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00:00The U.S. Army's senior leadership is setting a course for modernization.
00:05What will it take to win the next fight?
00:07Plus, it's tried and tested, so why is Kongsberg aiming to put a refreshed pro system into
00:14the hands of today's warfighters?
00:17And is it the next evolution in counter-UAS?
00:21Why Defense Solutions thinks it's Enforce Air Plus is key to protecting U.S. troops
00:27from drone attacks.
00:28Hello, and welcome to Washington, D.C. for this episode of Weapons and Warfare.
00:38Whether you are a defense enthusiast, military professional, or somebody who's simply curious
00:43about the latest innovations in defense technology, our goal is to give you an inside look at the
00:48state of today's military in a rapidly changing world.
00:52For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson, and we start with the reason why
00:56we are here, AUSA 2025.
01:00This annual event brings together the Army's top brass, its rank and file, and defense
01:05industry leaders, all to collaborate and confer about the direction of our nation's oldest
01:11fighting force.
01:12We start with the state of the Army and the two men charged with leading it into its 251st
01:18year.
01:19That's the subject of this week's debrief.
01:24Amid all the pomp and circumstance befitting the branch's 250 years of service, Army Chief
01:30of Staff General Randy George and Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll used the opportunity
01:36to stress the importance of being able to answer the nation's call without delay.
01:42We talk a lot about when we built the Army and a lot of the systems that we have, you
01:48could take five to seven years to build it and you could take 15 or 20 years to field it
01:53to your formation.
01:54We can't do that anymore.
01:56For our Army to meet this moment, every single person, especially those at this conference,
02:02must be able to answer yes to one very simple question.
02:07Am I focusing my energy and effort so that soldiers are ready to fight and win our nation's
02:13wars?
02:14Of course, winning today looks different than it did as little as five years ago.
02:19While Ukraine was fighting for its freedom, other militaries, including the US, were watching
02:25and learning.
02:26If small arms define the 20th century, drones will define the 21st.
02:31They are the perfect convergence of artificial intelligence, advanced materials, batteries
02:37and propulsion systems, sensor fusion and much more.
02:40They are reshaping how humans inflict violence on each other at a pace never witnessed in human
02:47history.
02:48They are cheap, modular, precise, multi-role and scalable.
02:54And we will rapidly integrate them into our formations like they have at the 101st Airborne
03:00Division Air Assault.
03:02What the secretary is referring to is the 101st's journey to manufacture their own drones at the
03:09Eagle Works Applied Tactical Innovation Center at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
03:14General George says that kind of effort can help guide the army as it continues to push
03:18for modernization and develop new partnerships with industry leaders to meet those goals.
03:24We have been down on the floor and I know there's things that we can help produce at scale that
03:30can help industry and look for a public private partnership, but cost curve is where it's at.
03:35This is a hardened drone that has been flown successfully in Ukraine.
03:42So that's the other thing is making sure that our drones are exactly what we need.
03:48To get there, Secretary Driscoll pointed to hurdles the army has to eliminate so it can
03:53move beyond the traditional way of doing business.
03:56Using some very strong language, the secretary emphasized bureaucratic inefficiencies, empower
04:04adversaries, hinder army operations, and jeopardize the safety of soldiers.
04:09No one can predict the next war, but we cannot wait.
04:15We cannot fucking wait to innovate until Americans are dying on the battlefield.
04:22We must act now to enable our soldiers.
04:25Our window to change is right now, and we have a plan to do it.
04:32We will set the pace of innovation, and we will win with silicone and software and not our
04:40soldiers' blood and bodies.
04:42In closing, both leaders said the biggest obstacle to getting to where the army needs to be for
04:47its next conflict is an unwillingness to adapt to the current environment, at home and overseas.
04:56I think the biggest risk for industry is not changing.
05:00We are going to change.
05:01The army is going to transform.
05:03We are going to move out with this.
05:05We want you to come with us on this, and we need you.
05:08Our soldiers are ready to change, and I think everybody understands what kind of world we're
05:14in.
05:15We have to change.
05:16The next 250 years are ours to forge, and we will.
05:21We will continuously transform how we fight, how we build, and how we care for our soldiers.
05:29We will break the barriers of bureaucracy, inefficiency, and complacency.
05:35We will ensure that America's army remains the most lethal fighting force in the world,
05:41and it starts by placing our soldiers first.
05:46We will defend.
05:52All right, for our Weapon of the Week this week, folks, we're talking about a tech refresh
05:57on a system that is out there in the thousands.
