Armada International - December 2021/January 2022

December 2021-january 2022. Issue 06.

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- december 2021/january 2022

Editorial

ON THE COVER Royal Air Force and US Marine Corps F-35s breaking formation. The use of simulators to train F-35 pilots is an increasingly vital part of their training to allow them to operate much of the aircraft's capabilities in coalition and in a virtually private environment.

December 2021-january 2022. Issue 06.

ARMADA 01 Cover Dec-Jan 22.indd 1

11/29/2564 BE 10:07 AM

(Photo: Jamie Hunter)

Volume 45, Issue No.6, DECEMBER 2021-JANUARY 2022 Published bi-monthly by Media Transasia Ltd. Copyright 2012 by Media Transasia Ltd. Publishing Office: Media Transasia Ltd., 1603, 16/F, Island PL Tower, 510 Kings Road, Hong Kong Editor-in-Chief: Andrew Drwiega General Manager: Jakhongir Djalmetov International Marketing Manager: Roman Durksen Digital Manager: David Siriphonphutakun Art Director: Rachata Sharma Chairman: J.S. Uberoi President: Egasith Chotpakditrakul Chief Financial Officer: Gaurav Kumar Advertising Sales Offices France/Spain Stephane de Remusat, REM International Tel: (33) 5 3427 0130 E-Mail: sremusat@rem-intl.com Germany Sam Baird, Whitehill Media Tel: (44-1883) 715 697 Mobile: (44-7770) 237 646 E-Mail: sam@whitehillmedia.com UK Zena Coupé Tel: +44 1923 852537, zena@expomedia.biz Nordic Countries/Italy/Switzerland Emanuela Castagnetti-Gillberg Tel: (46) 31 799 9028 E-Mail: emanuela.armada@gmail.com Russia Alla Butova, NOVO-Media Ltd, Tel/Fax: (7 3832) 180 885 Mobile : (7 960) 783 6653 Email :alla@mediatransasia.com USA east coast / Canada Margie Brown, Blessall Media, LLC. Tel : (+1 540) 341 7581 Email: margiespub@rcn.com USA West Coast Pat Walker Tel: +1 415 994 0019 E-Mail: walkercom111@gmail.com

O

RUSSIA JOINS SPACE MADNESS

n Monday 15 November, Russia launched a direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missile at its obsolete Cosmos-1408 intelligence satellite.

The destruction of that two-ton satellite created over 1,500 pieces of trackable space debris in low earth orbit (LEO) - between 440 kilometres (248 miles) and 520km (323mi) above the planet - as well as tens of thousands more smaller shards, according to US Space Command.

The action was regarded as so serious that NASA ordered the crew of the International Space Station - orbiting at an altitude of 370km (230 mi) - into a ‘refuge’ for a couple of hours. France’s Defence Minister Florence Parly said that the action was that of ‘space vandals'. This followed comments made by General James Dickinson, US Space Command commander who called the incident “a deliberate disregard for the security, safety, stability, and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations.”

What was overtly demonstrated by Russia blowing up one of its old satellites in space, adding tens of thousands of space debris to an already concerning problem, was the high level of irresponsibility and an illogical lack of care for a domain that is rapidly growing in commercial importance to every nation on earth.

It ranks alongside the deliberate and equally irresponsible destruction by China of their own weather satellite - Feng Yun-1C - in 2007, by crashing their own kinetic kill vehicle (reportedly based on a DF-21 ballistic missile) into it creating “40,000 pieces of debris larger than 1 centimetre” according to the New Scientist publication (20 January 2007). This was done at an altitude of 865km (537mi).

The United States has also conducted its own anti-satellite tests including the destruction of US spy satellite USA-193 in February 2008 using a ship launched RIM161 Standard Missile 3 at a height of around 247km (153mi). While most of the debris entered earth’s atmosphere within a few months, the final pieces that had been blown upwards only reentered over a year and a half later.

Space is now widely recognised as a military as well as civilian domain, with many countries rushing to establish their own national ‘space force’ organisations.

However, blowing up anything in space when the lives of everyone on earth can be serious effected is more irresponsible today than at any time in the past.

INDIA Sanjay Seth Global Exposures Tel: +91 11 466 96566 Mob: +91 9818 697279 Email: sseth.globex@gmail.com

Andrew Drwiega, Editor-in-Chief

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13 15 21 Cover 3 Cover 2 27 5 17 29 11 Cover 4

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DECEMBER 2021-JANUARY 2022 www.armadainternational.com

06 commander's intent

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14 AIR POWER

18 land warfare

NATO’S EMERGING MARITIME THREATS Dr Lee Willett provides an insight into traditional and emerging threats to the alliance as perceived by Vice Admiral Keith Blount, NATO’s Commander Allied Maritime Command.

land warfare WINNING THE CQB Stephen W Miller provides an insight into weapons and sights that allow quick reactions in the close quarter battle.

SYNTHETIC TRAINING FOR COMBAT AIR: CBRN DANGER PERSISTS PANACEA OR PIPEDREAM? The threat of CBRN is still real. COVID-19 has Aircraft such as the F-35 are running out of sky - raised global biological awareness. and privacy - where they can adequately train. Jon David Oliver reports.

Lake asks whether synthetic is the right solution.

26 land warfare

US ARMY BIG SIX REQUIREMENTS AND PROGRAMMES (PART 2) Andrew Drwiega provides a summary of the last two elements to the US Army's Big Six technology ambitions: Future Vertical Lift and Networks.

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armadainternational.com - december 2021/january 2022

22 sea power

(R)EVOLUTIONS IN NAVAL PROPULSION IT’S ELECTRIFYING! Alix Vanenti discusses how environmental concerns may conflict with increasingly power hungry systems onboard warships.

30 armada commentary

CARRIER GROUP DISAGGREGATION Dr Lee Willett examines the recent experience of the Royal Navy’s (RN’s) HMS Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group (CSG) in terms of the concept of disaggregation.

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NATO/Hellenic Navy

Commander's Intent

The Hellenic Navy’s Meko 200 Hydra-class frigate HS Spetsai conducts maritime security patrols around offshore resource platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, while supporting NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian in December 2020.

NATO’S EMERGING MARITIME THREATS Vice Admiral Keith Blount, NATO’s Commander Allied Maritime Command, discusses the range of traditional and emerging threats and risks now shaping the alliance’s maritime strategy.

N

ATO’s Commander Allied Maritime Command (COM MARCOM) operates both as the alliance’s theatre maritime component commander and principal maritime adviser to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

The current COM MARCOM is the UK Royal Navy’s (RN) Vice Admiral (VAdm) Keith Blount. Giving the keynote address to the NATO Combined Joint Operations from the Sea Centre of Excellence (CJOS CoE) annual ‘Maritime Security Regimes Roundtable’ on 3 November, VAdm Blount detailed the state-based threats to NATO, which are both enduring and emerging and are present both inside and outside the alliance’s traditional Euro-Atlantic area of responsibility (AOR).

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Dr Lee Willett Russia remains a challenge, VAdm Blount explained. He pointed to several capabilities Russia is continuing to prioritise, including nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and the wider ‘Kalibrisation’ of the Russian Federation Navy fleet. In the latter instance, he said Russia is continuing to deploy and employ Kalibr sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) across its submarine fleet and surface ships. Kalibr is a dual-role (land-attack and anti-ship) and dual-capable (conventional and nuclear) system.

CHALLENGES While SSNs and SLCMs are longestablished technologies, VAdm Blount explained that “new, cutting-edge technologies like hypersonics such as the Tsirkon missile” constitute a new characteristic of

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Russia’s traditional conventional threat.

“Anything that can fly at that kind of speed coming towards a task group is worth being concerned about, and we need to think about that,” he added, including considering how to deter such threats. The hypersonic threat is not hypothetical. On 18 November, Russia conducted its latest Tsirkon test-firing, from the navy’s Northern Fleet frigate Admiral Gorshkov, in the Arctic region’s White Sea: Russian news agency TASS reported that the test missile struck “a naval target”.

The other primary state-based area of focus for NATO is what VAdm Blount referred to as “the newest competition challenge”, namely People’s Republic of China.

“The one that sits in the in-tray somewhere – it’s not right at the top, but we’ve got to recognise it’s in there somewhere – has to

Commander's Intent

in isolation, or where do China and Russia sit together?”

The Chinese and Russian navies have also conducted several combined exercises in the Euro-Atlantic theatre, with the most recent event taking place in the Baltic in 2017.

VAdm Blount added that addressing twin state-based challenges, one residing largely in the Euro-Atlantic theatre and one residing largely in the Western Pacific, also raises the question of whether NATO could find itself spread too thinly, changing alliance dynamics. “That in and of itself is worth consideration and close study,” he said.

