US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

now wonder what's the current status of A-10 retirement ... a moment ago google search with
a-10+retirement+date
didn't show any particular date to me ...

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navyreco said:

Now that is a strange one

Kongsberg showcased a Vertical Launch Joint Strike Missile (VL JSM) during AUSA 2014

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You should have seen the guy's face when I pointed the fact that Lockheed Martin name was on the missile

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Scratch said:

I don't think there is an actual date as of now. The USAF wanted to retire the A-10 fleet in 2015. However, Congress has vetoed this in the 2015 defense approbriations bill (?), or whatever this is called. So the decission is just delayed. I guess the USAF will still try to retire the A-10s and in the meantime try to convice lawmakers that it's the best choice available to them. So I would think the next try would then be in FY16.

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Jeff Head said:

But there is no other aircraft, existing or proposed at this point, that can stand with the A-10 in terms of CAS. There are newer, more modern aircraft, but the A-10's armor, carrying capacity, and its loiter capacity are not matched, and they make it the darling of the troops...and understandably so.

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Skywatcher said:

Wish I'd though to say that to them...

But my conversation indicated that the JSM was there because of the USA possibly resurrecting Coastal Artillery.

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Scratch said:

I very much agree with your points.
However, in the not so distant future, the A-10 will leave the battlefield, and I honestly believe we will not see a replacement for it. The A-10 does bring a great choice of weapons and lots of station time. Especially the gun is a very effective tool. The relatively large warhead in the heavy 30mm caliber, the large amount of ammo, and the platforms ability to disperse the impacts on the ground or keep them closely together as needed give you effects as desired. If you wish, you have a small cluster weapon effect without the after action headaches of true CBUs.
The 20mm, air-air optimized M61 variants that most other types carry, normally won't do that much with the limited amount of ammo. Also, in poor weather the Hogs abilty to go low below the clouds at modest speeds with the safety of it's armour provide support when other platforms can't really do it.

Now while there's no aircraft per se on the horizon replacing those capabilities, there's weapons & technologies that can make existing aircraft emulate the effects.
For low intensity COIN conflicts, planes like the Scorpion will still provide good loiter with weaponry very well matching the targets at hand. Stuff like Mk81 type PGMs, Hydra 70 APKWS, Griffin & Viper Strike. They will do so at very modest cost.
Advancing technology will allow dismounted infantry to carry light equipment producing GPS weapons grade targeting data in the field, so now a long loitering B-1 can drop JDAMs from 30.000ft through the clouds. Again, using something like ViperStrike, you should be able to target a group of those weapons in a pattern on / around a target, achieving a CBU / GAU-8 like effect. And Strike Eagles, Lancers or Hercs should be able to carry scores of these weapons, should they get integrated.
For high intensity, regular warfare fast movers with Brimstone (like) weapons using MMW radar should be able to emulate the GAU-8 effects against armour, albeit at a higher cost, of course.
So, at some point, we should be able to cover maybe 90-95% of the A-10s capability, and then have to decide if saving the alleged $4B is worth abstaining from the last 5% maybe.

All of that being said of course, nothing again will ever come close to the pure presence and dominance of a GAU-8 doing it's job on a tightly maneuvering Warthog.

Anyway, sorry for the lenghty reply, just felt like sharing my feelings here

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Scratch said:

I very much agree with your points.
However, in the not so distant future, the A-10 will leave the battlefield, and I honestly believe we will not see a replacement for it. The A-10 does bring a great choice of weapons and lots of station time. Especially the gun is a very effective tool. The relatively large warhead in the heavy 30mm caliber, the large amount of ammo, and the platforms ability to disperse the impacts on the ground or keep them closely together as needed give you effects as desired. If you wish, you have a small cluster weapon effect without the after action headaches of true CBUs.
The 20mm, air-air optimized M61 variants that most other types carry, normally won't do that much with the limited amount of ammo. Also, in poor weather the Hogs abilty to go low below the clouds at modest speeds with the safety of it's armour provide support when other platforms can't really do it.

