In October, the final “wastebook” from Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., final “wastebook”listed the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) program among 100 federal programs he called wasteful. The report knocked TALOS’ estimated $80 million budget as a fraction of the projected cost to produce a prototype.

TALOS, although intended as an an exoskeleton that allows the wearer to tote for the toting of heavy gear and an internal computing system, is also an effort to develop as much about finding a new framework for inventing technologies and fielding them quickly, SOCOM acquisition executive James Geurts said at an industry conference here.

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“TALOS to me isn’t the Iron Man suit as it is protecting the guy or gal at his most vulnerable point, to give them the capabilities and protection they need to get their mission done,” Geurts said. “Just doing an incremental approach to that isn’t going to get us where we need to get to. Our collective challenge is to come up with new operating models that make sense.”

SOCOM’s director of science and technology, Anthony Davis, acknowledged the skeptical press surrounding the program, but said the program’s goals are more modest than the “Iron Man” nickname suggests.

“That program is not about putting a nuclear cell on someone’s chest and having them fly off to battle,” Davis said at the conference. “It’s about protecting the operator. The first guy going through the door is our most vulnerable operator.”

TALOS is a catch-all for a variety of technologies, “whether a full-powered suit occurs or not,” Geurts told reporters. after his remarks. Eighteen months in it has produced “great spin-outs we didn’t think were possible,” Geurts said.

“That rapid prototyping was almost reverse education with industry,” he said. “Industry sends people there not because they had a product to sell, but an expertise and they wanted to contribute. I think it’s a great model.”

The program is field-testing unpowered exoskeletons, body armor and helmets to see how the combination works versus an operator’s usual kit. Officials want to avoid, “creating an exercise machine because you’re causing more work using the machine itself.”

This year, the program will explore powered exoskeletons, and is contracting for three prototypes. exoskeletons.

While the technology is not “inventing nano-particle stuff,” Geurts said, it aims to take advantage of leadingbleeding-edge technology for immediate effects and future special operations problems.

“I know I’ve got it when the operator says, ‘let me go out and use it,'” Geurts said. “We’re seeing that right now. I have embedded operators who are saying, ‘I can use that today.'”

Lightweight face and body protection are part of the program as is electronics miniaturization, but much of the focus is on augmenting situational awareness with next-generation audio, video and communications.

Technologies at the early stages include the unpowered exoskeletons; advanced armor; radios that can handle multiple waveforms; optics that allow troops to see in various light conditions; and inter-team communications using “3D audio,” which somehow indicates where a teammate is by the sound of his voice.

“How do I create 3D audio so that when a teammate says, ‘clearing this room,’ I don’t have to think about what room he’s calling me from,” Geurts said. “In my headset, it’s coming from my left, OKokay he’s got that room.”

The secret sauce for TALOS is creating a “combustion chamber” that combines experts from different specialties like communications, survivability and armor. “It’s about what we’re inventing and reinventing how we invent things,” Geurts said.

In addition to Outside of TALOS, Geurts touted two successes where SOCOM’s acquisitions directorate willingness to circumvented the cumbersome Pentagon acquisition system. These are has yielded two successes. Geurts touted on Wednesday, a 3D terrain model, produced by a 3D printer in the field using just 6 cents of plastic, and a $100,000 cube satellite for over-the-horizon data exfiltration.

The point of Experimenting with different acquisition models allows is for SOCOM to stay ahead of, or at least keep pace with, the lightning rate lighting pace of technological change. That means involves near-term flexibility and long-term planning, Geurts said.

“We shouldn’t be surprised the world’s changing, the threat’s changing and our operations are changing, so you have to create a framework that gives you enough structure that you cvan go fast as things change,” he said.

Email: Jgould@defensenews.com.

Twitter: @reporterjoe

“Many of our adversaries have acquired, developed and even stolen technologies that have put them on somewhat equal footing with the West in a range of areas,” Michael Dumont, said the Pentagon’s principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said Tuesday. Michael Dumont on Jan. 27.