NATO’s enduring state-based challenge also brings a set of emerging threats to alliance interests below the high end of the operational spectrum. Such threats are classified as asymmetric, hybrid, ‘grey zone’ activities. Much of this activity occurs in the cyber domain – for example, GPS jamming or spoofing ship automatic identification system (AIS) data, VAdm Blount explained.

A primary cyber challenge for NATO and other Western stakeholders is attributing attacks to the correct source, and being able to respond appropriately. “It’s obvious when a cyber attack takes place, [for example] on a big banking institution or other entity; you can identify that as a cyber attack. Trying to attribute it is considerably harder,” he said.

Xinhua

be China,” he said. “Our Secretary General [Jens Stoltenberg] is talking routinely now about China as a threat to the international rules-based order – something that China would oppose as a view,” VAdm Blount continued, adding: “The Secretary General has said that countering the security threat from the rise of China will be an important part of NATO’s future.”

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is routinely present in the Indian Ocean and occasionally so in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. However, NATO’s senior leadership talks more frequently of alliance interests in the Indo-Pacific region, and some NATO member-state navies now operate more regularly in the Pacific, often alongside the US Navy (USN): for example, the recent RN HMS Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group (CSG) deployment (with US Marine Corps Lockheed Martin F-35s), which operated across the Indo-Pacific region, included a Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) frigate as well as a USN destroyer.

While noting that a collective alliance naval presence enables NATO to outnumber Russian naval forces in the Euro-Atlantic theatre, VAdm Blount pointed to increased Sino-Russian integration at sea. “We’ve just seen Russian and Chinese combined task groups sailing around Taiwan.” In terms of impact for NATO, he questioned: “What does that mean for us? Where does China sit

Russian and Chinese ships are pictured operating in a combined deployment in the East China Sea during the naval exercise Joint Sea-2021 in mid October. The presence of two peer competitors, one operating largely in the Euro-Atlantic theatre and one operating largely in the Indo-Pacific theatre, creates a challenge for NATO in balancing global commitments.

NATO Maritime Command

“Anything that can fly at that kind of speed coming towards a task group is worth being concerned about.”

NATO’s Commander Allied Maritime Command (COM MARCOM), Vice Admiral Keith Blount, Royal Navy.

NATO is enhancing its technological response to cyber threats. “We now have our own cyber operations centre within SHAPE [Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe], we’re orientating to it ourselves – but there’s a lifetime of work here because, in much the same way as hypersonics replaced missiles that aren’t hypersonic, new cyber capabilities replace older cyber capabilities,” said VAdm Blount. “So, we are forever getting after things that are threatening to get away from us.”

One particular threat that has both cyber and physical dimensions is the security of underwater communications and data cables. While risks to such cables have been a concern for NATO and its member states for many years, such risks were not publicly discussed. However, the extent and specific nature of the threat has become such that senior military and civilian officials within NATO and its member states now talk openly and regularly about it. Such is the importance of underwater cables and their protection that Western officials have coined a new definition for the acronym ‘SLOC’.

An example of an emerging threat, VAdm Blount explained, is “the protection of those strategic lines of communication – not so much the sea lines of communication, but a different type of SLOC – that suddenly is so widespread as a challenge, so important, and yet is still to a degree unknown in terms of what is the direct threat, how would we see it, what would the resilience be, what

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UK MoD

Commander's Intent

The Royal Netherlands Navy De Zeven Provincien-class air-defence and command frigate HNLMS Evertsen (rear) sails alongside the US Navy DDG 51 Flight I Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS The Sullivans in the Indian Ocean in October 2021. The two ships were deployed as part of the RN’s HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier strike group (CSG), which deployed from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific and back between May and December 2021.

would the alternative modes be if we were to see those things attacked, and how do we get after that as a threat – or indeed how do we deter it from happening in the first place.”

LOWER THRESHOLD THREATS Alongside the higher-end, state-based risks, NATO faces various challenges at sea at the lower end of the operational spectrum.

Some of these risks are enduring, and some are emerging. However, they are constantly changing.

Maritime terrorism continues to pose a significant risk. “We’ve taken on terrorism with Operation Sea Guardian, a very successful operation located principally in the Mediterranean Sea,” explained VAdm Blount. Sea Guardian tackles three primary tasks – maritime situational awareness, regional maritime security capacity building, and maritime terrorism. While NATO’s at-sea counter-terrorism presence was originally established, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, under the NATO Article V-based operation Active

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Endeavour, the switch to Sea Guardian in 2016 brought broader focus on maritime security challenges as a whole, while sustaining the sharp spotlight on maritime terrorism. “Since 9/11, we’ve seen the terrorist threat change quite significantly. The areas in which terrorists operate are quite different, and their entire ends, ways, and means calculus change,” he said. “[The] dynamic of modern terrorism is one that changes and morphs quickly and geographically, and is something that we’ve got to continue to get after.”

Piracy remains on NATO’s maritime radar. Operation Ocean Shield, which ran between August 2009 and December 2016, was NATO’s contribution to the international counter-piracy campaign established to address Somali-based piracy around the Horn of Africa. It was also one of the most recent examples of an ‘out of area’ alliance maritime campaign. While the East African piracy risk remains in NATO maritime minds, the new piracy risk is West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea.

Assessing the Gulf of Guinea risk, VAdm

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Blount said: “We see new piracy as something that is very, very different to the Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean piracy model.” He highlighted two particular differences: the fact that Somalia was a failed state; and the very high tempo of operations and greater levels of violence used by Gulf of Guinea pirates.

In the former instance, the lack of governance ashore in Somalia enabled piracy in the first place, but also provided a vacuum that external actors could fill to try to build stability ashore and at sea. That option does not exist in the Gulf of Guinea: moreover, its piracy problem is present in and around the waters of several littoral states meaning that it needs to be tackled almost exclusively at sea.

“We in the alliance have to consider it, not only through whether we become directly involved in it, [but] in a way that has to accept that [NATO countries] are going to get involved in it because of their sovereign desire to do so,” said VAdm Blount. Several NATO countries – including Denmark, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the

UK MoD

Commander's Intent

The RN’s Forth (River Batch II)-class offshore patrol vessel HMS Trent is pictured visiting Odessa, Ukraine in May 2021, to provide maritime training for the Ukrainian Navy. In November, the ship was off Africa’s West Coast, conducting counter-piracy maritime security escorts.

United States – have demonstrated their sovereign interest in the region through naval presence. In late November, the RN’s Forth (River Batch II)-class offshore patrol vessel escorted the UK transport ship MV Hurst Point in the Gulf of Guinea, as part of a reassurance presence to the merchant shipping community. However, the need for a Gulf of Guinea presence raises the challenge to NATO of balancing naval presence across alliance areas of interest; member states will face choices between committing assets to national or NATO operations.

There is a further challenge facing NATO and its navies that overlays these other challenges, VAdm Blount explained.

“All of the above are becoming increasingly enabled or indeed concentrated through … climate change,” he said. While climate change will affect NATO interests across its traditional AOR and elsewhere, the Arctic region in particular and the opening up of the Northern Sea Route in connecting the Pacific to the Atlantic stands out in importance. This, he said, “is contextual to the way in which we would view China as a

competitor, or indeed the way in which we would see new security challenges around the pressure on resources.” “What does that mean to maritime security, what does it mean to the Arctic Council, what does it mean to NATO?” he asked. “That’s before we start talking about rising sea levels and humanitarian security challenges that are posed through them.”

END STATE To address such maritime challenges and other domain risks to alliance interests, NATO is continuing to revise its strategic structures. In 2019, NATO published a revised Military Strategy, looking at alliance military requirements from a ‘bottom up’ perspective. On top of this, a current review of the NATO Strategic Concept will provide the ‘top down’ strategic guidance for the military strategy.

Within this strategic construct, NATO’S maritime thinking is based around three pillars - the maritime contribution to collective defence, co-operative security, and crisis management. While maritime

security has always been central to alliance maritime thinking, its increasing importance - even when set against the returning focus on high-end, state-based strategic competition – is such that NATO is now considering its addition as a fourth maritime strategy pillar, said VAdm Blount.

Within this maritime strategy framework, NATO has also now defined three functions that shape how the maritime component supports wider alliance strategies and concepts.

First is a ‘strategic’ function, which is the impact of the physical presence of NATO naval forces around its AOR and other areas of interest. Second is a ‘security’ function, which includes addressing the increasing importance of maritime security.