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Now while there's no aircraft per se on the horizon replacing those capabilities, there's weapons & technologies that can make existing aircraft emulate the effects.
For low intensity COIN conflicts, planes like the Scorpion will still provide good loiter with weaponry very well matching the targets at hand. Stuff like Mk81 type PGMs, Hydra 70 APKWS, Griffin & Viper Strike. They will do so at very modest cost.
Advancing technology will allow dismounted infantry to carry light equipment producing GPS weapons grade targeting data in the field, so now a long loitering B-1 can drop JDAMs from 30.000ft through the clouds. Again, using something like ViperStrike, you should be able to target a group of those weapons in a pattern on / around a target, achieving a CBU / GAU-8 like effect. And Strike Eagles, Lancers or Hercs should be able to carry scores of these weapons, should they get integrated.
For high intensity, regular warfare fast movers with Brimstone (like) weapons using MMW radar should be able to emulate the GAU-8 effects against armour, albeit at a higher cost, of course.
So, at some point, we should be able to cover maybe 90-95% of the A-10s capability, and then have to decide if saving the alleged $4B is worth abstaining from the last 5% maybe.

All of that being said of course, nothing again will ever come close to the pure presence and dominance of a GAU-8 doing it's job on a tightly maneuvering Warthog.

Anyway, sorry for the lenghty reply, just felt like sharing my feelings here

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SOCOM wants to start data mining the open web
Oct. 27, 2014 - 03:37PM |
By Paul McLeary
Staff writer
FILED UNDER
News
Military Technology
WASHINGTON — U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is building an open-source data-mining program that will run automatic keyword searches across a variety of websites and databases, allowing its operators to build a better picture of their operating environment in as close to real time as possible.

The command held a series of meetings with a group of defense industry representatives in late June to discover what commercial tech might be available in the near future, according to a SOCOM official.

Dubbed AVATAR — “Automated Visualization for Tailored Analytical Reporting” — the program would be run by existing SOCOM staffers at the “tactical, strategic and operational levels” of action, according to command spokesman Navy Capt. Kevin Aandahl.

The objective, Aandahl said, is to “filter and display open-source information in a way that is specific and timely to the needs and requirements of the SOF [special operations forces].”

A request for information released in May stated that the program would comprise functional areas: “data acquisition, data mining and analysis, visualization and reporting, and alerts and monitoring.”

SOCOM is also looking for contractors to provide the ability to “perform high-volume queries quickly and conduct searches on pre-determined websites.”

The data-mining software, the May solicitation said, would “automatically extract information of interest from all types of structured, unstructured, and multimedia data,” then perform link analysis and correlate that information with intelligence that has already been provided by the big US intelligence agencies.

The national security strategy outlined by the White House in 2012 places a premium on the use of special operations forces to operate — quietly — with allies on train and assist missions while continuing their counterterror mission wherever Washington deems fit.

But that doesn’t always mean that specific missions will be given a high priority by the big intelligence agencies.

When operators go to perform a small mission, they have to tailor their intelligence packages for the geographic area, and “that’s something that’s hard to get from one of the big intel agencies on short notice, because those agencies are worried about those top-level national priorities,” said Jim Penrose, a former National Security Agency intelligence officer.

“So when SOCOM needs to go into a denied area that’s way down on the priority list, the big agencies are going to have a hard time moving and shifting resources because they’ve already got so many other priorities,” he added.

Penrose, executive vice president for cyber intelligence at Dark Trace, a UK-based cybersecurity firm, said domestic privacy issues are not as much of a concern, since much of what he expects SOCOM operators to query are existing government databases.

If and when they do scan the web, SOCOM will have to operate under DoD rules that prohibit operations within the United States and place limits on what kinds of data they can access overseas.

While there is some seed money for the program in the fiscal 2015 budget, no decision as to when and how to fully launch the program has been made. Aandahl declined to say how much was requested.

SOCOM claims not to expect to have to add staffing to the 69,000 person agency in order to maintain the program, though Penrose isn’t so sure. “It’s a noble goal but the reality is that there’s going to be a lot of technologists behind the scenes” to maintain the system, he said. “So I think there will be a human capital cost to it even if it’s not an intelligence analyst doing it.”

