ATTACK HELICOPTERS BORDER PROTECTION + SPECIAL OPERATIONS supplement
MODERNISING THE MORTAR apr/may 2016. Issue 02.
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PHOTO: SSgt Ezekiel R Kitandwe
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LAND warfare
Over the Top
Mortars have been around for a long time, but they continue to make a vital contribution to land warfare, Stephen W. Miller explains.
08 TURING
Talking at the Same Time Thomas Withington discusses some of the pressing debates regarding Mobile Ad Hoc Networking, and how such communications may be improved in the future.
36 AIR POWER
Decision Time Australia is approaching a moment of reckoning regarding its attack helicopter fleet. Andrew Drwiega investigates.
20 LAND warfare
Break for the Border Peter Donaldson highlights a selection of the optronics available to help enhance border security and protection.
44 future technology
DRONE DANGERS Andrew Drwiega examines some of the technologies being employed to develop weapons capable of downing UAVs.
26 SEA POWER
Full Steam Ahead! The market and demand for Fast Attack Craft is in rude health, particularly in the Asia-Pacific, Trevor Hollingsbee explains.
50 Programme Focus
The Need for Speed The United States Army is overhauling the way it conducts vertical lift. Stephen W. Miller assesses the options.
32 AIR POWER
THE GREAT ESCAPE Thomas Withington examines some of the latest developments in the Combat Search and Rescue domain.
Armada SUPPLEMENT Special Forces SUPPLEMENT Armada’s ever-popular Special Forces Supplement returns with Andrew White at the helm, taking us through the latest developments in this shadowy domain.
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INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
ON THE COVER: The 81mm mortar is generally found at battalion level. Mortar technology is examined in Stephen W. Miller’s Over the Top article in this issue © USMC
Volume 40 , Issue No. 2, April/May 2016 Published bi-monthly by Media Transasia Ltd. Copyright 2012 by Media Transasia Ltd. Publishing Office: Media Transasia Ltd., 1603, 16/F, Island Place Tower, 510 King’s Road, Hong Kong Editor: Thomas Withington General Manager International Marketing: Vishal Mehta Manager Marketing: Jakhongir Djalmetov Sales & Marketing Coordinator: Wajiraprakan Punyajai
AR-MODULAR 7 ARMY 25 ASELSAN 11 AUVSI COVER 3 COPENHAGEN SENSOR TECHNOLOGY 25 DATRON COVER 2 EPIQ 5 EURONAVAL 49 COVER 3 EUROSATORY FLIR 23 FNSS 17 COVER 4 GENERAL ATOMICS IDEAS PAKISTAN 41
Invisio COVER 2 ILA BERLIN 43 ITEC 7 KONGSBERG 29 NEXTER 19 OSHKOSH COVER 4 ROSOBORONEXPORT 31 SOFEX 17 SUBSCRIPTION 13 UDT 11 ZUHAIR AIRSHOW
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Entries highlighted with Red Numbers are found in Special Operations Supplement
INDEX TO MANUFACTURERS Companies mentioned in this issue. Where there are multiple references to a company in an articles, only the first occurrence and subsequent photographs are listed below:
Graphic Designer: Khakanaa Suwannawong Production Manager: Kanda Thanakornwongskul Group Circulation Manager: Porames Chinwong Chairman: J.S. Uberoi President: Egasith Chotpakditrakul Chief Financial Officer: Sasakorn Dumavibhat
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Controlled circulation: 25,029 (average per issue) certified by ABC Hong Kong, for the period 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2014. Printed by Media Transasia Ltd., 75/8, 14th Floor, Ocean Tower II, Soi Sukhumvit 19, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok 10110, Thailand. Tel: 66 (0)-2204 2370, Fax: 66 (0)-2204 2390 -1 Annual subscription rates: Europe: CHF 222 (including postage) Rest of the World: USD 222 (including postage) Subscription Information: Readers should contact the following address: Subscription Department, Media Transasia Ltd., 75/8, 14th Floor, Ocean Tower II, Soi Sukhumvit 19, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok 10110, Thailand. Tel +66 2204 2370 Fax: +66 2204 2387 Email: accounts@mediatransasia.com
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A AgustaWestland Airbus Airbus Helicopter AM General AMV Arnold Defence
33, 51 48, 16 33, 36, 52 17 54 42
B BAE Systems 14, 38, 18 BAE Systems Bofors 28 Bell-Boeing 16, 33, 51, Bell Helicopter 33, 38, Boeing 17, 34, 38 , 50 Brighter 44, 48, BRN Technique 10
General Dynamics Land Systems 16 GD Mission Systems 35
General Electric H Hanjin Heavy Industry Harris Hudong – Zong –Hua Hyundai Wia
J Jankel K Karachi Shipyard KBP Kurganmashzavod
Copenhegen Sensor Technology 24
L L-3 Wescam LIG Nex1 Lockheed Martin
20, 21, 22, 44
D Denel Dillon Aero Dockyard and Engineering DSG Technology
28 42 26 15
E Enterprise Control Systems 44, 48
Elbit Epiq Solutions F FINMECCANICA FLIR FN Herstal FNSS Ford Ranger
16, 17, 21, 25 25
22, 33, 47 24 42, 22, 23 18 23
G Garden Reach Building 28 GAO - TS 15, 16, 20, 21 General Dynamics 21 ,29, 33, 40
30 9 27 30
I IAI 20, 25, 26, 46 18 Israel Military Industries
C Caterpillar 27 Chess Dynamics 48 China North Industry 28 China Shipbuilding Offshore 28 Controp
30, 40
45 17, 18 56 12 25 19, 20 42 29 21, 24 28 28 28 28
21
28 19 18
42 30 33, 52, 16
Lung Teh Shipbuilder
M MAN MBDA MD Helicopter MESIT Defence Mil Mistral Motovilikha Plant Corp MTU
28, 29, 30
28 29 38, 42 10, 12 51, 13 17 18 27, 30
N 16, 34, 16 Nexter NH Industries 33 Northrop Grumman 46 O Orbital ATK OTO Melara
P Parrot Patria Piasecki Aircraft Peugeot P4 Plassan Polaris Defence Pratriarch Partner Propmech PureTech Systems PT Citia PT Lundin PT Pal PT Palindo
18, 30, 29
R Rada Raduga Rafael Raytheon Renault Trucks
47, 49 30 27, 29 18, 19, 40 15, 16
S Saab 15 Saab Bofos Dynamics 18 34 Sagem Selex ES 47 Sig Sauer 22, 23 Sikorsky 16, 33, 51 29 ST Marine T Tactical Missiles Corp 30 TDA 16 Thales 12, 16, 30 TrellisWare 8, 9, 10, 12, Toyota Land Cruiser 23 U Ukrspecexport
18
V Volgograd Tractor Plant Volvo
18 26
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Editorial A Question of Priorities
O
n 23 June, voters in the United Kingdom, and UK citizens abroad, will vote in a referendum to decide whether the country remains part of the European Union (EU). This is arguably the most important constitutional question for the UK since a similar referendum was held by the British government on continued membership of the European Economic Community (EEC), the ancestor organisation of today’s EU, on 5 June 1975. The UK had entered the EEC in 1973. Campaigning has begun in the UK with two sides: one favouring the UK’s continuing EU membership, and the other pushing for a ‘Brexit’, Great Britain’s exit from the multilateral grouping. The leaders of the UK’s three main parties, Prime Minister David Cameron of the centre-right Conservatives, Jeremy Corbyn of the centre-left Labour Party and Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party all support the UK’s continuing EU membership. However, on Saturday 26 February, Mr. Corbyn and Ms. Sturgeon joined thousands of protestors in London opposed to the UK renewing its independent nuclear deterrent when the Royal Navy’s existing fleet of four ‘Vanguard’ class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines reach the end of their service lives next decade. The timing of the protest, and Mr. Corbyn and Ms. Sturgeon’s attendance, was puzzling. While both have made no secret of their opposition to the UK remaining as one of the world’s
6
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016
five official nuclear powers (alongside France, the People’s Republic of China, Russia and the United States), the protest came just one week after Mr. Cameron secured a number of agreements from the EU which he will use as campaigning tools for the UK to remain a member. The decision to attend the protest was a surprise given that it took place during the first week of campaigning for the UK to remain an EU member; a policy which both Mr. Corbyn and Ms. Sturgeon have endorsed. Despite their opposition to the UK’s ownership of nuclear weapons, Mr. Corbyn and Ms. Sturgeon ignore some fundamental facts. The world has known how to make nuclear weapons since the United States perfected them during the Second World War, showing their destructive effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The horrors visited on these two cities showed to the world the destructive power of these weapons. The destructive power of these weapons meant that a war involving them became too horrific for the major Cold War participants. This helped to preserve peace in Europe as much as the emergence of the EU. The UK disavowing its nuclear deterrent will not make the country immune from nuclear attack, but arguably nuclear attack can only be deterred by other nuclear weapons. Ultimately, these weapons are like house insurance: you hope that you will never need it to repair the roof, but the day the roof looks unsafe, you will be glad that you Thomas Withington, purchased coverage. Editor
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7
TURING
TrellisWare is involved in pushing forward research and development vis-à-vis MANET tactical communications, rolling innovations to this end onto existing products © TrellisWare
Talking at the Same Time
MANET or Mobile Ad Hoc Networking is the glue that holds tactical military communications together. It has revolutionised the radio domain since its introduction, and holds further promise as the technology develops in the future. Thomas Withington
T
o most people, the word Manet is more usually associated with Édouard Manet, the French artist who lived between 1832 and 1883, and was pivotal in the transition from the realism school to impressionism. In the military domain, he shares his name with an acronym which has been similarly revolutionary, transforming the way that troops communicate on the battlefield. In the military context, MANET essentially refers to a wireless communications network which is able to configure itself as a formation of deployed forces, and accompanying air and sea platforms, move around
8
the battlefield and support these troops. Civilian cell phone networks operate wirelessly, but they are dependent on fixed transmitters, often atop of buildings or high elevations, which receive the transmissions from a cell phone and transmit these to another tower until they reach their intended destination. As cell phones provide full duplex communications (people can talk and listen at the same time as they would in a normal conversation) cell phone networks handle transmission and reception of communications between phones simultaneously. MANET tactical communications networks differ in that the Ultra High
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016
Frequency (300 Megahertz/MHz to 1.5 Gigahertz/GHz) Wideband Software Defined Radios (SDRs) which comprise these networks not only enable the reception and transmission of voice, data and imagery traffic, much like a civilian cell phone, but also act in a similar fashion to a cell phone tower as a ‘router’. The router helps to carry radio traffic to and from its intended destination. For example, an SDR in a vehicle may perform a voice transmission back to a headquarters several miles away. Transmissions leave the vehicle’s radio, find the nearest SDR in the network, and ‘skip’ from this radio to another radio
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in the network, and so on, until the transmissions reach their intended destination; a process which occurs at the speed of light, 1080 million kilometres-per-hour (671 million miles-per-hour). Mobile Ad Hoc Networking has some key attractions for military communications in terms of logistics, manoeuvrability and survivability. Firstly, as the radios build and maintain the network there is no need to move large numbers of fixed transmitters into theatre to established a fixed network in a similar fashion to cell phone communications; this reduces time to establish the network, and the accompanying cost in terms of financial and human capital. Secondly, a fixed network will only maintain integrity as long as all of the users operate within range of the fixed transmitters; MANET has the advantage that, because its accompanying radios are also its routers, it moves with the forces who are using the network. In land manoeuvres this is especially important where speed and drive play a vital role in manoeuvring into a position of advantage regarding one’s adversary. Thirdly, the fact that the MANET radios also act as routers, means that there is no single point of failure for the communications network: a vehicle carrying a radio may be incapacitated or destroyed by hostile action, but this will not mean that the entire network ceases to operate. A related benefit concerns traffic volume. In terms of radio engineering, SDRs can typically handle large quantities of voice, data and imagery traffic, in the order of several hundred kilobits-per-second (kbps) compared to High Frequency (HF: three to 30MHz) which may only carry tens of kilobits-per-second, but this attribute comes with a cost: SDRs are limited by a line-of-sight range. Across flat terrain, at zero altitude, this is typically a range of around 4.7 kilometres (2.9 miles) for a person standing on the ground holding the radio. If the radio waves do not hit another radio within that distance, they will continue moving in a straight line (although rising in altitude relative to the Earth’s curved surface, eventually moving into space). HF radios have the advantage that they can offer intercontinental ranges as they ‘bounce’ their transmissions off the ionosphere; a layer of the atmosphere typically at an
Mobile Ad Hoc Networking continues to play an important role in ensuring that militaries remain mobile; a particularly important consideration in high-tempo manoeuvre warfare © Harris
Hindu Kush, the ‘urban canyons’ of cities such as Fallujah or Tikrit in Iraq posed similar problems for military communications, as buildings, floors and concrete walls could act as obstacles to communications, hence the importance of MANET to provide a means by which radio transmissions could skip from one radio to another.
altitude of 60km (37 miles) to 1000km (620 miles). Yet these ranges come at the cost of bandwidth, and HF communications often lack the ability to carry the data- and imagery-heavy communications of their SDR counterparts (see above). Ultimately, HF gives you range, but higher frequencies in the UHF spectrum give you bandwidth. How does this affect MANET? For ground troops UHF and other high frequencies are preferable as they allow high bandwidth communications, while enabling troops and vehicles to use radios which do not require especially large antennae, preserving the ability of troops and vehicles to move in a relatively unhindered fashion. Nevertheless, battles are not always performed on flat expanses of land. As such, terrain can impede SDR communications by simply ‘getting in the way’ of radio transmissions. The ability of MANET communications to skip across several radios which act as routers to reach their intended recipient allow communications to avoid natural obstacles like mountains. If a mountain is between two radios trying to communicate, then the radio’s transmissions skip from one router to another around the mountain until they reach their destination. Such a capability was particularly important during US-led combat operations in Afghanistan from 2001 where that country’s rugged topography would have otherwise impeded tactical communications. Away from the
The Rub Certainly, MANET has brought great benefits to land forces communications, particularly during manoeuvres, but it remains a work in progress, and the consensus in the tactical communications community following recent US-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is that there is room for improvement. “MANET has existed for over ten years, but militaries are having problems using it. remarks Haidong Wang, director of product management at US networking radio specialists TrellisWare Technologies. He explains that, “most existing MANET capabilities have limitations such as scalability. How does the network perform as the network changes from a static environment (i.e. when troops or formations are stationary) to a moving environment (when those same units are advancing to contact with the enemy)?” Other challenges, Mr. Wang notes, includes a MANET network’s ability to host new nodes (the technical terms for the transceivers which also act as routers along with behaving as radios) as they enter the network. Each of these nodes consumes some radio bandwidth to maintain connectivity in a network. UHF uses a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum from 30MHz to 1.5 Gigahertz. This may sound like a lot, but spectrum is a finite resource. Today’s battlefield has more than its fair share of users who demand radio spectrum to operate, from troops, to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, inhabited military aircraft,
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MESIT Defence is heavily involved in research to further-develop MANET techniques which may benefit existing products such as the company’s RF-40 Thoroughbred radio © Thomas Withington
radars and satellite communications. This is not to mention civilian users such as the emergency services, paramilitary forces, civilians with cell phones and satellite television providers, for example. The Afghan and Iraqi theatres have illustrated that today’s and tomorrow’s conflicts may well be performed in theatres where, to an extent, civilian ‘life goes on’ regardless of military activity. Therefore, adversely disrupting civilian communications via military bandwidth demands may not be conducive to prevailing in the all-important ‘battle for hearts and minds’ so integral to counter-insurgency operations. Given the finite nature of the spectrum, military users may want to occupy all the available space, but may in reality only be free to use a portion of it, due to the considerations outlined above. Armies deploying into theatre have to think about, “how many nodes can you accommodate on each megahertz?” asks Mr. Wang. Such considerations mean that MANET lacking scalability require “very complex planning,” he continues. Moreover, each theatre may have sever-
are typically extremely complex in their composition. “Methods used in contemporary MANET networks are usually very complex which is why it is extremely difficult to verify them in conditions of real deployment.” Such networks can have an “infinite number of possible layouts,” composing different environmental or topographical conditions to traffic usage or network size. Therefore, as Mr. Sohajek continues, accurately replicating the ‘real world conditions’ in which a MANET may be deployed is nigh-on impossible.