Third, overlaying the first two functions and drawing on the inherent credibility they demonstrate in alliance maritime capability and operations, is a ‘warfighting’ function. Together, VAdm Blount summarised, these three functions build the credibility of NATO’s overall deterrent posture.

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Smith & Wesson

LAND WARFARE

Smith & Wesson’s M&P12 pump shotgun is both compact and is compatible with 3 inch, 2¾ inch and mini-shells making it extremely adaptable. It has a capacity of up to 15 rounds with seven in each of its twin tube magazines plus one in the chamber.

WINNING THE CQB The close quarter battle (CQB) requires weapons that can be brought quickly onto a target, not to mention sights that allow quick and accurate shooting.

By Stephen W. Miller

T

he dismounted ground battle can quickly become an intimate affair with encounters occurring at close quarters.

In jungle, forests, urban areas, and broken terrain the very nature of the surroundings not only limits visibility to

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tens of meters but can effectively conceal a nearby enemy. Even the final dismounted assault can culminate in face-to-face close combat clearing enemy defensive positions.

These are life-or-death situations where acquiring a target, engaging it quickly with accuracy despite tight quarters are para-

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mount not just to success but to surviving.

These realities of the close battle directly influence the weapons and sights best used.

QCB COMBAT RIFLES The standard infantry rifle’s length itself can be a disadvantage in close quarters. The

LAND WARFARE

M14 at 1.13 meter (44inch) and similar service rifles can be difficult to handle moving through dense vegetation, as proven in Vietnam. The length of a firearm can also hamper rapid training on threats especially in buildings or confined spaces. A retracting stock has been introduced in the US M4/M4A1 carbine; its 83cm (33in) can be reduced to 75cm (29.75in) making it handier in these situations. Heckler & Koch takes this further in its G36K compact (reduces to 61cm) and G36C ultra-short (shortened to 50cm) versions of its standard G36 rifle.

Although these weapons use standard ammunition simplifying supply and assuring lethality even against body armour, their shorter barrel lengths of 27cm to 35cm (11in to 14in) reduces muzzle velocity. This impacts on performance at ranges beyond 400m. These are trade-offs that must be considered, especially in seeking a single rifle for broad use.

The 12 gauge shotgun has been considered an ideal close quarters weapon with its effectiveness demonstrated in the World War I trenches. A challenge for shotguns in the combat role is in providing adequate ammunition capacity. Mossberg’s 590M addresses this with a box magazine feed

with five to 20 round capacities. The US Marines Benelli M4/M1014 semi-automatic shotgun is designed from inception for combat, with an extended seven round tube magazine, pistol grip, ghost sights, Picatinny rail and collapsing stock. The newly introduced Smith & Wesson M&P12 is not only compact with an overall length of 70.6cm (27.8in) but has an innovative two tube magazine design holding up to seven shells each. It also has two pistol grips and a picatinny-style rail for optics and aiming accessories, and accepts a sling. According to company representatives, the Smith & Wesson M&P12 is receiving a great deal of user attention. Again, the shotgun’s short range that makes it great for close combat also limits its general military use.

The pistol, on the other hand, is widely distributed as a side arm and can be effective in close quarters. Military models are generally magazine feed semi-automatics in 9mm or other pistol calibres. Submachine guns, like the Uzi and the B & T APC9K generally use pistol ammunition. Modest numbers of the later were purchased by the US Army in 2019.

Manufacturers like H&K in its MP5 and UMP, as well as Colt’s 9mm SMG base them

on their existing assault rifle designs. All demonstrate the advantage of being easily carried, quick to aim, and effective in close quarters, especially equipped with today’s reflex sights.

CQB SIGHTS Close combat engagements feature relatively short ranges with suddenly appearing and fleeting targets. Success, therefore, relies on rapidly detecting, aiming, and firing. The technique referred to as ‘point’ or ‘snap’ shooting uses both eyes, focusing on the target, aligning the front sight, and then taking the shot in under a second. It is a learned skill that takes practice with iron sights. However, an innovation by the company Aimpoint called ‘red dot optics’ place the target and reticle on the same optical plane. This offers a single focal point allowing almost intuitive aiming at typical meeting engagement ranges. The shooter places the ‘red’ (or green) aiming dot in the sight on the target and pulls the trigger. As Frank Martello, a former US Marine, 28 year law enforcement officer and president of Stafford Tactical a firearms training facility in Virginia explained: “the biggest benefit of the red-dot is that it provides a

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H&K

LAND WARFARE

The submachine gun brings compactness and a high firing rate to the close quarters battle. Heckler & Koch’s G36C replicates its G36 Assault Service Rifle in 9mm calibre for a rugged and reliable SMG for military and special force use.

single point of reference…if you got the dot you got the shot. It will make a good shooter better.”

The red-dot has been adopted by the US, NATO, Russia, India, China, and others often using domestic manufacturers. This broad world-wide adoption of red-dot type sights for riflemen reflects an emphasis on relatively close-range engagement. It is a tacit recognition that for most tactical situations the rifleman’s primary task will be confronting enemies inside 200m.

Of the red-dot sights available, the tube style with enclosed optics has been especially popular for infantry weapons.

Aimpoint’s Comp series, for example, is used by the US Army and Air Force as the M68 Close Combat Optic. The Reflex style red-dot, on the other hand, is particularly suited for close combat where its wide field of view allows rapid target acquisition and

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broad situation awareness. The Reflex is compatible with rifles, carbines, shotguns, submachine guns and pistols. They are also the most compact and lightest red-dots with Aimpoint’s newest, the Acro, weighting only 60 grams (2.1oz). Another ‘red-dot’ type sight is the Holographic, using a laser diode and mirror projecting the reticle on the target. Offered by EO Tech, Vortex and others, they allow a shooter to focus on both the target and reticle which can be faster in close quarters situations. In very close combat or inside a building many suggest a simple red-dot is preferable – fast and simple are better!

Another sight is the Prism with etched ballistic reticles and fixed magnification.

Magnification offers better target identification than the red-dot, but by reducing the area seen through the sight makes acquiring a target more difficult. As a

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result, its use at close range can be tricky requiring training. This is a trade-off to be considered especially with a fixed magnification sight. The US Marines use of the Trijicon TA21 ACOG Rifleman Common Optic, a prism sight with 4X magnification, suggests a priority to target identification, shot placement and longer ranges.

The laser aiming sight is particularly suited to close encounters in that simply placing the projected laser dot tells the point of impact. It, thus, assures a hit regardless of the position of the weapon.

They are well suited to rapid engagements and low-light conditions. The red laser can be difficult to see in some situations while the green laser is more visible even in bright daylight conditions and at longer ranges. However, red is lighter and less expensive than the green laser. Being an active illuminating source, both can be seen

Aimpoint

LAND WARFARE

The Red-Dot sight offers intuitive aiming with both eyes allowing rapid engagement of targets. The Aimpoint COMP5 Tube Style Red-Dot (shown), one of their latest, is designed as a more compact sight suited for short and medium ranges.

and reveal the shooters position. They are particularly obvious viewed through night vision devices, so, they are best employed briefly.

FUTURE COMBAT Despite technologies that allow engaging at extended distances military history

reflects that combat at close quarters is inevitable. Armies, in pursing long range engagement, should beware of neglecting the CQB which can be not only vicious and personal but also decisive. It is, therefore, critical to provide soldiers every advantage in fighting these type of fights.

ACRO P-2™ EXPERIENCE THE ACRO ADVANTAGE • Professional grade pistol optic • CR2032 battery – 5 year life, constant-on • Fully enclosed optical channel • Compatible with night vision • Withstands extreme G-force vibration & temperature changes • Legendary Aimpoint ruggedness • Submersible to 35 meters

www.aimpoint.com The open reflex red-dot sight offers a wide field of view that enhances the shooter’s situational awareness. These red-dots are lightweight and rugged making them suited for rifles, pistols, SMGs, and shotguns.

M03551

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air Power

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter full mission simulators provide live streaming and recording during simulations benefiting pilots through after-action-reviews.

SYNTHETIC TRAINING FOR COMBAT AIR: PANACEA OR PIPEDREAM? While there seems to be a general agreement that more synthetic flying is a good thing (cost-effective, environmentally better, and broadly more inclusive), will it ultimately result in better, more confident and motivated pilots.

M

Jon Lake

ilitary flying training is already heavily reliant on the use of simulators, operating in the so-called synthetic environment.

