Drones, the Air Littoral, and the Looming Irrelevance of the USAF

[Kirkhill]

And, conceivably, the answer to local drone superiority.

Champ: The missile that fries military technology and kills computers, but not people

An early demonstration of a Champ missile targeted a two-storey building, taking out its entire spectrum of electronic systems.

www.forces.net

 

[GR66]

DARPA - Human F16 vs AI F16

Pentagon takes AI dogfighting to next level in real-world flight tests against human F-16 pilot

Flight tests conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Agency, the U.S. Air Force and their industry partners have demonstrated safe and effective employment of an autonomous fighter jet, including in “nose-to-nose” dogfighting against a human F-16 pilot, according to officials.

defensescoop.com

Interesting but I wonder if applying AI to create a dog-fighting unmanned fighter is really the most useful application of the technology?

How much dog-fighting do we expect to take place in modern air combat? Yes I know the same argument was made leading up to Vietnam with the result being cannons added back into fighter designs, but sensors and missiles have advance a long way since then.

Wouldn't a better application of AI be in long range missiles that can be launched far outside the engagement window of the enemy platforms (even further out than 100% positive target identification can be confirmed) and the smart missiles confirm and maneuver toward the target?

 

[dimsum]

Interesting but I wonder if applying AI to create a dog-fighting unmanned fighter is really the most useful application of the technology?

How much dog-fighting do we expect to take place in modern air combat? Yes I know the same argument was made leading up to Vietnam with the result being cannons added back into fighter designs, but sensors and missiles have advance a long way since then.

Wouldn't a better application of AI be in long range missiles that can be launched far outside the engagement window of the enemy platforms (even further out than 100% positive target identification can be confirmed) and the smart missiles confirm and maneuver toward the target?

Until the platforms can evade the BVR missiles and close, therefore dog-fighting.

In the shorter term, I expect (if this hasn’t already happened) RPAS folks with USAF/USN Weapons Instructor quals.

 

[Kirkhill]

Interesting but I wonder if applying AI to create a dog-fighting unmanned fighter is really the most useful application of the technology?

How much dog-fighting do we expect to take place in modern air combat? Yes I know the same argument was made leading up to Vietnam with the result being cannons added back into fighter designs, but sensors and missiles have advance a long way since then.

Wouldn't a better application of AI be in long range missiles that can be launched far outside the engagement window of the enemy platforms (even further out than 100% positive target identification can be confirmed) and the smart missiles confirm and maneuver toward the target?

Until the platforms can evade the BVR missiles and close, therefore dog-fighting.

In the shorter term, I expect (if this hasn’t already happened) RPAS folks with USAF/USN Weapons Instructor quals.

Dogfighting Variant?

Tomahawks and Valkyries dodging Patriots and AMRAAMs?

 

[dimsum]

Dogfighting Variant?

Tomahawks and Valkyries dodging Patriots and AMRAAMs?

Probably not those, but I’d be shocked if the major NATO Class 3 UAS manufacturers aren’t considering it for their next-generation platforms…

 

[Kirkhill]

Move over FARA: General Atomics pitching new Gray Eagle version for armed scout mission - Breaking Defense

General Atomics will also showcase its Mojave demonstrator for the first time during the Army Aviation Association of America conference in Denver, a company spokesman said.

breakingdefense.com

General Atomics is positioning a future version of its MQ-1C Gray Eagle combat drone as a potential alternative to the Army’s now-canceled Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft effort, the president of its aeronautics unit told Breaking Defense.

The California-based defense firm intends to pitch a short takeoff and landing version of the Gray Eagle — what it calls Gray Eagle STOL — to fulfill the armed scout mission now that the service has halted work on a manned helicopter and shifted the focus to drones.

“We’re trying to jump into that [opportunity],”

Add these?

RATO Booster Motors - Magellan Aerospace

Since 1962, Magellan Aerospace has successfully developed and introduced more than 20 solid propellant rocket motor types and produced over 10 million pounds of composite propellant. From our original booster motor, the CL-289 to the MQM-107 to today’s BQM-167, our product line has...

magellan.aero

Parachute Standard Supports a Safe Landing | ASTM Standardization News

It is a sobering reality for pilots and passengers alike that there are limits to what can be done to save an airplane experiencing difficulties during a flight. Over the years, this has led to the development of many different types of aircraft safety systems, including structural redundancies...

sn.astm.org

They work for the Kratos line.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Perun just did a good video on drones, UAV, FPV's

Perun’s videos thread

Instead of putting the weekly Perun ones in their own thread - and I only post the ones that really impressed me - I’ll start a thread for his videos. Mods: Could you put the previous Perun videos in here? This week, it’s a continuation of his excellent “how corruption destroys armies” video...

army.ca

 

[Kirkhill]

Still figuring out lots of stuff.