al small MANET networks used by each formation of troops and “these need to be stitched together into a very large network. Once you have The Remedy 300 people, all of whom want to use the network, how will you deal with Nevertheless, the software world comes to the aid of MANET developers. “Verificathis? A single radio channel can be narrowed in terms of the number of tion against simulated models is increasingly used because the verification of a hertz it uses, but how much do you network ‘in action’ is practically imposwant to narrow the channel, as this sible,” Mr. Sohajek observes. Yet, as well can degrade performance?” as offering the developer a potentially Mr. Wang’s observations chime with those of Ondrej Sohajek, chief greatly-expanded range of scenarios technology officer of Czech Repub- against which they can test their MANET architecture, it also potentially reduces delic tactical radio experts MESIT velopment and testing costs, compared to Defence (formally DICOM): “The having to evaluate every possible scenario number of network users is one with an actual army formation. of the most sensitive parameters. As Mr. Wang explains above, the chalThere is a myth that the more lenges faced by MANET networks are clear network users, the better the MANET and present. How can they be overcome? performance. This comes primarily from “The answer is to ensure that your neta logical assumption that particular work is scalable,” he argues. TrellisWare’s network nodes in dense networks work more efficiently for each other’s advantage approach employs a concept which the company calls the Barrage Relay Network re-broadcasting the data and that there (BRN). Mr. Wang says that the BRN apare more communication paths available proach gets the nodes discussed above to and higher redundancy, plus the increased collaborate with one another. Currently, stability of the network and longer comMANET radios ascertain which path, via munication ranges as a result.” The truth skips is best to move radio traffic from A is that another rebroadcast is nothing else to B across several nodes. Mr. Wang states than usage (blocking) of the same communication channel for a specific time and that this approach is analogous to the shared transmission capacity is adequately game of ‘Telephone’ in which one person has a phrase which they say to another, reduced. Mr. Sohajek continues that, as far who then says it to another until it reaches as the capabilities of MANET communicathe end of the line and the recipient and tions are concerned, “It is important to originator of the phrase compare their two remember a few dogmas, like the definiphrases to see how they have changed in tiveness of frequency spectrum, physical the transmission. The BRN technique is properties of radio signal propagation and equivalent to the person telling everyone the consequences of the fact that we are in the game of their phrase simultaneously. working with a shared media; radio chanMr. Wang continues that the firm is already nels with finite capacity.” using this approach for its tactical radios Development is another challenge in such as the TW-400 Cub, TW-225 CheetahNet realising MANET techniques and systems. Mini radio, TW-600 Ocelot and TW-850 Mr. Sohajek states that deployed MANETs
10 armadainternational.com - april/may 2016
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Thales’ AN/PRC-154 handheld radio is in extensive use with the United States armed forces. The company is heavily involved in the panEuropean ESSOR waveform initiative © Thales
TSM Ghost and their accompanying TSM waveforms (see below). Like TrellisWare, waveforms are at the core of how Thales addresses the challenges posed in ensuring workable, robust MANET networks. For the uninitiated a waveform is essentially a software algorithm which tasks a soldier’s radio to behave in a particular fashion to communicate in a particular way. It can be thought of as similar to a civilian smartphone software application or ‘app’. An app essentially tells a cell phone to behave in a particular way to achieve a particular task. For example, a satellite navigation programme tells the phone to listen for satellite transmissions from a Global Positioning System satellite to enable the user to find their location or their direction. Waveforms are being used to address some of the challenges which Mr. Wang discusses above, such as the quantity of nodes which can be accommodated on a single network. This challenge is being addressed by the European Secure Software-Defined Radio (ESSOR) initiative. Several European countries principally Finland, France, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden are involved in the ESSOR initiative which is under the auspices of the OCCAR (Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en Matière d’Armement/Joint Organisation for Cooperation in Armaments). Europe-wide organisation which manages multinational European defence programmes. ESSOR aims to realise a suite of HF and VHF waveforms which can
handle high data rate transmissions, which can also carry simultaneous voice, data and position information. However, in terms of meeting the node challenge, ESSOR is envisaged to be able to accommodate up to 150 nodes on a specific network, according to a written statement provided to Armada by Thales. This statement continued that development of the ESSOR waveform has now been completed, and testing has commenced, with interoperability evaluations between different radios completed towards the end of 2015. It is envisaged that ESSOR could be rolled out across the radios of the participating nations from circa 2020. The ability to provide wideband communications across mobile ad hoc networks is also at the heart of the WF40 wideband networking V/UHF waveform developed by MESIT Defence. The WF40 can handle data rates of several hundred kilobits-persecond, typically supporting transmissions which can skip between seven routers to reach their recipient. Managing a large number of nodes on a network, and knitting these networks together, is a challenge which Thales recognises. The company continues that ensuring the full connectivity of soldiers on the battlefield not only via their radios, but also increasingly via their all-important battle management systems which give cartographic information, situational awareness, and timely information and orders, so intrinsic to prevailing against one’s adversary. “Transformation cannot be achieved through dedicated bubbles with a limited number of users. MANET waveforms (must) be designed to insure tactical radio network deployment with a large number of users and applications.”
Although MANET tactical communications have revolutionised the battlefield, there is room for improvement to ensure the next generation of MANET radios is even more capable © US DoD
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Radio engineers thus have their work cut out. The demand for MANET in the future is unlikely to diminish and will only increase. However, initiatives such as the ESSOR waveform discussed above, plus so-called ‘Cognitive Radio’ techniques which, put simply, employ software that automatically configures a radio to change its behaviour to ensure its optimum performance. For example, the radio may detect that a particular segment of the spectrum is heavily congested and thus move its transmissions to another part of the spectrum to ensure that data transmission and reception is not adversely affected. Cognitive Radio could help to address some of the challenges which MANET techniques face today. Lessons from recent combat operations will be digested and incorporated into future tactical radio hardware and software. MANET may have changed battlefield communications beyond recognition, but it is still far from becoming a panacea. It has revolutionised the battlefield, but like most revolutions it has so far failed to create a utopia.
Land WARFARE
The M224 LWCMS is a 60mm system that is carried by its four person crew. It is organic to US Army light infantry and Marine Corps companies providing responsive high explosive, illumination and smoke in support of small unit manoeuvre and defence © US DoD
Over the Top
Mortars are a class of artillery. They differ from guns which have a low, flat trajectory best suited for engaging targets by direct fire and howitzers which typically engage targets not seen from the gun position with an arching trajectory. Stephen W. Miller
T
he mortar fires a projectile at a high angle allowing it to hit targets behind hills, in narrow streets, and inside ravines and trenches; the latter capability made it especially useful in First World War trench warfare. It can be a very simple system: just drop the round down the tube and fire as quickly as the soldier can drop the rounds (20 rounds per minute; one every three seconds is easily possible). Plus, this system is portable, a light mortar can weigh under 23 kilograms/ kgs (50 pounds/lbs) and even a heavy towed mortar is but 150kgs (330 lbs) ready to fire which compare favourably to even the BAE Systems M777 155mm lightweight howitzer at 4200kgs (9300lbs). Yet it can reach out to 3.5 kilometres/km (2.1 miles) for light
mortars or up to ten kilometres (6.2 miles) for the latest heavy weapons. The mortar started out primarily as a siege weapon that could fire over the walls of fortifications to destroy the guns and structures behind them. Since their reintroduction in the First World War, the British Stokes Mortar saw widespread use during the Second World War, where it took on an important, though often overlooked role in many theatres. In fact, Wehrmacht (Nazi Germany’s combined armed forces) doctrine saw mortars as the primary indirect fire support for the infantry as ‘tube’ artillery would be reserved for the schwerpunkt or ‘main attack’. Here it established itself as the small unit ‘hip packet’ artillery; a role which it generally continues to play today. Modern mortars fall into three catego-
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ries: light mortars (generally 60mm) used at platoon and company level, medium mortars (81mm for Western or 82mm for Russian/Chinese weapons) used at company or battalion level, and 120mm mortars at battalion level and used in direct fire support units. Regarding dismounted infantry, the tendency is to have the 81mm at battalion level whereas mechanized units usually have the 120mm mortar mounted on a vehicle. Today’s mortars are lighter, have longer range, greater accuracy and more lethality than those fielded just fifteen years ago. This is the result of the introduction of new metal and composites in the mortar tubes and base plates, automation and digitization of fire control, and advances in fuses and ammunition. These improvements have enhanced the mortar’s capabili-
Land WARFARE
High mobility is one of the key tactical advantages of US Army Stryker units. Having an immediately responsive indirect fire capability is critical to maintaining that manoeuvre advantage © US Army
ties to fill its direct support roles despite the changing dynamics of ground combat with extended frontage, more diverse operations and asymmetrical warfare. In fact, a strong case can be made that these conditions increase the importance and contribution of the mortar to the tactical commander. Light Mortars Which weapon is most suited for employment as organic to a particular unit level is influenced by two primary factors; first how does it fit within the mission responsibilities of that unit level? In particular, does it match the area of interest and of action responsible to it? Second, is it compatible with the units’ ability to deploy the system; i.e. can they move it and support it? Though there are advantages to having a weapon with a longer range, if it requires too many soldiers to carry or additional equipment, it might not be practical. The difficulties of moving the piece and providing sufficient ammunition can negate the value of the additional range. A balance needs to be struck. A general consensus among armies is that the 60mm mortar is the best choice for the light infantry company. The US Army FM7-90 Tactical Employment of Mortars manual stresses: “The value of the 60mm mortar … is its immediate responsiveness to the company commander’s orders and the speed at which it can be brought into action.” The US Army and Marine Corps employ the M224 LWCMS (Lightweight Company Mortar System) with an effective engagement range from 70 metres/m (229 feet/ft) to 3489m (12627ft). The minimum range is as important as the maximum as it indicates how close in front of friendly troops the weapon is capable of placing fires. This can be critical in overcoming
an assault that is threatening to overrun a position or blasting out an enemy determined to hug friendly positions so as to avoid opposing artillery fires. The M224 and even the 20-percent lighter M224A1 are supplied by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GDOTS). This weapons family fires High Explosive (HE), Smoke (both white and red phosphorus), Illumination (visible and infrared) and Practice projectiles. Saab meanwhile offers a Multi-Purpose Anti-Personnel AntiMateriel round (M1061 MAPAM) which can be used with the M224/A1 and is able to be used more closely to blue forces due to its more controlled fragmentation pattern and the ability to penetrate a roof or even light armour and detonate inside. Away from the US, the Hirtenberger M6 Mortar is a 60mm lightweight infantry weapon. In addition to the Österreichisches Bundesheer (Austrian Army) it was adopted by the British Army and Royal Marines as the M6-895 with a maximum rage of 3800m
(12467ft). The British fielding reversed an earlier plan that would have eliminated the light mortar in favour of the handheld grenade launcher. However, combat experience during the UK’s intervention in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2013 highlighted the benefits of the light mortar causing the substitution to be rethought. The tripod mounted Automatic Grenade Launcher (AGL) is also sometimes seen as a substitute for the light mortar. However, the flight characteristics of the AGL are closer to the arching fires of a howitzer. This makes it difficult to reach reverse slopes with the AGL. Moreover, they do not have the diversity of other mission rounds such as illumination and smoke. An aspect of the 60mm mortar is that, though most accurate and long range fires are performed using the bipod and TE (Traversing and Elevation) mechanism, it can also be handheld and visually aimed for quick engagements. Leveraging this technique, DSG Technology/Mortars has introduced the iMortar, an ultra-lightweight 60mm mortar designed for small unit use. At 5.5kgs (twelve pounds) and 900mm (36 inches/in) in length with integrated aiming, it is well-suited to the small team which is also reflected in its short 1.2km (0.7 mile) range. Medium Mortars The 81mm calibre (actually 81.4mm) is most common in Western armies while the 82mm is found in Russian and Chinese weapons. Although common in Russian units
The US Army adopted the Elbit Soltam smoothbore 120mm mortar which is designated M120 in the ground bipod version. It is employed at battalion level © US Army
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Land WARFARE
Towed 120mm heavy mortars have been adopted by the US Marines to provide a helicopter transportable indirect fire capability for the vertical assault element. The EFSS uses a TDA 120mm rifled mortar with a Growler light prime mover © USMC
another mortar projectile that produces smoke and does so instantaneously while defeating both visual and thermal imaging. It burns fiercely and can cause burn casualties, but due to its instantaneous effect it is ideal for marking targets.