The Eurofighter Typhoon’s synthetic environment has already allowed the Royal Air Force (RAF) to achieve a synthetic training-to-live flying ratio of close to 50:50, and No.617 Squadron is achieving a similar ratio for operational Lockheed Martin F-35 training. But a number of senior officers in the RAF (and in other air arms) are ‘betting the farm’ on dramatically extending the scope and extent of synthetic training. Air Chief

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Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) recently said that “I do not exaggerate when I say that I can see a future where almost all training, force generation, and mission planning and rehearsal is done in a synthetic environment, preserving our real-world activity for live operations or strategic signalling.” Others have predicted a synthetic v live ratio of as much as 90:10.

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH Today’s air domain is becoming increasingly contested and information-dominated, with a rapidly evolving and ever more complex threat environment. A potential

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peer-level or near-peer clash is becoming increasingly difficult to train for using traditional methods. It is hard to amass the size of force that might be engaged, and harder yet to adequately emulate a realistic peer-level threat, even given adequate funding. But more importantly, even the most life-like exercises (such as Red Flag) cannot allow participants to use their sensors and simulated weapons to their maximum potential, if they are to avoid compromising tactics and exposing weapons’ performance parametrics to enemies who are always watching. If simulated in the real world, a realistic MBDA Meteor BVRAAM shot will give those enemies useful data and could allow them to develop better tactics and countermeasures. No-one wants to fly their F-35s in full-up ‘go to war’ configuration and risk an enemy learning at exactly what range ‘fighter X’, or ‘SAM guidance radar Z’ can detect them, or lock on to them.

The synthetic environment, using a complex ‘grid’ of networked simulators offers a solution to conducting this kind of realistic operational training, though it has limitations. Even when ultra-realistic and highly immersive, many pilots feel that synthetic training never feels like the real thing – that dangerous scenarios never feel risky, and that dropping a weapon (for example) never presents the same brief ‘pause for thought’. Moreover, to be really useful, the synthetic environment has to encompass the fast jet combat air platforms, but also the enablers and force multipliers.

This is the thinking behind the RAF’s new Gladiator distributed flight simulation system which will be linked to the NEXUS combat cloud. Gladiator is intended to have an initial operational capability by the end of 2021, and will include Typhoon and other RAF and UK platforms including the Type 45 destroyer, the Boeing E-7A Wedgetail, and even the unmanned General Atomics (GAASI) MQ-9B Protector, allowing large scale virtual training to take place.

The RAF’s F-35 Lightning force uses a Lightning Integrated Training Centre (ITC) at RAF Marham, which includes four FMS (full mission simulators) with 360 degree domes, helmet-mounted displays, and full cockpits. The simulator has been accredited

by RAF test pilots to be a direct and exact representation of how the aircraft performs and handles in the air, and is said by some to be like having four extra dedicated training aircraft on the line. When embarked on the carrier, the Lightning force can take with it

A BAE Systems simulator has been used during the training of F-35 Lightning II pilots to land on Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) aircraft carriers. The simulator was based at BAE Systems' military aircraft business in Warton, Lancashire.

two deployable mission rehearsal trainers, with two cockpits in each, which can be linked together to allow a four-ship mission to be ‘flown’, just as can be undertaken in the ITC. They have the same software as the FMS, but without the full 360 degree dome.

Though the ITC’s ‘cockpits’ are networked together, data security concerns have thus far prevented them from being linked with other UK military synthetic training devices, though there is already talk of networking the ITC with USAF synthetic training devices when US Air Force F-35As become operational at nearby RAF Lakenheath.

The synthetic environment has to be secure, since otherwise it could be vulnerable to cyber attack or cyber espionage, risking the exposure of exactly the kind of highly classified mission data, weapons parametrics and tactics that the synthetic environment is intended to keep hidden from enemy eyes.

As well as being used for operational training, synthetic training is increasingly being seen as a useful tool throughout all stages or phases of pilot training, non-pilot aircrew training, and operational conversion training, and even for some maintenance training, too.

Young pilots now undergoing flying training are undertaking a much higher proportion of synthetic training compared to live flying than their predecessors did even a few years ago. The theory is that this will teach them to fly fifth-generation fighters better and will also improve their learning.

The UK is in the process of completing the introduction of the new UK Military Flying Training System (MFTS). This partnered solution between the MOD and Ascent Flying Training (a joint venture between Babcock and Lockheed Martin) is still in a state of flux, but seems certain to see a dramatic increase in the use of synthetics, as those involved seek to increase

the output of trained pilots and reduce the time taken to train those aircrew.

The current fast jet training system is based on the use of three aircraft types - the Grob Aircraft G120TP Prefect for elementary training, the Beechcraft T-6C Texan for basic training, and finally the BAE Systems Hawk T.Mk 2 for advanced training. But in an effort to speed up and increase the capacity of the system, alternative approaches are being investigated.

Some pilots have gone directly from the Prefect to the Hawk, cutting out the Texan, while others have gone directly to the Texan from Officer Training, and then onto the Hawk, cutting out the Prefect. The latter route is deemed particularly suitable for those with previous flying experience from the University Air Squadrons. These changes reportedly promise to allow a reduction in training time of about 30 percent while also increasing flexibility.

The RAF pioneered the close integration of synthetic pilot training and live flying in the Hawk T.Mk 2 Advanced Flying Training element of MFTS. The Hawk T.Mk 2 is a training system rather than a simple training aircraft, using advanced simulation and digital debriefing facilities on the ground and having comprehensive sensor and weapons emulation capabilities in the air. Today, most trainers follow the same approach, and aircraft like the Boeing T-7 Red Hawk and Aermacchi M346 Master similarly form merely the airborne element within an overall training system.

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QUICKER QUALIFICATION Until recently, the ground-based flying training environment has generally consisted of a mix of full mission simulators, part-task and desk-top trainers, but the advent of more immersive simulators, virtual reality, and Artificial Intelligence is changing this domain rapidly.

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the capacity of training courses and to improve the throughput of student pilots.

Ascent is now trialling some CAE Sprint Virtual Reality based flight training devices for fast-jet pilot training, and it is widely expected that Virtual Reality will be used to enable informal training before students start a particular course, or when they are holding or waiting for the next stage of their flying training. This promises to speed up progress through the system once student pilots formally begin a flying course.

Changing the live-synthetic balance in favour of making greater use of synthetics promises to reduce costs, but it is recognised that careful analysis will be required in order to at least maintain, or even improve, the quality of flying training while simultaneously driving down costs. An evidence-based approach, measuring student performance across all training domains, will be needed if the customer, (the Front Line) is to retain confidence in the training system, and if he is to be reassured that essential qualities are not being lost or eroded.

In the operational conversion training space, synthetics have a particularly important part to play, not least because frontline operational aircraft types tend to be much more expensive to operate – and also have a greater environmental impact. In the UK, the conversion of pilots to the Typhoon has been dramatically shortened, with a 25:75 ratio in favour of synthetic based training over live flying training leading to a 30 percent increase in the numbers of pilots trained, and a course that takes half the time that it used to. In the process, thousands of hours of costly live flying training has been saved – which also means about 9.6 tonnes of carbon saved by every synthetic flight! This will help to reduce the current

The F-35 FMS will be used by international air force operators from countries that include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England/UK, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore and South Korea

carbon footprint of live training, supporting the net zero ambitions of the UK MoD. Some believe that the best approach is not to significantly reduce live flying, but rather to use synthetics for learning and mission rehearsal, using the live environment to confirm and validate what has been covered in the synthetic environment, getting better value from live sorties.

Tristan Crawford, the CEO of Aeralis, believes that the future of training will be highly synthetic, but that a live flying capability will remain essential in order to ensure that students get the real experience that they need. “You can imagine that if you reduce the cost burden of the live flying element, because we've got a modular aircraft system, you can afford to buy more of it. So you can buy back the live flying that you still need to do to keep students motivated to fly and give you all the extra capability that you need. So synthetic doesn't mean the end of the line for the live flying, you just need to break it down differently.”

The BAE Systems Hawk T.Mk 2 is a training system which includes advanced simulation and digital debriefing facilities.

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GUARDING AGAINST OVER RELIANCE Some believe that there may also be real downsides to reducing live flying. General Charles Q.Brown, the 22nd chief of staff of the US Air Force, has pointed out the difficulties of maintaining the ability to generate large scale operations if the peacetime flying rate is too low. An over reliance on synthetics could impact adversely on the proficiency of ground crews, maintainers, armourers, air traffic controllers and other support staff. Some even fear that the ‘real world’ accident rate could increase if pilots have inadequate live flying experience.

There are potentially even more serious implications for pilot recruiting and retention. If future fast jet pilots face spending the bulk of their time sitting in simulators and looking through VR headsets, rather than actually getting airborne, then many of them might become demotivated, and might instead opt for a career in civil aviation. If you want to be a pilot you may not be attracted by a career in which most of your flying is virtual, except in a war situation.