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Speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association SO/LIC conference here, in Washington, Dumont called to mind the Chinese military’s hacking of Lockheed Martin’s networks several years ago, which gave the Beijing government a treasure trove of classified information on the F-35 fighter.

The US government and the defense industry needs to work together to “get out ahead of” cybersecurity issues and the proliferation of high-end technologies to states and non-state actors around the globe, he said.

A big part of this effort is the planned revamp of the development and acquisition process, currently being pushed by Deputy Defense Secretary of defense Bob Work.

Work has kicked off a “third offset” strategy in conjunction with “better buying power 3.0,” a plan by the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, Frank Kendall, which ‘s “better buying power 3,0” plan that pushes for more commercial and dual-use technologies in DoD weapons competitions.

The Pentagon needs to look deeply at future potential threats from state actors and terror groups and begin to “make investments that take us beyond the reach of our headlights” Dumont said. adding that “Recognizing this future direction requires understanding the current reality: Tthe US government no longer has the leading edge developing its own leading-edge capabilities, particularly in information technology.”

As Pentagon officials have been saying for the past year, the commercial sector has been running laps around the defense industry in a few key areas like communications and computing. Part of the problem is that the Pentagon’s acquisition process is slow, and discourages small tech startups from throwing their technologies in the ring.

But for the US to retain its dominance, everyone needs to have a seat at the table, he said. “Our government needs industry to win the fight.”

But while new technologies and new ways of doing business are more important than ever, before, senior special operations leadership have prepared themselves for a flat budget in 2016.

“The department has told us to expect flat budgets” in 2016 and beyond, US Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas Trask, vice commander of Special Operations Command, (SOCOM),USAF Lt. Gen. Thomas Trask told the conference earlier in the day.

And as Maj. Gen Joseph Osterman, commander of the Marine Special Operations Command, told the industry crowd that he is looking for technologies that can “simplify the complex” and “intel systems that are interoperable” with those that are being used by allies for better — and faster — coordination against terrorist groups and regional threats.

He added that while the DoD is struggling to incorporate commercial technologies, smart adversaries are already doing so.

“Off-the-shelf stuff can rapidly accelerate in front of us if we’re not careful,” he warned.

Email: pmcleary@defensenews.com.

Twitter: @paulmcleary

At an annual Special Operations conference in Washington DC on Tuesday, Jan. 27 Army Gen. Joseph Votel said the US government estimates that about 19,000 foreign fighters have crossed the borders into the two countries, and that American intelligence organizations are seeing the expansion of the Islamic StateIS into North Africa.

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“We need to be prepared to deal with them where they are,” he said, and US special forces are a big part of that.

There are currently several hundred US Army special operators working out of three locations in Iraq, training and advising Iraqi security forces, but the Pentagon has consistently said that they are not taking part in any combat.

Canadian special forces working with the Kurds in the north have been engaged in three firefights with Islamic StateIS members, and the Ottawa government has confirmed that their operators have left their compounds to laser-designate targets on the ground for coalition aircraft to hit.

But Votel identified areas of concern outside of Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said “a resurgent Russia” is one of the big national security issues of our time, saying that the Moscow regime “is now employing coercive techniques against its neighbors using [special operations] forces, other clandestine capabilities, information operations, other cyber operations and groupings of ethnic proxies and surrogates to drive wedges into our key allies in East Europe.”

And the mingling of criminal gangs and insurgencies around the globe remains a vexing problem.

SOCOM is tracking a “growing nexus” between terrorist groups and criminal gangs, he said. “The ability of criminal organizations to move money, people and weapons is very attractive to violent extremists. We don’t fully understand or appreciate completely how these different networks interact wittingly or unwittingly, but the more they cooperate, the greater the threat.”

The Islamic StateIS makes millions of dollars a month smuggling oil out of Syria and Iraq to third countries, and there have consistently been reports of Islamists in western Africa running drugs up through Europe.

But no one segment of the US national security apparatus is working these issues alone. Of particular interest were Votel’s comments about the relationship between special operators and “general purpose forces.” He called the Army’s Regionally Aligned Brigade initiative “a great opportunity to share the burden and bring our compleimentary capabilities to bear” on problems around the globe.

