Dispatch from Deutschland (Plus: RFI or Die!) The Drift: Vol. XIX

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Navigation Brief

FRANKFURT, Germany – Greetings from the Lufthansa lounge.

It was a busy week here in the United Arab Emirates. It was my first time in the country since a deployment in 2005, and everything is as unaffordable as I remember it. I suppose that’s an indicator that I haven’t come into any large petroleum wealth yet.

Readers from last week will know I was here for the International Defense Exhibition and Conference, and biannual event in Abu Dhabi that brings out most of the world’s largest defense companies, including China and Russia, which was interesting enough in its own right.

I think you, the reader will be best served by me quickly running through my observation of the trends I picked up on there. The I’m going to go back and walk through an interesting RFI (Request for Information that dropped in the last few days.

Let’s do this.

DBL

The Navigation Brief

Show Notes: IDEX

Let’s kick this off with some trends I spotted on the floor at IDEX this year:

• Drone and counter-drone technology: Everyone seemed to be interested in showing off technologies to defeat a small drone threat. Half the booths on the floor, it seemed, had a laser weapon with a scorched drone next to it.
• Anti-Air systems: Probably not a surprise given the number of missiles in the region on any given day, but counter-missile systems were big. Raytheon is bullish about the prospects of RAM and SeaRAM in the region. One of the larger Emirati companies was displaying two large target drones for AAW training. Saab took the opportunity to unveil a new Falcon short-range air defense system.
• Training: On the naval front, the companies were eager to show off their work in the training world. For example, Navantia’s booth showed off an integrated simulation bridge trainer. CAE touted their new shore training facility being built for the Emirati Navy.
• Sustainment: My colleagues Agnes and Jeff found a lot of sustainment contracts floating around, and lots of companies advertising maintenance services. BAE announced a major contract with the UAE for maintenance services on its F-16s. In an exclusive interview with Defense News, the director of international cooperation for the Russian defense giant Rostec said the company was anticipating a downturn in new equipment sales (a global trend) and was looking to stand up more comprehensive maintenance services for Russian equipment scattered all over the globe dating back to the Soviet era to today. (That interview is coming soon!)
• CHINA: China put out some interesting gear. The most interesting thing from the naval perspective was a 20-ton, 15-meter multi-mission surface combatant. This thing is what I’ve termed a pocket DDG. It has a phased array, a dipping sonar, VLS, a torpedo tube: the works. Jeff highlighted a laser weapon system at an anti-tank missile system.

You can find all Defense News’ IDEX coverage here.

 RFI or Die

Here’s a new feature for The Drift, it’s RFI or Die. This will be a semi-regular feature where we will highlight interesting RFIs dropped by the Navy. An RFI is essentially a call-out to industry to bring ideas to the Navy about a topic or program they are interested in looking at. So here goes nothing!

Request for Information Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture

What is it: Realeased Feb. 15, the Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture is being established to enable autonomy commonality and reduce acquisition costs across both surface and undersea unmanned vehicles. You can read it here.

Background: The Navy is looking to create a family of sensor and effectors (or shooters), connected by a communications, command and control network enabled by unmanned systems. Some of the key areas the Navy is looking to get better is in the area of controlling drones from a distance, communicating the information they gather and being able to process the data in a meaningful way. And on top of that, they need to know how to maintain and support the drones.

Timeline: The fist event as part of the RFI will be an Industry Day on March 4. Then the first of a series of quarterly industry days forums will kick off April 17, running once a quarter through 2020. The first event will cover vehicle maneuvering, vehicle components, and organic navigation sensors.

Takeaway: In an interview late last year, Surface Warfare Director Rear Adm. Ron Boxall told me that they were planning to launch an RFI for a large and medium displacement unmanned surface combatant. This seems to be a step in the direction of getting a more mature concept into which something like large unmanned sensors and shooters might fit.

The Navy has also been trying to involve industry much earlier in the process so they can understand what technology is available today, what the companies think is achievable, and what might be a stretch. This is very much in line with that.

On to the Hotwash!

The Hotwash

Maintenance

My friend Paul McCleary over at Breaking Defense did an interesting write-up on NAVSEA boss Vice Adm. Thomas Moore’s presentation at West this year.

Excerpt: If the Navy ever hopes to reach its goal of a 355-ship fleet, it won’t be by simply building new hulls and launching them. Instead, the admirals have long recognized they’ll have to extend the lives of dozens of ships already long in the tooth — and do so at a time when shipyard space is already stretched and less than half of its ships are able to complete scheduled maintenance on time.

“We’ve really got to get better than what we’re doing today,” Vice Adm. Tom Moore, head of Naval Sea Systems Command, told the West 2019 conference last week. “We’re digging out of a little bit of a maintenance backlog.” Moore and other commanders at the annual event insisted that they were getting better at getting ships in and out of maintenance availabilities, but currently only about 30 percent of destroyers are able to leave the docks on time.

You can read the rest here: Navy Wants Faster Ship Repairs; 70% Of Destroyer Fleet Late

More Reading:

 “More Lethal.” Groan. Everybody drink: Navy makes next 2 Ford-class aircraft carriers 'more lethal'

The Latest: Russia to deploy new hypersonic missile to navy

Yikes: Prosecutors: Coast Guard officer plotted to ‘murder innocent civilians’

Open to it: Inhofe says he’s open to Shanahan for permanent defense secretary

• This guy just can’t seem to help but piss off lawmakers. Pentagon chief briefing irks lawmakers, draws expletives from Sen. Lindsey Graham

Marines Want to Field a Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile ‘As Fast As Possible’

Navy Retooling Fire Scout Program to Focus on More Complex Warfare Missions

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