But that may be an old fashioned view.

The iPad generation may be much more comfortable operating in the synthetic environment, and may be less attached to ‘real’ flying. Certainly, some report that younger F-35 pilots tend to feel at home in the ITC faster than more experienced pilots, and are quicker to adapt to it, and to the different ways of operating the latest generation of aircraft. In traditional aircraft, if a pilot loses situational awareness he will tend to fly the aircraft and look outside, whereas in an aircraft like the F-35, with its powerful sensors, the better answer might be to engage the autopilot and go head down to see exactly what the system is seeing.

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A Royal Marine working to take over a suspect chemical factory during the chemical warfare Exercise Toxic Dagger.

CBRN DANGER PERSISTS Despite the impact of COVID-19, there is still good reason for governments to affirm their commitment to new CBRN equipment and training.

David Oliver

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he long delayed UK Defence Command Paper (DCP) published in March 2021 made reference to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) warfare. It stated that the proliferation of CBRN weapons and advanced conventional weapons, combined with new technologies, will increase the risk of conflict and serve to increase their ferocity.

While international agreements have long sought to limit the development of these capabilities, adversaries are increasingly breaching their terms or altogether withdrawing from these commitments.

While CBRN weapon use remains an enduring and growing threat to the UK, deployed forces and international stability, the DCP claimed that the UK MoD will have capabilities in place that will allow the country to maintain its political and military freedom of action despite the presence, threat or use of such materials.

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The DCP also stated that the MoD should be prepared to provide counter-forces to support a homeland resilience response to multiple threats and maintain its contingent capability to operate overseas. The UK should support efforts to improve its preparedness to deter and defend against an incident and to ensure that its forces are best equipped to fight and prevail in a threat environment, both today and in the future.

The DCP maintained that the MoD’s world leading science and technology capability will continue to play a vital part in countering current and emerging CBRN threats.

CBRND CONFUSION This has not always been the case. The UK’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence (CBRND) capabilities have been largely neglected for the last two decades with responsibilities being passed from the British Army to the Royal Air Force (RAF) and back to the Army.

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The importance of the UK’s CBRND capabilities has been highlighted both in the conflict in Syria and closer at home, in the response to the Salisbury Novichok nerve agent incident in 2018 which saw former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter poisoned. Military personnel from the Army and the RAF worked in support of the civil authorities with the recovery operation in Salisbury in the aftermath of the nerve agent attack during Operation Morlop, including personnel from the Falcon Area Survey & Reconnaissance Squadron. The Falcon Squadron is the British Army’s only mounted CBRND unit and is manned by the Royal Tank Regiment, and equipped with 11 Rheinmetall Landsystems 6x6 Fuchs TPz vehicles which are capable of chemical and radiological hazard detection.

They are crewed by four CBRN specialists.

However, the unit has only 70 personnel and the Fuchs, which were delivered in 1990 to support ground operations during the First Gulf War, are approaching obsolescence, and although the MoD awarded RBSL a $21.4 million (£16 million) contract in October 2020 to upgrade and sustain nine vehicles and a training simulator, they will not be returned to service before 2024.

Exercise Toxic Dagger, the largest annual chemical warfare exercise in the UK, involving 40 Commando Royal Marines and personnel from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), and supported by Public Health England (PHE) and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), took place soon after the Salisbury attack.

DSTL delivers specialist support to military operations, provides specialist technical advice to support counter-terrorism, offers impartial advice and analysis to the UK Armed forces and supports the delivery of intelligence capability within the MoD. The three-week exercise included company-level attacks and scenarios concernDND/MDN Canada

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NATO forces participate in a decontamination scenario during Exercise Precise Response at CFB Suffield in Canada.

A Falcon Squadron 6x6 Fuchs TPz CBRN reconnaissance vehicle and crew on a training exercise in Jordan.

ing typical CBRN features, concluding with a full-scale exercise involving government and industry scientists and more than 300 military personnel. It climaxed with a full-scale casualty treatment exercise involving the RAF Regiment. A chemical decontamination area was set up to treat ‘polluted’ Royal Marine commandos. Once cleansed, the casualties could be moved to local hospitals.

The Royal Marines have also set up a unit specialising in chemical warfare skills.

Yankee Company from 45 Commando based in Arbroath, Scotland, are the first marines tasked to assist the civil emergency services when military support is requested to respond to a CBRN incident through the Military Assistance to Civil Authorities (MACA) process.

PREPARING FOR TOXIC ATTACK Exercise Toxic Dagger was planned to be an annual exercise but was cancelled this year (2021) due to a backlog of activity from the COVID-19 lockdown periods. Other CBRNthemed exercises cancelled or postponed included the NATO multinational exercise Clean Care which first took place in 2016 with over 200 personnel from seven countries. Conducted at the military training area Tisá in the Czech Republic, this CBRN and medical training event was aimed at NATO interoperability at a tactical level.

UK personnel also participate in Exercise Precise Response at Canadian Forces Base Suffield in Alberta. This annual NATO exercise provides the Canadian Armed Forces, along with participants from

various NATO allies and partner nations, the opportunity to participate in CBRND training in a multinational environment.

The NATO directed Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defence Capability Group (JCBRND-CDG) is responsible for several multinational CBRN exercises including Toxic Trip which involves the training of different aspects of CBRND related with air operations in a multinational scenario. Exercise Toxic Fjord is a similar exercise in the maritime sector.

Exercise Toxic Valley is a live exercise organised by Slovak Armed Forces conducted to train specialist teams and laboratory crews in sampling and identification of chemical agents in conditions close to operational needs, in accordance with NATO AEP-66 standards for sampling and identification of biological and chemical, and radiological agents.

Germany has hosted Exercise Coronet Mask where NATO CBRN battalions undergo a series of drills based on scenarios demonstrating the identification, reconnaissance, analyst and decontamination of chemical agents. Six NATO allies participated in Exercise Yellow Cross held in the Czech Republic to train in detecting and responding to CBRN attacks, including the decontamination of soldiers and materiel.

While many of these live CBRN exercises have had to be modified, with soldiers undertaking precautions against COVID-19 by social distancing and wearing masks, some have had to be conducted virtually.

The United States has continued to hold

regular individual CBRN exercises for all its Armed Forces both in Continental United States (CONUS) and overseas. One such was the annual Exercise Patriot 21 that took place in June 2021 at Volk Field Air National Guard Base in Wisconsin involving specialists from the US Air National Guard Emergency Management, US Army National Guard CBRN along with insight from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) WMD Coordinators. The exercise focused on local, state, federal and private sector organisations responding together to a natural or man-made emergency. It tested responders ability to deal with such scenarios as earthquakes, collapsed buildings, blocked roads, mass casualties and the need for search and rescue. Participants in Patriot 21 included National Guard soldiers and airmen and Naval Reserve sailors in various career fields from 26 states.

BACK TO BUSINESS "It's been more than a year that we've been in a pandemic, and we've also had civil disturbance and natural disasters along the way, and we've been in response mode," said exercise director, Lt Col Roger Brooks. "But we're getting back to the business of training for those situations now. It's all about training with our local civilian agencies and partners and improving our communication and ability to work seamlessly with different entities."

Recent events have shown that Russia is fully capable of developing and producing an advanced range of biological and chemical weapons, and its troops are well equipped and trained for nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare. In February 2017, Russia’s Southern Military District announced that NBC field exercises involving Russian MoD

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Russian Western Military District NBC Brigade troops undergoing training.

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CMC

Commonwealth of Australia

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PLA Rocket Force troops taking part in an urban CBRND training exercise.

Soldier wearing the CBRN Personal Protective Ensemble consisting of the Opec Kestrel suit and an AirBoss Low Burden mask.

some 2,000 specialist personnel and more than 350 NBC vehicles were taking place in training areas across Russia.

The latest Russian Arzamas Machine Building Plant RKhM-6 chemical reconnaissance vehicles have recently entered into service with NBC troops. Based on the BTR-80 8x8 wheeled amphibious armoured personnel carrier, the RKhM-6 features a conventional layout accommodating the driver’s compartment at forward hull, and an NBC laboratory in the middle and engine at the rear. The vehicle features the PRKhDD-2B, a fully automated long-range chemical reconnaissance device that analyses the composition of toxic substances at a distance of up to three kilometers.

Although large scale Russian NBC exercises have been reduced due to COVID-19, more than 800 troops from the Black Sea Fleet NBC Protection Force took part in several weeks of training during August 2021 while NBC protection units of the Guards tank army of the Western Military District completed training during the joint Russian-Belarusian Exercise Zapad-2021 a month later.

