How achievable is the continuous Authority to Operate model?

Software is a critical component of military missions, but for too long, the Defense Department’s security compliance procedures have blocked organizations from delivering relevant software capabilities to the warfighter.

Mission requirements and cyber threats change quickly. Staying current requires agile development practices that continuously integrate and deliver high-quality software with reduced risk. Security authorizations should be equally nimble, but repeatedly seeking an Authority to Operate, or ATO, is notoriously time-consuming. Waiting for an ATO and working through assessments is often the longest step in deploying software. These delays can have significant consequences, especially on the battlefield.

There are better ways to manage the risk of information systems. DoD officials recently released the DevSecOps Continuous Authorization Implementation Guide, which maps out the principles of the continuous Authority to Operate, or cATO, model. After a system achieves its initial authorization, properly implementing cATO a la ongoing authorization is a fundamental step in the department’s vision to build a faster, more secure development environment and achieve software supremacy.

What is cATO?

Getting a traditional ATO requires a point-in-time check of security controls that can drag on for months. The exercise repeats when new features roll out or the authorization expires. Meanwhile, cyber adversaries continue to unveil novel threats.

cATO is an ongoing authorization for continuous delivery after achieving the initial authorization. It allows an organization to build and release new system capabilities if it can continuously monitor them against the approved security controls. To achieve cATO, DoD identifies three criteria organizations must meet:

— Continuous monitoring of security controls.

— Active cyber defense measures.

— The adoption of DevSecOps practices.

Shifting from periodic reviews to constant monitoring avoids drifting out of compliance and creates a more robust cybersecurity posture. This isn’t just theory; it’s a proven concept. As co-founder of the U.S. Air Force’s Kessel Run, we originally designed cATO as a specified approach to ongoing authorization for continuous delivery, without cutting any corners.

We applied DecSecOps principles to meet the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Risk Management Framework, or RMF, requirements. In April 2018, DoD officials approved cATO for Kessel Run’s systems. The ongoing authorization granted authorization at the time of release and removed it as the bottleneck for lead time and deployment frequency. High performing DevOps organizations employing this approach often achieve lead time and deployment frequency that is measured in hours, which is considered “elite” in The State of DevOps Report.

Preparing teams for ongoing authorization

cATO is not a waiver or a shortcut to compliance with the RMF. Instead, the method tackles requirements at every step of the software development lifecycle to reduce risk. When done correctly, adopting this ongoing authorization strategy is still about authorizing the system, not “authorizing the people and the process” or employing “cATO pipelines.” That said, the inputs that result in secure and authorized outputs for a trustworthy and transparent environment are the right people, processes, and technologies.

To start, leaders must foster a culture of security awareness across the organization by eliminating bureaucratic barriers and recruiting the right technical talent. To shift left on anything, we have to make space for it. For example, cutting low-value work out of developer schedules or removing backlogs gives them time to work on security with their regular tasks.

Programs should have at least one dedicated independent technical assessor for their teams, who work for their Security Controls Assessor and Authorizing Official, to help get the software to production more efficiently. And because security doesn’t happen in a silo, build open lines of communication between security, development, and operations teams to synchronize the latest mission requirements.

Building a security baseline

A critical technical component of continuous authorization is maximizing common control inheritance. The RMF allows applications deployed on top of cloud and platform environments to inherit the underlying controls. Organizations like software factories or service-level programs with thousands of apps can quickly see time and cost savings by architecting for these authorized common controls providers.

The DoD has the opportunity to drive greater efficiency by providing centralized, inheritable security baselines and cloud services for department-wide use, or at a minimum, mission-wide use. Enterprise-wide common controls would enhance the entire department’s cyber posture and support faster software delivery for every service and component.

Building a transparent system

Successful cATO implementations require organizations to deeply understand a system and the cascading effects of any changes to it. Organizations must focus on transparency and traceability, embracing an everything-as-code mindset to ensure controls remain within the approved configurations.

Processes require digitization and, when feasible, automation, including documentation and evidence assessment. The most commonly used governance, risk and compliance platforms weren’t built for ongoing authorizations; systems with the ability to handle modular evidence packages may need to replace antiquated platforms. Give the team’s independent technical assessors access to logs, code repositories, and dashboards to monitor controls and communicate changes to authorizing officials as necessary.

