from JNI Dec 2005

France to trial multi-platform engagement capability

Under a EUR21 million (USD24.5 million) contract awarded by France’s Délégation Générale pour l’Armement (DGA) in February 2004, DCN, in conjunction with Thales, is developing the TSMPF (Tenue de Situation Multi Plates-Formes ) multi-platform engagement capability demonstrator system as the foundation for a future CEMP (Capacité d’Engagement Multi Plates-Formes) co-operative engagement capability for the French Navy.
According to the DGA, the TSMPF/CEMP programmes are intended to demonstrate the technologies required for co-operative situational awareness in which participating platforms share tactical situation data and optimise the use of their respective sensors, and for force-wide threat evaluation and resource allocation (using the weapons and countermeasures of all participating platforms).
The CEMP demonstrator system, due to be field-tested in 2006, will involve a land-based simulation facility and a sea-based component. The DGA has indicated that an operational CEMP capability could be ready to enter service by about 2015.

UK defers CEC decision; plans joint exploitation route
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has delayed plans to introduce the US Navy’s (USN’s) Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) aboard Royal Navy (RN) warships, and is instead re-orientating its efforts towards the development and demonstration of a joint-service networked engagement capability.
As a result, a UK CEC Main Gate investment decision, originally planned for mid-2005, has been pushed back to the end of the decade. This will in turn impact on RN plans to introduce CEC, which has hitherto been regarded as the service’s flagship network-enabled capability (NEC) programme and a foundation for future interoperability with the USN.
UK interest in co-operative engagement stems from a classified mid-1990s study activity, known as Larone, which explored new technologies to improve situational awareness in RN ships and maximise the effectiveness of their existing defensive weapons in countering the evolving anti-ship missile threat. The results of this research identified the USN’s CEC system as the leading technology in this environment that potentially could address Fleet Command military capability reports regarding the ability to detect, monitor and counter Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) threats, as well as reduce the widening gap in interoperability with the USN.
At Initial Gate in March 2000, approval was given to establish the UK CEC programme, and to undertake a two-stage Assessment Phase to establish the most cost-effective solution to the requirement to equip RN Type 23 frigates with CEC. This was followed in June 2000 by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the US government that enabled the UK to gain access to CEC technology, and participation in the US CEC programme via Foreign Military Sales.
Following a competitive Assessment Phase 1, Lockheed Martin UK Integrated Systems was in late 2002 downselected to proceed with a 26-month Assessment Phase 2 activity designed to demonstrate and derisk CEC for integration into the Type 23 combat system. This work, undertaken with support from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, QinetiQ, Thales, BAE Systems and Raytheon, saw the installation and test of CEC hardware and software at sites on the south coast of the UK, culminating in highly successful composite tracking trials.
BAE Systems was contracted in 2001 to undertake UK CEC integration studies for the Type 45 destroyer. These parallel assessment activities provided the opportunity to develop, test and derisk the integration of UK CEC into the Type 23 and Type 45 combat systems to meet target in-service dates of 2008 and 2010 respectively. However, budget pressures and an aspiration to increase the joint utility of UK CEC have seen the Main Gate business case submission, originally set for June 2005, deferred by five years. Instead, the MoD says that it is now exploring the potential for a so-called Operational Capability Demonstrator (OCD) to evaluate joint-services utility.
The MoD states: “The project has been deferred by five years as part of the EP05 savings strategy, and to enable a revised procurement strategy to be implemented which would allow effort to be concentrated on delivering an [OCD] which would assess joint-services capability and demonstrate improved situational awareness and survivability.” It adds that the aim is “to re-profile the UK CEC programme to allow early delivery and evidence of commitment to NEC with a joint perspective by 2009. Co-incidentally, longer-term views would be taken on the prospects for broader NEC programme coherency initiatives”.
The MoD maintains that current planning assumptions “are that CEC will initially be installed on Type 23 frigates and Type 45 destroyers, providing the [RN] with a high-quality force tactical picture to support effective command decision-making and deployment of [AAW] weapons in protection of naval forces”.
The deferral of the UK CEC programme, which was hitherto viewed as a keystone NEC programme for the RN, has called into question some of the assumptions used to justify reductions in RN frigate and destroyer numbers, given that its anticipated introduction was used as one justification for cutting hull numbers from 31 to 25. Last year’s MoD paper, ‘Delivering Security in a Changing World – Future Capabilities’, noted: “A Co-operative Engagement Capability to link sensors and weapons systems of the Type 45 destroyers will provide much more effective maritime air defence, and on the Type 23 frigates will improve their point defence and situational awareness.” It continued: “In the light of the reduced conventional threat, our revised concurrency assumptions and improved networked capability, we assess that we need fewer [frigates and destroyers].”
CADIS and MATADOR automate AAW planning and co-ordination
The UK Ministry of Defence’s Directorate of Equipment Capability (Above Water Effect) is sponsoring a programme of applied research by QinetiQ that is exploring greater automation of platform and force-level anti-air warfare (AAW) co-ordination. The outputs are intended to demonstrate and reduce the risk of technologies that could be applied to future air-defence platforms such as the Royal Navy’s (RN’s) Type 45 destroyer.
Building on earlier work conducted under the Weapon Co-ordination System Technology Demonstrator programme initiated in the mid-1990s, QinetiQ Above Water Systems at Portsdown Technology Park – working in association with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – is conducting a programme of applied research addressing AAW planning and co-ordination. This involves two complementary technology demonstrators designed to provide platform protection functionality as a planning tool and execution decision aid for the conduct of air defence from open ocean to the littoral. Collectively they support planning, practice, situation assessment and response selection, and consider all air and sea platforms and their sensors and effectors.
The planning tool, known as CADIS (Co-ordinated Air Defence Integrator and Scheduler), is intended to ease the workload of the Anti-Air Warfare Commander (AAWC), as well as assisting in the disposition and employment of hard-kill and soft-kill air-defence assets such as combat air patrol aircraft, area- and local-area missile systems, and electronic warfare assets.
Initial work on the CADIS solution investigated a constraints-based reasoning tool that automatically places units to maximise an air-defence requirement (for example, force radar surveillance coverage) within constraints such as datalink connectivity and weapon system tactical employment rules. While this was recognised as the ultimate goal, it posed serious challenges to existing optimisation techniques and explanation facilities. The current CADIS system will provide tools (or calculators) to assist the AAWC in creating, assessing, rehearsing and monitoring air-defence plans.
An at-sea demonstration of CADIS was undertaken aboard HMS Manchester in July 2003, the tool being hosted on the ship’s Command Support System with interfaces to draw mission, unit, weapon and intelligence information from that system’s database. It was subsequently taken aboard HMS Exeter in 2004 for a long deployment.
Follow-on work for what was once known as the CADIS action tool, now referred to as MATADOR (Maritime Air Threat Assessment and Deployment of Resources), seeks to develop an automated system to provide considered advice so as to inform the AAWC’s decision-making on threat assessment and resource allocation. Key areas of the research programme are the human/computer interface, the co-ordination architecture (centralised or distributed), information-exchange requirements, and the rapid generation and evaluation of co-ordination responses.
Initial MATADOR research and development considered key functional requirements, with RN air-warfare officers providing user input. First laboratory demonstrations are due in December 2005; further land-based development and user evaluations will continue through the current phase of MATADOR development, running until July 2007.