In many respects, the program sounds like a study that SOCOM scuttled in August 2012 called Quantum Leap.

That effort involved a group of civilian contract and government employees gathering in Crystal City, Virginia, for a nine-day experiment to ascertain if the command could successfully mine social media and other open-source information databases to gather intelligence.

An after-action report leaked by watchdog organization Secrecy News in August 2013 reported that the experiment “was successful in identifying strategies and techniques for exploiting open sources of information, particularly social media.”

That effort was short-lived, however. When contacted for comment, a SOCOM spokesman insisted that Quantum Leap was “a very small, little-known, inconsequential experiment that was defunded” after that first experiment in Virginia.

When asked about the similarities between the previous study and AVATAR,Aandahl said personnel working on the AVATAR effort “do not have any knowledge of what you referenced as the ‘Quantum Leap study.’ ”

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Army intelligence: Profiting from failure
Oct. 27, 2014 - 11:25AM
By Ken Dilanian
The Associated Press
FILED UNDER
News
Military Technology

WASHINGTON — The Army’s troubled $5 billion intelligence fusion network has been a source of lucrative contracts for companies whose employees once worked for the Army, but it has failed on its promise to make data seamlessly accessible to soldiers in the field, according to records and interviews.

The Distributed Common Ground System, or DCGS-A, was supposed to integrate information from a network of sensors and databases into a common intelligence picture as readily available at the Pentagon as in the farthest reaches of Afghanistan.

But the program has so far been a bust, with one memorable Army testing report finding it “not operationally effective, not operationally suitable and not survivable.”

The performance failures of the DCGS-A network have been well-documented, but less scrutiny has been devoted to the revolving door between defense companies that profit from the troubled intelligence system and the military commands that continue to fund it, records show.

Several people who worked in key roles in Army intelligence left for top jobs at those companies. In the world of government contracting, that’s not illegal or entirely uncommon, but critics say it perpetuates a culture of failure.

“The Defense Department and the Army are not going with companies that have proven solutions,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a critic of DCGS-A who serves on the House Armed Services subcommittee on intelligence. “What they are going with are people who know government and the government acquisition process.”

In one case, someone from the private sector ended up in government.

Russell Richardson, an engineer and businessman who was an architect of the program, made millions as a contractor, then joined the Army intelligence command as a senior employee.

Richardson was paid more than $13 million in 2011 after he helped sell a small military intelligence business, Potomac Fusion, to a larger intelligence contractor, he said. He also received stock valued at nearly $1 million in the buyer, Sotera Defense Solutions, he said, though he said that the stock later became worthless. Both Potomac and Sotera Defense had long counted on work on DCGS-A and related programs as an important source of revenue, records show.

Having signed a noncompete agreement with Sotera Defense, Richardson took a job as a senior civilian official with the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, known as INSCOM, in June 2012. Among the command’s assignments was improving DCGS-A. Army officials declined to disclose Richardson’s salary but said the job paid between $120,800 and $181,500 a year.

Richardson, whose title was science adviser, said he wrote requirements for services that resulted in subcontracts for a variety of companies, including Sotera Defense, although he continued to own its stock.

It was all perfectly legal, an Army spokesman, Myron Young, said in a statement, because Richardson didn’t play a direct role in awarding the contracts to Sotera.

But Richardson said he properly acknowledged a conflict of interest and removed himself from direct participation in Sotera-related decisions in 2012. In May 2014 he went further, disqualifying himself from any involvement in any matter that touched the company. He left the Army in July 2014 to join a cybersecurity company headed by former National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander.

“I followed the rules,” said Richardson, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from Ohio State University.

Still, some critics see Richardson’s seamless move from contractor to government decision-maker and back as problematic.

“He never should have held the job,” said John Weiler, vice chairman of the IT Acquisition Advisory Council and a critic of military procurement. “He was a walking conflict of interest.”

Richard says his position may have hurt Sotera by making Army contractors more cautious about awarding work to the company.

