Air Force general set to lead Missile Defense Agency

WASHINGTON — Air Force Maj. Gen. Heath Collins will pin on a third star and become the Missile Defense Agency’s next director, according to the Pentagon’s general officer announcement on May 31.

Collins will replace Vice Adm. Jon Hill, who has served as director since 2019.

The Air Force general is currently the MDA’s program executive officer for Ground-Based Weapons Systems at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Within that $3.4 billion portfolio, Collins manages the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, consisting of interceptors in the ground at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, designed to intercept potential intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea and Iran.

Also under his purview is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, four Joint U.S. and Israeli programs and other classified programs.

Collins previously was the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons and director of the armament directorate, where he worked on the Air Force’s $92 billion non-nuclear weapons, munitions and ammunition portfolio.

The general began his military career in 1993 as a missile analyst in the 83rd Fighter Weapons Squadron at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

As the services are moving to develop offensive hypersonic capability, Collins recently oversaw the ups and downs of the Air Force’s AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon development, or ARRW, which experienced a successful test last year. Amid a slew of failed test events before and after its successful one, the Air Force decided to drop the Lockheed Martin-developed program earlier this year.

Now, Collins will oversee an MDA program in its nascent phase of development — an interceptor capable of taking out hypersonic weapons in the glide phase of flight, a difficult technical challenge.

MDA has also spent the last four years working to upgrade the GMD system, which resides in Collins’ current portfolio. Two teams are competing to build a next-generation interceptor for the system as the current system undergoes a service life extension program.

Collins will also manage the MDA portion of a major new venture in Guam to develop a highly capable air and missile defense architecture to defend the island territory from continuously evolving and growing threats in the region. Some elements of that architecture include systems already in his purview.

The MDA’s $10.9 billion fiscal 2024 budget request continues to prioritize regional and homeland missile defense with a major focus on building the defensive architecture in Guam.

Spanish Navy to receive first Naval Strike Missiles in 2027

MILAN — Spanish officials have confirmed that missile maker Kongsberg will begin deliveries of its fifth-generation Naval Strike Missiles, set to equip the Spanish Navy’s F-100 and F-110 frigates, in 2027, three years prior to the planned retirement of the fleet’s Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

“The estimated date of receipt of the first NSM will coincide with the entry into service of the first F-110 frigate,” Capt. Alfonso Carrasco Santos, who works on then Spanish naval capabilities planning staff, told Defense News in an email. Local shipbuilder Navantia is expected to deliver the first ship in 2027.

Carrasco Santos added that the Harpoons will remain in service until the complete delivery of the NSM weapons. He did not disclose the exact number of missiles to be acquired, saying only that the amount “will be necessary to satisfy our strategic needs.”

The new missile type is designed to destroy sea and land targets at distances over 115 nautical miles, which exceeds the Harpoon range by roughly one-third. It flies just above water level to evade defenses and relies on inertial, GPS and terrain-reference navigation as well as imaging infrared homing.

There has been little to no confirmed information regarding the value of contracts and the overall number of Harpoons Spain has bought over the years, making it difficult to shed light on how many will need to be replaced.

Industry sources have estimated that the country would have purchased at least around several dozen, more or less 36 Harpoons, each valued at over $1 million.

Harpoon Block II missiles were first fitted on the F-30 series of Descubierta-class corvettes built for the Spanish Navy in the late 1970s. They also equip the F-100 Álvaro de Bazán-class frigates, which have two four-celled anti-ship missiles, and the F-80 Santa María-class frigates, which feature a single-armed Mk13 missile launcher able to hold eight Harpoon missiles.

The Harpoon missiles are also operated by the Spanish Air Force in their F-18 Hornets, in the AGM-84 variant for aircraft. In air-to-surface operations, once launched, the weapon flies towards the target area where it connects its own search sensor, locating and destroying the target without the launcher having to act again.

Last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov claimed that Madrid had provided Kyiv with an undisclosed number of Harpoon missiles.

Once delivered, Madrid will become the ninth operator of the Naval Strike Missile, which outside of Norway is also in use in Poland, Germany, Canada, Australia, the United States and Romania.

Equipment for Ukraine drawn from Kuwait wasn’t combat-ready, IG says

WASHINGTON — Equipment drawn from the U.S. Army’s Kuwait-based pre-positioned stock bound for Ukraine was not ready for combat operations, the Pentagon’s inspector general has found.

During the inspector general’s audit of that pre-positioned stock area, the fifth of seven such locations around the world, “we identified issues that resulted in unanticipated maintenance, repairs, and extended leadtimes to ensure the readiness of the military equipment selected to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the May 23 report stated.

All six of the M777 howitzers and 25 of 29 M1167 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles were not “mission ready” and required repairs before U.S. European Command could send the equipment to Ukraine.

By January 2023, the U.S. government used its drawdown authority 30 times in total to provide $18.3 billion in equipment and ammunition to Ukraine, which is fighting a Russian invasion.

Army pre-positioned stock, or APS, is meant to be kept at the highest level of readiness so that it can be used immediately in case of an emergency.

The inspector general issued the report mid-audit out of concern that “issues with poor maintenance and lax oversight of the [APS] equipment could result in future delays for equipment support provided to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” the report read. “In addition, if U.S. forces needed this equipment, they would have encountered the same challenges.”

The 401st Army Field Support Battalion in Kuwait is responsible for overseeing contractor maintenance work, which includes issuing equipment.

Hazardous howitzers

Because the battalion did not ensure the contractor was meeting its maintenance requirements for approximately 19 months on M777 howitzers, an Army Materiel Command senior representative from Kuwait issued a request for assistance, bringing in a U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command mobile repair team from Anniston Army Depot, Alabama.