06:00Here to talk a little bit more about that is John McGee with Kongsburg.
06:03John, thanks so much for joining us again.
06:04Hey, for sure.
06:06So we have the CROWS system here, right?
06:07Yeah, for sure.
06:08There are tens of thousands of these out of the system.
06:11There are tens of thousands of these systems across.
06:13What does CROWS stand for, John?
06:15Common Remote Operated Weapons Station.
06:17And this is going through a technology refresh right now?
06:20Yeah, so CROWS has been in the U.S. military for over 20 years.
06:25We've produced 17,000 of them.
06:27There's 20,000 worldwide.
06:28A couple of years ago, we started working with the government to identify the parts that
06:32were obsolescent, and it gave us an opportunity to start to bring in digitization, sorry, and
06:39replace those analog components.
06:42So really what this is, is we've taken a legacy system, replaced the sensors, taken the analog
06:48kind of processors out, given it the ability to be networked.
06:52Kind of walk me through, and I'm sure there's going to be some secret sauce stuff that you
06:55can't really say, but kind of walk me through some of the improvements on here that you can
06:59point out.
07:00For sure.
07:01So the sensors have changed.
07:02The thermals have changed.
07:04The processors have changed underneath.
07:05There's a lot of things you can't see, and a lot of it's in the software and the ability
07:08of the processors that are replacing with those analog systems to be digitized and give
07:14it the ability that, unfortunately, I can't point to those components because
07:18they're...
07:19Sure.
07:20They're internal.
07:21They're internal.
07:22When you talk about the ability to network these crows now, what does that bring the war
07:25fighter?
07:26Yeah, for sure.
07:27So, by networking the systems together, and I talked a little bit before about Ukraine,
07:33one of the things we've learned is that you can take these legacy systems, existing systems
07:38that the Army already has, and add additional capability to it.
07:42You can take a system, you can add a radar to it, you can add some processing power, digital
07:47processing power.
07:48You start to put those systems together via communications backbone.
07:52We don't do that, but we're agnostic to it.
07:54We're agnostic to the radars.
07:56You start to give a counter-UAS capability and the ability to hand off targets between
08:00one another.
08:01Absolutely.
08:02And that ability to hand off targets seems like that's becoming pretty vital.
08:08It's very important.
08:09It's our patented collaborative fire control system is really what enables us to take these
08:14systems, and not just our systems.
08:15We can take other people's systems, other people's effectors, and tie them together to
08:20enable us to really give the war fighter the best lethality-sharing platform across the
08:29battle space.
08:30How's the tech refresh going right now?
08:33I mean, are we halfway through it?
08:34We are actively in production.
08:36Our plants in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, it's been there for 20 years.
08:39Like I said, there's 17,000 out there.
08:42Some systems are new.
08:43We are building brand new tech refreshes.
08:45Some systems are conversions.
08:46We take a legacy system and convert it to a new system.
08:50All right.
08:51John, really appreciate your time today.
08:55All right, everyone.
08:56For our comms check this week, we are checking back in with our friends over at Defense Solutions.
09:00You might remember last year we talked about their Enforce Air 2.
09:04Well, they have some new products on display at this year's AUSA.
09:07Here to talk a little bit more about those products is Jeffrey Starr with Defense Solutions.
09:10Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us.
09:12Great for being here.
09:13I really appreciate it, Ryan.
09:14You gave great coverage of Enforce Air 2.
09:17You guys were one of the first to actually recognize Cyber Takeover as a new separate distinct
09:23category of Counter UAS.
09:25And we've been building on that ever since.
09:27We appreciate that.
09:28Well, hey, we appreciate you talking to us.
09:30And we appreciate you, you know, taking the time to explain how all of this stuff works.
09:34Sure.
09:35The Enforce Air 2, you know, for folks who don't know, it monitors the air space.
09:41It can, you know, detect if there's drones.
09:43We just mentioned it.
09:44It can not necessarily just down it outright, but you can take control over it and then land
09:49it where you want it.
09:51That was the 2.
09:53This is the plus.
09:54Sure.
09:55So what makes it the plus?
09:56Yes.
09:57Okay.
09:58It might be helpful to sort of chart the evolution of Enforce Air by exactly building off of what
10:03you said.
10:04And I like to use the life cycle of an incident or the life cycle of an attack as sort of a
10:08good metaphor or a good concept to how to kind of explain how the tool has evolved.
10:14So you're absolutely right.
10:16We pioneered the cyber takeover category.
10:18A drone enters the protected area.