One misconception is that pipelines are a magic wand for cATO. While they are an essential tool, there is much more required for ongoing authorization. A smart way to use pipelines is to incorporate scans that evaluate software against service-level agreements and block it from the production environment if issues remain.

At the end of the day, an organization pursuing cATO must produce a secure system and deliver new capabilities within an acceptable risk profile. Ongoing authorizations are the most effective way for DoD to streamline software delivery and ensure a future where fewer bad things happen because of bad software.

Bryon Kroger is the CEO and founder at Rise8 and co-founder of the U.S. Air Force’s Kessel Run, the Department of Defense’s first software factory, where he pioneered cATO.

Construction begins on new fleet of warships for Royal Canadian Navy

VICTORIA, British Columbia — Initial construction is beginning on a new fleet of warships for the Royal Canadian Navy, with the vessels expected to be operational by 2035, service and government officials said.

Royal Canadian Navy commander Vice Admiral Angus Topshee and Defence Minister Bill Blair announced Friday that construction work on the Canadian Surface Combatant Project will begin at Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The company will build the warships and act as prime contractor while Lockheed Martin Canada is providing the design based on the BAE Type 26.

The project will see the construction of 15 warships to replace the current fleet of Halifax-class frigates. Topshee said the navy is classifying the new ships as destroyers.

“Today, we launch construction on the largest Canadian shipbuilding project since the Second World War, marking an historic milestone for the Royal Canadian Navy,” Blair said at the news conference in Halifax.

The construction schedule for Canadian Surface Combatant is lengthy. The first ship will not be delivered until the early 2030s and will then have to undergo testing, senior Canadian government officials said at a June 27 technical briefing. That means it will not be in service with the Royal Canadian Navy until 2035.

The schedule will see nine CSC ships delivered by 2040 with the last vessel set to arrive in 2050.

A senior government official said getting the new ships as soon as possible is imperative because of ongoing maintenance concerns for the aging Halifax-class frigates. The official also downplayed concerns about the schedule by pointing out that technology improvements will be added along the way, improving the ship capabilities over time. Additional upgrades are also expected for the Halifax-class frigates, the official added. No cost figures or specific details on that work were provided.

‘Recipe for disaster’

Alan Williams, the former assistant deputy minister for materiel at National Defence, noted that the CSC design has still not been completed and the final budget has yet to be determined.

“Combine that with a delivery schedule stretching over decades and you have a recipe for disaster,” he said.

Williams has warned that the cost of the CSC, combined with the cost of Canada’s F-35 procurement as well as modernization of radars and other systems used by North American Aerospace Defense Command, will leave little funds left for other major procurements.

The CSC project is budgeted at between CAD $56-60 billion, according to the Department of National Defence. But a separate examination of the project conducted in 2022 by Yves Giroux, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, put the cost figure at CAD $84 billion.

The Department of National Defence expects to have a final cost figure for the ships by the end of this year or in early 2025.

The initial construction on the CSC will allow Irving worker to develop and test building techniques for the ships.

An implementation contract for the project is expected to be signed by the end of this year, which will allow for full-rate production of the ships. That full-rate production is expected to start in 2025.

Topshee said the announcement of the initial work on CSC is “a clear sign of tangible progress towards our future fleet.”

Pentagon seeks objective way to test tools for zero trust compliance

The U.S. Department of Defense’s zero-trust program office says it’s working on establishing independent, in-house certification of the tools that come through its doors to ensure they’re actually as cyber-secure as they claim.

Randy Resnick, director of the Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office at the Pentagon, said there’s a need to independently validate whether vendor products and services are, in fact, up to snuff. And creating a standardized, multistep process for ensuring zero-trust compliance will give the DoD confidence in what it buys.

The evaluation begins with an assessment that will give an overall reading of cybersecurity design and pinpoint areas where developers can address gaps early in the process.

“You can’t really game it because it’s 250 questions, and odds are you’d have to lie on a lot of them to skew the results,” Resnick said at the TechNet Cyber conference presented by the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association International in Baltimore on June 25. “And if you’re in design with something and you honestly go through the process … it’s going to tell you your gap between wherever you are and the 91 [minimum] activities. That’s a useful thing to know because then you could design or engineer or fix whatever you have to do to get to target.”