What crap, where are the pictures? 😀

Dunno, there weren’t any defence-aerospace where the story came from. I haven’t seen any around. I imagine they’ll come.

Daniel

its good to keep the enemy guessing about our capabilities..else the enemy can come up with tactics/strategies to deal with weapons if they know that they are in service with the IAF.

You are suggesting that “enemy” doesn’t know these things? Sure you might be able to keep photos out of circulation but how do you control all the people who come into contact with the weapons during the course of training etc. Aircrew, groundcrew, civilians responsible for logistics etc, government officials responsible for oversight and thier staff etc etc. Then there are all the folks in the supplier country who know. Personally I think the only way India could keep such things secret is if they have something along the lines of the US “Area 51” arrangement. An elite, high security unit, probably with only a small inventory of the equipment in question, preferably operating from a somewhat isolated locality to allow for better control of the surrounds, in house procurement of systems (since involving foreign components leaves you trusting people over whom you have no control) etc, etc. Thing I don’t see is just whats so important about ASMs that they would be so particularly secretive about them as Harry suggests. India’s major opponents are land powers with any naval conflict likely to be peripheral at best. I can sort of see the reason for keeping ARMs as under wraps as possible since they are a critical part of taking out an enemy’s air defence network and opening him up for air strikes. I still doubt that the knowledge of anything but a small “silver bullet” capabilty could be kept secret from other powers for long.

Daniel

When are their 209’s due to enter service? Personally I think they too too long in getting the new subs, sure there was the lifting of sanctions and all that but they had the green light a while ago.

They also have a lot of social and economic problems. What exactly do they need submarines for anyway.

Daniel

Cheers guys. Yeah sites like airforce and army tech are still listing it and place it on the HAD Tigers but as far as I can tell no nation has actually committed to buying the missile for service. The missile testing program was completed in 2003 so if the hold up is money then how likely is it that there will be action?

Daniel