AUSTRALIA INVESTS On the other side the world, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) continues to invest in CBRNE capabilities, counter-measures and

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autonomous systems, against a backdrop of escalating tensions with the People’s Republic of China and the unpredictability of North Korea. The Australian Army has embarking on a major modernisation programme following the publication of its 2016 Defence White Paper that confirmed the transformation of its land forces by 2035. A lot of time and effort has gone into ensuring the ADF can operate effectively with allied and coalition partners across all domains. When considering CBRND interoperability, it is essential that Australia is aligned closely with partners. Following an agreement at the Joint Warfare Council in November 2016, the ADF is now adopting the NATO CBRND tactical level doctrine.

In 2017 the Australian Department of Defence (DoD) announced that the ADF would receive equipment worth almost $216 million (AUD300 million) for protection against CBRN threats as part of Project LAND 2110 Phase 1B. The project will deliver individual and collective protection from CBRN hazards including detectors, suits, masks, protection tents, decontamination systems, contaminated equipment containers, warning and reporting software and simulation systems. The project also included the provision of new and upgraded facilities at 14 sites nationwide to support individual and collective CBRND training.

In September 2018 the $176 million (AUD243.5 million) contract for the Land 2110 Phase 1B project was awarded to Leidos Australia for an initial phase of five years with an options to extend to 2026. It also includes an $8 million (AUD11 million)

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contract to AirBoss Defense for the delivery critical PPE including gloves, overboots, and the recently launched Low Burden Mask.

Following exhaustive trials, OPEC CBRNe was informed that the Kestrel CBRN ensemble was identified as the preferred Medium Weight Protective suit for LAND 2110. The versatile two-piece Kestrel which is made in Scotland, is ideally suited to high-heat environments while delivering long-term comfort, breathability and ease of movement and its low weight was a key feature in OPEC’s successful tender to the Australian Government.

Recently the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force stepped up its CBRN warfare exercises, in what its military experts say is preparation for a possible nuclear attack by the United States. CBRN exercises have become a major training focus in the PLA’s Western Theatre Command and with Rocket Force troops and earlier this year (2021) these troops took part in the largest ever anti-nuclear weapon drill involving combat troops wearing chemical protection suits while working in the Gobi Desert, where the temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius.

North Korea, which withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, has recently threatened several regional neighbours, including Australia, with nuclear weapons. In the September 2021 military parade to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of North Korea’ founding, hundreds of troops were seen wearing chemical protection suits and respirators for the first time.

Protect. AttAck. SuPPort.

IntellIgence & AnAlySIS on electronIc WArfAre At your fIngertIPS! reAd more todAy!

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Naval Group

sea Power

Hybrid propulsion is installed on a wide number of European frigates, including the FREMM.

(R)EVOLUTIONS IN NAVAL PROPULSION - IT’S ELECTRIFYING! Changing the type of propulsion used by warships to ones more environmentally friendly pose difficult challenges, especially if power hungry weapons/systems are to be introduced.

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hortly after his election in July 1984, New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange implemented a policy banning nuclear-powered and/or nuclear weapon carrying ships from docking in New Zealand’s harbours. In February 1985, New Zealand authorities turned USS Buchanan away after it refused to confirm it was not carrying any nuclear weapons or power; the incident sparked a diplomatic spat. In September 2021, when Australia announced that it would acquire nuclear-powered submarines, New Zealand stated that it would not allow them in its waters.

Over the past decades, ships’ mission profiles have largely dictated technological advances in naval propulsion. Flexibility in the operational spectrum, together with increasing energy needs, have driven forward electrical propulsion. As

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Alix Valenti environmental concerns continue to gain prominence in governments’ agendas, naval propulsion is likely to undergo another (r)evolution.

MULTIMISSION DRIVE Over the past decade there has been a significant trend toward capital naval surface ships being capable of conduction a wide range of missions. “This has had a big impact on the propulsion system,” Luca Mattei, vice president Design and Engineering for Fincantieri Naval Vessels, told Armada (AI). “Different prime movers have to be installed in order to cover efficiently the whole operational load profile.”

For destroyers, frigates and certain types of corvettes, this means being able to function both in open crisis times and during peace time in patrol or coast guard

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mode. In the latter mode, these ships generally move at cruising speed - typically between 8 knots (kts) and 18kts. As they shift to open crisis times, however, these vessels are generally required to move from cruising to higher speed - typically 22kts to 30kts - imposing significant sudden energy demands on the propulsion system.

Yet speed is not the only consideration when it comes to naval propulsion; greater fuel efficiency is also a critical element to consider. “Operationally, greater fuel efficiency means greater range, endurance, and time on station for the same amount of fuel,” Matthew Caris, senior director at Avascent, told AI. As a result, finding the right balance in the midst of these sometimes rather contradicting requirements is the key naval propulsion challenge highlighted by Fincantieri, Naval Group and Rolls-Royce

SEA Power

used to create electrical power for the ship’s systems or drive the propeller shaft. “These systems are particularly interesting because of the flexibility of electric operation medium to low speed,” John Buckingham, chief mechanical engineer at BMT, told AI, “but also increasingly for warships where lasers, direct energy weapons and other devices need pulsed energy.”

POWER HUNGRY For Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) and AntiSUrface Warfare (ASuw), for instance, a growing number of weapons developed to carry out these missions is electrically powered. “Electric weapons typically have a limitless magazine, which makes them very attractive because it means they never run out of bullets,” Buckingham noted.

Similarly, as sensor performance required to carry out all these missions continues to improve, these systems - radar, sonar, etc - also become progressively more power-hungry. Finally, the integration of unmanned systems will also require power to recharge their batteries, Lars pointed out. Consequently, the electrical power load for warships is going to vary often and within very short timeframes, explained Caris; “as these vessels shift from mission control mode to combat mode in a matter

of seconds, the electrical load demanded is going to be important.” Both CODELAG and true integrated electric drives can serve to provide that power.

One key issue with growing electrical load demands, however, sheds light on a bigger challenge for warships in the coming years: ensuring that there is room onboard to store all the power necessary to maintain autonomy. “Electric solutions typically take up more space than mechanical drives,” Buckingham said, and while DC systems, better designed converters, and other innovations are helping reduce the size of these converters, power storage remains a major challenge.

GREENING THE BLUE WATER NAVY Although operational concerns are - and will always remain - the key consideration for navies choosing how to power their capital surface ships, progressively environmental considerations are gaining prominence. “Tomorrow’s challenges will also be closely linked to the environment,” noted Lars, “and while navies have been slow in taking this up, increasingly they are becoming more attentive to International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations.”

New Zealand’s attitude to nuclear power is one example of how environmental

US Navy

Power Systems. Kevin Daffey, director Marine Systems and Automation at RollsRoyce Power Systems told AI that, “key requirements are: maximum range, which defines the most efficient machinery line up and propeller characteristics; maximum speed, which sets the peak propulsion power; and, [limiting] maximum underwater noise and vibration levels [which] define the size and characteristics of mounts, rafts and couplings.”

As a consequence, “the trend has clearly been a move from mechanical propulsion to hybrid propulsion,” Bertrand Lars, Energy Technical Domain director at Naval Group, told AI. “In fact, there is even a clear tendency to move toward all electric.”

Hybrid propulsion, known as CODELAG (Combined Diesel Electric And Gas), is the propulsion system installed on a wide number of frigates such as the French and Italian FREMMs (European multipurpose frigates), the German ThyssenKrupp and Lürssen F125, and the UK BAE Systems Type 26. But Europeans are not the only ones using hybrid propulsion; “this is also an area where the US Navy (USN) has been experimenting,” added Caris, with the future ‘Constellation’ class frigates benefitting from CODELAG technology.

One of the key advantages of this propulsion system is the fact that electric propulsion is much more efficient at lower and mid-range speed than a four stroke engine; the latter cannot go below 60 percent speed, so it has to be revved up to get the right thrust necessary to maintain low speed, making it inefficient. Additionally, because the need to shift to higher speed is “unpredictable,” Caris added, CODELAG brings another important benefit to naval propulsion: since both the turbine and the electric motor to the propeller shaft can run at the same time, the shift between cruising and high speed can be done swiftly. Finally, hybrid propulsion is also particularly interesting for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), with electric propulsion ensuring a certain level of acoustic discretion while mechanical propulsion enables sudden shifts to faster speed.

Beyond CODELAG, both the USN (on the DDG 1000) and the UK’s Royal Navy (on the Type 45 destroyers) and the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier have also started to explore true integrated electric drives. With this system, all the power minus the gas turbine is being transitioned through electric motors that can then be

USS Buchanan was turned away from New Zealand when it refused to confirm that it was not nuclear armed or powered.