The Pentagon’s Chief Information office is pushing 2027 as the year for the department to be fully aligned with zero trust. It has already offered a roadmap for doing this, called the ZT Strategy from 2022 that Resnick said is unlikely to be updated. Instead, the department is focused on finding ways to reliably test its designs for security against vulnerabilities. The department has received ZT plans from the services and other DoD agencies, but it now seeks a more automated, replicable process for evaluating them to free up man hours and keep to aggressive pacing.

After the initial assessment, Resnick said then a tool will go through a simulation that will actually test for weaknesses, providing feedback as many times as needed to fix holes. Then, the tool will need to go through a “purple team” report that summarizes the outcome of defensive and offensive attacks on the system.

“We are testing for specific ZT outcomes as each part of the step of the test,” said Resnick. “This is not just a random experiment for red teaming. This is actually very detailed, very specific on what we want the purple team to go after to prove it’s a zero-trust configuration.”

The process is well outlined, but there are some challenges in actualizing it. Resnick said his biggest constraint is the lack of purple-team experts.

“We don’t have enough talent,” he said. “We don’t have enough people. It is a drain. They have other missions that they need to do.”

To accelerate designs through purple teaming, Resnick said he wants to find a way to enlist the help of industry and to test in a neutral environment with minimal costs. He mentioned there has been thought around bringing in multicomponent Reserve or Guard personnel to perform some purple-team duties, but they have to be National Security Agency approved, and that’s hard to find, he added.

The end goal is to use technology and automation to create repeatable, efficient processes that ultimately result in a department official signing off on a ZT solution that has the backing of a well-informed examination.

“That would be the gate to allow the components to assuredly procure target or advanced level ZT solutions prior to 2027,” he said. “We want to allow the department to choose from a menu of solutions … to reduce the risk that what they’re buying doesn’t work.”

Pentagon to issue guidance on open radio access networks to support 5G

As Department Defense looks to find the right mix of bespoke and openly available technologies to support 5G adoption and FutureG initiatives, officials put an emphasis on open architecture Thursday.

At the TechNet Cyber conference presented by the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association International in Baltimore, leaders from the Pentagon discussed capabilities for public, private and hybrid networks. Officials acknowledged there’s a natural appetite for the most exclusive, secure networks in the national security space, though sometimes there’s no wireless network infrastructure available in remote warfighting locations far from population centers.

So as the services determine appetite for private networks that offer more control over information sharing, the DoD is guiding them to use open radio access networks, or ORAN, said Juan Ramírez, the director of the 5G Cross-Functional Team at DoD.

“I think what industry wants to hear is there’s actually going to be requirements that come out that … necessitate an open RAN architecture,” he said at the conference. “So you’ll start to see those come out in the next couple of years, pending budgets.”

New 5G challenge to incentivize open architecture solutions

Certainly, private networks aren’t the only way to go. In fact, sometimes that’s not the best solution, said Lt. Col. Benjamin Pimentel, who leads the Camp Pendleton 5G experiment for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.

“Think about when we deploy in a theater,” he said. “A lot of countries that we go to or locations that we go to already have roads and bridges, and it’d be silly to then go and build my own private roads and my own private bridges separate and apart from that to get where I need to go. If those roads and bridges meet my transportation requirement, and they’re not going to fall under the weight of a ‘seven ton,’ we’re going to drive over it.”

But, somewhere like the first island chain, for example, may not have adequate coverage to put up sensors for long-range precision fires. In cases like those, he said, it would make more sense for units to bring private capabilities.

Given China’s rising aggression and U.S. efforts to deter it in the Taiwan Strait, what Pimentel described is the type of environment where current threats seem to colocate.

Winning the 5G arms race requires full funding from Congress

Regardless, to ensure there is connectivity wherever the need is, Ramirez said the department is looking at ORANs, which allow multiple vendors to operate as one network and provide more flexibility to scale.

ORAN is something the DoD has been pushing aggressively to explore as it simultaneously journeys toward more standard 5G adoption on military installations and “smart bases.”

Ramirez said the department is hopeful it will get additional support from Congress via future defense spending bills that will backup forthcoming requirements with dollars.

The Pentagon’s 2024 budget requested $143 billion in research, developing and testing of emerging technologies including 5G, but also artificial intelligence. Much of the spending in recent years has been for prototyping, and though the Office of the Secretary of Defense has the lion’s share, Ramirez said his office is offering direction to the services for them to budget for 5G.