After 13thirteen years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, American special operators and general purpose forces have forged an unprecedented relationship that leaders in both communities are eager to nurture.

Marine Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford recently made interoperability between his Marines and the special ops community a key part of his guidance to the force released on Jan. 23, and Votel said that in the Horn of Africa — where SOF has long been active — “we are beginning to get to a point where we can take our SOF forces out of there” and let general purpose forces do the work of partnering with local forces.

But there’s still much work to be done. The services and the commandos are still working to iron out traditional stovepipes, and “must eliminate the institutional friction that exists between us and our conventional force, international, interagency and intelligence community partners” he said.

Most significantly, he said thinks that communications between the services and with allies remains is a huge hurdle. to overcome in the coming years.

“Like the threat networks we face, our unity of effort is directly correlated to our connectedness — to information, to our partners and to the chain of command,” he said.

Email: pmcleary@defensenews.com

Twitter: @paulmcleary

In October, it debuted the deployable advanced ground off-road (DAGOR) vehicle, its first purpose-built military vehicle. DAGOR was demonstrated for the US Army as part of its exploration of ultralight combat vehicles, alongside offerings from five other vendors.

The company unveiled an airless “never-flat” tire in 2012, and last year purchased St. Paul-based Primordial, a firm whose navigation software is already used by the US Army. Both moves are meant to enlarge Polaris’ defense business, a small but growing part of its $3.8 billion in annual revenues.

Q. What’s a nice company like Polaris doing in a sector like this — and what’s its strategy?

A. As in our commercial business, we try to provide the best value, and the best ride, because that’s what we do. I was a Navy supply officer so I understand how the whole defense supply chain works. A lot of times you get what is available rather than what you want. We’ve built a defense business on designing what the war fighters want, and because our rapid innovation process is commercial off the shelf, we can deliver variants of products and all-new products quite quickly. That’s something certainly the special operations community and others in the military have come to appreciate. Because of our commercial business we can do things at a much lower cost than most people. And we’ve got this family of ultra-light vehicles that has been providing tremendous value.

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Q. Does the defense business offset risk for the company in other sectors?

A. The strategy of long term is to do that. 2014 was a big growth year for Polaris Defense, and we’re expecting a lot of growth in 2015, but the defense segment is still less than 5 percent of our business. We see an opportunity for it to be an even larger business for us, and certainly it’s off cycle, if not counter-cyclical to our commercial business. But that’s not why we’re doing this. We’re doing this because it can be a profitable growth engine for us and then we can deliver significant value in quality, cost and serviceability to the war fighter.

Q. Does a company like Polaris pose a threat to some of the larger defense firms on the block?

A. I don’t think we’re a threat. I think the defense budget is big enough for all of us to partake in it. We are true capitalists here at Polaris, and what we’ve learned about ourselves is when there are new competitors in any segment we’re in, we get better. By Polaris bringing better vehicles and better value, some defense primes may see it as a threat, but I think they’re going to become faster and better themselves, and the Department of Defense is the winner.

Q. How did Polaris break into defense, through special operations?

A. That’s been our largest customer. When there were deployed units in Afghanistan and Iraq where there aren’t great roads, or roads that weren’t safe because of IEDs. And they found that our MV 700, then it was the 800 and 850s, were the right kind of products for them to get around. We’ve gotten back stories of soldiers with their packs and weapons, five and six on an ATV, getting up and over mountains; It’s pretty inspiring and it makes us feel good about what we do.

Q. There’s been the MRZR and MV 850, and now the Dagor. Was the Dagor a risk as the company’s first purpose-built military vehicle?

A. The MRZRs and the MV ATVs were not purpose-built, they were modified significantly in some cases to be able to withstand the environments and the type of service that they were being put into, which were very different in some cases from the commercial environment. We saw what the customer was doing, and for the DAGOR, we asked if we could build something that would meet a specific need for them and we recognized that, “Hey, this is right in our wheelhouse.” And the customer has enjoyed putting this product through the paces.