during the Second World War, the 82mm has been replaced by the 120mm in most Russian Army units. The exception was the use of the 2B9 Vasilek, an automatic 82mm gun-mortar on a wheeled carriage fielded in 1970 and used during the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. It is still in use by Russian airborne forces. Unlike conventional mortars, it fires in either a single shot or automatic mode using four-round clips to a range of 4270m (14009ft) with high explosive, smoke, illumination and anti-armour rounds. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army uses the Type 67, a modernization of the Soviet PM41 mortar first fielded in 1941. This mortar was widely used in the Vietnam War. The US has applied technology to improve its 81mm mortars with the latest being the M252. At 42.3kg (93 lbs) it is found at the battalion level in army light infantry and is used by the US Marine Corps. The 81mm mortar was also used in the M125 a BAE Systems M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier modified to carry and fire the mortar through a roof hatch. It is also used in the Marine Corps’ General Dynamics Land Systems’ (GDLS) LAV-M Mortar and carried for dismounted support with the GDLS M1129 Stryker mortar carrier. The M252 has a range of 5608m (18398ft) firing the full range of 81mm ammunition. The Mo-81mm LLR (Léger Long Renforcé/Reinforced, Light, Long) from Thales is used by the French and Irish armies and is offered with a 1.1m (3.7ft) short barrel (Léger Cour) and (Léger long) and with a 1.5m (4.9ft) barrel. It has a standard range of 3100m (10170ft) but special extended range ammunition extends this to 5600m
(18372.7ft). Elsewhere in France, Nexter is in the business of supplying mortar ammunition via its Mecar subsidiary which produces a range of mortar rounds, such as the 155mm MPM (Metric Precision Munition) which has a maximum range of 40km (24 miles), while the company has also developed a version of its VBCI (Véhicule Blindé de Combat d’Infanterie/Armoured Infantry Combat Vehicle) in use by the French Army as a 120mm mortar carrier, although no sales of this version of the vehicle have yet been performed. All 81mm mortar rounds are fin-stabilized with the most prevalent being the high explosive round. The introductions of multi-option fuses for high explosive allow the gun crew to easily select the detonation of the projectile just prior to firing. Such fuses like the M734 can be set to detonate on impact, delayed (allowing it to penetrate a roof or bunker) or proximity (exploding above the ground which spreads the explosive shrapnel in a wide area from above the target). Illumination projectiles carry flare that burns at 525,000 candle power suspended from a parachute. The time fuse is set by the crew so that the case separates over the target igniting the illuminate which then burns for 50-60 seconds. The illuminate composition can be configured to provide either visible or infrared light. Smoke projectiles are filled with a composition of red phosphorus pellets that are ignited to burn providing a dense obscuring smoke. White phosphorus is
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Heavy Mortars The 120mm mortar has for over the last 20 years begun to prevail as the calibre of choice in heavy mortars. In some units the heavy mortar is used as an artillery weapon. This is the case with the US Marines’ Expeditionary Fire Support System (EFSS) from GDOTS which equips battalions in the Marine Artillery with this 120mm rifled mortar, derived from TDA Armament’s Mo 120 RT. The EFSS is used to support the vertical assault element as it is designed specifically to be carried inside Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion heavylift helicopters and Bell-Boeing CV/ MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotors. The EFSS M327 mortar is towed by a specially-designed lightweight prime mover and can be set up in four minutes and fire up to four rounds-perminute out to eight kilometres (4.9 miles). The US Army has also moved to the 120mm mortar via its smoothbore M120 Elbit’s SPEAR reduces the recoil forces of mortar firing sufficiently to allow the weapon to be mounted and accurately fired from a light tactical vehicle. The system has already been employed by US Special Forces on pick-up trucks in Afghanistan © Elbit
Land WARFARE
Mortar derived from the Elbit Systems’ back. An accompanying trailer carries ready Soltam K-6. It has a range of 7200m (23622m) ammunition. Elbit Systems’ SPEAR uses but like all heavy mortars the 150kg (330 lb) a special soft recoil system allowing the firing weight dictates that it either be towed mortar to be mounted in the bed of a light or mounted on a vehicle. The US Army vehicle like the AM General HMMWV (High mounts the M121 (vehicle version) on its Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) M1064 (M113-based) mortar carrier and on or even a modified pick-up truck. They the M1129 Stryker. The Soltam Cardom used have already secured a contract to provide on the M1129 takes target acquisition data SPEAR to the Royal Thai Army. Steve and translates it to traverse and elevation Rust of Mistral indicated to Armada that angles which are automatically sent to the “US Special Forces using Elbit soft recoil gun to prepare for firing. The Cardom can mortars in Afghanistan found they offered come into action in under 30 seconds and a ideal solution for providing immediately has a burst rate of 16 rounds-per-minute responsive fires not previously possible for (rpm) and a four rpm sustained rate of fire. light truck mounted forces.” Providing mobility to the 120mm mortar For armoured forces the development has been a focus of many efforts over the and fielding of turreted 120mm mortars years and continues today. The approach and gun/mortars is gaining attention. taken is determined by the end user force; is Rather than firing through a roof hatch it a light or armoured force? For light forces from a platform with the round dropped one solution is offered by Boeing—a version down the tube, these mortars are mounted of its Phantom Badge. This lightweight in a mantel and loaded from the breach. combat support vehicle has been configSome recent systems are automatically ured with a 120mm mortar mounted in the loaded and can engage with both indirect new FNSS Armada Apr-May 16.pdf
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and direct fires. The Patria/BAE Systems AMOS (Advanced Mortar System) is used by the Maavoimat (Finnish Army). Its dual 120mm mortar in a 360-degree traversing turret can fire 16 rounds-per-minute. By integrating a Global Positioning System (GPS) geolocation and inertial navigation fire control system the AMOS can move into a position, fire a 14-round salvo and then displace in under 30 seconds. It also allows Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact fire as one AMOS can fire up to 16 rounds so that all hit the target at the same time. The system automatically adjusts the firing angle of each round so that they all hit simultaneously. Patria’s NEMO is essentially a single barrel version based the AMOS. Jukka Tiainen, Patria’s technical manager for weapon systems suggested, “the major advantages of the Nemo unmanned turreted mortars are that they have the same mobility as units they are supporting while providing continuous protection to the crew. Plus, the combina-
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Land WARFARE
The AMOS is a turret-mounted 120mm mortar with twin tubes that are automatically loaded and trained. As a result a single AMOS can deliver the equivalent rounds on target as a full battery of conventional mortars © Patria
tion of auto-loading and automated firing allows one NEMO to deliver fires equivalent to a full battery of traditional guns.” The Polish Armament Group unveiling in late 2014 of its RAK-120 turreted mortar on the Rosomak (the Polish-built eight-wheel drive Patria Armoured Modular Vehicle) suggests that other armies have recognized the benefits and broader tactical applications of the turreted approach. One of these is their direct fire capability which permits their use in an assault support role. Turreted mortars can engage bunkers, buildings and fortifications to 1500m (4921ft) range with high accuracy. The Russian semi-automatic loading rifled 2S9 Nona-S 120mm howitzer/ mortar system (on the Volgograd Tractor Plant BMD amphibious airborne infantry fighting vehicle) and 2S23 120mm self-propelled howitzer/mortar (on an eight-wheel drive Arzamas BTR-80 chassis) fill a similar role. The Russian Motovilikha Plants Corporation latest fielding in the Nona family is the 2S31 Vena, an automated self-propelled mortar with a longer barrel mounted on the Kurganmashzavod BMP-3 amphibious infantry fighting vehicle. In addition to conventional rounds it also fires the Gran laser-guided bomb against point targets at a range of 13km (eight miles). Mortar carrier variants of the BTR-3 eight-wheel drive armoured personnel carrier are available from Ukraine’s Ukrspecexport state armaments export company which has supplied the BTR-3M2 mortar carrier to the Royal Thai Army as of 2013.
Turkey’s FNSS has developed a 120mm mortar mounted on the company’s ACV-19 tracked armoured combat vehicle. Known as the SPM-120, this platform incorporates a 120mm mortar mounted on a turntable positioned in the rear of the vehicle which fires through a hatch in the roof. The ACV-19 chassis itself is a variant of the firm’s ACV-15 design which is already in service with the armies of Malaysia, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. The ACV-19, however, has a longer hull, and a suspension which allows it to carry greater payloads than the ACV-15, while retaining a spare parts commonality level of 80 percent. The SPM-120 is known to be in service with two nations, although these have not been named. Precision Projectiles One benefit of the 120mm mortar round is its greater explosive power. The 81mm projectile carries around four kilograms (nine pounds) of explosive while the 120mm carries 13kgs (29 lbs). Another benefit is that it is more easily adapted to advanced ammunition types including ‘cargo’ submunition and precision guided projectiles. This is not to suggest that 81mm guided projectiles are not possible; in fact BAE Systems and GDOTS have both demonstrated the 81mm RCGM (Roll Controlled Guided Mortar). It modifies the existing British mortar bomb with GPS guidance, canard
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FNSS’ ACV-19 is a self-propelled tracked mortar with the 120mm weapon being fired through a hatch in the vehicles’ roof. © FNSS
controls, and an M734A1 multi-option fuse. So adapted, the round can impact within five metres (16ft) of its designated target. It can be fired from the existing L16 or M253 mortars. It provides target coverage with two rounds that with conventional engagement techniques would require ten. It is this increased fire efficiency that drives the interest in PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions). Considering that, for example, the M1129 Stryker Mortar carrier carries 60 rounds (which also include smoke and illumination), using PGMs allows ten-fold increase in engagements from on board stowage. The US Marine Corps Precision Extended Range Mortar programme or PERM is being led by Raytheon in collaboration with Israel Military Industries. It uses a GPS-guided 120mm projectile which in 2014 test firings achieved ten-metre (32.8ft) accuracy. An added benefit is that the canards used to steer the projectile allow an extended range of up to 16km (8.6 miles). Orbital ATK has developed a similar GPS-guided projectile kit known as the XM395. It is based on its 155mm artillery guided projectile. Both the PERM and XM395 can be used by rifled or smoothbore mortars. Saab’s Bofors Dynamics division has taken another PGM path seeking a direct hit with its STRIX 120mm terminallyguided mortar projectile. The head has an infrared imaging sensor that detects and locks on to the heat signature of a target and then guides itself onto it. It is considered an anti-armoured vehicle round in that by attacking the thinner roof of the targeted vehicle it is likely to penetrate and disable or destroy it. The system offers a unique organic capability to engage
Land WARFARE
Raytheon was awarded a contract to deliver its Precision Extended Range Mortar for the US Marines’ 120mm mortars. It provides an increased range of up to 16km as well as first round accuracy with a circular error probable better than ten metres © Raytheon
armoured forces assembling to attack even when hidden by terrain. STRIX has been in service with the Swedish and Swiss armies since the late 1990s. The GRAN is another 120mm thermal guided mortar round from KBP in Russia but its seeker homes in on the radiated signal from a laser designator usually operated by a ground observer.
It has a range of 1500m (4921ft) to nine kilometres. Evolving Capabilities The combination of highly accurate position determination of both targets and firing mortars with digital computing of firing solutions has made them even more
responsive and accurate. Where previously adjusting firing on to a target might require three shots before ‘firing for effect’, this adjustment process can be reduced to one round or even eliminated entirely. The closed loop system that links the forward observer to the gun and automatically computes and applies the firing solution further refines this process. Adding automatic loading permits single and dispersed weapons to match the target effect that previously required six or more guns firing in battery. The addition of precision guided projectiles and the turreted mortar allow the mortar to undertake point target and direct fire support missions for the small unit. Together these advances are altering the way that mortars are being used and expanding the roles that they are playing in combat. The technical and performance improvements have been demonstrated; it is now up to the soldiers to evolve their tactics and employment to capitalize on what these can offer.
Major supplier of the more advanced ammunition and developer of future solutions
ammunition Comprehensive offering of ammunition for tanks, artillery and medium-calibre guns
CREATING NEW REFERENCES IN DEFENCE I WWW.NEXTER-GROUP.COM armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 19
land warfare Cheek-by-jowl, the Mexican border town of Tijuana in the state of Baja California on the right nestles close-up against the US city of San Diego, California © US Army
Break for the Border Border control has never been a more sensitive issue in peacetime than it now is in Europe and the United States. In Europe, sympathy for people escaping civil war in Syria and state failures in Africa mix with fears of political violence and social disruption, adding to the already-present stress of economic austerity. Peter Donaldson
W
hile technology will not nies, however not all offer the same level of solve the problems drivtechnology. In fact, only a few companies ing refugees to seek a betoffer truly high-end technology,” he said. ter life, it can provide ways “The competition is fierce, and some of the to channel them towards users choose to settle on less-advanced official crossing points by sealing off leaktechnologies for various reasons rather ier areas, and helping to identify those who than choosing the most advanced systems might pose real threats. Optronics are key that can truly solve the problem.” elements of integrated multi-sensor sysIsrael Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) tems, providing the automatic detection, Tamam division’s director of optronics identification and classification of targets research and development Naveh Bahat, and minimising false alarms; the last of within the company’s systems, missiles which significantly alleviates overload on and space group, concurred, adding that security personnel, Controp marketing some resort to “very, very cheap” cameras and sales vice-president Johnny Carni bought on Ebay or from Amazon, for expoints out. He also noted a distinct divide ample, buying them in large numbers and developing in the market between the not worrying too much if some of them low-end and high-end in terms of sensor fail. He contrasts this with “real borperformance and overall capability. “The ders” monitored with high-performance market is flooded with (optronics) compacameras, some covering short ranges of
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around half a kilometre (0.3 miles), others with much longer ranges, all connected to image analysis, target recognition and tracking and database systems and software. The high-end systems extend into multiple light wavelengths with visible and short-, medium- and long-wave infrared cameras, uncooled for short ranges and cooled for longer ranges, providing opportunities for image fusion, where images from different sources, or produced by different systems are combined so as to create as detailed an image as possible. Mr. Bahat emphasised that this need not mean fusing or overlaying the images. Instead, fusion would extract the best information from each wavelength to improve tracking performance and vision at longer ranges and in bad weather.
