
Services Get First Look At Air Force Multi-Domain Chops
Senior Pentagon and service officials observed the last day of the ground-breaking ABMS exercise and the Air Force engaged Northern Command to create and manage the scenario.
WASHINGTON: With an eye on a skeptical Congress and the 2021 budget battle, the Air Force has wrapped the first of many planned joint exercises to demonstrate the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which the service sees as the heart of DoD’s emerging concept of Multi-Domain Operations.
“Cloud, mesh networking, and software-defined systems were the stars of the show, all developed at commercial internet speeds,” Air Force acquisition head Will Roper said after the exercise.
The stakes are high. The 2021 budget request will be the first big shot at getting ABMS underway. Roper noted in a Nov. 26 speech at the Center for a New American Security and the post-exercise Air Force press release reaffirmed that the service “intends to bolster these resources over the next five years.”
The “ABMS Onramp” test — staged Dec. 16-18 in Florida — involved aircraft from the Air Force and Navy, a Navy destroyer, an Army air defense sensor and fire unit, and a special operations unit, as well as commercial space and ground sensors in a scenario that simulated a cruise missile threat to the US homeland, according to the Air Force.
The exercise “tested technology being developed to enable the military’s developing concept called Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2),” the Air Force release said.
Demonstrating the real-world value of the complex, software-centric ABMS ‘system of systems’ that will enable JADC2 (formerly known as Multi-Domain Command and Control) is key to garnering support from lawmakers, but also from other service leaders, as Roper has admitted.
Specifically, the exercise involved QF-16 aircraft simulating a cruise missile attack. Once the missile signature was detected, the Air Force used “new software, communications equipment and a ‘mesh network’,” to relay the information to the USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer deployed in the Gulf of Mexico. “The same information was passed to a pair of Air Force F-35s and another pair of F-22s. Also receiving the information were commanders at Eglin, a pair of Navy F-35s, an Army unit equipped with a mobile missile launcher known as HIMARS, and special forces on the ground,” the Air Force says.
(HIMARS, the Army’s M-142 Highly Mobile Artillery Rocket System is mounted on a 5-ton Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles XM1140A1 truck chassis, and can launch six MLRS rockets or one ATACMS missile.)
As I reported earlier this month, the exercise included testing the so-called “dataONE” cloud-based data repository that is intended to eventually house data from all sensors — regardless of service and including commercial sensors — used by the military. The dataONE repository is the successor to the Air Force’s ground-breaking Unified Data Library experiment to compile data from military and commercial space situational awareness radar, telescopes and satellites.
Up to now, ABMS testing has been a piecemeal effort, focused on individual technology demonstrations such as the Global Lightening effort at Air Force Research Laboratory to connect various aircraft to commercial satellites providing Internet capability.
The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Trump late Friday, provides $33.6 million for ABMS, a cut of $2 million from DoD’s $35.6 million request. However, given the fact that pieces of ABMS currently are dispersed into a number of experimental projects, the Air Force “expects to receive around $185 million this fiscal year,” the service said.
Reflecting skepticism on both sides of Capitol Hill, the 2020 NDAA demands that DoD and the Air Force provide a raft of documentation explaining the system and presenting a final analysis of alternatives (AoA) by June 2020.
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/12/osd ... ain-chops/
Senior Pentagon and service officials observed the last day of the ground-breaking ABMS exercise and the Air Force engaged Northern Command to create and manage the scenario.
WASHINGTON: With an eye on a skeptical Congress and the 2021 budget battle, the Air Force has wrapped the first of many planned joint exercises to demonstrate the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which the service sees as the heart of DoD’s emerging concept of Multi-Domain Operations.
“Cloud, mesh networking, and software-defined systems were the stars of the show, all developed at commercial internet speeds,” Air Force acquisition head Will Roper said after the exercise.
The stakes are high. The 2021 budget request will be the first big shot at getting ABMS underway. Roper noted in a Nov. 26 speech at the Center for a New American Security and the post-exercise Air Force press release reaffirmed that the service “intends to bolster these resources over the next five years.”
The “ABMS Onramp” test — staged Dec. 16-18 in Florida — involved aircraft from the Air Force and Navy, a Navy destroyer, an Army air defense sensor and fire unit, and a special operations unit, as well as commercial space and ground sensors in a scenario that simulated a cruise missile threat to the US homeland, according to the Air Force.
The exercise “tested technology being developed to enable the military’s developing concept called Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2),” the Air Force release said.
Demonstrating the real-world value of the complex, software-centric ABMS ‘system of systems’ that will enable JADC2 (formerly known as Multi-Domain Command and Control) is key to garnering support from lawmakers, but also from other service leaders, as Roper has admitted.
Specifically, the exercise involved QF-16 aircraft simulating a cruise missile attack. Once the missile signature was detected, the Air Force used “new software, communications equipment and a ‘mesh network’,” to relay the information to the USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer deployed in the Gulf of Mexico. “The same information was passed to a pair of Air Force F-35s and another pair of F-22s. Also receiving the information were commanders at Eglin, a pair of Navy F-35s, an Army unit equipped with a mobile missile launcher known as HIMARS, and special forces on the ground,” the Air Force says.
(HIMARS, the Army’s M-142 Highly Mobile Artillery Rocket System is mounted on a 5-ton Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles XM1140A1 truck chassis, and can launch six MLRS rockets or one ATACMS missile.)
As I reported earlier this month, the exercise included testing the so-called “dataONE” cloud-based data repository that is intended to eventually house data from all sensors — regardless of service and including commercial sensors — used by the military. The dataONE repository is the successor to the Air Force’s ground-breaking Unified Data Library experiment to compile data from military and commercial space situational awareness radar, telescopes and satellites.
Up to now, ABMS testing has been a piecemeal effort, focused on individual technology demonstrations such as the Global Lightening effort at Air Force Research Laboratory to connect various aircraft to commercial satellites providing Internet capability.
The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Trump late Friday, provides $33.6 million for ABMS, a cut of $2 million from DoD’s $35.6 million request. However, given the fact that pieces of ABMS currently are dispersed into a number of experimental projects, the Air Force “expects to receive around $185 million this fiscal year,” the service said.
Reflecting skepticism on both sides of Capitol Hill, the 2020 NDAA demands that DoD and the Air Force provide a raft of documentation explaining the system and presenting a final analysis of alternatives (AoA) by June 2020.
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/12/osd ... ain-chops/