And, of course it’s risky. We put up millions of dollars of our own money; we didn’t ask the customer for funding. We designed this product, we built it with commercial, off-the-shelf parts, and that would be a risk we took if it completely bombed. But we felt confident that it would not, and we’ve been proven right. There’s a continuous feedback loop which we can rapidly respond to, to help us make a good product continually better. We feel that the retail price of $150,000 — $149,999, if you will — is a tremendous value. There’s nobody that makes a similar vehicle. But if they did, it wouldn’t be close to this price point.

Q. And it sounds like there’s some military-directed research and development in the works, unmanned ground vehicles. What’s that, and what is Primordial ground guidance?

A. Primordial is a small mapping technology company that we acquired last year which sits very well with Polaris. Polaris has about 600 engineers that I would put up against any automotive, engineering or any defense firm in terms of their skill, passion and knowledge. But where we were lacking a little bit was software engineering, and we acquired Primordial and ended up going from not very good to extremely good at software design. They’ve been able to help us provide mapping solutions and in some cases autonomous vehicle technology. In fact if there’s an autonomous ground vehicle contest going on, it’s almost assured that half of the vehicles are going to be Polaris. We’re also working with the Canadian government on a track vehicle. We do a lot of different things, and the objective is to have a fleet of vehicles and technologies that can be of value to various elements of the armed services.

Q. Some analysts say the company’s strong run will be difficult to sustain. What’s the strategy to keep the growth going, if that’s the plan?

A. Of course that’s the plan. It’s a hell of a lot more fun to be in a company that’s growing. Our first objective is to be the best in power sports. So we’re the global leader in power sports. We’ve got a significant market share lead in off-road vehicles, which is north of $3 billion for us, which includes parts of our military business. We’ve got a growing motorcycle business, great snowmobile business, great parts, garments.

The second part of our strategy is growth to adjacencies, and military is one of our best adjacent market opportunities. We’ve talked about SOCOM and big Army, but we’ve got orders from Australia and the Netherlands and Norway; it’s over 25 countries. We’ve got an electric vehicle adjacent market opportunity, and there’s a long list of other acquisitions and organic product developments that we can do.

Our third objective is global market leadership. Only 15 percent of our sales right now is outside of North America and there’s a significant opportunity for us to double that percentage. And we do all of those three growth strategies and we drive a lean enterprise in the back end of our business and really add value to customers and drive long-term sustainable profitable growth. We’ve had 20-plus percent annual growth for the last five years, and we’re not promising it’s going to stay 20 percent, but it’s going to be double-digit growth for many years in the future. And we can drive significant earnings growth with that as well.

Q. Polaris has done business with the militaries of Germany, Israel, Canada, Norway and Australia. With the US budget declining, how much of your efforts are aimed at overseas sales?

A. Even with the declining US defense budget it’s still got to far outweigh the combined spending of our allies. So our primary focus is to deliver value to the American war fighter; let’s be very, very clear on that. That said, there’s the demand and need for our products from our allies overseas; last year it was about 20 percent and this coming year it will probably be closer to 25 percent. We’ll continue to explore that, but the biggest long-term opportunity is to break into the big Army and the Marine Corps, ensuring that our fleet of ultralight vehicles, highlighted by the DAGOR, get the opportunity to serve.

Q. Do you have other R&D efforts?

A. For competitive reasons we don’t really talk about that. I will tell you, and this is public information: We have very innovative hybrid technology. We are minority owners in one of the best lithium ion power train companies out there. We talked about Primordial; we’ve got an ownership stake in a very good light armor company with various composites and lightweight vehicle components. We bought a company called swissauto a few years ago and they had a really nice tracked vehicle technology, which the Canadians are going to use as an autonomous vehicle. And non-pneumatic tires.

Q. Will Polaris be making more acquisitions on the defense side?

A. Sure. We’ve got a maniacal focus on long-term profit and growth, so we’re not going to buy a defense firm just to own a defense firm. But if we see an opportunity to buy something that we can grow and accelerate profitability, of course we’ll do it.

Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe

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Lockheed Martin is scheduled to deliver AFSOC’s final MC-130J in 2024, with AFSOC scheduled to retire the last legacy MC-130 in 2026. Approximately 10 MC-130Js will be ultimately based at Kadena Air Base in Japan.

One aircraft Two arrived at Kadena on Dec. 21, followed by another on and Jan. 18. The respectively, and the third is set to arrive in March.

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the Teal Group, said the new aircraft will be an asset in the Pacific. “It has a completely new modern engine, with a much lower fuel burden, which is useful when there is a shortage of places to land,” Aboulafia said.

An MC-130J Commando II and a CV-22 Osprey fly over the Texas Tech University stadium in Lubbock, Texas.

Photo Credit: Courtesy photo/Steven Leija

On Dec. 17, 17th Special ForcesOperations Squadron’s first MC-130J landed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, after flying across the Pacific Ocean to its new home. (It was not truly the first MC-130J to enter the fleet. The recapitalization began in 2011 with the first MC-130J delivered to Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico.)

AFSOC is using the medium-sized tanker to support special operations missions, including aerial refueling, and forward arming and refueling point operations for special operations forces SOF rotary and tilt-rotor aircraft. The MC-130J is also for infiltration and exfiltration, resupply, or the delivery of operators SOF personnel and equipment via airdrop.

In tests, the MC-130J’s improved propulsion system enabled better tactical take-off performance from short, unimproved runways and expanded the flight envelope for aerial refueling, according to the Pentagon’s operational test and evaluation agency, DOT&E. Its enhanced cargo handling system also made it easier to load, unload and make airdrops, compared with legacy aircraft

The 17th Special Operations Squadron retired the MC-130P with a final formation flight at Kadena in October. They are to be flown to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, through April.

The airframe has served for more than 50 years and was used in critical air refueling missions in the late 1980s during Operation Just Cause in Panama and the early 1990s during Operation Desert Storm, but the Air Force had been looking to replace it with newer technology since the 1990s. It has since been a part of a dozen named operations, including several disaster relief missions.

The recapitalization was prompted by growing maintenance costs in the old fleet. In 2011, AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster said the MC-130 fleet’s unscheduled maintenance hours had grown 56 percent over 10 years, pulling airplanes temporarily out of use.

The multimission tanker boasts advanced sensors, expanded avionics and a universal aerial refueling capability that Wurster said would, “enable the highly skilled airmen of AFSOC to operate under difficult conditions with unmatched speed and capability,” after the first one rolled off the production line.

Most of the fleet was more than 35 years old and made of multiple configurations, which increased maintenance and sustainment challenges, according to a Pentagon acquisition report. “The HC/MC-130J model climbs faster and higher, flies farther at a higher cruise speed and can take off and land in a shorter distance,” the report says.

In July, the MC-130J Commando II flew its first continuous mission around the world, escorting a single-engine AFSOC aircraft from Cannon Air Force Base to a destination in the Pacific and back. The mission, according to an AFSOC news release, stopped for rest and refueling but had no major breaks or delays.

AFSOC will field 37 AC-130J Ghostriders to replace the H and W models. Recently, DOT&E uncovered a number of developmental problems with the Ghostrider and recommended the program be delayed by four months to conduct more tests; The initial DT&E was pushed to May.

The AC-130J is armed with a 30mm side-firing chain gun; wing-mounted, GPS-guided small diameter bombs; and Griffin laser-guided missiles — adding a 105mm gun with the third aircraft. Along with its sensor suite, it carries these survivability systems: the AN/ALR-56M radar warning receiver, the AN/AAR-47(V)2 missile warning system and AN/ALE‑47 countermeasures dispensing system.

E-mail: jgould@defensenews.com

Twitter: @reporterjoe

Elements of the Vvoice over IP (VoIP) network have been operational for years, and officials here credit it for supporting a months-long mission that culminated in the March 2014 seizure of an Iranian arms cache some 1,500 kilometers from Israel’s Red Sea coast.