He rejects the criticisms of DCGS-A and doesn’t apologize for the wealth he has reaped helping to build the system. The taxpayers got a good deal for the millions they paid the two contracting firms he led and sold, he said.

“Absolutely, I think they’ve done very, very well by me,” he said.

In other examples, a major DCGS-A subcontractor, General Dynamics, hired Lynn Schnurr, a key backer of the system while she was chief information officer for Army intelligence. General Dynamics declined comment on behalf of the company and Schnurr.

Within two months of his March 2013 retirement as INSCOM’s futures director, Timothy Hill joined Invertix Corp, which became part of Altamira Technologies Corp., as its director of intelligence strategies. In May 2013, Invertix Corp received a sole source contract worth $33 million — later increased to $48 million — from INSCOM.

In an email exchange with The Associated Press, Hill, who left Invertix/Altamira this year, said he was not involved in that contract or any other buying activity during his last year at INSCOM. He said he did not work on matters involving INSCOM while he was at the company.

“I have had no contractual interaction with the Army or INSCOM since my retirement,” Hill said.

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Personnel chief: Army may be drawing down too fast
Oct. 26, 2014 - 06:00AM |


By Jim Tice
Staff writer
FILED UNDER
Careers
The Army will continue to reduce promotions and force out soldiers in 2015, even as manpower officials voice concern the service may be drawing down too fast and deeply.

“We are very concerned that because of the strategic considerations, we may be driving very close to the curb as we move forward,” said Lt. Gen. James McConville, the service’s chief personnel officer (G-1), in an interview with Army Times.

The budget picture remains unclear at the same time the service is ramping up global missions. This has led to uncertainties relating to the future size of the Army, and as a result, McConville cannot accurately project how many soldiers will be forced out of service by the retention boards that will meet in 2015.

In terms of planning for the drawdown, McConville said, “we made some assumptions in 2012 regarding what the environment was going to be today,” but that picture has changed with what we are seeing with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the Russian incursion in Ukraine and the Ebola outbreak in Africa.”

While the size of the Army is determined by Congress, not the Defense Department or the Army, similar concerns regarding the size of the force and the changing strategic environment were raised by John McHugh, secretary of the Army, and Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno during the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army in mid-October.

For now, the coming year is projected to look much like 2014. There will be a series of retention screenings, force-outs and reduced promotions as the Army drives toward an end strength of 490,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2015, according to the senior Pentagon officials who oversee personnel policies. Fiscal 2014 ended with 508,000 soldiers in the active component.

The accession missions of 57,000 enlisted soldiers and 4,100 officers for this year are designed to support a much smaller Army, but the service will have to work aggressively to retain those soldiers as they move through their career timelines.

Involuntary separations
When the drawdown started in 2010, there were nearly 570,000 soldiers on active duty, and the force reduction goal was 545,000, said Maj. Gen. Thomas Seamands, the G1 director of military personnel management, who also was interviewed by Army Times.

Because of budgetary considerations, the end-strength goal was reduced to 490,000, and the drawdown completion date accelerated from 2017 to 2015 to accommodate a possible further reduction to 450,000, or even 420,000, by the end of the decade because of the severe fiscal constraints that would be imposed by a governmentwide spending hiatus called sequestration.

Retention and force-out projections will not be known until just before the boards convene this year, Seamands said.

Those screenings will include Selective Early Retirement Boards, or SERBs, for Army Competitive Category colonels and lieutenant colonels in November, and an Officer Separation board for ACC captains in September. Seamands said the Army remains committed to a policy of not hitting year groups more than once for a retention review, “but if we have to do any force shaping, we will do that through the promotion process,” in which officers who are consecutively passed over for advancement to the same rank will be subject to involuntary separation.

Qualitative Service Program boards will screen certain categories of NCOs in conjunction with the Regular Army and Active Guard and Reserve boards that meet in conjunction with the 2015 senior NCO promotion boards.

For example, when the Army expanded to support the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, the primary zone select rate for major exceeded 90 percent, but it has since been sharply reduced, and in 2014 registered only 65 percent.

