Alone, If Necessary: The Shield of Poland

In the wake of events in Georgia and Crimea, Poland has emerged as NATO’s key eastern bastion. The Tarcza Polski (Shield of Poland) aims to give it an advanced air defense system to match.

Poland’s military rise has been slow, but steady. Smart economic policies have created growth, and a willingness to finance national defense is slowly improving their equipment. Combat deployments abroad to Iraq and Afghanistan have both sharpened training, and highlighted areas that still need fixing. Missile proliferation in the Middle East, American fecklessness, and a rearming Russia have all led Poland to the conclusion that they can no longer depend on old Soviet-era air defense equipment. They need their own advanced national air defense system, which can benefit from allied contributions without being dependent on them.

C2BMC: Putting the ‘System’ in Ballistic Missile Defense

Monitors went black
Sell everything!

C2BMC puts the “system” in the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System. At least that’s how the US Missile Defense Agency describes the Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) element. Basically, C2BMC synchronizes individual missile defense systems, sensors, and operators, which is essential to the layered missile defense approach the agency is working to develop. Since no one system is foolproof, layered system is designed to destroy enemy ballistic missiles by tracking and engaging them in all phases of flight, from boost, mid-course, and terminal phases of ballistic missiles. Tying all that together is a real challenge, since these systems weren’t all designed from the outset to operate together.

Some elements of the USA’s current missile warning and defense architecture include DSP and SBIRS satellites, Aegis BMD ships, Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Patriot anti-air missile defense, and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, along with flexible dual-use elements like the Patriot PAC-3, other sensors that might be plugged into the network, and other elements that will be developed in future…

US Navy Leaning on CANES to Integrate Shipboard Networks

Networking the Navy

The US Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program is designed to streamline and update shipboard networks to improve interoperability across the fleet. It will replace 5 shipboard legacy network programs to provide the common computing environment on board for command, control, intelligence and logistics. The primary goal of the CANES program is to build a secure shipboard network required for naval and joint operations, which is much easier when you consolidate and reduce the number of shipboard networks. That consolidation can also lower costs and maintenance requirements and reduce training needs, if good choices are made. The intent is to build it as an Infrastructure and Platform as a Service (IaaS / PaaS) and field it on a rolling 4-year hardware baseline and a 2-year software baseline.

In 2010, the US Navy awarded 2 contracts, with a potential value of $1.7 billion, for the design and development of the CANES common computing environment. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are competing, and a single prime contractor was expected to be picked in 2011. It took until early 2012, but Northrop Grumman won.

Korea’s KDX-III AEGIS Destroyers

ROKS King Sejong the Great,
RIMPAC 2010

KDX (Korean Destroyer eXperimental) is the Republic of Korea’s big surface combatant shipbuilding program. This 3-phased program involves 3 individual classes of ships. The 3 KDX-I Gwanggaeto the Great Class ships are called destroyers, but at 3,800 tons, their size and armament more properly rank them as small frigates. The last ship of class was commissioned in 2000. The next 6 KDX-II Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin Class ships are indeed destroyers at 6,085 tons full load, with a hull design licensed from Germany’s IABG, and more advanced systems that include SM-2 air defense missiles. They were commissioned between 2003-2008.

With that experience under their belts, Korea entered the 3rd phase of the program. Their KDX-III King Sejong the Great Class destroyers weigh in at 8,500 tons standard displacement and 11,000 tons full load. That’s heavier than the USA’s CG-47 Ticonderoga Class cruisers, making them the largest ships in the world to carry Lockheed Martin’s AEGIS combat system. They’ll form the high end of South Korea’s Navy, while offering a premium showcase for some of the new weapons and electronic systems developed by South Korea’s defense sector.

LPD-17 San Antonio Class: The USA’s New Amphibious Ships

LPD-17 cutaway

LPD-17 San Antonio class amphibious assault support vessels are just entering service with the US Navy, and 11 ships of this class are eventually slated to replace up to 41 previous ships. Much like their smaller predecessors, their mission is to embark, transport, land, and support elements of a US Marine Corps Landing Force. The difference is found in these ships’ size, their cost, and the capabilities and technologies used to perform those missions. Among other additions, this new ship is designed to operate the Marines’ new MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, alongside the standard well decks for hovercraft and amphibious armored personnel carriers.

While its design incorporates notable advances, the number of serious issues encountered in this ship class have been much higher than usual, and more extensive. The New Orleans shipyard to which most of this contract was assigned appears to be part of the problem. Initial ships have been criticized, often, for sub-standard workmanship, and it took 2 1/2 years after the initial ship of class was delivered before any of them could be sent on an operational cruise. Whereupon the USS San Antonio promptly found itself laid up Bahrain, due to oil leaks. It hasn’t been the only ship of its class hurt by serious mechanical issues. Meanwhile, costs are almost twice the originally promised amounts, reaching over $1.6 billion per ship – 2 to 3 times as much as many foreign LPDs like the Rotterdam Class, and more than 10 times as much as Singapore’s 6,600 ton Endurance Class LPD. This article covers the LPD-17 San Antonio Class program, including its technologies, its problems, and ongoing contracts and events.

Studies, Science, Cybersecurity & Saddam: $888.8M to IDA for its 3 US FFRDCs from 2014-2018.

The Institute for Defense Analysis in Alexandria, VA recently received a 5-year indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract worth up to $888.8 million, for research and analysis from the 3 Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC) they run. Just to give you some of the flavor, IDA’s recent Research Notes [PDF] publication includes “The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings Of A Tyrant’s Regime 1978-2001″, as well as briefings covering cloud computing security, rates and causes of rotorcraft casualties from 2001 – 2009, etc.

FFRDC?

@NetSecWonk’d: Lessons from the Joseph Affair

Former National Security Council (NSC) non-proliferation staffer and potential Pentagon AT&L advisor Jofi Joseph isn’t the first person to be undone by social media, and he won’t be the last. The inconvenient truth is that social media security isn’t even close to the main takeaway from this episode.

Our advice re: social media still stands, but we should begin by acknowledging that Twitter just did the US government a big favor…

Aerospace, Excelled: The USA’s Arnold Engineering Development Center

AEDC at work: X-29

The Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), named for U.S. Air Force pioneer Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold, bills itself as “The World’s Premier Flight Simulation Test Facility.” Nearly half of the AEDC’s 58 test facilities are unique in the U.S., and 14 are unique in the world. These specialized test facilities have played a crucial role in the development and sustainment of virtually every high performance aircraft, air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon, missile, and space system in use by all four of the U.S. military services today. The Center has also been involved in the development of every NASA manned space system, many satellites, and numerous commercial aircraft and spacecraft systems.

In 2003, the Air Force consolidated the test operations contract and the base services contract into a single contract for operations, maintenance, information management, and base support, which was awarded to Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) in Tullahoma, TN.

Iraq: Weapons – and Challenges – In the Pipeline

The last quarterly report [PDF] from SIGIR (the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction) included an interview with OSC-I (Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq) head Lieutenant General Robert Caslen.

Among other things, it provides an interesting breakdown of Iraq’s planned future purchases. Overall:

$7 billion Over 5 Years for US Army’s Software Engineering Center

In June 2013, the US Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD issued a 5-year multiple-award contract worth up to $7 billion. Winners will compete for task orders to support the Army’s Software Engineering Center with development and systems engineering services until May 30/18. 11 companies bid, and 8 were picked as qualifying options. The winners include…