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But it was only in late December that the network was declared fully operational, connecting special units commanded by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) General Staff and IDF headquarters with all echelons operating under Israel’s three territorial commands.

“It’s state-of-the-art and it’s operational IDF-wide as of the end of 2014,” said Col. Yossi Mashiah, who managed the program as head of the Maof C4I Programs and Systems Engineering Department, part of the C4I Directorate of the IDF General Staff.

“We’re relative pioneers in this world. We started in early 2000 and now I can say with pride that no matter where the commanders are or where the forces are, there’s a single network-based radio communications for everyone.”

He added, “At the end of the day, you win wars and successfully accomplish special missions with radio.”

In a mid-January interview, Mashiah said parts of the network were used to support tactical forces in last summer’s Protective Edge operation in Gaza.

“In the past half-year, our people were in the field tweaking things. We went to Gaza to fix a satellite terminal one day and were out in the field with command centers on other days. … Now it’s all humming nicely,” he said.

As for special missions, he Mashiah cited last year’s Operation Full Disclosure, when Israel tracked the Klos C arms smuggling ship as it plied the Arabian Gulf, eventually seizing it as it made its way up through the Red Sea.

“Where ever you have the infrastructure for backhauling, you can use it,” Mashiah said. “I can’t provide any more specifics, but suffice it to say that this operational network of ours has been very broadly deployed.”

The multiyear program, which Mashiah estimated cost at “tenshundreds of millions” of dollars, is managed by Maof and operated by the IDF’s Choshen Brigade, also part of the C4I Branch of the IDF General Staff.

Technology and standards are developed by state-owned Rafael Ltd., part most of them under subcontract to Elbit Systems, developer of the IDF’s digital C4I network, known as Tzayad, or Digital Army Program (DAP).

The Hebrew name for the network is classified. For public consumption, program officials generically refer to it as Radio over IP (RoiP).

But Avriel S., a product line manager in Rafael’s Communications Directorate whose surname is withheld by the company for security reasons, says the network is much more than a radio system. Elements of the IDF system are available to export to license-approved nations under land- and sea-based systems marketed respectfully by Rafael, respectively, under the names C4I-Connect and Sea-Com.

“It’s radio, but it’s actually voice and data IP,” said the Rafael executive Avriel S. , whose surname is withheld by the company for security reasons. “Radio is part of the voice communications, but everything can be transferred over this infrastructure, including telephony, intercom and all types of data. ““The RoiP project enables true interoperability by transferring voice and data between forces and across all command echelons,.” he said.

For all special operations, including special operations, the network — which the Rafael executive noted is actually an application that lays on the IDF’s IP infrastructure — enables mission planning and mission implementation even in instances when servers are jammed or shut down.

“This is one of the special features. As long as they use smart terminals, everything will remain working without interference as long as the IP network is available, even in instances when servers are jammed or shut down,” he Avriel S. said. “Once the communication traffic between users and the radio is established, you don’t need any server. You can’t allocate new sessions, but those already on can keep on transmitting and receiving.”

Another feature, he said, is the high reliability and inherent security measures built into the system, which is unlimited by range and adaptable to any method of communications relay.

“The ROIP communications are backhaul is flexible and highly efficient, no matter where the forces are and whether they are supported by microwave link, satellites, whatever,” he Avriel S. said.

Mashiah said more sophisticated versions are in the works to hone connectivity with the Israel Air Force, which now uses its own system to patch into the network. An electronics engineer specializing in tactical communication, he retired in mid-January after 27 years in the IDF, most of them in the Signals Corps.

“I’ve been with this program from the beginning, since I was a major, and I can tell you that it’s already revolutionized our ability to operate as a joint, networked force,” he said. “We’ve left the world of point-to-point communications via radio. Now it’s flexible. It’s everywhere to everywhere, unlimited by range or the amount of users authorized to be on the net,.” Mashiah said.

Email: bopallrome@defensenews.com.

Twitter: @OpallRome