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Rolls Royce

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Rolls-Royce has been selected to supply its mtu naval generator sets for phase one of the U.S. Navy’s Constellation class frigate program

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with environmental standards is very important.” From the point of view of engine manufacturers, Daffey noted that, “in the naval world, with the long lifecycle of vessels, this means that not only future vessels but also current new builds should be capable of being climate neutral in the future.”

FUTURE FUELS: FACT OR FICTION? To tackle present and future environmental

Royal Navy

concerns can represent a key strategic consideration for blue water navies. New Zealand’s stance against nuclear power dates back to its opposition, in the 1960s and 70s, to US, French and UK nuclear weapon testing in the Pacific. As noted in the introduction, this has led to the country declaring its territory - including its waters - a nuclear-free zone; it has also resulted in a few diplomatic spats with allies such as the UK and, much more recently, Australia (the latter being opposed to nuclear power until recently).

Today, through its Tier III standard, the IMO has defined a number of Emission Control Areas (ECA) throughout the world: ships transiting through those zones must comply to restrictions applying to emissions of Sulfur Oxides, Particulate Matter and Nitrogen Oxides - or all of the above. Navies do not have to comply to IMO regulations, yet it is within countries’ and port authorities’ rights to refuse transit and docking access to ships, including naval, that do not comply.

“This possibility is progressively leading to more environmental considerations being included in requirements for new ships and ship propulsion systems,” Lars added. A sentiment echoed also by Buckingham, who said that, “navies are a great part of the diplomatic service, so having a navy that is clean and in line

constraints, navies that have made the choice to fit their capital ships with CODELAG systems or true integrated electric drives are already slightly ahead: if they enter ECA zones, they can simply continue to navigate with electric propulsion and turn off all other means.

However, neither of these solutions is fully green, as both rely on diesel or gas generators to produce the electric energy that will then propel the ship. They also continue to imply a dependence on fossil fuels with dwindling resources and volatile prices.

As such, shipbuilders such as Naval Group and Fincantieri, but also engine developers such as Rolls-Royce Power Systems and naval architects such as BMT, are already exploring alternative solutions. “This is an area where Europe is simply ahead of the US,” Caris pointed out; “European navies benefit largely from the experience of shipbuilders and industry that also work in the commercial sector and therefore already face the challenge of having to find greener solutions.”

Naval Group is working on its Blue Ship concept, which according to its website seeks to “guarantee energy autonomy required for all its current and future missions in terms of energy efficiency and power, with the smallest possible environmental footprint for the whole warship.” According to Lars, this concept focuses on: increasing ship’s energy efficiency; thinking about tomorrow’s ships’ electric architecture - in particular

The UK Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are fitted with true integrated electric drives

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energy storage; and, more long-term research on future fuels.

Currently, Fincantieri is working on ZEUS (Zero Emission Ultimate Ship), an experimental oceanographic research vessel powered by batteries and fuel cells. “ZEUS is an opportunity for us at Fincantieri to experiment with fuel cells and hydrogen onboard a ship, and understand how this can be installed safely,” Mattei told AI. The latter is being done in collaboration with RINA, the Italian classification society. The biggest challenges in using fuel cells, much like it is for electrical power, are transfer and storage, Mattei added. “Technologies to safely store hydrogen do exist, though they might today still be too heavy, but transfer of hydrogen remains a delicate operation,” he said, especially as navy ships have weapons onboard. “At the moment, we think that the most interesting use of fuel cells would be as a distributed power source onboard the ship for small applications, rather than for propulsion,” Mattei concluded.

Daffey told AI that Rolls Royce Power Systems is also taking concrete steps towards a climate-neutral future, seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent by 2030 compared to the 2019 level.

“A key element in achieving these goals is the certification of the most important mtu engine productions, which will run on sustainable fuels from as early as 2023,” he added. Concretely, this means that new generations of Series 2000 and 4000 engines will be qualified to run on secondgeneration bio-fuels and on E-fuels.

Bio-fuels and E-fuels are likely to be key to the transition toward greener navies according to both Lars and Buckingham.

“This will come from the maritime domain, rather than the military one,” added Caris, “and navies will eventually have little choice outside the use of those fuels because key engine manufacturers like mtu will design engine lines conforming to emission standards.”

However, Buckingham cautioned: “There is a large number of pathways that can be achieved with synthetic drop-in fuels, but it also means that navies will have to take a greater interest and responsibility for the supply chain of their fossil fuels.” A sentiment echoed by Caris, who added that while navies can now easily replenish their ships with fossil fuels everywhere in the world, this will not be true in the short and

Saildrone

SEA Power

Saildrone has developed a wind-powered USV with autonomy at sea of 12 months, high stealth capabilities and, when wind propelled, a zero operational carbon footprint

medium term for bio-fuels and E-fuels.

As for other types of propulsion, such as hydrogen - which Fincantieri and Naval Group are also exploring together - and fuel cells, while the technology is there, safety and logistical considerations remain.

GETTING CREATIVE “Whatever ship we design, it is going to have a lifetime of 25 years or more, which means it will have to undergo an upgrade to update the combat systems, weapons, and sensors,” Buckingham concluded.

“Consequently, when designing ships we have to build-in margins for these updates and for the corresponding available power.”

Energy storage, in other words, will be one of the key naval propulsion challenges of the coming years for capital surface ships - whether it is electricity, fuels cells, hydrogen, etc.

One potential solution, in the meantime, is also greater use of distributed unmanned systems with high autonomy to carry out

certain missions such as Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) – or to access ECA zones. Saildrone, a US-based company, has developed a wind-powered Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) with autonomy at sea of 12 months, high stealth capabilities and, when wind propelled, a zero operational carbon footprint. “The secret is in harvesting energy from the environment,” Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO of Saildrone, told AI, “so there is no need to carry that fuel reserve, allowing for a system with higher endurance and lower drag as well as low propulsion needs.”

The requirements for large capital surface vessels and smaller patrol, research or unmanned vessels are clearly different.

Yet as navies face increasing logistical and environmental constraints in their naval propulsion needs, the use of the latter - for tactical, such as Saildrone, and research, such as ZEUS, purposes - may well be key to such critical transition toward greener blue water navies.

december 2021/january 2022 - armadainternational.com

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DVIDS

Land WARFARE

Working towards a digital next generation future vertical lift rotorcraft. Bell’s V-280 Valor cockpit simulation on display in October 2020. The V-280 will complete for the FLRAA requirement.

US ARMY BIG SIX REQUIREMENTS AND PROGRAMMES (PART 2) This is the second of a two part series to explain the US Army’s ‘Big Six’ programmes to future proof it over the coming decades.

I

n the Department of Defense (DoD) Budget Overview for Financial Tear 2022 (FY-22) published in May 2021, it was revealed that the Army has cancelled the funding of at least 105 procurement programmes, in addition to reducing the funding for a further 169 programmes. This was to allow $23.9 billion to be invested in the Army’s modernisation priorities, particularly in its ‘Big Six’ requirements in Long Range Precision Fires, Next Generation Combat Vehicle, Future Vertical Lift, Network, Air and Missile Defense, and Soldier Lethality. Some of these were covered in the previous issue.

FUTURE VERTICAL LIFT A key programme in the US Army’s Big Six modernisation plans is the dramatically

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Andrew Drwiega improve its rotorcraft aviation capability through the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programme. Originally seen as a new family of aircraft - Joint Multi Role - including heavy and ultra-heavy lift, for the last few years the overwhelming focus has been on the two medium type helicopter replacements: the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) which will replace the Army’s fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks; and the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) which will replace the AH-64 Apache attack helicopters as well as providing a new reconnaissance rotorcraft which the Army has lacked since the demise of the Bell OH-58 Kiowa Warrior in 2015. There are two aircraft under development in both FLRAA and FARA programmes.

The objective of FVL is to deliver

armadainternational.com - december 2021/january 2022

rotorcraft that break the traditional limitations of existing rotorcraft by delivering greater maneuverability, longer range, increase speed, better payload, survivability, reduced maintenance through better reliability and the ability to be upgraded more easily by moving away from the use of proprietary systems. One of the most important factors in the development of these new rotorcraft a drive to future proof the aircraft through the adoption of a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA). This should provide in the future for quicker and more flexible platform updates that can take advantage of industry developments, not just those made by the OEM. The FLRAA competition sees Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor line up against the joint Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant twin coaxial

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27

DVIDS

Land WARFARE

A soldier of the 173rd Airborne Brigade uses the End User Device to report information to his company commander through the Integrated Tactical Network during an exercise in Germany during 2018.

compound helicopter. Bell’s V-280 is in line with the company’s ongoing focus on tiltrotor aircraft, including the in development V-247 Vigilant Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The V-280 will have a speed of around 280 knots (518 kilometres per hour) and a combat range of between 500-800 nautical miles depending on mission. The SB>1 Defiant incorporates a pusher propeller which will give it a speed of over 250kts (463km/h) and will need to exceed the US Army and Navy’s minimum range requirements.