land warfare
This fence constitutes much of the USMexico border in Arizona, illustrating why sophisticated networked sensor systems with automatic target detection and recognition are generating so much interest © US Army National Guard
An Israeli officer briefs Air Force General Craig McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, from an observation post overlooking the Gaza Strip near the Israeli city of Sderot © US DoD
Long-Range Mr. Bahat stressed the importance of stabilisation for long-range cameras, adding that this should be one of the first decisions to make in specifying a border security system. Eric Olson, vice-president for marketing at PureTech Systems, in Arizona, United States, reports an uptick in the need for very long-range detection in border and coastal surveillance applications. “Part of that increase seems to stem from understanding that these long-range detection capabilities are now achievable at an affordable price point.” He also mentioned growing interest in the use of airborne and ground mobile platforms including vehicles, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and aerostats to assist border surveillance. The company is most active in the border surveillance markets of the Middle East and North America, and announced in October 2015 that it had completed the initial field deployment of the Remote Video Surveillance System
(RVSS) upgrade for the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. PureTech provides the software for full motion video, target detection, sensor control and the geospatial user interface as a member of the General Dynamics team that won the RVSS upgrade contract. The RVSS consists of towers mounted in proximity to the US-Mexican frontier to improve border surveillance there. Arie Chernobrov, general manager of Elbit Systems’ security systems division, emphasised that most of the requirements the company bids for involve the integration of multiple technologies including radar-based automatic detection systems, unattended ground sensors, video motion detector content analysis and verification systems using imaging sensors. Most customers want detection ranges of at least ten kilometres (6.2 miles) for targets, he said. Growing detection ranges bring several challenges that are unique to surveillance applications, Mr. Olson said,
citing image instability, environmental interference and the small number of pixels represented by a target. “This challenge is met with increased computing power, software-based stabilisation, more advanced background modelling and expanded feature extraction, to more accurately identify the target of interest.” Another challenge is camera barrelling, which is the ability to keep the camera’s centre pixel on the target while zooming in over several kilometres. “A camera with poor barrelling can have a target centred at zero percent zoom, but completely lose sight of that ‘centred’ target as the zoom level increases,” he said. “In addition to more precise mechanical design, video analytics software can be used to compensate.” Straightforward at short distances, camera control tasks also become harder as range increases, Mr. Olson told Armada. “Simple movements, such as centring a target of interest, slewing to a location or enabling an automatic camera follow at distances of several kilometres become increasing complex as the camera’s pan, tilt and zoom must be controllable in very fine increments.” Controp emphasises that border surveillance requires optronics that enable target classification for quick decision-making, arguing that automating classification improves the quality of decisions made and reduces the number of people needed. Furthermore, the use of long-range cameras on towers places even greater demands on stabilisation as The RVSS upgrade accepted by the US CBP features video analytics and geospatial command and control developed by PureTech Systems as part of General Dynamics’ solution and includes this advanced graphical user interface © PureTech Systems
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 21
land warfare
Controp’s 3D-GUARD system is based on stereoscopic camera pairs installed on poles or towers, and controlled by a central C2 system. The cameras are stationary with fixed fields of view and provide stereoscopic capabilities that reduce nuisance alarms © Controp
towers move in the wind and can shift as parts expand and contract with changes in temperature. The company also notes a growing demand for vehicle-mounted optronics. This, said Mr. Carni, brings a need for short, medium and long-range capabilities and multiple sensors on the same platform. At short ranges, a cooled infrared camera is not essential, as an uncooled sensor might suffice. For medium ranges, maximum focal lengths of 250 or 450mm might be enough, while longer ranges need lenses of 720 or 1200mm. It is important for suppliers to provide a range of systems and capabilities to serve a variety of requirements, some of which result from conditions specific to the border terrain in question, he said. “While detection is usually achieved using a radar, identification and recognition are done by optronics. These missions require the highest quality of picture, which can only be attained by an excellent thermal camera with stabilisation.” The company has recently introduced a new system known as 3D-GUARD, which it describes as an advanced three-dimensional video motion detection system. Each 3D-GUARD system is composed of two stationary cameras with fixed fields-of-view and a detection range of up to one kilometre. Designed to protect strategic facilities and perimeters as well as borders, it is a day and night capable system that detects moving targets and intruders automatically and generates alerts. Providing precise
Controp’s TORNADO is a passive lightweight high-speed 360 degree scanning system for automatic intruder detection and tracking up to a range of four kilometres for human targets © Controp
information on target location, size and movement, the 3D-GUARD acts as reliable ‘virtual fence’ and can be installed on poles or towers, Mr. Carni said, and operates as a fast deployment system or as a standalone managed from a central command and control system. “The capabilities of this new ‘staring’ system drastically reduce the nuisance of false alarms that are typical of other video analytic systems,” Mr. Carni added. For long-range automatic detection of movement Controp has developed and recently introduced the TORNADO, which it describes as a passive lightweight fast scanning infrared camera that provides a 360 degree panoramic image. TORNADO uses a Medium Wave Infrared (MWIR) camera and provides panoramic coverage from ground level up to 18 degrees above the horizon, enabling it to detect airborne threats, in particular UAVs. “TORNADO uses unique software algorithms, which automatically detect and track any mov-
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ing target. It can detect very small targets hundreds of metres away and large targets even tens of kilometres away.” Finally, Controp’s SPEED-LR is a highly-sophisticated, long-range, wide-area, passive, real time, stabilized intruder detection system, which automatically detects motion in a wide panoramic view and can be installed on towers, poles, tripods and other supports. Incorporating a long range thermal imaging camera with a continuous zoom lens, a colour daylight television camera, eye-safe laser rangefinder and laser pointer, the SPEED-LR can automatically detect, recognise, identify and track any moving target up to tens of kilometres away, says the company. Long endurance Finmeccanica stressed that, in addition to adequate range and resolution, optronics for border security must be very reliable for extended periods of remote operation with long maintenance intervals. The company’s land and naval defence electronics division has developed a new generation of thermal imaging cameras designed to operate unattended for up to 50000 hours. For comparison, says the company, conventional cooled thermal imagers typically require a coolant recharge after 6000 to 9000 operating hours. The extra operating time comes from new cooling engines that the company offers Stabilized so it can be installed on high towers and poles, Controp’s SPEED-LR features sensors including a thermal imager with a continuous zoom lens, colour TV, monochrome CCD (Charged Coupled Device) spotter, eye-safe laser rangefinder and pointer © Controp
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land warfare
The Distant Sentry is designed as a flexible border security system that can be configured with ground and maritime radars, optronics, unattended ground sensors, wireless communications and hybrid power systems © Finmeccanica
with its latest infrared cameras, including the Horizon. The company also recently launched a new family of multi-sensor optronics systems under the name NERIO, offering medium-range, long-range and ultralong-range performance with respective detection ranges of ten kilometres, ten to 25km (15.5 miles) and 25 to 50km (31 miles). They comprise a cooled thermal imager, colour television camera and optional laser rangefinder integrated into a gyro-stabilised pan and tilt head, which can be mounted on fixed installations or mobile platforms. The sensor feeds can be integrated into command and control systems or processed locally using Finmeccanica’s VANTAGE or ANTEO software packages. spectral bands Mr. Bahat stressed that the choice of camera for day and night capability is not as simple as might be expected. For example it does not always mean a mix of daylight television and infrared sensors because, depending on the environment, the latter can work as well in daylight as they do in the dark. The choice of infrared wave bands comes next, which depends heavily on local
atmospheric characteristics, he said. Mid-wave thermal infrared sensors generally produce sharper images, but long-wave cameras are better at penetrating obscurants and dealing with scenes containing wide temperature variations. Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) offers high resolution and natural-looking black and white images because this portion of the spectrum involves reflected light generated by natural sky-glow, which is present day and night, or from SWIR illuminators. He commented that most customers are fairly conservative in the sensors they prefer. “Most of our customers choose day, night and maybe SWIR systems and they focus on image enhancement and stabilisation.” He added that with SWIR sensors they want to see them working in demonstrations. “SWIR is not a commodity yet, although it has been in the field for 15 years.” Mr. Bahat pointed to a trend towards multi-wavelength optronics for border surveillance applications and his company already offers an open architecture system that can include day television, MWIR and SWIR sensors with integrated laser rangefinder and Global Positioning System geolocation capabilities in the form of its Long-Range Reconnaissance and Observation Solution (LOROS). This encapsulates these sensors in a highly gyro-stabilised turret that can be controlled from groundbased and airborne workstations. Weighing 85kgs (187lbs) and consuming less than 700 Watts of power, the LOROS features automatic target tracking, enhanced image processing and a long-range downlink for both video imagery and data. “Users usually base their decision on cost-effectiveness,” Mr. Carni said. “For short-range
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missions of up to two kilometres (1.2 miles) they usually choose an uncooled LWIR system, which is less costly. For long-range missions, MWIR would often be the choice. For poor lighting conditions, SWIR would be preferred. In colder climates, they will usually go for cooled LWIR and when recognition of colour is important they chose visible light cameras.” Finmeccanica concurs with that sensor mix, adding that LWIR sensors are also preferred when there is significant obscuration from smoke or other pollutants to penetrate. However, the company stresses that advances it has made in its cooled focal plane array detectors (an array of light sensing pixels used to compose a digital image) over the last decade has improved their performance in all environments, to the extent that most of its customers now select MWIR sensors in large formats. “As the demands of detection, recognition and identification ranges have increased, the choice of camera has moved away from uncooled systems into full television (640 x 512 pixels) and increasingly high definition television (1280 x 1024 pixels) sensors,” the company told Armada. Away from Italy, Flir Systems is also in the border security business, providing equipment to this end in the form of a large family of thermal optronics. The company’s products are in high demand worldwide for such tasks, in addition to their other military and law enforcement offerings. The company’s border security equipment provision includes its HRS Series continuous zoom cameras, plus the HCR MCT series, ThermoVision 2000/3000MS, and PTZ 35x140 MS cameras. Flir Systems is joined in this regard by Copenhagen Sensor Technology whose border security products include the Spectrel PTZI-1000 pan, tilt and zoom camera. Like its American counterparts, it has helped fortify a number of installations over the years with such technologies. PureTech’s Mr. Olson also reported demand for visible band cameras for identification purposes, combined with MWIR that, he told Armada, “provides for better target-to-background contrast and more pixels on target at the desired ranges.” He also commented on the growing demand for more esoteric capabilities such as hyperspectral sensing, which combines
land warfare
Ruggedized electro-op cal solu ons for Homeland Security
Industry reports a growing need for multi-sensor surveillance systems on a wide variety of ground vehicles as well as static installations and aircraft. This is a Spider C-1 vehicle from Plasan © Plasan
imaging with spectral analysis that can find spectral signatures of individual materials. This is increasingly used for detecting disturbed ground, which might be a clue to the presence of an insurgent bomb. Meanwhile, Elbit’s Mr. Chernobrov stressed that the camera spectral bands selected are affected by the challenges presented by local environmental conditions, pointing out that conditions in maritime areas are very different from those on borders in deserts or high-altitude mountain regions, and noting that there are also significant variations in humidity, for example, within coastal regions. Other requirements affecting sensor choice include facial recognition, which requires visible light or SWIR cameras, and very long-range detection of military targets at night, which usually moves operators towards cooled MWIR cameras with powerful optics, he said. Several of the companies approached for this article said that they regard radar as a complementary technology in these applications, stressing their ability to detect targets in heavy fog, which defeats optronics, and offer systems that include radar. Furthermore, Mr. Olson said that PureTech is adding geospatial capabilities to its cameras to provide what he called “an extremely robust method for camera-radar collaboration,” enabling both “simple” and “intelligent” slew-to-cue capabilities along with friend-or-foe analysis. Simple slew-to-cue is the ability to point a camera at an exact point in latitude, longitude and elevation. This includes compensation for the speed of a moving target, so the camera does not undershoot. “Intelligent slew-to-
cue validates the existence and type of the target using video analytics and then takes actions based on that assessment,” Mr. Olsen continued. “This could involve invoking an automated camera follow, marking the target with a covert laser or invoking a visual or audio deterrent.” Future trends Controp’s Mr. Carni pointed to opposing forces affecting the market’s future growth, the first being the burgeoning movement of refugees, on which all agreed, with a possible market restraint caused by lower oil prices affecting security and defence budgets in oil producing countries. In sensor technology terms, Finmeccanica emphasised the continued reduction in camera size, weight and power requirements and cost of ownership, which will make them more accessible to less wealthy nations. According to Mr. Olson, today’s rather piecemeal deployments will move towards collaboration between sensor suites, both static and mobile, with greater information sharing enabling faster, more accurate detections. Mr. Chernobrov said that Elbit is targeting customers who need networked multi-sensor, persistent surveillance systems to control long stretches of border from a single command and control centre. “There are several countries already considering this kind of solution, and in a few years we believe it will become the standard.” Finally, IAI’s Mr. Bahat acknowledged these trends, but with a nod to the late David Bowie’s take on the ultimate ‘unknowability’ of the future. “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
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armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 25
sea power
Full Speed Ahead Fast Attack Craft (FAC) can represent a cost effective solution, for both coastal and littoral defence requirements, and less intensive, maritime policing needs . This article gives an analysis of the latest developments in the FAC domain.
