21′s advancements in stealth capabilities, use of open-systems architecture, and inclusion of Joint All-Domain Command and Control technologies to share data across platforms will make it “the first of the sixth-gen systems.” JADC2 is the Pentagon’s effort to connect sensors to shooters across domains of warfare.

On Dec. 2, we’ll unveil the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft. Stay tuned for your first look at the B-21 Raider. https://t.co/y5TJ8wOkY8 pic.twitter.com/SEWbsmVZR3

— Northrop Grumman (@northropgrumman) October 20, 2022

The debut of this B-21 — numbered 001 and referred to as T1, for the first flight test aircraft — at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, will mark the beginning of a major phase in the bomber’s development. Since the spring, Northrop Grumman has continued with the first bomber’s testing, final assembly, and application of coatings and paint to get it ready for the public.

Jones said that over the next few months, the first B-21 will undergo additional testing to ensure it’s ready for its first flight. That’s to include powering systems on and off, running its engines, performing taxiing test runs, and other standard integration tests.

The first flight of the B-21 will be to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where further flight tests will take place. The date of that flight is not yet scheduled; Northrop said a date will be based on the results of the ground tests but does expect it to take place sometime in 2023, a few months after the rollout.

Jones hopes the B-21 model of using a production representative aircraft — one that is essentially identical to the eventual production aircraft — for test flights will pave the way for faster acquisitions in the future.

In an October announcement about the B-21 rollout, Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter touted the Air Force’s decision early on to make the flight-test aircraft production representative, saying that it “is paying dividends as we look towards first flight.”

Usually, Jones said, most new aircraft programs have their first flight conducted by a nonproduction-representative aircraft. This can mean lengthy testing periods are required before a program gets to something that is production representative, he added.

But testing with an aircraft that is extremely close to the final production version, and built on the same production line, will speed up the process, he said. “My hope is that we see a lot of future acquisitions go that way,” Jones explained. “It cuts down time, and [when] you listen to [Air Force] Secretary [Frank] Kendall or other service chiefs, it’s all about speed and getting capabilities to the field.”

Jones also pointed to Northrop’s use of digital testing as a way to “burn down risk” and find potential problems with the B-21 in a virtual environment. By conducting virtual tests, he added, the company was able to catch and fix problems before they reached the real world.

For example, he said, the real-world loads calibration tests that Northrop completed in May correlated closely with the digital models it previously conducted. And company engineers used flight simulators and digital environments to fine-tune the Raider’s windscreen.

So far, there are still six B-21s in various stages of development, including the first flight test aircraft. The second complete B-21 is dubbed G1; it will be a ground test aircraft.

Northrop would not say when work on the seventh B-21 will begin.

The unveiling of the B-21 on Friday will be the “grand finale of the day,” Northrop Grumman spokeswoman Katherine Thompson said. The rollout will also include an “advancing aeronautics expo” that features multiple aircraft, including a B-25 Mitchell — the same type of bomber flown by the Doolittle Raiders, for whom the B-21 is named.

Footage shows domestic engine on China’s J-15 fighter jet

MELBOURNE, Australia — China appears to be fitting indigenous engines on its Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark, a carrier-borne fighter jet.

Footage shown Nov. 17 on state-owned broadcaster CCTV showed a People’s Liberation Army Navy J-15 with the afterburner nozzles of the WS-10 Taihang turbofans undergoing calibration in preparation for a test flight at the facilities of manufacturer Shenyang Aircraft Corp.

This is the first time a production J-15 was seen fitted with the locally developed engines; there was an occasion in which the WS-10 was seen on a J-15 prototype built during the aircraft’s development phase.

Production examples of the J-15 were previously fitted with the Russian AL-31F engines. The fighter jet is the last modern, indigenous combat aircraft in China’s inventory to be fitted with the Russian engine, and it follows the single-engine Chengdu J-10 being fitted with the WS-10.

The use of WS-10s on the J-15s in China — and on the J-10s after more than a decade in service — suggests China is confident with the performance and reliability of the engine type for use in riskier single-engine and carrier-borne operations.

The WS-10 is already powering production examples of the Shenyang J-11B interceptor, the J-16 strike aircraft and the Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter.

Previous reports suggested China was struggling to overcome reliability and performance issues of the WS-10, as the country contended with wider problems in the development of domestic aircraft engines. As a result, China relied on imported Russian engines to power several of its homegrown aircraft, including the J-20 to the Xi’an Y-20 strategic airlifter.

In addition to the indigenous engine, China is continuing to develop the J-15 airframe, which is based on the Russian carrier-borne fighter Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker. This includes a new variant equipped with a catapult-launch attachment on its nose landing gear as China continues construction on its third aircraft carrier and its first to be fitted with catapults for launching aircraft.

China is also reportedly developing a two-seat J-15 for carrier-borne electronic-attack missions, similar to the land-based J-16D first seen in 2021.