Disruptive Military Aviation technologies

asianobserve

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U.S. Air Force Defines Radical Vision For Command And Control

The U.S. Air Force has released the full, sweeping vision for the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a two-year-old concept that proposes to disrupt modern norms for the service’s command-and-control doctrine, military acquisition policy and industrial participation.

The scale of the project’s ambition has evolved since the ABMS was first proposed in 2018. Air Force leaders unveiled the concept two years ago as a replacement for the airborne Battle Management and Command and Control (BMC2) suite on the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Stars fleet. By September 2018, Roper first suggested the same technology could be applied to replace the aging fleet of Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joints and, sometime in the 2030s, the Boeing E-3C Airborne Warning and Control System.

Those aims remain intact, but the revealed architecture clarifies that the goals of the ABMS are far broader. If the system is fully realized, the Air Force will create a “combat cloud” on a mobile ad hoc network, transposing the Internet of Things model from civilian technology to the battlefield.

As a result, the nearly four-decade-old concept of a centralized command-and-control center—either ground-based or airborne—would be swept away by a future, decentralized digital network. Using computer processors and software algorithms instead of humans, machines would identify targets from sensor data, select the weapons and platforms to prosecute the target automatically, and finally notify the human operator when—or, crucially, whether—to pull the trigger.

Roper compares the ABMS’ effect on command and control to commercial services on a smartphone, such as the Waze app for drivers navigating traffic. Waze is not driven by a human staff monitoring and reporting traffic hazards, who then review each request for directions and customize a recommended route. Instead, Waze harvests traffic and hazard data from its users, while algorithms mine that information to respond to user requests for services. The Air Force’s command-and-control system is constructed around the human staff model, but Roper wants to move the entire enterprise to the Waze approach.

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/us-air-force-defines-radical-vision-command-control
 

asianobserve

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Northrop Grumman to start AARGM-ER production for US Navy

The US Navy (USN) intends to award a sole source contract to Northrop Grumman to start production of the Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile – Extended Range (AARGM-ER).

The quantity of the forthcoming order was not disclosed, but would be part of low rate initial production lot one, says the service in a notice posted online on 31 March.



AARGM-ER is an air-launched weapon intended to destroy enemy air defence systems, such as radar-guided surface-to-air missile batteries. It is an extended range version of the service’s current AARGM weapon. Its exact reach is not disclosed, but it is considered a standoff weapon, meaning it should be able to out-range an adversary’s air defence missiles.

The new missile is to be carried by the USN’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter and EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft. It is eventually to be qualified for the internal weapons carriage on the Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II.

https://www.flightglobal.com/fixed-...argm-er-production-for-us-navy/137676.article
 
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asianobserve

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Blachawk replacement contender SB-Defiant on test flight:

The SB-1 Defiant is a hybrid helicopter's tail pusher prop electrically driven. There's no mechanical link between the tail pusher prop and the engine minimizing weight, complexity and maximing safety. So if the tail rotor gets blown off the helicopter can still fly as fast as current Blackhawk using only its main tandem rotors.

I like this design.
 

asianobserve

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Watch it @ 6:40......

Published on Apr 10, 2015
Perhaps he's partly referring to this missile...

Northrop Grumman gets a new AARGM missiles contract, this time for $165 million
The U.S. Navy awarded Northrop Grumman for Lot 9 full-rate production (FRP) of the AGM-88E AARGM missiles in March, according to a company news release.
 

Bajirao

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Perhaps he's partly referring to this missile...

Northrop Grumman gets a new AARGM missiles contract, this time for $165 million

What is your prediction about this new missile's propulsion system???
 

cyclops

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Seems relatively disruptive.
It could be a game changer if realized.
This effectively forces the defender to expend more Interceptor missiles to take down the fighter aircraft which is in probability traveling in a supersonic flight profile.

Tiny Missile Interceptor To Defend Aircraft Against Enemy Missile Attacks Moves Forward
These miniature weapons could provide a robust hard-kill defensive option for everything from stealth fighters to bombers to tankers.
BY JOSEPH
TREVITHICKJULY 22, 2020

JULY 22, 2020
THE WAR ZONE

Raytheon has received a contract from the U.S. Air Force to build a "flight-test ready" mini-missile that an aircraft could use to shoot down incoming air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. This effort is one of a number of aircraft self-defense weapon concepts that the U.S. military as a whole has been exploring in recent years as potential opponents, especially Russia and China, continue to develop and field new and more advanced missiles of their own

The Pentagon announced the deal in its daily contracting notice on July 21, 2020. The first task order under the contract is worth just over $93 million, but it could eventually net Raytheon up to $375 million, in total. The announcement says that the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which is managing the project, expects the work to be completed by October 2023.