Trevor Hollingsbee
D
emand for FAC is particularly noticeable in the Asia-Pacific region, and this article puts a spotlight on developments in terms of procurements and upgrades in this part of the world. For example, regarding the Bangladesh Navy (BN), recent years have seen the combat capabilities of the BN’s four ‘Hegu’ class FACs considerably enhanced by the replacement of their old SY-1 AntiShip Missiles (AShMs) with Chinese Aviation Industry Corporation (CAIC) C-704A AShMs. Coming into service with the Bangladesh Navy by the end of this year will be
eight indigenously-built 11.7 metre/m (38 feet/ft) FACs, with the intended roles of backing sovereignty claims, and enforcing maritime law. The state-owned Dockyard and Engineering Works (DEW) Narayangani is building the fully composite craft to the X12 design under a technology transfer agreement with Indonesia’s PT Lundin. The X12 is a derivative of the Swedish Dockstavarvet Combat Boat 90 concept. DEW did not respond to enquiries as to the cost of the project, which also includes ten fullcabin versions for the Bangladesh Coast Guard, but Indonesian media reports have put the value of the contract at $6 mil-
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lion. Armed with three machine guns, the 35-knot (65 kilometres-per-hour) craft will be powered by Volvo Penta diesel engines linked to waterjets. Burma To the southeast of Bangladesh, the growth and modernisation of Burma’s navy, over the past decade, has been dramatic. The force’s commitments include fishery protection, anti-piracy and anti-narcotics operations. Also important is the enforcement of claims to potentially hydrocarbonrich areas in the Bay of Bengal. Burma previously relied mainly upon China for
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The Indonesian Navy’s KRI Todak FAC and the US Navy amphibious assault ship USS Green Bay in company. Indonesia continues to build up the FAC capabilities of its very large fleet © US Navy
mese contract, but Mr. David Bogner, International Marketing and Customer Service Manager at IAI Ramta, gave Armada an update on the Super Dvora Mk.3. “It is an exceptionally versatile platform, capable of over 48 knots (89km/h), it has strong pursuit and interception capabilities for naval and coast guard roles, but can also land shore parties, and even be beached if required.” Mr. Bogner emphasised the range of options available to operators. “A typical weapons fit might be a Rafael Advanced Defence Systems’ Typhoon stabilised cannon, plus smaller weapons, but we can meet individual customer requirements. We respond to users’ preferences for surveillance and fire control radars. We offer MTU or Caterpillar engines for propulsion. The articulating surface drive option, utilising surface-piercing propellers, both reduces drag, thereby increasing efficiency, and helps enable shallow water operations.” China As well as being a supplier of such craft, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was a long-term operator of multiple small FACs of various types. The Chinese have rationalised the FAC fleet over the past decade though, and now rely mainly upon the 224-tonnes, 43m (141ft) ‘Houbei’ class catamaran, which is intended to pose a threat of saturation missile attacks to US Navy carrier battle groups operating in waters adjacent to the PRC. These 36-knot (67
the supply of naval vessels, but now has a booming warship construction industry. Since 2004 some 20 indigenously-built missile- and gun-armed FAC have been commissioned, while a new class of fast motor torpedo boat, reportedly optimised for anti-submarine warfare, is coming into service. The Burmese, though, have now turned to Israel to up their FAC game. In late 2015, six Super Dvora Mk.3 craft were ordered from the Ramta division of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). The acquisition of these vessels is a potent symbol of Burma’s determination to protect its offshore assets at a time when bidding for exploration rights in the county’s Exclusive Economic Zone is intensifying. IAI neither confirm nor deny the existence of the Bur-
km/h) craft, powered by twin diesel engines, linked to four water jets, are armed with eight CAIC C-803 AShMs as well as a ZEERI AK-630 close-in weapon system. The type provides a relatively stable missile platform, and can operate up to 400 nautical miles/ nm (741 kilometres/km) offshore. More than 80 such vessels are in service, with estimates from builders Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding putting the cost at up to $50 million per vessel. There have been a number of regional media reports, as yet unconfirmed, that Pakistan plans to build vessels of this type under licence. India The PRC’s erstwhile rival India operates more than 20 FACs of various types, with the ‘Car Nicobar’ class now having prime responsibility for security, and search and rescue within India’s Exclusive Economic Zone. These ships have been involved in a number of kinetic actions against pirates in recent years. The craft’s main armament is a Medak CRN91 30mm cannon, backed by a pair of machine guns, and KB Mashinostroyeniya 9K38 Igla surface-to-air missiles. A Furono navigation radar and a Bharat Electronics Limited Link-II tactical data link are also fitted. These vessels can reach 36 knots, and the final vessel in the 14-strong 330-tonne class is currently under construction at Garden Reach
The Burmese Navy’s Tatmadaw Ya is the latest version of the very potent, versatile and well-proven ‘Super Dvora’ class which is set to give the country’s rapidly expanding naval capabilities a further boost © IAI
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 27
sea power
The People’s Liberation Army Navy ‘Houbei’ class FACs are in service in large numbers. These craft pose a potential threat to US Navy aircraft carrier battle groups operating in waters adjacent to China © US Navy
Shipbuilding and Engineering (GRSE) at Kolkata. GRSE did not respond to requests for information on costs and other aspects of the project. Indonesia Expansion of the Indonesian FAC inventory is in progress, as Jakarta seeks to enhance surveillance and response capabilities in its coastal waters. Progressively supplementing existing larger types of FAC such as the ‘Todak’ class is a planned fleet, according to deputy defence minister Lieutenant General Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, of at least 40 locally-built ‘KCR-40’ and ‘KCR-60’ class FACs. These new classes, under construction since 2012, have a main armament of CAIC/PT Pindad C-705 Indonesian/Chinese manufactured AShMs; the ‘KCR-40’ class has two of the missiles fitted, while the longer ‘KCR- 60’ class has four. Gun armament for the ‘KCR-40’ class is a 30mm CMS NG-18 cannon, and two 20mm Denel Vektor cannon, while the ‘KCR-60’ class features a BAE Systems Bofors 57mm cannon. Shipyards involved in the programme include PT PAL, PT Palindo and PT Citia, with a manufacturer’s estimated project cost of $10.2 million per vessel for the 40m (131ft) variant. According to PT PAL production director Edy Widarto, prospects for overseas manufacture of the vessel are also being explored. In terms of sensors, China North Industries TR-47C and SR-47AG naval surveillance radars are carried by the vessels, while triple MAN
V12 diesels enable a speed of about 30 knots (55.5km/h). Jakarta last year stated that, despite the prototype having been destroyed in a fire, the programme to build four 63m (206.6ft), waterjet-powered ‘X3K Klewang’ class missile-armed stealth trimaran FACs in Indonesia would continue. Nevertheless, on 16 February, constructors PT Lundin announced that only one example will be completed. Pakistan Pakistan operates a range of FACs of varying antiquity. The PRC, nowadays Pakistan’s prime supplier of naval vessels, delivered a new 570-tonne, 63m (207ft) FAC, the Azmat to Pakistan in 2012. This ship was constructed by the China Shipbuilding and Offshore Corporation (CSOC). Since then, a further example has been built in Pakistan by the
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Karachi Shipyard and Engineering works (KSEW) company, in cooperation with CSOC. The ship has been commissioned, while in April 2015 the first steel was cut on a third example at KSEW. A fourth vessel is planned. Designed primarily for the littoral, the armament of this 30 knot (56km/h) FAC consists of eight CAIC C-802 AShMs, a 23mm cannon and an AK-630 close-in weapon system. KSEW has quoted a unit cost of $ 50 million per vessel. Philippine Navy The Hukbong Dagat ng Pilipinas (Philippine Navy) has a very mixed fleet of gun-armed FACs, featuring both indigenously-built craft and vessels acquired second-hand from other nations. The newest FACs are six Multi-Purpose Assault Craft (MPAC). These 40-knot (74km/h) assets,
The Philippines Navy has six MPAC craft in service, with dual assault and FAC roles; some have seen active service. Three more are to be built jointly by Lung Teh and Propmech © Lung Teh Shipbuilders
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designed primarily for coastal and riverine use, can act as both assault craft and FACs, and can carry 16 troops for landing via a forward drop-ramp. The MPACs are armed with three machine guns. Three 15m (49ft) versions were built by Lung Teh of Taiwan; the others, constructed by Propmech in the Philippines, are 17m (56ft) long. Now, Manila is proceeding with a programme to build another three examples, with $5.7 million allocated for the project. In late February 2016 the Department of National Defence announced that the work on the new vessels will be shared between Lung Teh and Propmech. The projected craft will be optimised for FAC duties, and will carry a light surface-to-surface missile system, probably Rafael’s Spike. They will reportedly also be armed with a remotelycontrolled General Dynamics/US Ordnance M2HB Browning 12.7mm machine gun, and two US Ordnance M60 7.62mm machine guns.
Singapore The latest addition to Singapore’s littoral combatant inventory is the ‘Independence’ class, with the first of class having been launched by local shipbuilders ST Marine in June 2015. Jointly designed by Kockums (now Saab), and ST Marine, the 27-knot (50km/h) warship is larger and more capable than the ‘Fearless’ class patrol craft which it replaces. A strong armament suite consists of an OTO Melara/Finmeccanica 76mm gun, mounted forward together with a twelvecell vertical-launch system for the ships’ MBDA Mica SAM system. There are also two side-mounted OTO Melara/ Finmeccanica Hitrole remote-controlled machine guns, and a Rafael Typhoon 25mm automatic cannon at the stern. Meanwhile, an aft flight deck can support operations
The Republic of Singapore Navy ‘Formidable’ class frigate and ‘Valour’ class corvettes. The new ‘Independence’ class helicoptercapable FACs will considerably enhance Singapore’s littoral surveillance and defence © US Navy
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armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 29
sea power
The Republic of Korea Navy’s ‘Yun Youngha’ class FAC is more heavily armed than its predecessors, and enhances Seoul’s littoral and coastal capabilities. A smaller variant is planned © Republic of Korea Armed Forces
by a naval support helicopter, while a stern well enables the embarkation and launching of a rigid-hull inflatable boat. A novel feature of the ship is an integrated bridge and combat management centre, with the ships’ sensor package including Thales’ NS100 naval surveillance radar. ST Marine did not respond to requests for information on the cost of the ‘Independence’ class. Sri Lanka The Sri Lankan Navy’s Fast Attack Flotilla has an FAC order-of-battle which includes ‘Dvora 1’,’Dvora 2’ and ‘Dvora 3’ vessels plus ‘Shaldag’ class designs, and the locallydeveloped ‘Series III’ class. The 53-knot (98.1km/h) ‘Series III’ features a Rafael Typhoon weapon fitted with an Orbital ATK Bushmaster 20mm cannon. A Furuno FR 8250 radar is used for navigation and propulsion is provided by twin Deutz V16 diesel engines and two Arneson ASD 16 articulating surface drives. Taiwan Along with being a supplier of FACs Taiwan has in recent years bolstered its coastal and littoral naval fleet with twelve ‘Ching Chiang’ class vessels, and 30 ‘Kuang Hua’ class FACs, both equipped with AShMs. Taiwanese capabilities are now being further upgraded. At the end of 2014 the Tuo Jiang, the first of a new class of wave-piercing catamaran-hulled warships commenced trials. These 560-tonne 60.4m (198ft) long craft are being constructed by Lung Teh Shipbuilders. Lung Teh president Sheldon Huang told Armada that eleven of the ships will be built. “They are offshore-capable gun and missile platforms, twin diesels linked to waterjets enabling a speed of 45
knots (83km/h), with a cruising speed of 25 knots (46km/h),” he said. Mr. Huang confirmed that the company is aiming to export the type. “We intend to market these vessels worldwide,” he said. Official estimate of the cost of the programme is $843.4 million. These new FACs are, for their size, very heavily armed. Their missile fit includes eight CSIST Hsiung Feng II, and eight Hsiung Feng III AShMs. There is a OTO Melara/ Finmeccanica 76mm general purpose gun, and a Raytheon Phalanx close-in weapon system for air defence, as well as two 12.7mm machine guns, and two triple Mk.32 torpedo launchers. The advanced hull form of the ‘Ching Chiang’ class should enable fuel efficiency, seaworthiness and manoeuvrability, while the superstructure incorporates stealth features to reduce vulnerability to detection, and to missile attack. The ships are intended primarily for littoral warfare. However, they can operate at Sea State Seven (with waves up to nine metres/30ft in height), have a range of 2000nm (3706km), and could therefore also engage PRC warships far from Taiwan. The armament and performance of these latest Taiwanese warships should therefore pose some challenges for Beijing’s naval strategists. Republic of Korea On the northern coast of the East China Sea, the Republic of Korea’s (RoK) navy is seeing a major upgrade of its coastal and littoral capabilities, phasing in newly-constructed ‘Yoon Youngha’ class FACs. This class carries Agency for Defence Development/LIG Nex1 SSM-700K Haesseong AShMs, backed up by a Hyundai Wia 76mm gun. A total of 18 of the 570-tonne, 46m (151ft) long ‘Yoon Youngha’ class are planned to be con-
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structed by Hanjin Heavy Industries and STX, and most are now in service. In terms of sensors, these ships carry an STX Radar SYS-100K and LIG Nex1 SPS-530K naval surveillance radar. For their propulsion, a combined MTU 12V 595 TE90 diesel engine and General Electric LM500 gas turbine propulsion systems, linked to water jets, enables a speed of over 40 knots (74km/h). Hanjin has given a cost estimate of $38 million per vessel. Vietnam Alongside the RoK, the Vietnam People’s Navy (VPN) is also concerned about Beijing’s naval machinations. Currently the navy relies on its Russian-designed ‘Molniya’ class corvettes. Gas turbines give these 480-tonne, 56m (184ft) long vessels a top speed of 42 knots (78km/h). Their main armament is 16 Raduga P-15 Termit or Tactical Missiles Corporation Kh-35U AShMs, backed up by a Gorky 76mm dual-purpose gun and two AK-630 close-in-weapon systems. Four are known to be in service with the VPN. Two more are currently under construction in Vietnam according to recent regional reports, with a further four expected to be constructed under licence in Vietnam at an undisclosed date. Summary Regional territorial disputes, and maritime crime, demand that Asia-Pacific navies maintain significant high and low intensity combat, coastal and littoral water intervention capabilities. It would, therefore, be surprising if new types of FACs, customised for single or multiple roles as required, did not continue to enter service with regional naval forces in significant numbers.
air power
The United States armed forces have progressively honed the CSAR concept since its use en masse during the Vietnam War © USMC
The Great Escape Although still considered a niche capability, Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) is being employed by a growing number of armed forces worldwide, who recognise the importance that such an asset can play in getting their personnel out of danger when things go wrong. Thomas Withington
C
SAR traces its roots back to the First World War, when the Royal Navy’s Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) introduced its Armoured Car Section. Employing Rolls-Royce armoured cars under the leadership of Commander Charles Samson, the RNAS used these vehicles to rapidly reach and rescue RNAS aircrew that had been forced to land in hostile territory. Becoming the Royal Naval Armoured Car Division, the unit eventually comprised 20 squadrons and was deployed both in the Western European and Mediterranean/Middle East theatres. The CSAR concept was refined still further during the Second World War when both the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe (German Air
Force) operated fast boats to rescue aircrew who had been downed in the North Sea and English Channel during dogfights, and specific CSAR aircraft, often in the form of flying boats, for a similar mission. However, it was during the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, between 1965 and 1975 when CSAR really came of age. This was thanks in no small measure to the perfection of the helicopter, in the years immediately following the Second World War, and its subsequent employment in warfare, initially by the French armed forces during the Algerian War of Independence between 1954 and 1962. For CSAR, the helicopter was revolutionary because, unlike a fixed wing aircraft, a CSAR helicopter had the ability
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to hover directly above, or near, downed aircrew and then winch them to safety. That conflict saw dedicated CSAR helicopters, often medium-lift utility rotorcraft, escorted to a crash site by attack helicopters or fixed wing aircraft, sometimes supported by tankers, if the mission was of a long range, and Special Forces commandos were used for the location and recovery of the aircrew. The CSAR helicopters would also be outfitted with medical equipment to provide treatment as soon as possible if the aircrew had sustained injuries. Modern Times Since the advent of modern CSAR during the Vietnam War, this capability has been used successively in major conflicts. Dur-
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ing the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, which saw the United States armed forces battling the Somali National Alliance (SNA) and Al Qaeda elements between 3 and 4 October that year, CSAR was deployed in the form of the United States Air Force 24th Special Tactics Squadron which played a major role in the rescue of crewmembers from two US Army Sikorsky UH-60 family medium-lift utility helicopters shot down by SNA cadres. This mission was later made famous by Mark Bowden’s 1999 book, Black Hawk Down. Two years after the Somali operations, the US armed forces were once again in action, this time over the Balkans during Operation DENY FLIGHT, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) initiative to enforce a United Nations-sponsored No Fly Zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina to prevent Bosnian Serb forces from initially using their aircraft to attack Bosnian civilians. The mission later expanded to allow NATO to attack Bosnian Serb artillery shelling civilians in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. On 2 June 1995, USAF Captain Scott O’Grady ejected from his General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16C Fighting Falcon fighter landing in enemy territory. After several days on the run evading Serb forces, he was rescued by US Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Although the US armed forces have arguably written the rule book as far as
Italy has recently deployed NH-90TTH helicopters to assist CSAR efforts in Northern Iraq. The country has also deployed a similar capability to Afghanistan © Italian Army
CSAR is concerned, the interest of other nations in this capability, both within and without the NATO area, is growing. CSAR provides a means, not only to rescue downed aircrew, but also to rescue other troops who may be in danger, or who have been captured, or civilian hostages, as well as means of infiltrating and exfiltrating Special Forces to and from their targets. More information regarding recent developments in the Special Forces domain can be found in Andrew White’s Special Operations Compendium in this issue. Italy is one country which has picked up the CSAR baton, announcing in early March that it would deploy four NH Industries
The USAF’s HH-60G Pave Hawk CSAR helicopters are due to be replaced by a new aircraft which will use the MH-60G design as its base © US DoD
NH-90TTH medium-lift helicopters, reinforced with the same number of AgustaWestland/Finmeccanica AH-129A/C/D Mangusta attack helicopters, to Iraq to support US-led multinational efforts to roll back the territorial gains in western Iraq and eastern Syria made by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgent group throughout 2014. These helicopters will be based in Erbil, in the north of Iraq, with aircraft being drawn from the Esercito Italiano (Italian Army) 5th and 7th Army Aviation regiments, with this CSAR force following a similar composition to that deployed by Italy to Herat in south-western Afghanistan to provide Combat Search and Rescue as part of ongoing NATO operations in the Central Asian country. Growing CSAR interest and uptake has been helped in no small measure by the range of robust and capable medium-lift utility rotorcraft which are on the market, such as the NH-90TTH, the AgustaWestland/Finmeccanica AW-101 family, the Sikorsky S-92 and the Airbus Helicopters/ Eurocopter H-225M Super Cougar. Russian offerings in this regard include the Mil M-17 family while the US Marine Corp’s new Bell Helicopter UH-1Y Venom and the Bell-Boeing CV/MV-22B Osprey tilt rotors, the latter of which are also used by the US Air Force, will no doubt find themselves deployed in the CSAR role during their careers. Cougar Town The H-225M has emerged as a popular CSAR choice, since the aircraft was first delivered
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 33
air power
source reports stating in June 2015 that Kuwait has expressed an interest in this aircraft, with the possibility of acquiring up to 24 to equip its air force.