When the team arrived at Camp Arifjan in March 2022, the contractor provided a howitzer that it said was fully mission capable. But the weapon system was not maintained according to the standard technical manual, per the mobile repair team, and “ ‘would have killed somebody [the operator],’ in its current condition,” the report stated.

Defense News has reached out to Office of Inspector General for the Defense Department to identify the contractor.

The team subsequently found that all six howitzers had operational issues. Four of the six howitzers had breech blocks improperly aligned with the rack gear, which prevented the breech from correctly locking. A breech not properly locked could result in an explosion that could kill the crew, the report noted.

Additionally, all six howitzers contained reused, old hydraulic fluid, which is not allowed because the fluid degrades over time and could lead to “disastrous results and malfunctions of critical systems,” the inspector general found.

The contractor paid the mobile repair team $114 million for labor and travel expenses, according to the report.

As the howitzers were being prepared to leave Kuwait for shipment to Europe on June 21, 2022, one of the howitzers experienced a brake fire, likely due to the contractor not releasing the parking brake when moving it, according to the report, which cited a specialist with the mobile repair team. The contractor claimed it was likely due to leaking brake fluid, the report noted.

When the howitzers reached Poland for distribution to Ukraine, officials there said all six howitzers still had faults that made them non-mission capable, according to the report, including worn firing pins and issues with the firing mechanism. The repairs cost about $17,490 in labor and materials.

Officials said they were able to avoid delays in getting the howitzers to Ukraine, but the inspector general noted in the report the inadequate maintenance on the howitzers highlights the need to consider the time it would take to maintain and repair equipment coming from the APS site in Kuwait for Ukraine.

Tire troubles

Prior to August 2022, the 401st declared 28 of 29 Humvees as fully mission capable, but when it received an order to pull those out for Ukraine on Aug. 24, only three of the 29 were ready, the inspector general said.

Problems with the Humvees included dead batteries, inoperative lights, faulty gauges, damaged seat belts, broken door lock latches and fluid leaks, the report listed.

In order to meet the deadline to ship the equipment to Europe, the contractor took parts from other Humvees in the inventory, including in one case a transmission, “potentially making that equipment non-mission capable,” the report noted.

When the vehicles arrived in Poland, officials there reported one of the tires on a Humvee was shredded due to dry rot. When the tire was replaced with a spare, that one also failed due to dry rot, the report described.

The officials in Poland opened up work orders to replace tires damaged with dry rot in September 2022. Additionally, the vehicles did not come with spare tires, the officials noted, causing concern they would cross the border and fail with no means to replace tires there.

Tires were ultimately pulled from other equipment for the Humvees headed to Ukraine.

The process delayed delivery to Ukraine and required significant labor and time, “pulling soldiers away from primary duties,” and cost $173,524 for labor and material, the report added.

Getting back in fighting shape

The head of Army Sustainment Command explained, in response to the report, that the service’s funding level for APS maintenance in Kuwait was 30% of the validated requirements in fiscal 2023 — about $27.8 million of the $91.3 million requirement.

And the commander stated the contractor “is not contractually obligated or appropriately resourced to maintain [APS] equipment” at standards laid out in the technical manual the inspector general followed to make determinations regarding mission-capable readiness of the equipment.

The inspector general disagreed that the contractor was not obligated to follow the same technical manual used by the inspector general and also noted in the report that the Army obligated nearly $1 billion from Aug. 31, 2016, through April 13, 2023, for the APS location.

The inspector general recommended in the report that the Army’s deputy chief of staff — or G-3/5/7, which is responsible for issuing what goes into APS — “consider the level of maintenance and leadtime required before selecting Army Prepositioned Stock [in Kuwait] equipment for sourcing Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

The commander of the 401st should also develop and implement “increased inspection procedures to not only validate that the [APS] contractor has properly corrected known maintenance deficiencies but also to conduct a thorough visual inspection of equipment and correct any deficiencies including tires damaged by dry rot, before shipping the equipment to [U.S. European Command] for transfer to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

US Army may ask defense industry to disclose AI algorithms

PHILADELPHIA — U.S. Army officials are considering asking companies to give them an inside look at the artificial intelligence algorithms they use to better understand their provenance and potential cybersecurity weak spots.

The nascent AI “bill of materials” effort would be similar to existing software bill of materials practices, or SBOMs, the comprehensive lists of ingredients and dependencies that make up software, according to Young Bang, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.

Such disclosures are championed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other organizations.

“We’re toying with the notion of an AI BOM. And that’s because, really, we’re looking at things from a risk perspective,” Bang told reporters on the sidelines of Technical Exchange Meeting X, a defense industry conference held May 24-25 in Philadelphia. “Just like we’re securing our supply chain — semiconductors, components, subcomponents — we’re also thinking about that from a digital perspective. So we’re looking at software, data and AI.”

Bang and others met with AI companies during the conference to gather feedback on the potential requirements. He did not share insights from the private get-together.

The Pentagon is investing in AI, machine learning and autonomy as leaders demand quicker decision-making, longer and more-remote intelligence collection and a reduction of human risk on increasingly high-tech battlefields. The Defense Department in 2021 established its Chief Digital and AI Office, whose executives have since said high-quality data is foundational to all its pursuits.

More than 685 AI-related projects are underway at the department, according to the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog, with at least 232 being handled by the Army. A peek under the algorithm hood, Bang said, is more about ruling out “risk like Trojans, triggers, poison data sets, or prompting of unintentional outcomes,” and less about reverse engineering and exposing sensitive intellectual property.

“I just want to make sure we’re explicit about this: It’s not to get at vendor IP. It’s really about, how do we manage the cyber risks and the vulnerabilities?” he said. “We’re thinking about how do we work with industry.”