Drones, the Air Littoral, and the Looming Irrelevance of the USAF

[daftandbarmy]

I wonder how our drone vs. drone doctrine is doing in comparison with what's going on in Ukraine right now

 

[FJAG]

Something new from the Wavell Room on thoughts for the future of air power.

Ready for a Fight? 5 Provocations for Change

Ready for a fight? Change needs to come to how Militaries operate, if they want to win the next war. Here's 5 ways to do it.

wavellroom.com

 

[Kirkhill]

I'm sure I have seen some of those arguments before.

 

[ytz]

Something new from the Wavell Room on thoughts for the future of air power.

Loved this. By the way cost asymmetry has been a concept for over a decade. And really came to the fore when the Israelis used a patriot missile against a drone that you could probably buy on Amazon. There have definitely been calls to incorporate the idea into doctrinal development. But most of us are too low on the totem pole to make a difference here.

 

[dimsum]

Loved this. By the way cost asymmetry has been a concept for over a decade. And really came to the fore when the Israelis used a patriot missile against a drone that you could probably buy on Amazon. There have definitely been calls to incorporate the idea into doctrinal development. But most of us are too low on the totem pole to make a difference here.

I would argue that now is the perfect time for “low folks on the totem pole” to revise doctrine, especially in light of lessons observed in UKR and elsewhere.

I guess it depends on what people see as “low folks” - is it the Cpl on the ground, or the Maj staff officer in CADTC or RAWC?

 

[quadrapiper]

I would argue that now is the perfect time for “low folks on the totem pole” to revise doctrine, especially in light of lessons observed in UKR and elsewhere.

I guess it depends on what people see as “low folks” - is it the Cpl on the ground, or the Maj staff officer in CADTC or RAWC?

Commodore/BGen and below?

 

[FJAG]

I would argue that now is the perfect time for “low folks on the totem pole” to revise doctrine, especially in light of lessons observed in UKR and elsewhere.

I guess it depends on what people see as “low folks” - is it the Cpl on the ground, or the Maj staff officer in CADTC or RAWC?

In my experience we've never had, nor do we now have, a shortage of bright and inventive "low folks" - from cpls to capts on up. Unfortunately the CAF is such a constipated bureaucracy that making their ideas into practical and timely applications has become virtually impossible.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

In my experience we've never had, nor do we now have, a shortage of bright and inventive "low folks" - from cpls to capts on up. Unfortunately the CAF is such a constipated bureaucracy that making their ideas into practical and timely applications has become virtually impossible.

In my experience we've never had, nor do we now have, a shortage of bright and inventive "low folks" - from cpls to capts on up. Unfortunately the CAF is such a constipated bureaucracy that making their ideas into practical and timely applications has become virtually impossible.

Need to teach the Space-X concept of positive risk and positive failures.

 

[Kirkhill]

A significant element of the Blue UAS effort is updating software, he said. DIU received “significant feedback from our Ukrainian friends that software is what defines success on the battlefield. In this space, to get the software, you have to be able to iterate quickly,” he said. In Ukraine, drone software has about a two-week lifespan before Russia develops a countermeasure.

“For DIU, in our processes it takes about 90 days for a software update to get a thumbs up,” he said, adding that in the Defense Department it’s 12-plus months. “Neither one of those time frames is acceptable, so we’re piloting a continuously monitored software approach.”

Over the next six months, DIU intends to establish and prove out the approach “and then be able to approve software for release within 96 hours. That’s still longer than we want,” he said. ND

Current bureaucracy takes 12 months to approve a software upgrade.
Novel process reduces that to 3 months, or 90 days.
Target process could reduce that to 96 hours or 4 days.

Useful life of any software revision is two weeks or 14 days.

4 days is 29%, or almost 1/3 of the useful life of a patch.
It is also the most useful portion of the patch's life given that the opposition is constantly upgrading and responding. The first four days are the days when the patch is most likely to be "a surprise" and thus most effective.

In addition, the cycle time between action and counter is only getting faster.

‘Our platforms are too expensive; our platforms aren’t good enough,’” he said.

“They want modularity, meaning we have a flying platform, but if they want to put a camera on or a different radar or different sensor, they want to be able to do that.”

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/7/17/diu-clearing-more-drones-for-military-use

....

Security is over-rated.

I ran into this in the civilian world years ago. The ancient world ran slowly. It was assumed that innovation could be vetted and catalogued and approved for release. It was also assumed that rules would be followed. This was the Patent process. Bright ideas had value and could be protected.

By the time I was wrapping up my career patent offices were closing down and companies were no longer filing patents. Patents took too long to file, gave away too much info in the public domain and were generally ignored both by local and international competitors.

The solution, even for slow moving but reputable companies was to ignore the patent process entirely, the rule of law effectively, and run faster. Companies simply stopped worrying about securing their secrets and started implementing their bright ideas faster, pushing them out to the market place sooner, with less vetting, and opting to fix things on the fly. The process was made easier because of the ease of changing software to fix problems that previously people would have resorted to cutting metal to solve. Instead of having to ship a tonne of differently machined metal to a dissatisfied customer, many problems could be solved via a modem. We didn't even have to send a tech to the field.

And the modification was available to all subsequent deliveries whether it was needed or not.

This is the model being exploited by the likes of Elon Musk - fail fast and often.

.....

The world is becoming more transparent.

You will have to work with less security and less secrecy.

 

[ytz]

In my experience we've never had, nor do we now have, a shortage of bright and inventive "low folks" - from cpls to capts on up. Unfortunately the CAF is such a constipated bureaucracy that making their ideas into practical and timely applications has become virtually impossible.

Some exceptions. SOF. And the emerging Space and Cyber domains right now. Everywhere else is jammed up.

This is also in part a funding thing. Experimentation requires resources. From funding to personnel to staff officer time. Outside the designated doctrine and OT&E centres this is difficult. And even they don't sufficient resources or authority to do what they should.

Lastly, you don't get promoted for being the bright idea fairy. It's actually outright anti-intellectual when you consider that our officer SCRITS:

1) Give more points for SLT than post-grad.

2) Weigh an executive MBA and two years Graduate engineering the same way.

3) Give less points for staff jobs in those "think tank" positions.

4) Some trades won't promote anyone on obligatory service for a sponsored post-grad.

When you put together all of the above, the fastest way to get promoted is to do ops tours and Second Language Training and get your Masters of Defence Studies after Staff College.

Indeed the unwritten rule in Ottawa for those with high technical competency is that we want them to leave the CAF and become public servants.