Drones could guide every bit of an Army division’s firepower, 101st CO says​

From mortars to missiles, the airborne unit is rethinking the use of uncrewed systems in the kill chain.​

BY SAM SKOVE
STAFF WRITER
MAY 9, 2024 03:38 PM ET

U.S. Army units could someday align every level of their indirect weapons—from mortars to missiles—with some form of unmanned aerial system, or UAS, the 101st Airborne Division commander said.

“You could see those small UAS tied to the employment of mortars, and you could see those medium UASs tied to artillery, and those larger UAS could be tied to air-launch effects and other higher-order precision munitions,” Maj. Gen. Brett Sylvia said at a media roundtable Thursday.

The 101st is experimenting with different forms of tech as part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s “transforming-in-contact” initiative, which seeks to rapidly evaluate new technology by fielding it directly to select units.

As part of the tests, the 101st’s second brigade has been designated as the Army’s first Mobile Brigade Combat Team, Sylvia said. The brigade now uses a variety of new technologies, including using the Army’s Android-based ATAK mission planning software at multiple echelons of command. One “landing spot” for testing new technologies is the brigade’s new Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company, Sylvia said.

Units might organize themselves in several ways to take advantage of their drones, Sylvia said. Infantry squads might use small drones to scout ahead, with soldiers operating drones as an additional duty to their job as a rifleman. Small drones “provide that squad or platoon to be able to see what's over that next terrain feature,” said Sylvia.

A dedicated drone unit might then operate at a higher echelon in order to provide reconnaissance for long-range, expensive weapons. “The cognitive load associated with those particular systems may need to make that a primary duty, not an additional duty,” Sylvia said.
He said tying drones to weapons will eventually help tighten the “kill-chain”: the process of finding, picking, and destroying a target.
Both Russia and Ukraine use drones extensively for coordinating every level of fires—the military term used to refer mortars, artillery, rockets, and missiles. Ukrainian drone teams often share video directly with artillery teams via Google Meet, communicating with the gunners to correct their fire much in the way that forward observers did in years past.

Close connections between drones and other forms of fires in recent months has even allowed Russia to hunt and destroy Ukrainian military equipment far behind enemy lines — including highly mobile platforms like helicopters and High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.

Besides drone experimentation, the 101st is also working on improving communications by extending the integrated tactical network, or ITN, across the division, Sylvia said.

The division is trying out the new tech—and new tactics—in exercises like “Lethal Eagle,” a 21- day wargame held last month. The 101st experimented with using electronic warfare to suppress air defenses during an airborne assault, he said.

Future exercises designed to test new equipment will include “more intense airspace deconfliction models, and contested logistical hurdles,” Sylvia said.

Drones could guide every bit of an Army division’s firepower, 101st CO says

From mortars to missiles, the airborne unit is rethinking the use of uncrewed systems in the kill chain.

www.defenseone.com

The replacement for Mud Recce and FOO-FACS.

 

[Kirkhill]

And from the same author

Defense now outweighs offense, thanks to new tech: Army Futures Command​

The realization may have wide-reaching implications for how the Army trains and equips its forces.​

BY SAM SKOVE
STAFF WRITER
MAY 8, 2024

New battlefield technologies mean that the defense is “dramatically” stronger than the offensive, Army Futures Command head Gen. James Rainey told reporters today.

“Technology is dramatically increasing the strength of the defense, at the same time, it is dramatically complicating offense,” said Rainey, speaking on the sidelines of the Ash Carter Exchange, a national security conference.

This may mean Army units need to start using their tanks and infantry primarily to serve the needs of longer-range weapons such as artillery or rockets, Rainey added.

“When you are maneuvering, it's going to be to emplace fires,” said Rainey, a former infantry leader. “If it’s an Army formation, their big advantage is going to be fires: rockets, cannons, joint fires, attack helicopters.”