“We think that pursuing ideas like [ORAN] advanced by the ORAN Alliance all the way to fully open-source code … provides the feature velocity the DoD needs the ability to innovate quickly,” said Pimentel.

Next-gen helo engines delivered to Sikorsky for Black Hawk integration

A pair of the Army’s next-generation rotary-wing engines were delivered to Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky ahead of integration into the UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopter, the company announced.

The delivery signals, “a new phase of Black Hawk helicopter modernization efforts,” the company said in a June 27 statement.

The Improved Turbine Engine Program engine, developed by General Electric’s aerospace division, has experienced a slew of delays related to technology development and supply chain woes. A year ago, the Army predicted a nearly two-year delay getting the T901 engine into the UH-60.

The Black Hawk will be the first to receive the capability, and the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter will follow.

The T901 engine will replace the 1970s-era T700 and provide aircraft with a 50% power increase to restore performance. It’s 25% improved fuel consumption reduces energy usage and carbon emissions. The engine is also expected to have more durable components, which will lower life-cycle costs.

While the Army remains committed to the ITEP engine, earlier this year it decided to keep the program in development longer, pushing back plans for procurement and fielding. The service does not yet have a new plan for when fielding will take place.

The Army had planned to use the ITEP engine in its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, or FARA, but canceled the helicopter program this year after two competing industry teams — Bell and Sikorsky — received the engine for the prototypes they were building.

Sikorsky had taken advantage of fiscal 2024 FARA program funding before the Army officially closed the program at the end of the year to run tests of the ITEP in the prototype, ahead of integrating the engine into the UH-60, in order to drive down risk, Paul Lemmo, Sikorsky’s president, said earlier this year. On April 10, the company conducted its first ground run of the ITEP engine in the FARA prototype, Lemmo added.

Now that Sikorsky has the ITEP engines for Black Hawk integration, it will conduct a fit check with the engine in one of the two modified UH-60s and install one in the helicopter for actual ground runs and test flights, Lemmo said. That process will take roughly a month.

Sikorsky then plans to take about six months to integrate the engine and conduct ground runs prior to a first flight, he noted.

The company said it plans to install the second engine into another UH-60 test aircraft in order to accelerate the test program.

House passes defense spending bill amid F-35, submarine purchase spats

The House on Friday passed 217-198 its annual defense spending bill for fiscal 2025, with appropriators rebuffing intense bipartisan pressure from their colleagues over attack submarine and F-35 fighter jet purchases.

The $833 billion legislation would buy additional F-35s beyond the Pentagon’s budget request while only procuring one Virginia-class attack submarine for FY25 instead of the usual two vessels the bill usually provides.

The procurement plans put the bill at odds with large swaths of lawmakers on the Armed Services Committee who drafted the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act, which would reduce F-35 purchases below the Pentagon’s requested levels and partially fund a second Virginia-class submarine.

“The only way to prevent Chinese aggression is by fielding and operating capability that demonstrate America’s military advantage,” defense appropriations Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., said on the House floor on Thursday. “To this end, the bill increases investments in fifth and sixth generation aircraft, procures deliverable capability, including several [Indo-Pacific Command] unfunded priorities.”

“This bill procures where we can, trains where we must and invest in capabilities that will make our adversaries wake up every day and say ‘today is not the day to provoke the United States of America.”

The spending bill would procure 76 new F-35s, eight more than the 68 requested by the Defense Department. Conversely, the National Defense Authorization Act – which the House passed 217-199 earlier this month – would cut F-35 procurement down to 58 aircraft.

The House Rules Committee, which oversees amendment votes, opted not to hold a vote on a proposed bipartisan amendment that would have reduced F-35 purchases in the spending bill. This prompted a sharp rebuke from Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, amid mounting frustration on Capitol Hill with manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

“At a projected total lifecycle cost of over $2 trillion dollars, the F-35 is the largest program in DoD history despite routinely not meeting cost, schedule, and performance metrics,” Smith said in a Wednesday statement with Rep. Donald Norcross of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the tactical air and land forces panel.

“This is unacceptable program execution and Congress should not reward this behavior by buying additional aircraft above the President’s budget request.”

The spending bill also overrides the Armed Services Committee on Virginia-class submarine procurement for FY25, in addition to the F-35 purchases. Appropriators have sided with the Navy, which requested just one attack submarine purchase for FY25, due to production delays amid industrial base constraints. In contrast, the National Defense Authorization Act sought incremental funding for a second Virginia-class vessel.