The full announcement is as follows:


"Raytheon Co. Missile Systems, Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded a $375,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for a miniature self-defense missile. The contract provides for the research and development of a flight-test ready missile. The first task order is $93,380,234. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by October 2023. This award is the result of a competitive acquisition and two offers were received. Fiscal 2020 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $26,712,000 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Research Laboratory, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, is the contracting activity (FA8651-20-D-0001)."


Though described here as "a miniature self-defense missile," by every indication, this is the latest development in AFRL's Miniature Self-Defense Munition (MSDM) program. This project first emerged publicly around 2015, at which time the goal was to have finished risk-reduction efforts by the end of the 2020 Fiscal Year and then move on to testing sub-systems for the mini-missile in the 2021 Fiscal Year.



USAF
The schedule for the MSDM program, among others, as of 2015.



In 2016, Raytheon had secured a $14 million contract for various missile work, including on MSDM. Lockheed Martin had also received a contract to work on the MSDM program. It seems that this was the company that had submitted the second offer that AFRL said it passed over in favor of Raytheon's proposal for this new deal. Lockheed Martin had previously developed a ground-launched weapon to knock down incoming artillery rounds and small drones for the U.S. Army, known as the Miniature Hit-to-Kill (MHTK) interceptor, which you can read about more in this past War Zone story, a modified version of which would seem to fit well with the MSDM's known requirements.



JOSEPH TREVITHICK
A full-size model of Lockheed Martin's Miniature Hit-to-Kill (MHTK) interceptor.

In 2017, Northrop Grumman also patented the design of an anti-missile interceptor system for aircraft that also seems similar to what AFRL has described it is looking for in an MSDM in the past. Boeing had also been reportedly involved in earlier stages of the program.



USPTO
Drawings from Northrop Grumman's 2017 patent for anti-missile defense system for aircraft.

To date, AFRL has revealed relatively limited details about the MSDM program, its objectives, and its progress. It has described the notional weapon in the past as being an "extremely-agile, highly-responsive" missile that is also very small so as to have a "minimal impact to platform payload capacity." The plan was also for it to be a hard-kill design, meaning that it would not have a traditional explosive warhead and would instead destroy its target by physically slamming into it.



USAF
A broad overview of the MSDM program as of 2015.

AFRL has said in the past that the desired length of the notional missile was around one meter, or just under 3.3 feet. This would make it roughly a third as long as the AIM-9X Sidewinder dogfighting missile and even shorter than the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM).

It's unclear if that is still the length requirement for the MSDM. If it is, this would be mean AFRL is looking for a weapon about half the size of Raytheon's own self-funded Peregrine compact air-to-air missile, a design the company revealed last year and has said is around six feet long. You can read more about Peregrine in this past War Zone piece.



RAYTHEON
An artist's conception of the Peregrine missile.

AFRL has also said that a "very low-cost passive seeker" will be a key component of the MSDM. Associated renderings it has released in the past suggest this could be some form of imaging infrared seeker, which would give the missile a means of finding its target that is immune to electronic warfare jamming.



USAF
A graphic from 2019 describing "tech enablers" for various AFRL projects, including the MSDM's seeker.

It's unclear if this would be the MSDM's only guidance option or whether it might include others, such as an active radar seeker. Multi-mode seekers, combined with two-way datalinks, have become increasingly popular on air-to-air, as well as air-to-ground munitions, as a means of defeating various countermeasures. However, an incoming missile is unlikely to have the same kind of self-protection features as an enemy aircraft.

No matter what the exact guidance configuration might be, low-cost seekers could help keep the MSDM's overall unit cost down, which will be critical to making the system cost-effective given that an aircraft will likely carry a significant number of these interceptors and could need to fire more than one at a single threat to ensure that it is destroyed. It can already cost thousands of dollars for a plane to launch decoy flares and radar-confusing chaff cartridges, as well as expendable decoys.

This has also been an issue with regards to ground-based missile defense systems, as well as those specifically intended to shoot down artillery shells and rockets, mortar rounds, and similar lower-tier threats, a mission set commonly referred to as Counter-Rockets, Artillery, and Mortars (C-RAM). The Tamir interceptor that Israel's Iron Dome C-RAM system uses is a good example of a lower-cost weapon, but its reported unit price is, at its very lowest, still around $40,000. Other reports have said each one costs between $100,000 and $150,000.