While Rainey’s comments did not represent an official shift in U.S. doctrine, it would—if implemented—be a sharp change from the Army’s customary approach.

Army doctrine more typically has emphasized using long-range weapons to help armored and infantry units launch aggressive, fast-paced strikes that collapse enemy lines.

While the strategy worked well against Iraq in 1991, both Ukraine and Russia have found themselves repeatedly stymied in their current war by loitering munitions and other long-range weapons in combination with advanced reconnaissance capabilities like drones or satellites.

Rainey isn’t alone in noting how new technologies make it harder than ever to launch effective assaults. Writing in the Economist last year, Ukraine’s then commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, made a similar argument following the failure of Ukraine’s American-trained brigades to punch through Russia’s defenses in southern Ukraine.

In particular, Zaluzhnyi noted Russia’s use of drones to coordinate artillery fire, Russian loitering munitions strikes, and electronic warfare against U.S.-made precision munitions.

Still, neither Rainey nor Zaluzhnyi have declared the death of the offensive yet. “You can’t win on defense,” said Rainey. Instead, offensive operations will need more preparation. “You're going to have to really put the work in to make sure you're successful.”

Rainey advocated for weapons similar to those advocated by Zaluzhnyi: more unmanned systems, long-range weapons, and better command and control.

Rainey also called out the need to provide more unmanned systems for logistics, an approach the Army is increasingly considering amid Marine Corps fieldings of small logistics drones.

‘I'm very interested in heavy lift unmanned systems,” Rainey said. “Heavy lift [unmanned aerial systems] is the answer to sustainment as much as watercraft are.”

Fielding any of these weapons, though, increasingly relies on the networks that pass Army data, Rainey said. The “limiting factor is the network,” Rainey said.

The speed at which data can be passed has emerged as a key issue in Ukraine, with Russian advancements in passing intelligence back to fire units resulting in the destruction of numerous advanced Western-provided systems far from the front line.

Defense now outweighs offense, thanks to new tech: Army Futures Command

The realization may have wide-reaching implications for how the Army trains and equips its forces.

www.defenseone.com

I noted the conflating of unmanned heavy lift UAS with watercraft for logistics. Unmanned watercraft too? More use of inland waterways for logistic support? Or is that strictly an Indo-Pacific thing?

I tend to think that it is also applicable to the Baltic, the Med, the Black Sea and the Red Sea. And perhaps even Canada.

 

[Kirkhill]

defenseone.com/technology/2024/05/ai-powered-f-16-impresses-ride-along-secaf-dogfight/396418/

After riding in the front seat of an F-16 fighter jet controlled by artificial intelligence, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he can see a future where AI agents will fly in war—and will do it better than humans.

Computers “don't get tired. They don't get scared. They're relentless. It's easy to see a situation where they're going to be able to do this job, generally speaking, better than humans can do. They also can handle large amounts of data,” Kendall said Wednesday during an AI and national security conference hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project.

The secretary spent an hour in an X-62A VISTA, an F-16 fighter jet modified to test and train AI software, on May 2 at Edwards Air Force Base in California, flying in various combat scenarios. At one point during the flight, Kendall said, the machine-guided F-16 was chasing a crewed one in a circle. Each pilot was trying to fly the airplane better than the other, to get into a position where they could launch a missile.

But many concerns remain about the ethics of using this technology in warfare—and what might happen if the Pentagon used lethal robots on the battlefield without human operators.

The Pentagon will adhere to the laws of armed conflict, but the U.S. still needs to figure out how to apply these norms to automated machines, Kendall said.

....

Eight 'capability coalitions' are rushing arms to Ukraine. Here's who will donate what. (EXPLAINER) - Breaking Defense

NATO has established eight different capability coalitions designed to get critical systems or ammo into Ukrainian hands quickly. Here's a deep dive into how they're all faring.

breakingdefense.com

Expert view: Analysis suggests that once operational, Ukraine will use the second-hand (F-16) jets to intercept Russian cruise and other surface-to-air missiles or potentially deploy them as air support for ground operations. Future strikes employing AGM-88 HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missile) weapons against Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems could also be vital to Ukraine developing “local air superiority” and increasing survivability of its drone arsenal, RAND noted last year.