“We have to rebuild the industrial base in order for us to build submarines,” Calvert told Defense News earlier this month. “I want more submarines. But in order for us to get there, we have to rebuild the industrial base to get the necessary workforce to build the submarines. So we’re focusing on fixing the problem in order for us to build more submarines.”

The decision comes despite intense pressure from a large, bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House’s seapower panel. His Connecticut district includes General Dynamics Electric Boat, which makes the Virginia-class submarines.

Courtney and Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., recently led 131 other House lawmakers in a letter to defense appropriators beseeching them to fund two Virginia-class submarines against the Pentagon’s wishes.

“Preserving a consistent production schedule is essential for shipyard and industrial base stability, and to meet the Navy’s operational requirements,” the lawmakers wrote in a May letter to Calvert and Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., the panel’s top Democrat.

Policy riders: Ukraine and Israel

The spending bill also includes several socially conservative policy riders, such as limits on abortion access for troops and military diversity initiatives, which prompted most Democrats to vote against the bill.

“We need to foster a climate in our military that honors and appreciates all Americans who choose to take the oath to serve,” McCollum said on Thursday. “Unfortunately, at this time, this bill does not reflect that sentiment.”

McCollum also criticized the legislation for omitting $300 million in annual Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding that the defense spending bill has provided annually since FY16.

“Failure to continue funding that has long been standing bipartisan support for Ukraine, it sends a terrible signal, and it will only embolden [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” said McCollum.

Still, $300 million is a small trickle compared to the $13.7 billion in the initiative’s funding Congress passed in April as part of a massive foreign aid bill, which included a total $60 billion in economic and security assistance for Ukraine.

The House voted down 308-103 an amendment from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to cut off all aid to Ukraine. It also struck down 335-76 another Greene amendment to reduce Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s salary to $1 – a provision Republicans adapted last year before stripping it from the final spending bill after negotiations with the Senate.

The House adopted numerous other amendments that would invest more money in various research and development accounts by taking money away from a variety of operations and maintenance programs.

Lastly, the bill bars the Pentagon from using funds “to withhold, halt, reverse or cancel the delivery of defense articles or defense services” for Israel, and forces the president to transfer withheld weapons to the Israeli military within 15 days.

Both the Defense and State department spending bills would ban funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which delivers humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip.

The defense spending bill also includes a provision that would eliminate the military’s makeshift pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip, which has struggled to deliver an adequate level of humanitarian aid to Palestinians facing famine-like conditions.

Italy signs deal for final submarine in four-strong U-212 NFS series

ROME — Italy has signed a €500 million ($535 million) deal to buy its fourth and final U-212 NFS submarine to be built by state-controlled Italian shipyard Fincantieri.

Standing for Near Future Submarine, the new NFS vessels are destined to serve alongside Italy’s four U-212 submarines, and replace its four Sauro-class subs which are due to be retired.

The new purchases will therefore maintain Italy’s submarine fleet total at eight – the number navy planners believe are needed to patrol the increasingly congested Mediterranean.

Managed by European-based contracting agency OCCAR, the new deal covers logistic support for the new sub, Fincantieri said.

Fincantieri is due to deliver the first and second NFS subs in 2027 and 2028 and started work on the third this week at its Muggiano yard in Italy, the firm said.

While the first four U-212 subs were built using German technology thanks to a partnership with Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, the new platforms are a mix of German and Italian know-how with Fincantieri holding the design authority role.

The Italian firm said it was now installing lithium batteries to replace traditional lead-acid batteries on the new submarines, increasing range.

Italian planners have also introduced a Fluoropolymer coating for the hulls of the new subs, which reduces encrustation to cut down on drag, while the hydrodynamics of the vessels were upgraded from the U-212 model by changing the bow design.

BAE cuts steel on first anti-submarine frigate for Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia — BAE Systems Australia ceremonially cut steel on the first batch of Hunter-class Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) frigates at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia on June 21.

The company also signed a production contract with the Commonwealth of Australia on the same day, for the first batch of three vessels.

The cutting of the steel, which is to be part of the understructure support for the port propeller shaft brake system, was initiated by South Australian Premier Peter Maklinauskas following the contract signature.

