TAMPA, Fla. — U.S. particular operations forces want a software that may each jam radio frequencies to cease roadside bombs from exploding in addition to neutralize drone threats by land, air and sea — and it must be small.
That’s what Particular Operations Command officers mentioned Tuesday on the Particular Operations Forces Business Convention, hosted in Florida by the Nationwide Protection Industrial Affiliation. A lieutenant colonel who serves because the command’s program supervisor for counterproliferation mentioned SOCOM is looking for a next-generation multimission digital countermeasure gadget. (Beneath guidelines of the convention, people on the paygrade of O-5 and beneath had been to not be recognized in press stories.)
However an O-6, Army Col. Anh Ha, who leads the command’s warrior-focused workplace, mentioned a significant initiative is making certain an operator working in an remoted space — removed from command infrastructure and with restricted sources and energy — can nonetheless have a shared, widespread working image with larger headquarters.
“Contested comms, this one at all times scares everybody,” Ha mentioned. “What occurs after we can’t speak?”
For its half, the Army’s analysis price range final 12 months emphasised tactical structure for digital warfare, C4ISRNET reported. That included a request to extend spending for the Multi-Perform Digital Warfare effort, the Terrestrial Layer System—Brigade Fight Crew program, the Digital Warfare Planning and Administration Software, and the Terrestrial Layer System—Echelons Above Brigade effort.
Large Army additionally pumped up its price range request final 12 months to almost triple its EW personnel.
The counterproliferation Army lieutenant colonel at SOFIC is targeted on a smaller package deal. “Counter-unmanned methods: This consumes the majority of our power in this system workplace,” the O5 mentioned.
The workplace stood up the counter-UAS program this previous fall, he famous, and though the present focus is on aerial threats, the workplace is on the lookout for floor and maritime counter-drone choices, too.
His crew needs to search out transportable, dismounted and stuck expeditionary web site choices for the next-generation multimission digital countermeasure gear. The Marine Corps and SOCOM have an current system known as Modi, made by the Sierra Nevada Company and utilized by the Army and Marines.
The subsequent-gen model must hit these different domains and be extra transportable. The present dismounted system weighs 40 kilos.
This system supervisor mentioned “ideally” the workplace expects to pick a system by fiscal 2024 and start manufacturing in fiscal 2025. And SOCOM want to run these methods as easily as they’ll to be able to “cut back burden to our operators and incentivize autonomy as a lot as potential,” the O5 mentioned.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, authorities and the army for a number of publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written venture on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq Warfare.