The USAF’s MC-130P aircraft are being replaced by the new MC-130J, one of the latest iterations of the longrunning C-130 turboprop freighter family © USAF
to the French armed forces in 2005. France was the first customer for this aircraft, which is now in service with both the Armée de l’Air (French Air Force) and the Aviation Légère de l’Armée de Terre (French Army Light Aviation), which both use the aircraft to support CSAR and Special Forces missions. To date, the two forces operate circa 14 of the aircraft. Other orders for the H-225M have since been forthcoming from Brazil, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Thailand. France performed the first deployment of the aircraft in the summer of 2006 to assist the evacuation of foreign nationals from Lebanon during Operation BALISTE following the commencement of hostilities between Israel and the Hezbollah Palestinian militia organisation on 12 July 2006. Since then, these aircraft were deployed to Afghanistan in December of that year to support the multinational NATO-led force fighting Al Qaeda and Taliban elements operating in the country. Subsequent to this deployment, these aircraft were upgraded with the addition of door-mounted Nexter machine guns and a Sagem Forward-Looking Infrared System (FLIR). Away from France other H-225Ms, notably those flown by the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF), have been used for non-
combat missions, such as the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200ER airliner that disappeared on 8 March 2014 and has yet to be found. These aircraft were deployed once more in June 2015 during the relief effort following the Sabah earthquake in western Malaysia. Such operations have no doubt assisted the appeal of the H-225M, with open
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Whiskey-A-Go-Go The United States remains the world’s largest user of dedicated CSAR aircraft. In October 2015, it was reported that the US had deployed a number of CSAR assets to Diyarbakir airbase in south-eastern Turkey to support Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, the US contribution to the ongoing anti-ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria. Assets deployed to this end include Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk CSAR helicopters. These aircraft are operated by the USAF and also the Republic of Korea Air Force, which designate the aircraft as the HH-60P. Other HH-60G variants operated by the USAF include the MH-60G which is designed for Special Forces search and rescue missions, equipped with an air-to-air refuelling capability, long-range fuel tanks, an improved radar relative to other UH-60 family models and a FLIR. The USAF is now moving ahead with the HH/MH60G replacement via the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) initiative. Launched via a USAF request for proposals in October 2012, the air force announced its intention General Dynamics’ AN/PRC112G combat survival radio, in widespread use around the world, provide a means by which downed aircrew can be located © USMC
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The USAF has found its CV-22B tilt rotor aircraft ideal for the CSAR mission. Other countries which purchase the aircraft may employ it for similar missions © USAF
to procure the legacy aircraft’s replacement. The requirement is being met by a joint Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin team, with Sikorsky supplying the aircraft, to be based on the existing MH-60 design, and Lockheed Martin providing the helicopter’s mission systems. An award was made to the team by the USAF on 26 June 2014 worth $1.3 billion to cover an initial delivery of four aircraft, with a subsequent 112 airframes to be procured for $7.9 billion, with deliveries of all of these aircraft being envisaged by 2029. The aircraft will be officially designated as the HH-60W Whiskey when they enter USAF service. When performing CSAR and associated Special Operations missions, in USAF service, the HH/MH-60G aircraft are reinforced with the USAF Special Operations Command’s Lockheed Martin MC-130J Combat Shadow-II turboprop freighter, which use the firm’s KC-130J tanker as its baseline design. In USSOCOM service, the MC-130J replaces it's erstwhile MC-130E/P aircraft, with a new design which has an extensively modified in-flight refuelling system, a strengthened wing to extend the aircraft’s service life, and a so-called Enhanced Cargo Handling System, plus new optronics and provision for enhanced electronic warfare systems during the aircraft’s lifetime. The USAF has ordered a total of 37 MC-130J aircraft. On 28 March it was reported that Lockheed Martin had
received a contract worth $1.5 billion to deliver eight MC-130Js for the USAF, plus five HC-130J planes for the United States Coast Guard. Like the MC-130J, the HC130J is also used by the USAF for the CSAR mission. Current plans call for the USAF to procure an eventual total of 78 HC-130J airframes, following the commencement of deliveries in November 2012. Yet CSAR is not all about specialist aircraft; specialist subsystems form a vital component to the mission. In March, Cubic Global Defence was awarded a contract to supply AN/ARS-6(V)12 Personnel Locator Systems via a United States Department of Defence indefinite-quantity/ indefinite-supply contract expected to continue until 2020. The AN/ARS-6(V)12 is used to locate downed aircrew and is in extensive use with NATO and US forces. Using radio frequency transmission across the Very and Ultra High Frequency bands of 118-407 megahertz, the system provides voice communications with combat survival radios such as the General Dynamics Mission Systems’ AN/PRC112G, Elbit Systems’ AN/PRC-434 and Boeing AN/PRQ-7F survival radios. The AN/ ARS-6(V)12 forms a vital part of the CSAR mission as it allows aircraft carrying the system to detect downed aircrew, and to communicate with them across their survival radios, to ascertain their location and thus their physical condition. The AN/ARS-6 family has been in service for
over two decades, and the latest AN/ARS6(V)12 version packages the capabilities of legacy AN/ARS-6 examples into a smaller and lighter system, while adding the new capabilities discussed above. Looking forwards the future, the increasing ‘democratisation’ of the CSAR club is interesting. As this article has illustrated, new countries have entered this domain. Brazil and Malaysia’s acquisition of a CSAR capability via their respective H-225M acquisitions discussed above is instructive in this regard. These countries, however, are arguably acquiring this capability as an adjunct to an overall acquisition of rotorcraft which can support a range of missions, both for Special Forces and conventional operations, which also include CSAR. This maximises the investment of these countries as they gain a true multi-role rotorcraft. For now, dedicated CSAR units are expected to remain the preserve of a handful of forces such as the air forces of France, Italy and the United States. These are countries which desire, and can afford, to have a dedicated CSAR force, although these nations also do not confine their CSAR assets to solely supporting this mission as such aircraft are versatile and can assist other tasks. CSAR is undoubtedly here to stay as an indispensable capability, although it is one that will increasingly be performed by multirole airframes as opposed to dedicated helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
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Decision Time The decision to discard the Airbus Helicopters/Eurocopter EC-665ARH Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter gunship announced in the Australian government’s Defence White Paper this February has left questions about the future of rotary attack in the country’s arsenal. Andrew Drwiega
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T
The ADF’s EC-665ARH helicopter will not be extended beyond the mid2020s, spurning the opportunity of a Mid-Life Upgrade now being examined by OCCAR and manufacturer Airbus Helicopters © Australian Army
he EC-665ARH attack helicopter programme can be seen as both a success and a partial failure. The success is that four nations, Australia, France, Germany and Spain, eventually fielded a newly-designed, complex attack helicopter conceived in Europe. Its drawback has been a painfully long fielding process to get all of the versions of the platform flown by the nations above up to full operational capability, something that one of the partners, Australia, has now admitted it is unlikely to achieve to its satisfaction in the form originally envisaged when it was selected. It has now declared that its EC665ARH usage will be terminated despite a proposed Mid-Life Update (MLU) which should come into effect in the mid-2020s. For a customer to be unwilling to go forward on the MLU, bearing in mind that this was a helicopter that began to be delivered to both the French and German customers in March and April 2005 respectively, and to the Australians in December 2004, points to a serious breakdown in manufacturercustomer understanding and support, or a failure of procurement rigour, or both. The fact that the Australian Defence Force (ADF, which includes the country’s navy, army and air force) has continually complained that it has been at the end of ‘a very long screwdriver’ has not helped. The 2016 Defence White Paper, issued by the Australian government on 25 February does not detail the reasons behind the decision but revealed that it would “replace the 22 Tiger Armed Reconnaissance helicopters with a new armed reconnaissance capability from the mid2020s.” Australia has done this before, with the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) eventually rejecting the Kaman SH-2G Seasprite naval support helicopter order in 2011. However, that programme did not advance as far as the Australian Army EC-665ARH programme. By no longer having to invest a planned $1-2 billion into the EC-665ARH MLU, which was set out in the original capability document known as the AIR 87 Phase 3 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter Capability Assurance Programme, will go towards a new fleet of light reconnaissance/ attack helicopters, as yet still to be
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 37
air power
A USMC AH-1Z attack helicopter with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469, taking part in a close air support exercise during February 2016 © USMC
identified. In a move of extraordinary insight considering what was later released, Bell Helicopter signed an agreement with BAE Systems during the Singapore Air Show to, as Lisa Atherton, executive vice president of military business for Bell Helicopter explained, “establish the groundwork … for future customers of Bell Helicopter military rotorcraft in Australia.” That now places its AH-1Z Viper gunship firmly in the frame as a replacement, although the reference to ‘light’ in the White Paper might also let in other potential candidates such as Boeing’s AH-6i Little Bird, MD Helicopters’ MD-530G and perhaps even another Airbus Helicopter rotorcraft such as the H-135M or H-145M which are light, armed military variants of civil helicopters (the H-135 has already been selected as the Royal Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy training helicopter). Tiger Upgrades With Australia now almost certainly out of any major investment in the Tiger MLU, Airbus Helicopters will still go ahead with the ambition of upgrading the EC-665UHT/HAD Tigers owned by France, Germany and Spain to what has been
described as the Tiger Mk.3 standard. The project actually comes under the purview of the OCCAR (Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d’Armement/Joint Armament Material Cooperation Organisation), an organisation established by the defence ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the UK on 12 October 1996 to “provide more effective and efficient arrangements for the management of certain existing and future cooperative armament programmes,” according to its mandate. The programme was placed under OCCAR supervision when the organisation was legally activated in 2001.There were initially three versions of the EC-665 including the two French HAP (Hélicoptère d’Appui et Protection/Protection and Escort Helicopter) and HAC (Hélicoptère Anti Char/Anti-Tank Helicopter) variants and the German EC-665UHT (Unterstützungshubschrauber/Support Helicopter) version. When Spain joined in 2004 it added a new version, the HAD (Helicóptero de Ataque y Destrucción/Attack and Destruction Helicopter). Australia’s own version and membership was formalised in 2009. In July 2015, OCCAR took the lead in
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an architecture study of the EC-665 on behalf of France, Germany and Spain. In a contract with Airbus Helicopters, it will be responsible for defining the potential improvements which would frame the work required to produce the Tiger Mk.3 specifications. This through-life management strategy is being applied to the EC-665 family so that it will remain “at the cutting edge of attack helicopters in the world over the next decades.” OCCAR describes the process as evolving an MLU roadmap which will include “promising new features and improvements” to enhance the current versions of the attack helicopter, particularly in terms of life cycle costs, planned maintenance and survivability. It is developing an initial research framework founded on the existing perceived requirements suggested by all of the EC-665 operators. It will learn from the lessons gained from the operational deployment (which have included French and German deployments of the aircraft to support North Atlantic Treaty Organisation- and US-led combat operations in Afghanistan and Libya respectively) of the EC-665 by its
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Boeing’s AH-6i Little Bird would offer the ADF a mature, complex smaller aircraft with plenty of firepower, and the possibility of an unmanned version potentially in the future © Andrew Drwiega
operators, and will study technologies that would take the platform forward in its capability. The result will then be placed before the military customers from France, Germany and Spain to allow them to select “which combinations of equipment, functions, performances and architectures should be selected.” Whether there will be a joint agreement on this will be interesting to note, as will the capacity of Airbus Helicopters to deliver nation-specific packages should they be required. Alternatives The AH-1Z is already being fielded with the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and will be in production until 2021 at current estimates. As the AH-1Z is already marinised it would be immediately better suited to naval/littoral deployments than the EC-665 which is not at the same level of marinisation. Due to its service with the USMC, the AH-1Z is corrosion resistant and its engines, General Electric GE T700 turboshafts are the same as those used by the Sikorsky MH-60R naval support helicopters which are currently being introduced into service with the Royal Australian Navy. It can also be equipped with folding blades (it now has four-bladed main and tail rotors) and its
systems are shielded from electromagnetic interference. The AH-1Z’s armament would certainly provide enough firepower: a General Dynamics M197 20mm three-barrelled Gatling cannon with a 750-round magazine, and up to six pylons on the stub wings to carry guided or unguided rockets, up to 16 laser guided Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire family Air-to-Surface Missiles (ASMs) and even wing tip points for a pair of Raytheon AIM-9 Sidewinder family airto-air missiles. As part of the US Department of Defense (US DoD) 2016 budget, Bell Helicopter was recently awarded an additional $461 million for the delivery of 16 Lot 13 AH-1Z Vipers and 12 Lot 13 Bell Helicopters UH-1Y Venom light utility helicopters together with auxiliary fuel kits. The 2017 US DoD budget proposal notes an intent to accelerate “the procurement of the final 78 AH-1Z/UH-1Y helicopters.” There will eventually be 189 AH-1Zs in the US Marine Corps. In 2017 the US Navy will begin the procurement of two new missiles. One of these, the multi-service Lockheed Martin Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), will be included in the AH-1Z’s range of weaponry. This air-to-surface missile
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has been developed to replace a range of current ASMs, specifically the Raytheon BGM-71 and AGM-65 Maverick missiles, as well as the AGM-114. Two other potential alternatives for a new Australian ‘armed reconnaissance capability’ include Boeing’s AH-6i and MD Helicopters’ MD-530G light reconnaissance rotorcraft; six of the latter were recently acquired by Malaysian Army Aviation. AH-6i The AH-6S was primarily developed by Boeing for the now defunct Armed Aerial Scout (AAS) programme and was demonstrated to the US Army for that requirement in October 2012. Since the programme’s demise, Boeing has positioned it as the AH-6i (international) for export but it has been slow to attract orders. The Jordanian Army was interested and received aircraft demonstrations but no firm order was forthcoming. The first publicly-acknowledged customer is the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) which has ordered 36 AH-6is, 24 likely to be delivered this year. The order was announced through the US DoD contracts bulletin on 29 August 2014. It stated that Boeing had been awarded the $234 million Foreign Military Sales (FMS)
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The one that got away: Boeing’s new AH-64E Guardian. Will neighbour Indonesia’s purchase of this fully mature attack helicopter cause the ADF to ‘glance again’ in its direction? © Andrew Drwiega
contract for the production and delivery In the reconnaissance role, Boeing states of 24 AH-6I aircraft, initial spares package that its mission profile would include and ground support equipment. “over-the-horizon search, re-supply, The AH-6i is a more complex small communications relay and surveillance helicopter than it first appears. Mike Burke, capabilities.” ex-director of attack helicopter business development at Boeing was often heard MD-530G to announce, “When the AH-6i wakes up Should the Australian government like the in the morning, it thinks it’s an Apache.” idea of this smaller attack/reconnaissance It does have commonalities with the helicopter, but in a more ‘vanilla’ form, they company’s AH-64E Guardian gunship as could take note of MD Helicopters’ recent well as with the MH-6M Little Bird used announcement of a further order to supply by the US Army’s 160th Special Operations six MD-530G Scout attack helicopters to Aviation Regiment (SOAR). It has a digital Malaysia’s Ministry of Defence (see above), cockpit, a modern mission computer that with deliveries beginning by the end of the manages the onboard weapons. Its sensor year and completing by spring 2017. is the L-3 Wescam MX-15Di optronics sysThe MD-530Gs will include a MOOG tem with laser rangefinder and designator. Stores Management System which is able to The 16th SOAR’s MH-6M is fitted with a support up to four weapons stations which central ‘plank’ across the airframe which can integrate a combination of guns and allows for a combination of weapon loads, missiles. These could include the Dillon from AGM-114 ASMs and guided/unguided Aero M-134D-H Mini-Gun, FN Herstal’s 2.75in rockets, through to gun pods. Heavy Machine Gun Pod (HMP) which The Australian Defence White Paper houses a 12.7 mm FN Herstal M3P machine also made reference to the potential gun, an FN Herstal Rocket Machine Gun growth of unmanned systems within the Pod (RMP) as well as an Arnold Defence ADF. Boeing has had an unmanned verM260 seven-shot rocket pod. They would be sion of the AH/MH-6 Little Bird since an carried using the MACE Aviation Extended initial demonstration in 2004. In recent Range Weapons Wing (ER2W). An optronics years this has been demonstrated to the turret, likely to be the L-3 Wescam MX-10 Republic of Korea Army and in 2014 to the series sensor and laser designator can also US Marine Corps at Quantico, Virginia. be incorporated onto the MD-530G.