The first ship, HMAS Hunter, is due to be completed in 2032 and is expected to be fully operational by 2034.

“This is a proud moment for us all at BAE Systems Australia, and it comes at a time where the capability of the Hunter has never been so important,” commented the company’s chief executive officer, Ben Hudson. “Hunter will be one of the most technologically-advanced, stealth-capable anti-submarine warfare vessels in the world and its modular mission bay allows it to undertake a wide range of missions.”

The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) had initially planned to buy nine Hunter-class ships, based on the United Kingdom’s Type 26 Global Combat Ship (GCS) design, but an Australian government review into the navy’s surface combat fleet, announced in February, reduced this to just six.

Prior to the release of the review, undertaken by former U.S. Navy Vice Adm. William Hilarides, the Hunter Class Frigate Program (HCFP) had become the subject of criticism from analysts, who pointed out that the 32 Vertical Launch System (VLS) incorporated into the design was an inadequate number in modern naval warfare.

In response to these claims, BAE Systems Australia unveiled a Guided Missile Frigate (GMF) variant of the baseline design in September 2023, which would have increased the number of VLS cells from 32 to 96 at the expense of the high-end anti-submarine equipment, including the towed-array sonar, and the ship’s mission bay.

The government’s surface combatant review made no mention of the GMF type and instead recommended that the number of Hunter vessels should be reduced from nine to six, augmented by 11 new general-purpose frigates to be bought urgently to replace the Navy’s eight Anzac-class vessels.

Testifying before the Defence Senate Estimates Committee in Canberra on June 5, Chief of Navy Vice Adm. Mark Hammond said the decision to acquire the 11 smaller ships, cancel an extensive upgrade for the Anzac-class vessels, and reduce the number of Hunter-class ships is at least in part due to the reduced strategic warning time Australia faces.

“A recognition that flows from that is a requirement to prioritize speed to capability; extending the life of the Anzac -class frigates would just extend the duration of what we have (and that is) the oldest frigate force that we’ve operated,” Hammond said.

“Replacing the eight Anzac-class ships with 11 general-purpose frigates – which will have a small crewing liability, means I don’t necessarily need a bigger frigate workforce until the 2040s, when the Hunters are starting to come online in numbers. In terms of prioritizing speed to capability, additional lethality at sea, additional capability to maintain our economic connectivity with the world through sea lane communications, seabed cablets et cetera … it’s all related.”

Hammond added: “With respect to the future fleet, we’ll go from eight general-purpose (Anzac-class) frigates (which), prior to these decisions had very little offensive strike capability beyond the Harpoon missile, to a fleet of 11 general purpose frigates and nine tier-one warships.” The latter category is planned to consist of six Hunter-class ASW frigates and three Hobart-class air-warfare Destroyers.

Commenting on the reduction in the number of Hunter-class frigates being cut, BAE Systems Australia’s managing director of its Maritime division, Craig Lockhart, said that the company now has clarity around its future.

“Six ships is a lot of work and we’ll be building ships at Osborne for decades to come,” he said.

“We are building up the workforce, establishing a skills and knowledge base and uplifting the local supply chain to enable Australia to build and sustain its own complex warships for generations to come.”

US Central Command to demo integrated counter drone sensors this fall

TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. Central Command is planning a set of exercises aimed at filling key gaps in its ability to detect and track drone threats in the Middle East.

Amid a sharp increase in one-way drone attacks on U.S. and allied forces by Iraq, Syria and Houthi rebels, CENTCOM is working with the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI office to identify sensors that can detect adversary systems and be integrated into a command and control framework. Earlier this month, the command’s innovation team solicited proposals from industry for the effort, dubbed Desert Guardian.

Army Maj. Bryan Cercy, an innovation officer at CENTCOM, told C4ISRNET the innovation team will choose sensors this summer to participate in a U.S.-based exercise in October focused on spotting UAS threats. Early next year, it will stage a second exercise — this one at a base in the Middle East — focused on integrating those sensors into a single interface used by operators in the field.

“Our proof of concept is that there’s a world in which all of these different sensors are integrated together, and they provide the user, the operator one common picture of the threats to the base,” Cercy said June 25 during an interview at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Fla. “Maybe we don’t accomplish everything, but we’re inching one step closer to make the operators, on a day-to-day basis, more effective.”