For the FARA competition, Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider flying prototype will contest with Bell’s 360 Invictus.

Over 2,000 new FVL rotorcraft will eventually be required with deliveries due to begin between 2030-35 and likely continue for a couple of decades after that.

Due to the numbers of new rotorcraft that can financed in any single year it is expected that deliveries will continue for at lease a couple of decades with Block upgrades providing OEMs with ongoing work well into the second half of the century. Because of this, it is likely that some Black Hawks and Apaches will still be flying into the 2060s (if the venerable Huey can do it, why not the modern designs?).

On May 28 May, Army Major General

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Paul Chamberlain, director of Army budget for the assistant secretary of the Army for financial management and comptroller stated that the Army’s FY22 budget request had “decreased by over $1.2 billion. Our request is consistent with the Army aviation modernisation strategy. We're adjusting production rate for the Blackhawk and for the Apache helicopters in order to continue to continue the development of the future vertical lift aircraft.”

In terms of timelines, earlier this year Brigadier General Walter Rugen, director, Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team at the US Army Futures Command said that a contract award for FLRAA was expected during the fourth quarter of 2022 with a Milestone B in the fourth quarter of 2023.

This would be followed by a Milestone C decision around late 2027 or 2028 with the first unit equipped to be fielded in 2030.

FARA is said to be on a similar track with Milestone B in 2024 and a target of first unit equipped in 2030.

NETWORK The Army has a goal of modernising and unifying its network in field-deployable Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (C3I) so that it can overcome current weaknesses in order to be able to deliver multi-domain operations through network capability sets.

The roll-out of networks to increase capability while incorporating industry developments will be delivered by fielding Capability Sets (CS) in two year increments. Each CS will build off the advances made during the previous round, as well as incorporating the results and lessons learned from Soldier Touchpoints, Project Convergence, Science and Technology (S&T) programmes as well as trials and demonstrations of capability. The resulting CS need to be standardised (using off-the shelf software where it can) as well as cybersecure.

The Army has outlined a path that will deliver the network by 2028, and has identified four capability sets in Fiscal Years 2021, 2023, 2025, and 2027 for the insertion of technologies, although it is planned that technology insertion will still regularly continue after this date.

There are four areas of network modernisation, known as lines of effort (LOEs): (1) creating a unified network transport layer; (2) building a common operating environment (COE) for mission command

armadainternational.com - december 2021/january 2022

applications; (3) improving Joint Force and Coalition interoperability and (4) improving command posts’ mobility and survivability.

LOE 1: UNIFIED NETWORK TRANSPORT WHAT: Establish available, reliable and resilient network that ensures seamless connectivity in any operationally contested environment.

WHY: The Army must be able to communicate through an assured network and operate in contested and congested environments.

WILL IMPROVE: Integrated Tactical Network; Tactical Radios; ESB-Enhanced; Tactical Network Transport; Signal ModerniSation/SATCOM LOE 2: COMMON OPERATING ENVIRONMENT (COE) WHAT: Provide a simple, intuitive, single common operating picture through a single mission command suite operated and maintained by Soldiers.

WHY: Commanders must be able to make decisions quickly while commanding distributed forces, utilising rapid decision making skills.

WILL IMPROVE: Handheld; MounteD; Command Post LOE 3: JOINT INTEROPERABILITY/ COALITION ACCESSIBLE WHAT: Ensure Army Forces can more effectively interact (technically and operationally) with Joint and Coalition partners.

WHY: The US Army does not fight alone–the Army needs to achieve and sustain a level of interoperability within the Army, Joint and Unified Action Partners to enable Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

WILL IMPROVE: Mission Partner Environment LOE 4: COMMAND POST (CP) MOBILITY/ SURVIVABILITY WHAT: Enable commanders to lead and fight in their formations from anywhere they choose. Ensure command post deployability, reliability, mobility and survivability.

WHY: Command Posts must be mobile and survivable to meet today’s operational needs – fast, agile, lethal.

WILL IMPROVE: Command Post Integrated Infrastructure (CPI2).

ARMADA COMMENTARY

CARRIER GROUP DISAGGREGATION Dr Lee Willett here is much theoretical discussion of disaggregated – or dispersed – operations in contemporary Western military activities. The UK Royal Navy’s (RN’s) HMS Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group (CSG) has been actively applying such disaggregation in practice during its inaugural deployment, the CSG21 mission.

Disaggregated operations might be defined as a concept where force elements from a centralised construct like a CSG can disperse, in both geographical and task terms, to operate independently at the tactical level while remaining under operational-level control of the central element.

Speaking at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition in London in September, Rear Admiral Martin Connell, the RN’s director Force Generation and assistant chief of Naval Staff for Aviation and Carrier Strike, said that “the force-multiplying, dispersed nature of [the CSG’s operations] is significant.”

Providing this active demonstration of disaggregated operations are: (from the RN fleet) HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Type 45 Daring-class destroyers HMS Defender and HMS Diamond, the Type 23 Duke-class frigates HMS Kent and HMS Richmond, an Astute-class nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN), and two support ships; and (from NATO partners) the US Navy’s (USN’s) DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS The Sullivans and the Royal Netherlands Navy’s (RNLN’s) De Zeven Provincien-class air-defence and command frigate HNLMS Evertsen. Across the CSG21 deployment - from the North Atlantic, through the Mediterranean, and into the Indo-Pacific – carriers, surface ships, submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft from

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allies and partners have worked with the CSG, with several platforms even integrating into the CSG. The CSG’s disaggregation has been demonstrated in both platform and task terms. In platform terms, right across the deployment ships have detached from the CSG to conduct different operations in different regions – sometimes even in different seas to the CSG. For example, early in the deployment, Defender and Evertsen sailed into the Black Sea to provide presence there while the CSG remained in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea conducting strike operations ashore. In their absence, the Italian Navy Orrizonte-class destroyer ITS Andrea Doria, which had already ‘chopped’ into the CSG, could help provide the carrier’s local area air-defence coverage.

As the CSG sailed in the Western Pacific, Richmond detached to conduct goodwill visits to Vietnam and Indonesia. As well as port visits in Cam Ranh Bay and Jakarta respectively, the frigate conducted Passage/ Passing Exercises (PASSEXs) with the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) Navy Gepard-class frigate Dinh Tien Hoang and the Indonesian Navy first-in-class frigate KRI Bung Tomo. More significantly, while sailing south towards Vietnam, Richmond transited the Taiwan Strait in what could be seen as freedom of navigation deployment. The CSG, meanwhile, continued operations outside the South China Sea’s first island chain.

In task terms, the CSG has operated across the full spectrum of naval, joint, and combined operations. Broadly, the CSG made its presence felt, most prominently during air strikes conducted in combat operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, and during exercises in the South China Sea. At the low end of the spectrum, it has contributed regularly to maritime security

armadainternational.com - december 2021/january 2022

operations (MSO).

Critics of carrier capability argue that conducting MSO activities is an inefficient use of a carrier’s effects. However, the CSG21 deployment has demonstrated the added effect and value a CSG can bring at the lower end of the operational spectrum. For example, and demonstrating the disaggregation concept, Kent detached from the CSG in the Mediterranean to integrate into NATO’s ‘Sea Guardian’ MSO construct, with the carrier also making a key contribution. As the CSG sailed through the Gulf of Aden as it headed east, it worked both with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) Asagiri-class destroyer JS Setogiri to support the JMSDF’s counter-piracy mission and with the USN-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) multinational coalition to support its various maritime security task forces.

Of particular value here was the increased intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability the carrier could bring, for example through the range and quality of sensors fitted across the CSG’s platforms and embarked helicopters.

The disaggregation was enabled by the level of integration across the CSG. This is demonstrated not only by the presence of USN and RNLN surface ships, the ease with which others have ‘chopped’ in and out, and the presence of a combined UK/ US airwing onboard Queen Elizabeth, but also by the ease with which CSG assets have integrated with others. During exercises in the Indo-Pacific region with the USS America amphibious ready group (ARG), Lockheed Martin F-35B aircraft from Queen Elizabeth ‘lily-padded’ onboard America before heading on to strike targets further afield. Such was the success of the CSG’s engagement with the ARG that it opened up further discussion of opportunities for US/ UK integrated engagement.

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