To date 90 percent of the NCOs who have been designated for involuntary separation were eligible for some kind of retirement — either regular retirement achieved by serving 20 or more years of service, or the Temporary Early Retirement Authority, the drawdown option that allows certain officers and NCOs to retire with as few 15 years of service.

The board review processes are complemented by early-out programs that allow certain enlisted soldiers to separate several weeks or months in advance of their expiration term of service if they are in units scheduled for deactivation, or they have a documented hiring commitment from a non-Army employer.

So far, about 1,500 short-timers have separated early, according to Seamands.

“If a soldier’s unit is deactivating, it doesn’t make sense to keep (him or her) on active duty if they are going to school, have a promise of a job or are going into the reserves,” he said.

While not related to the drawdown, the Army continues to force out staff sergeants and senior NCOs who do not measure up to service standards for behavior and job performance. In 2015, these Qualitative Management Program screenings will be held quarterly in conjunction with the senior NCO promotion boards.

Seamands said the Army remains committed to a policy of not hitting year groups more than once for a retention review, “but if we have to do any force shaping, we will do that through the promotion process,” in which officers who are consecutively passed over for advancement to the same rank will be subject to involuntary separation.

Reductions also will be achieved through normal attrition, separations, retirements, and conservative recruiting and retention missions.

“We are drawing down now, but even when we are not, more than 100,000 enlisted soldiers and officers will come out of the active and reserve components annually,” McConville said.

“Historically 15 percent of enlisted soldiers and 30 percent of officers stay for 20 years and retirement eligibility.”

“The rest are going to come out of the Army,” he said.

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Brumby said:

Ultimately you can't have what you can't afford to keep.

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

Its not a question of whether the USAF can afford it, its a question of priorities. The USAF is pushing F35A as a high priority followed by B3 bombers, then the drone programs and then legacy systems. This is based on its perceptions of what it can budget in the next year's followed by where it expects to be fighting and against what. A10 is a specialist. It was conceived as a flying can opener with a nasty hankering for Russian tanks. In the Gulf war it had its best meals, but after that its been starving. The end of the cold war meant that the large banquet of T64s, T72s, T80s and T90s that A10 was to munch on was called off. Conflicts of smaller scale with less armor are the new normal.
The USAF looking at that and Iraq and Afghanistan and seeing less and less call for a dedicated tank buster plus getting the vibe from the White house that the Pacific ocean is the new areas of interest. Looks at A10 and is not seeing a priority program. If the USAF was to be called on for action in the Pacific ocean they are seeing more air to air, air to surface particularly Anti ship missions then tank busting. Even if they did encounter Armor chances are it would be lighter amphibious types with thinner hulls and smaller numbers. As such they were looking to prioritize F35A which has a smaller radar cross-sections and packs some of the fire power but is more flexible.
Now A10 got a congressional reprieve from the chopping block. But eventually the day will come when Congress is not going to pull the eleventh hour save. Most likely Warthog is not going to survive the 2020s. However I think then there maybe options to absorb the capabilities lost by her retirement.
First by the 2020s F35 will be enforce, with numbers across the three services USAF, USMC, and USN. This will take part of it second the US Army's JMR program should be entering service. Part of that program calls for a Attack Rotary craft of the medium weight. Now the two leading bids for the FVL demonstrators and one of the secondary's have shown concept art for attack platforms. Sikorsky displayed models of a compound Coaxial pusher attack platform with the speed of a Osprey a nose mounted Gatling cannon and a mix of internal and external hard points for rockets, missiles and bombs. Bell has shown CGI and models of a AV280 Valor with a 30 mike mike chin mounted cannon and swing out stub wings with rockets missiles and bombs. As either a compound Helicopter or a Tilt rotor the range offered combined with firepower options and speed would be a near match to A10 but the vertical take off and landing offering additional flexibility. If the A10 is cancelled in the 2020s the US Army and Marines may then push to procure large numbers of JMR attack platforms not just to replace there existing AH64/AH1 fleets but also to fill part of the gap created with the retirement of A10. This could take the form of ordering JMR attackers on a 2 for every 1 legacy systems replaced.

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