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MD Helicopters owner Lynn Tilton has steered the company away from what was set to be an ignominious end before she bought the company through Patriarch Partners, an investment enterprise, in 2005. Her key move has been to gain a foothold once more in the military market which she did with FMS sales to the Afghan Air Force of the MD-530F. Six were initially sold for training but then additional orders were placed for armed variants with the latest fleet size planned to be around 30 MD-530Fs, most of which will be armed. Finally, should the ADF still wish to replace the EC-665ARH with a ‘class-for-class’ capability, then there is always the recourse to the AH-64E which regional friendly rival Indonesia is buying. Boeing was awarded a $295 million contract to supply the Indonesia Army with eight AH-64E Apache attack helicopters with a completion date scheduled for 28 February, 2018. They will also be supplied with nine Lockheed Martin Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight/Pilot Night Vision Sensors and well as standard AGM-114 missiles. For the time being at least, Australia’s decision to put its EC-665ARH machines out to pasture after such a short time seems to be provoking more questions than it answers.
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Drone Dangers Having created a bow wave of enthusiasm and a new industry around Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) of all sizes, there is now a pressing need by governments and the military to be able to bring them down, or at the very least prevent them from reaching an intended target. Andrew Drwiega and Thomas Withington 44 armadainternational.com - april/may 2016
FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
A trio of British firms have developed the Anti-UAV Defence System, better known as AUDS, capable of taking control of a UAV and landing it safely © Blighter
I
n late October 2014, strange Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) were reported hovering over several nuclear power stations in France. Conspiracy theorists rushed to tell the world that the UFOs were visitors from another world, performing an initial reconnaissance for a massed, alien invasion of Earth. Why these visitors were so interested in nuclear power stations was not explained by the theorists, who instead urged vigilance in case our extraterrestrial visitors had now taken human form and were living amongst us. The truth of the incident was far more prosaic, but a cause for concern. Between that month, and the end of November 2014, consumer-purchased UAVs, known as ‘drones’ in the commercial world, had been flown over 13 of the 19 nuclear power plants operational in France by environmental protestors to highlight the lack of security against air attack at these facilities. Defending such installa-
tions against attack from the air is a major concern. In the wake of the 11 September 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington DC, France rushed to deploy air defences around its nuclear power stations, which generate 75 percent of the country’s electricity, according to March 2016 figures published by the World Nuclear Association, an industry group. Across the Channel, the response of the United Kingdom to the perceived threat was to deploy ‘extra police’. Parrot Fashion The incident discussed above raises some serious issues. That environmental protestors were able to fly their aircraft over and above the nuclear power stations undetected and unchallenged, illustrated that those with more nefarious intentions maybe able to do the same thing, potentially mounting explosives on the UAV and crashing it into the reactor hall or another part of the complex, which could lead to the dispersal of radioactive material. Small UAVs could also be used to target important individuals. This was nowhere better illustrated than when a Parrot AR UAV hovered then landed in front of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and defence minister Thomas de Maiziere during a rally in the eastern German city of
Controp’s Tornado anti-UAV system provides a detailed 360-degree image of the surrounding airspace, displaying UAVs and conventional aircraft, as this picture of its display illustrates © Controp
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 45
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Dresden on 15 September 2013. While it was treated as an annoying distraction at the time, security specialists are alarmed at the very real threat today that something similar could carry a remote-controlled bomb onboard to be detonated in close proximity to the target. Away from the homeland security situation, troops on the battlefield also face the threat of UAV attack. Small, commercially-available drones, which can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, but mounted with explosives, could be used by insurgents to target squads of soldiers, individual vehicles, or even command centres making them a potentially devastating asymmetric weapon. Similarly, these drones could be outfitted to carry chemical, biological or radiological agents to attack either troops, or civilian targets. To make matters worse, such flying machines are often small in physical size making them a challenge to detect by radar, and to then engage using surface-to-air missiles, or
anti-aircraft artillery. Clearly then, there is a growing need to protect people and installations from these smaller, sometimes individually-controlled, UAVs. Venom A company usually reputed for its expertise in UAVs, Northrop Grumman, has developed its own counter-UAV system called Venom. Demonstrated at the Army Manoeuvre-Fires Integrated Experiment (MFIX) held at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on 8 December 2015 the Venom confirmed its ability to identify and track small UAVs, even when mobile. The Venom combines a Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinder (LLDR) on a universal, stabilised and gimballed mount. The system receives slew-to-cue messages which allow it to identify, hold and track low-flying, small UAVs. The US Army’s interest in anti-UAV technologies has increased significantly in recent years. For example, in July and August 2015, the US Department
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IAI’s Drone Guard was revealed to the world in 2015. It employs radars and optronics to detect a UAV, and then employs RF jamming to force the UAV to return to its point of origin or to crash © IAI
of Defence (DoD) held Exercise BLACK DART at Point Mugu, California, to which the US Navy, US Army, US Air Force and US Marine Corps all sent representatives, along with several allied nations, and personnel from industry, to test and evaluate technologies which could be employed for the anti-UAV mission. The DoD has in fact been performing the BLACK DART exercises since 2002, although these initiatives, as the exercise name suggests, were in the ‘black’ until the DoD revealed their existence in 2014. In 2014, Exercise BLACK DART included live fire trials against UAVs over a variety of environments such as land, the littoral and the open ocean. The exercise also focused closely on detecting and intercepting small UAVs. This has gained added interest in the
FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
US and beyond when, in an incident closely mimicking that involving Dr. Merkel discussed above, a civilian Quadcopter UAV crashed into the South Grounds of the White House in Washington DC in January 2015, sparking the lockdown of the commander-in-chief’s residence and prompting questions within the Secret Service, which guards the US President, and the wider defence and security community, how such incidents can be prevented in the future. The use of UAVs for criminal or violent activity clearly is also a concern for law enforcement officials as much as it is for soldiers. This means that the solutions which are developed to protect against such threats must not only able to perform their role, but must be affordable for police departments which may not have similar budgets to their military counterparts. Falcon Shield Away from the United States, the incidents in France and Germany discussed
above have prompted significant interest in Europe’s defence and security establishment regarding the small UAV threat. During the 2015 Defence Security Equipment International exhibition in London there were a number of counter-UAV systems launched including the Falcon Shield from Finmeccanica’s Selex ES division. It is a modular and scalable system that combines a radar with an optronics system to “find, fix, track, identify and defeat” the perceived threat, according to the company. The Falcon Shield adopts an interesting approach. It employs both optronics and an Electronic Support Measure (ESM). The optronics and ESM combine their talents to detect the UAV, with the optronics performing a visual detection, and the ESM listening for the Radio Frequency (RF) transmissions that the UAV requires to fly. For example, in the US, the Federal Communications Commission, which manages the electromagnetic spectrum there, allocates 27 to 49 Megahertz (MHz)
within the high end of the High Frequency (three to 30MHz) and the low end of the Very High Frequency (VHF) radio spectrum of 30-300MHz to be used for civilian radio-controlled models. Thus the ESM will be able to detect the UAV’s RF emissions and then geolocate the aircraft, aided by the optronics and a radar organic to the Falcon Shield. According to Finmeccanica the Falcon Shield will then ‘electronically attack’ the UAV’s RF command link to decouple it from its source and land it, rather than completely breaking the link and have the aircraft fall out of the sky onto a random location. This takes care of two aspects of air defence against UAVs, firstly employing the RF link between the aircraft and its controller as the ‘Achilles Heal’ by which the interdiction of the aircraft can take place. Secondly, by taking control of the UAV and landing it safely, this avoids the hazard of the aircraft simply falling out of the sky and posing a danger to those on the ground. Such attributes could be
Israel is a centre of excellence for UAV air defence systems, with RADA having developed a number of radars which can be used to detect such threats © RADA
armadainternational.com - april/may 2016 47
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Northrop Grumman’s Venom UAV air defence system has been demonstrated in live-fire exercises in the United States. Interest in such technologies in the US is growing significantly © Northrop Grumman
kilometres). Although it can only disrupt one UAV at a time, the AUDS can keep tracking several simultaneously. Graham Beall, managing director of Chess Dynamics, told Armada, “You could run the whole thing off a 13amp plug.” Elsewhere in Europe, Airbus’ defence and space division has developed its own anti-UAV system known as the C-UAV which combines sensor data with data fusion, signal analysis and jamming. According to Airbus, the system uses “operational radars, infrared cameras and direction finders from the (company’s) portfolio to identify the (UAV) and assess its threat potential at ranges between 2.6-5.3nm (five to ten kilometres).” The direction finder will also reveal the location of the operator, a useful bonus for the authorities. The system is expected to be operational from mid-2016.
of particular interest to law enforcement organizations that may have to tackle illegal drone use in built-up areas, where the use of kinetic weaponry may also be impossible and also too expensive. According to Steve Williams, the capability manager for Falcon Shield, the range of interception will reduce correspondingly with a reduction in size of any potential UAV threat. In May 2015, three British companies announced their own collaborative Anti-UAV Defence System (AUDS). They comprised Blighter Surveillance Systems (a manufacturer of ground surveillance radars), Chess Dynamics (a producer
of optronic surveillance systems) and Enterprise Control Systems, a specialist in jamming technology. The fruits of their labour have produced a counter UAV system that uses radar for detection, optronics for tracking and a directional RF jammer which disrupts the UAV’s flight. The AUDS can scan in a 180 degree arc. Once identifying a potential threat, its jamming capability will break the RF control channel between the operator and the UAV, allowing it to be brought down under control. Initial test results showed that micro-UAVs could be detected at around one nautical mile/ nm (two kilometres/km), while mini-UAVs could be seen as far away as 4.3nm (eight
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Israeli Ingenuity Drone Guard, a system from Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) subsidiary ELTA, was also revealed in 2015. This uses a combination of three-dimensional (3D) radars and optronics to detect and identify a target, then a jamming system to prevent the UAV from continuing on its course. The jamming interferes with the flight of the UAV to the point where it either automatically returns to its point of origin or crashes. IAI uses 3D radars such as the EL/M-2026D, EL/M-2026B and EL/M-2026BF for short (5.3nm/ ten kilometres), medium (eight nautical miles/15km) and long (10.7nm/20km) range detection. The company confirms that the Drone Guard has been “exten-
FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES
sively and successfully tested against a variety of different drones and scenarios, including simultaneous multiple drone penetrations or attacks.” According to Nissim Hadas, IAI executive vice president and ELTA president, demonstrations to potential customers are already being conducted. Staying in Israel, RADA Electronic Industries, whose MHR Very Short Range Air Defence radar has been ordered by the Israeli Ministry of Defence (MoD) to guard the country’s southern border, is another Israeli product capable of detecting UAVs. The MHR S-Band (2.3-2.5/2.7-3.7GHz) family comprise Pulse-Doppler, active electronically scanned array radars which employ sophisticated beam-forming capabilities and advanced signal processing. The manufacturer states that the system can detect “from significant ranges …commercial Low, Slow and Small aerial vehicles such as quadcopters.” Israel is no stranger to the UAV threat.
Although the country is a centre of excellence for UAV design and production, and its armed forces an avid user of such platforms, it increasingly faces a threat from such aircraft by non-state actors. In 2012 and 2013, small UAVs were flown from Lebanon into Israel to gather Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), and on both occasions, these were shot down by Israeli Air Force fighters. Speaking in 2012, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of the Hezbollah Palestinian insurgent organization, stated that Hezbollah had flown a UAV 21.5nm (40km) into Israeli airspace. While these previous sorties have employed small UAVs, allegedly supplied by Iran, to gather IMINT, the understandable fear of the Israeli defence establishment is that such aircraft may be used in the future to carry explosives, or worse. Little surprise then that other Israeli companies are involved in developing anti-UAV systems. For example, Controp has devised the Tornado optronics-based
air surveillance system which provides a 360-degree panoramic image every two seconds and can operate in a standalone mode or be integrated with other defensive systems. Controp states that it can detect anything from conventional aircraft to small UAVs. As successive US-led military operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Iraq have illustrated over the past two decades, UAVs are a feature of modern warfare and are here to stay, with their employment expected to only increase in the future. However, recent events in France, Germany, Israel and the United States underline the dangers posed by UAVs falling into the hands of criminal or guerilla elements, in addition to the threat they pose to soldiers on the battlefield as an asymmetric weapon. Yet the minds of defence science and technology engineers are already turning their attentions to this threat, and devising innovative solutions.