The command’s innovation office regularly runs technology sprints to identify operator challenges and try to find solutions. The upcoming demonstrations are part of a series of sprints the team has been running this year focused on countering UAS threats.

The effort began in March with several fact-finding missions. CENTCOM’s innovation team traveled to the Middle East to observe operators and hear first hand about the challenges they face in conducting their missions.

CENTCOM also leveraged its technology residency program, which temporarily embeds private sector experts within the command to help solve technical challenges. It sent its resident at the time to observe operators tracking UAS threats and better understand their capability needs.

As Rinderer compiled his findings, CENTCOM conducted its own market research to find out what other organizations were doing to meet counter UAS needs and whether there was a gap for the innovation team to focus on.

“Counter UAS is a very broad problem that a lot of organizations across the department are trying to solve right now,” Cercy said. “We owe the due diligence to the warfighter to really see, is there already something out there that might close that gap, even just a little bit.”

It became clear through this work, he said, that while base defense operators have access to many sensors, they lack an integrated picture of the threat.

“You’ve got operators that are operating on different systems that are trying to protect against threats to the base, and sometimes those systems don’t necessarily talk to each other,” he said. “They’re not integrated, and so it’s a lot of swivel chair action that’s happening . . . between the different operators to make sure that they’re all detecting a threat.”

Following the two exercises, if the team identifies a capability it thinks could benefit operators, it will work to find an acquisition pathway within the Defense Department to get that to the field. That could mean drafting a joint urgent operational needs request or feeding findings to the Pentagon’s Joint Counter UAS Office or a program office that might be looking for a similar capability.

Air Force Col. Nate Huston, CENTCOM’s director of innovation and capability integration, said in the same interview that part of the intent behind technology sprints like this is to demonstrate a process for identifying innovative solutions to problems in the field and validating whether there’s a capability that can address it.

“What we want to say is like, ‘Hey, we started at this point, we got these disparate folks together, we showed that this could be integrated,’” he said. “The other part of this is . . . we fully understand some integration will not work exactly right, and we’ll learn from that.”

Germany approves funds to develop supersonic weapon, buy thousands of missiles

BERLIN — Germany’s parliament has authorized money for the purchase of thousands of missiles and the development of a supersonic naval cruise missile, according to a Defence Ministry news release.

Germany will join forces with Norway in developing the supersonic Tyrfing missile. A key parliamentary committee released the funds Wednesday for Berlin’s first foray into developing modern naval missiles. Currently, most of the country’s naval missile arsenal is French- or American-made.

Although Norway and its state-owned arms manufacturer Kongsberg will take a leading role, the German government expects to contribute about €650 million (U.S. $695 million) to the project between now and 2033.

The contract, which is to conclude by August, will see Diehl Defence and MBDA perform work on the German side.

At least initially, Germany’s half will be funded from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s special fund for the military. That money was put together in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In later years, the money is to come out of the regular defense budget.

Kongsberg describes the Tyrfing as a “new super missile” that will succeed the Naval Strike Missile developed in the early 2000s. The 3SM — an abbreviation for Super Sonic Strike Missile — should be ready in 2035, the company said in a news release late last year.

In addition to Norway and Germany, Kongsberg hopes the missile will have export potential to other “European armed forces.”

Weapons purchase

The German budgetary committee also approved the purchase of up to 3,266 Brimstone 3 rockets for delivery by 2033 under a contract expected to be passed by the parliament next month.

Initially, the country will receive 274 missiles and the requisite equipment, purchased from MBDA Germany for about €376 million. An additional 29 Brimstones will be used for operational testing and 75 further for training and telemetry.

The rockets are destined for the country’s Eurofighter fleet, which forms the fighting backbone of its Air Force. Berlin first announced its intention to procure the air-to-ground missile in 2017.

The British Royal Air Force has used the Brimstone family of missiles for nearly two decades, including in war zones in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. A contingent of German Eurofighters is also deployed in the Baltics, where they serve to strengthen NATO’s posture at its flank with Russia.

Aside from entirely new purchases, the parliamentary budget committee also approved the procurement of 506 Stinger man-portable air defense systems worth about €395 million as a replacement for 500 of the ground-to-air, shoulder-launched missiles that were sent to Ukraine.

Germany has taken a leading role in supporting Kyiv’s armament, sending more military support than any other country except the United States. According to the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the government has sent €10.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine as of the end of April 2024.