#SMD2021 the Mid-Range Capability will involve multirole launcher that can fire Tomahawk or SM-6. "We actually have a missile on the rail that can do offensive or defensive fires simultaneously."
RCCTO head Thurgood shows some photos of the LRHW delivery and describes the DE-MSHORAD shoot-off.
Slide on 2-prong high-end DE solution. IFPC to have a kinetic and nonkinetic element, which will feature the mobile 300kW HEL and fixed HPM.
Thurgood brought pencils to the podium to underscore bottom line: "Pencils down." RCCTO is "not interested in being late."
"When I started this job, I had as much hair as Ronny did. And now I look like General Myles."
Thurgood: Each Mid-Range Capability launcher can hold 4 missiles, and "It can also hold a Patriot right out of the factory, it can hold a PrSM...The Mark 41 launcher that we got from the Navy is really a versatile launcher."
Keeping track of Army's popular names presented at #SMD2021.
LRHW: "Dark Eagle"
MRC: "Typhon"
IFPC-HEL: "Valkyrie"
IFPC-HPM: "Thor"
Relevant reading from @tomkarako:
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VADM Hill, MDA Director at #SMD2021: “The big change for us as an agency…we used to spend most of our time worried about countermeasures [decoys, etc]…but with these coordinated attacks we see today, it’s about maneuver and speed.”
Hill: Intercepting low, maneuvering threats in "terminal phase...is never where we want to be"
Hill highlights need for layered capability. And here's this year's MDA placemat. Is there a wording change? Today's Layered *Active* Missile Defense System? would dovetail with increasing focus on active and passive defense.
Gen James at #SMD2021 panel: As SPACECOM's mandate begins over 100 km in the atmosphere, "my team is in charge of perhaps the largest AOR in the universe"
Gen Brady: "we've been focused a lot of fixed and semifixed assets" but Army intent on pivoting to protect the maneuver force. Says European allies very interested in this capability.
Brady: Army AAMDC is focused more on interoperability; excited for IBCS, but in interim, Mission Partner Environment developed recently aids in passing info to allies, esp. legacy tactical datalinks.
At #SMD2021, Adm. Richard cautions against comparing stockpile sizes, because half of US stockpile "operationally unavailable" due to treaty constraints. Also asks OSINTers to keep looking for Chinese siloes; "I usually have to pay someone to do that"
Richard: China "soon to be the pacing threat in most categories," and Russia "seeking to solidify great power status"—points to Moscow's gray zone actions.
Russia "has over 2,000 non-treaty accountable" tactical nuclear weapons. And "has the capacity to drastically increase" its nuclear stockpile. "Russia has more strategic missile defense than we do; theirs is nuclear-tipped and they're improving it."
Dr. Shari Feth, MDA tech lead uses fun graphic at #SMD2021. In which the boater is the PM and the lumberjack is the technologist.
Feth emphasizes that the program side should have a dual-hatted chief technology officer and dedicated plan to aid in tech transition. Programs lack incentives to evaluate new technologies without bridge planning and people.
In panel, SMDC tech lead Dr. Michael Zmuda discusses future threat environment: "synchronized" and "integrated" attacks; "it's not multidomain, it's all domain"; focus on winning cost equation.
VCJCS Hyten speaking at #SMDC2020:
"I wanna give the Army a little bit of a hard time...the Space and Missile Defense Command [name]—it's schizophrenic"
"Space is a place, missile defense is a mission."
Knowing laughter as Hyten discusses naming confusion with AAMDC.
Hyten: Joint fires, contested logistics, joint c2, information advantage are "supporting concepts" needed by joint force, recently signed strategic directive for services to build requirements.
Hyten: discusses service input/analysis of Joint Requirements Oversight Council process. Critiques "slow, moribund" DoD requirements bureaucracy. Points to Schriever and Minuteman, Rickover and sea-based deterrent as architects of DoD institutional change.
#SMD2021 panel: RCCTO internally referred to LRHW as Army's "dark eagle." No difference in 34.5" booster for Army and Navy systems, except canister. TEL is built off existing trailer, and "took a known C2 system" for battery operations.
BG Rafferty: "we're going to have an application on the Titan ground station that is going to generate the calls for fire"— ML model will be "driven by the commander's high priority target list"
"The materiel domain is leading…and pulling the other domains along. And I think that’s the reality of the Information Age, of the 21st century—is that technology is going to lead us. And it’s one of the fundamentals of the Army Futures Command approach, which is...