Similarly, the Congressional Research Service suggested in a March 2023 report that those in favor of transferring US or NATO fighter jets to Ukraine backed the idea because it could help to close “perceived gaps in operational capabilities,” like “air superiority; suppression of enemy air defenses; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and counter-land (air-to-ground) capabilities.”

On the other hand, there are a number of concerns around how effective the F-16s can be and whether they will ultimately deliver a decisive blow for Ukraine.

“Western fighters will undoubtedly provide a major boost to Ukrainian Air Force survivability and air-to-air lethality against the Russian VKS once supplied,” Justin Bronk, senior research fellow for airpower and technology at RUSI on X (formerly Twitter) a year ago. “However, they would still be at risk from Russia’s SAM systems, and have limited dynamic ground attack options.”

Analysis from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a foreign policy think tank, suggests that long training periods for pilots to become “proficient” in air-to-air combat, a lack of stealth characteristics that make the jets “vulnerable” to attack by Russian S-300 and S-400 SAMs, and the fact they won’t be operating alongside supporting AWACS planes like the Boeing E-3 Sentry could all limit the jets’ usefulness at the front.

What if....

Ukrainian UAV swarm
plus LR Ballistic and Cruise Missiles
plus 3 F16 target drone conversions
plus 1 X62-A Vista F16 AI conversion
plus 1 experienced Ukrainian pilot....

 

[dimsum]

defenseone.com/technology/2024/05/ai-powered-f-16-impresses-ride-along-secaf-dogfight/396418/





....

Eight 'capability coalitions' are rushing arms to Ukraine. Here's who will donate what. (EXPLAINER) - Breaking Defense

NATO has established eight different capability coalitions designed to get critical systems or ammo into Ukrainian hands quickly. Here's a deep dive into how they're all faring.

breakingdefense.com

What if....

Ukrainian UAV swarm
plus LR Ballistic and Cruise Missiles
plus 3 F16 target drone conversions
plus 1 X62-A Vista F16 AI conversion
plus 1 experienced Ukrainian pilot....

…that UKR pilot will be shunned at the bar for not being a “real pilot”?

 

[Kirkhill]

'Swarm pilots' will need new tactics—and entirely new training methods: Air Force special-ops chief

AFSOC will expand on groundbreaking experiments this summer, Lt. Gen. Bauernfeind says in interview.

www.defenseone.com

“We're gonna have to break some old paradigms,” Bauernfeind said. “We really have to reinforce to ourselves that it's going to be a human on the loop, not in the loop”—that is, the operator will monitor a drone's execution of its assigned mission rather than steering the thing. “Cognitively, it will require us to train our air crews in a new way.”

In the next few months, AFSOC will expand upon a groundbreaking December experiment that saw a single drone crew guide not one but three MQ-9 Reapers and even to air-launch a smaller Group 2 drone as part of the command’s Adaptive Airborne Enterprise effort. Now, the command aims to repeat the experiment with even more drones—and add the ability to hand off control to troops in the field.

“The hope with the summer now is: how can we start to bring those aspects together and then work with our joint force teammates? And now how do we manage multiple MQ-9s air-launching a small number of” smaller drones, “and then hand that swarm off to a joint force teammate, whether in a terrestrial or maritime situation?”

Bauernfeind is also interested in how Ukrainian forces are using 3-D printers to make small drones near the front line. “3-D printing is really bringing in a new generation of [innovation], how quickly we can mass produce some of the smaller UAVs. And so I see an opportunity there. How can we quickly ensure we have the right levels of stock, the right levels of sensors? And so it's pretty impressive to see where some of our industrial teammates are going with 3-D printing.”

some innovations in the Ukrainian battlespace are more controversial, such as the use of autonomy to find and hit targets on the battlefield. The Pentagon has ethical principles to govern its development and use of AI in conflict. But concern is mounting that the United States might abandon those principles if it found itself in a conflict in which it was losing.

Those questions aren’t likely to go away anytime soon. Said Bauernfeind: “I think this is an area that is ripe for deep intellectual thought. And what I mean by that is, I think, technically we're going down a pathway where automation is a real aspect. But I think we have to have some very deep strategic intellectual thought on where should that balance be? So while we're learning lessons from Ukraine, there's also an aspect of Ukraine is a nation in the fight of survival. So there are certain, probably, policy constraints that they have taken away because they see it as an existential threat to their actual survival as a nation.”

Can you afford your principles?