AFRL has already said that it sees the MSDM as just one element of a new slate of layered hard-kill self-protection options. This could also include a larger weapon it is developing under the Small Advanced Capabilities Missile (SACM) program, as well as directed-energy weapons, such as the one it is working on as part of the Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) effort. The Air Force recently announced a delay in the testing schedule for SHiELD.



LOCKHEED MARTIN
An artist's conception of a stealthy aircraft using a laser to shoot down an incoming threat.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have also been exploring similar hard-kill anti-missile defenses for both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters in recent years and could leverage the Air Force's work in the future, as well. There's also the aforementioned hard-kill interceptor system that Northrop Grumman patented in 2017, indicating that there is growing interest, in general, among defense contractors in similar concepts, too.

Other self-protection systems, including advanced electronic warfare systems, including expandable options, as well as further support from offboard platforms will also be part of this overall defensive ecosystem. Improved networking capabilities will further help link all this together, making it easier to spot threats and do so faster.

A mix of MSDMs and these other systems could be increasingly invaluable for stealth aircraft, including future unmanned combat air vehicles, which may find themselves operating in dense hostile air defense environments with limited outside support. MSDM "enables penetration into contested A2AD [anti-access/area denial] environment," AFRL said of MSDM in 2015.

Similar concerns are driving the Air Force's development of a dedicated Stand-in Attack Weapon (SiAW) that its stealthy F-35A Joint Strike Fighter will be able to carry internally and that will give them another option for dealing with pop-up threats in heavily defended areas. SiAW is a derivative of the AGM-88G Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER), which the Navy is leading the development of and that will also be a multi-purpose weapon beyond its primary mission of destroying enemy air defense radars.

Of course, the MSDM would be just as applicable to any other aircraft capable of carrying it, including bombers and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms. It could be especially valuable for protecting vulnerable non-stealthy support platforms, such as aerial refueling tankers and airlifters. If the final design is cheap enough, it could be a useful countermeasure against short-range, man-portable surface-to-air missiles or even rocket-propelled grenades, which pose a very real threat to low and slow-flying aircraft and helicopters, especially when taking off or landing.



RAFAEL
Still frames from the test of a hard-kill defense system that Israel's Rafael developed to protect helicopters from rocket-propelled grenades.

It's unclear whether AFRL expects to receive the first MSDM flight-test ready prototype before its new contract with Raytheon wraps up in 2023 or when any actual flight testing will start. What we do know is that there is work going on now to move what could be an important self-defense option for U.S. military aircraft in the future out of the laboratory and into a more practical realm.

Contact the author: [email protected]

 
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LDev

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The US Air Force (USAF) completed its final captive-carry test of the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) under a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress’ wing on 8 August.

The AGM-183A successfully transmitted telemetry and GPS data to a ground station at NAS Point Mugu Sea in Southern California during the test, the service says. The B-52 took off from nearby Edwards AFB.

The ARRW weapon had previously successfully completed two captive-carry tests.

“The test verified system integration with the B-52 launch platform and telemetry while practicing concepts of operations that will be utilised during its first booster test-flight later this year,” says the USAF.

The USAF has said it wants ARRW to achieve initial operational capability by fiscal year 2022. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor developing the missile.

The ARRW (pronounced “arrow”) is based on the Tactical Boost Glide weapon, a joint effort between the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the USAF. It is designed to be dropped from an aircraft – B-52s or perhaps Boeing F-15 fighters. It uses a booster rocket to climb to a terminal altitude, where the wedge-shaped weapon would detach and glide to Earth at hypersonic speed.

“The weapon system is designed to provide combatant commanders the capability to destroy high-value, time-sensitive targets,” says the USAF. “ARRW will also expand precision-strike weapon systems’ capabilities by enabling rapid response strikes against heavily defended land targets.”

The USA is in an arms race against Russia and China to develop, test, produce and deploy operational hypersonic missiles. However, unlike Moscow’s and Beijing’s efforts to develop nuclear-tipped hypersonic weapons, Washington intends to install conventional warheads on its missiles or no warheads at all, instead using kinetic force to destroy targets.



US Air Force completes final captive-carry test of ARRW hypersonic missile

 

asianobserve

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Video of the simulated man vs. AI dogfights:
 
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