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Programme FOCUS
The CV/MV-22B entered service with the US Marine Corps in 2007. It is the only currently-fielded aircraft with vertical and short take-off and landing, and high speed horizontal flight capabilities © USMC
The Need for Speed Helicopters have added a new dimension to the conduct of military operations since their introduction by the French army and air force during the Algerian War of Independence between November 1954 and March 1962. Stephen W. Miller
T
he use of helicopters to support vertical envelopment allows the insertion of a combat force without regard for geographic obstacles and to do so where the opponent may least expect. This has added a new option to manoeuvre. Since the Algerian conflict, advances in helicopter design and improvements have increased performance particularly in payload and lift capacity. However, the top speed and range of contemporary medium- and heavy-lift utility helicopters appear to have approached their upper limits. For example, the latest F-model of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook family of heavy-lift helicopters has a maximum speed of 170
knots (315 kilometres-per-hour) and a mission range of 199.7 nautical miles/nm (370 kilometres). The CH-47F is followed by the Russian Mil Mi-35M gunship which has a maximum speed of 167.3 knots (310km/h) and a 248.3nm (460km) range. AgustaWestland/Finmeccanica’s AW-101 medium-lift utility helicopter with a maximum speed of 166.8 knots (309km/h) while the firm’s AW-139M a new generation twin-turbine medium-lift utility helicopter has a top speed of 165.2 knots (306km/h). As demonstrated by this list of the ‘fastest’ speeds of just over 161.9 knots (300 km/h) is as fast as current designs can fly. Air cruise speed is important as it drives the ability of an aircraft to ‘turn-around’ on
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a mission. The faster a helicopter goes the sooner it reaches the objective and can then return to pick-up and deliver additional troops and supplies. The rapid build-up of forces on the ground is critical to the success of a vertical envelopment (see above). Thus being able to fly more sorties over a period of time is extremely valuable. Going faster also adds to aircraft survivability by reducing the time the aircraft is exposed to observers and enemy gunners on the ground. High operational range also is highly desirable; however, increased range largely relates to fuel payload. The aircraft’s primary mission has, in the past, been a determining factor in devoting more payload to fuel and, therefore, increased range.
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processes that have advanced substantially over the last three decades. With the V-280 Valor Bell is taking the lessons learned from the CV/MV-22B and incorporating the latest technology, materials, and production techniques to provide a more advance tilt rotor aircraft © Boeing
Medium- and heavy-lift helicopters like the Mil Mi-26 which has a 431.9nm (800km) range and Sikorsky’s CH-53E with a 539.4nm (999km) range need such reach to undertake multiple sorties without refuelling. Meanwhile, refuelling probes fitted to aircraft such as the CH-53E or US Air Force special mission Sikorsky MH-60G/U Blackhawks offer the capability to undertake long-range, deep insertion missions. However, range and capable airspeed are from a practical operational sense closely linked: Though an aircraft may have the range to reach a landing zone at hundreds of nautical miles distance, the length of the transit and return time would result in a prolonged build-up time. Aircraft would be unable to ‘turn’ missions quickly due to the travel time. So to make best use of long operational range the aircraft should be faster once again. TILT ROTOR Despite teething problems and criticism by sceptics, the Bell-Boeing CV/MV-22B Osprey tilt rotor, which started life in 1981 as the joint Vertical Take-Off/Landing Experimental (JVX) initiative is altering the way vertical lift operations are conducted. First fielded with the US Marine Corps in 2007, and with US Air Force Special Operations in 2009, it has now been employed not only in combat (during US-led interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan), but also in humanitarian and disaster relief operations, for example assisting the response to Typhoon Haiyan which devastated part of the Philippines in 2013. The Marine Corps, in particular, saw the MV-22B as an answer to its problem of needing to launch its vertical assault from the sea with ships stationed well beyond the horizon. This was possible with the Boeing CH-46E
Sea Knight heavy-lift helicopter with a lengthy transit that was unacceptable. It left the landed forces exposed with limited numbers and increased the time needed to build their strength. The unique characteristics and capabilities of the MV-22B addressed this. It could still take-off vertically from amphibious ships but when transitioning to horizontal flight by rotating the engines downwards it could fly at 269.9 knots (500km/h). This was more than double the air speed of the CH-46E which meant it could reduce the flight time to the same landing zone by more than half. Plus, its greater 389.8nm (722km) combat radius and higher 20000 pounds/lbs (9070 kilograms/kgs) payload and 15000lbs (6800kgs) of external payload further enhanced its effectiveness. The hands-on results and lessons learned with the MV-22B have stimulated interest and heightened the promise for next-generation vertical lift. This should be especially true considering that the CV/MV-22B was essentially drawing on 1970s techniques, materials and design and manufacturing
Future Efforts The aviation industry has been working on approaches to break the top speed limit on helicopters as discussed above. The challenge to increasing speed is partly due to the very process that makes the helicopter capable of vertical flight—the overhead rotating blades. Factors that must be overcome include the ‘drag’ of the blades and airframe, retreating blade stall, air flow reversal, and air compressibility. A technical discussion of these could require several pages, but the common connection is that these factors must be addressed in some way to alter the dynamics of helicopter flight. In attempting to do so a number of very different directions are being taken by designers. For example, Bell Helicopter has taken the CV/MV-22B’s proven tilt rotor concept and adapted it for its V280 Valor tilt rotor design. As Steve Mathia, director of global business development for advanced tilt rotor systems for the firm described, “The V-280 design and manufacturing takes the lessons learned and the proven operational impact from the (CV/MV-22B) and improves it with advanced design and build technology.” One of the key improvements he explained is found in the V-280’s nacelles. With the CV/MV-22B, the entire nacelle tilts. On the V-280, only the rotors and gear boxes tilt while the nacelle and engines remain stationary. This allows for safe ingress/egress while keeping the engine housing out of the way and reduc-
Sikorsky’s S-97 helicopter employs two counter-rotating overhead blades and an aft pusher propeller. This has not only allowed it to demonstrate high cruise speeds, but exceptional side-toside and even reverse flight ©Sikorsky
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By using an aft pusher propeller and twin boom tail stabilizers the S-97 is already noticeably quieter in flight than traditional helicopters. When high speed is not needed but stealth is ‘declutching’ the pusher prop makes it nearly silent © Sikorsky
Airbus Helicopters’ X3 design employed short wings that would begin to provide lift at 80 knots with two turboprop for forward speed. Pilots favourably commented on the manoeuvrability of the aircraft © Airbus Helicopter
ing maintenance requirements. Designed to provide a multi-mission capability the V-280 is smaller than the CV/MV-22B. It will cruise at 280 knots (520km/h), have a combat range in excess of 500nm (930km), hover at 6000 feet/ft (1828.2 metres/m) and fly in temperatures of 32 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) with a full combat load, and exceed the agility of current helicopters. Teamed with Lockheed-Martin, Bell is offering the V-280 as part of the US Future Vertical Lift Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstration (FVL JMRTD) programme. The team anticipates the V-280s first flight in August 2017. X2 Meanwhile, Sikorsky and Boeing are partnered for the FVL JMR-TD programme to offer the SB-1 Defiant helicopter. The 30000lbs (13636.4kgs) aircraft they propose
uses Sikorsky’s X2 counter-rotating coaxial design with a pusher propeller. The Sikorsky-Boeing approach takes advantage of 2010 X2 Technology Demonstrator test flights where the 6000lbs (2720kgs) aircraft achieved a record-breaking 250 knots (463km/h) airspeed. In 2015 Sikorsky unveiled its S-97 Raider, a prototype for a light tactical multi-mission helicopter weighing circa 11400lbs (5000kgs). Chris Van Buiten, vice president of Sikorsky’s Innovations division, who leads the effort stated, “Flying farther and faster with a rigid coaxial helicopter is certainly a key performance objective. However, with the S-97 we expect to show nextgeneration rotorcraft can outperform conventional helicopters in every mission performance parameter, particularly at low speed and hover.” The secret behind the X2 coaxial design is that the counter-
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rotating main rotors provide lift and forward flight without a tail rotor. Above 150 knots (277.8km/h) thrust is provided by the pusher prop so that the main rotor blades do what they do best—provide lift.” Mr. Van Buiten further predicts that the S-97 and SB-1 aircraft “will change the way military aviators fly and fight with helicopters.” By the time Sikorsky and Boeing fly their SB-1 aircraft in 2017 Sikorsky will have flown three X2 aircraft in less than ten years, and proven the design’s inherent ability to be scaled to the size of a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk family medium-lift utility helicopter. Hybrid Designs Airbus Helicopters (formerly Eurocopter) has taken a hybrid approach for future helicopters that takes on some of the attributes of conventional aircraft like stubby wings. These have been successfully demonstrated to significantly improve forward speed with its X3 technology demonstrator achieving 255 knots (472 km/h) in flight testing in 2012 (overtaking the X2 record). The X3 design combines a top rotor for lift in hover with short wings mounting turbopropellers that provide forward thrust thus the term hybrid. It has no rear rotor but rather a horizontal stabilizer supporting vertical fin stabilizers on each end. In forward flight at speeds over 80 knots (148 km/h) the wings begin to provide addition-
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The FVL JMR-TD programme’s objective is to develop and field aircraft with significantly greater performance and capabilities to fill mission roles from reconnaissance and attack to assault transport and heavy-lift © Bell
al lift and at high speed nearly the entire lift for the aircraft. Airbus has not yet revealed its plans for a new military aircraft using the approach demonstrated by the X3. However, a company spokesperson suggested that many of its current helicopters could incorporate these design principles. Since the X3 drew from a heavily modified Airbus Helicopters AS-365N3 Dauphin light utility helicopter airframe this seems entirely possible. The X3 was demonstrated to the US military but finally was not considered for the FVL JMR-TD. Airbus had indicated its intent to focus on search and rescue and is understood to be working on an X3-derived aircraft that could fly in 2019. RACHEL Mil suggested in 2009 that it was developing the Mi-X1 with a more aerodynamic design and retractable landing gear coupled with a proprietary Stall Local Elimination System (SLES). Their claim was that the Mi-X1 will have a cruise speed of 256.4 knots (475 km/h) and maximum speed of up to 280.7 knots (520 km/h). In August 2015 Mil displayed a demonstrator of RACHEL
(Russian Advanced Commercial Helicopter) advertised as a high speed helicopter at the MAKS Air Show in Moscow. The helicopter is said to be designed to carry up to 24 passengers or a 2.5 ton payload with a maximum range of 485.9 knots (900km) and top speed of 269.9 knots (500 km/h). Mil stated flight tests would begin that December with production in 2022. In December 2015 a highly modified Mi-24K was publically demonstrated with new curved tip rotor blades. Their purpose is to reduce blade drag to improve stability and allow higher helicopter speeds. Mil anticipates the experimental aircraft will increase its maximum speed from 179.8 knots (333km/h) to 215.9 knots (400 km/h). If it is possible to refit the curved tip blade to other aircraft Mil suggests they could see a further 30 percent increase in air speed. X-Plane AMV, a small US company, has been developing its own design for a high speed vertical lift aircraft employing fans positioned within its short wings. The prototypes clearly suggest a convergence between the VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft and a high speed helicopter. AMV
has flown its X-plane concept demonstrator and projects its AMV-211 could archive a maximum speed of 260.7 knots (483km/h) and cruise of 217 knots (402km/h) offering a 593.9nm (1110km) range. Although it submitted a proposal for the FVL JMR-TD the design was not selected and the company is continuing its development. Vectored Thrust Another candidate for the requirement uses Piasecki Aircraft’s proprietary Vectored Thrust Ducted Propeller (VTDP) design with the addition of lifting wings. It has flown as the X-49 Speed Hawk in a four-bladed, twin-engine, experimental model utilizing the airframe of a Sikorsky SH-60F Seahawk naval support helicopter. The effort was initially funded by the US Navy and then the US Army to demonstrate a way to increase the speed of existing helicopters to 194.3 knots (360km/h). First flying in 2007 it has achieved speeds of 145 knots (268 km/h). It was not selected for the FVL JMR-TD requirement. Reason Prevails A number of the world militaries including several of the US and NATO armed forces
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The SB-1 is another FVL JMR-TD candidate. It scales up Sikorsky’s S-97 design to meet the requirements of a UH-60 series medium-lift utility helicopter © Sikorsky
face widespread obsolescence of their hedigital electronics and avionics, fly-bylicopter fleets in the coming decade. Many wire, and composite materials, or to currently-fielded aircraft were introduced move to designs that offer a new level of in the 1980s and are approaching their 30performance. A second factor is the posyear lifespan. For example, the McDonnell sibility of developing a common aircraft Douglas/Boeing AH-64 Apache gunship that can fill multiple mission roles. The US family was first fielded in 1986 and despite Army initially sought to find at the most a number of improvements has essentially three air frames to fulfil all the missions the same flight characteristics. The UH-60 it envisioned. This idea has been modifamily is even older; it was first operated fied several times so that they are now in 1974. The latest UH-60M has fly-by-wire the Light Scout airframe (2030 introducsystems, common avionics architecture, tion), the Medium-Light airframe, a and increased power and reliability in its Medium-Utility/Medium-Attack airframe engine but retains the same speed. The for introduction in by 2028, and a Heavy first target of the FVL JMR-TD will likely Cargo airframe for introduction in 2035. be to replace the UH-60 series, which may In addition, the US Army envisages an explain the similarities of the programmes’ ‘Ultra’ airframe as a new vertical lift cargo candidate cabin designs to the former fam- aircraft with a performance equivalent to ily of rotorcraft. fixed-wing turboprop freighter like the Thus, military users are inevitably Lockheed Martin C-130J or Airbus A400M, looking at replacing aircraft. The queswith introduction planned for 2025. Based tion they are facing is whether to stay on a US Department of Defence 21 January with proven designs, albeit incorporating briefing by Jose Gonzalez, deputy director
NEXT ISSUE: JUNE/JULY 2016 PUBLICATION DATE: 1 JUNE ADVERTISING DATE: 16 MAY ■ TURING
Our regular column providing unique insight and analysis regarding the cyber warfare and defence communications domains. ■ SUBMARINES
The market for new submarines, and upgrades of existing boats remains healthy around the world. ■ TACTICAL
MOBILITY
An examination of the logistics vehicles which help
of land warfare, munitions and tactical warfare systems, it appears this is changing again. It is now proposed to categorise based on the required capabilities rather than weight. These new categories have not yet been announced. Even without the ‘Ultra’ airframe, this aircraft concept has not only technical challenges but also could be viewed as infringing on the mission domain of the US Air Force; this is an ambitious programme and schedule. It is likely from an operational standpoint that some airframe approaches may be preferable over another in various missions. Already the ‘across the fleet commonality’ focus of the US Army has begun to shift to subsystems like cockpits, controls, and avionics. A major question is also obtaining adequate funding for such a programme and how the price tag would impact on other army modernization efforts. Flying Forward Field experience with the CV/MV-22B is uncovering benefits and new ways to capitalize on the aircraft’s unique capabilities. The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has already indicated interest in increasing their initial requirement for the CV/MV-22B based on these results. Sufficient experience from the pre-FVL JMR-TD X3 shows the feasibility of high speed, enhanced agility and greater flight range. It is now a question of determining their viability, scalability and adaptability, as well as cost, to fit each of the mission roles. High speed helicopters are clearly on the horizon; in what forms and how soon remain unknown.
to support land forces during their missions.
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The USAF is to receive its first new bomber for a generation. Armada investigates this initiative.
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PROPULSION
Military vehicles are little more than dead metal without their propulsion systems, we examine recent trends. ■ NIGHT
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Seeing in the dark is indispensable for today's military operations, with technology to this end developing.
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