10:21It immediately is detected.
10:23It sets off an alert to all the operators and all the systems.
10:26At that point, it's tracking and locating not just the drone, but also the pilot, the takeoff
10:31position.
10:32And then it's identifying the key attributes, the make, the model, manufacturer, the capabilities.
10:37Is it friendly?
10:38Is it authorized?
10:39Is it unauthorized?
10:40A huge number of drones are actually getting down nowadays by friendly fire.
10:44So you want to eliminate that possibility.
10:47And then we offer the mitigation option, unique, not jamming, not kinetic, of actually taking
10:53it over and landing it with a safe route to a safe landing spot.
10:57We also offer the option of what's called a fend off, sending it back where it came from
11:01or causing it to hover in place while you get a better sighting on it or alternatively friendly,
11:07letting it go on.
11:08Now, what happens within Force Air Plus, some people have described it as multi-layer right
11:14out of the box.
11:15So what we've integrated here is radar and a built-in jammer.
11:20So that kind of changes the game even further and extends our coverage of dangerous drones
11:26really on a much larger scale.
11:29So we're still cyber-centric.
11:30We're still cyber-first.
11:32We still position that the vast majority, huge percentage of commercial off-the-shelf
11:38drone threats, including do-it-yourself drones and other rogue drones, are going to be detected,
11:44identified and mitigated with our cyber technique.
11:47However, to go beyond cyber and for more peace of mind, and for example, coverage of
11:52totally radio silent, dead, dark drones or those kind of situations that are possibly beyond
11:59the knowledge base of cyber, you have radar to detect those.
12:04And even for the drones that the RF cyber detects, you also get the radar data now.
12:09And the radar data and the RF cyber data come together and that's what this fusion box is.
12:14So for greater situational awareness, on one UX, on one screen, you're seeing both.
12:20The data, you know, converge together from both the radar and the RF.
12:25That's on the detection side and then you have that greater situational awareness.
12:29Then if the drone is in fact deemed to be a threat and if it goes beyond the capabilities of RF cyber,
12:36you do now have the option of jamming, very precise jamming for that event, you know,
12:42for that situation, for that peace of mind.
12:44So we're still cyber-centric.
12:45We're still all the great things, non-disruptive, no collateral damage.
12:49But we have an additional layer now on the radar on the detection side and an optional jamming on the mitigation side.
12:56So there's a lot of interest in it.
12:58Very excited both from our existing users as well as new prospects who now see it, you know,
13:04as going beyond cyber but also still staying with the cyber concept at the core.
13:09Absolutely. That all makes perfect sense.
13:12Can you talk a little bit about where this system might be deployed right now
13:16or where you're thinking about, you know, potential deployment?
13:20Sure. And I should emphasize it's tried, it's true, it's proven.
13:24Many of our existing customers, you know, had early access to it, of course,
13:28and have actually used it in the field with great feedback, really great results in terms of the operational results
13:35of what it's able to detect and mitigate and jam if necessary.
13:39But it's sort of all of our traditional core sectors, so definitely military.
13:44Military not only for forward operating forces and bases but also for domestic homeland bases
13:50where there's an especially acute problem from commercial off-the-shelf drones.
13:55But homeland security continues to be a big application as well.
13:58Airports and aviation, we're making huge headway in.
14:01And law enforcement.
14:03So all of those, now critical infrastructure is also growing.
14:06And we expect the market only to grow, especially in the U.S., as we get closer hopefully to legislation,
14:14which will extend the authorities to state and local, then the market's going to open up even more.
14:19That's from a sector point of view and from a region point of view where, you know,
14:23we're in over 30 countries throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas as well.
14:27You bet. Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us today.
14:29Thank you very much. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.
14:31All opinions expressed in this segment are solely the opinions of the contributors.
14:38All right, folks, that's going to just about do it for us this week on this episode of Weapons and Warfare.
14:42But before we say goodbye, I want to bring in our senior producer and Air Force veteran, Brett Baker.
14:47Brett, first kind of initial thoughts from this year's AUSA 2025.
14:52Well, it's only our second. So we have a small base to, you know, draw from.
14:57But I would say pretty well attended.
14:59I think I saw fewer guys in BDUs, guys and gals, you know, regular rank and file army folks here this year.
15:06Maybe has to do with the shutdown.
15:08But overall, pretty well attended. Good vibe.
15:11Everybody, there's a lot of new vendors here.
15:14That was one of the things I noticed, too. A lot of new vendors here.
15:17So a lot of people are getting in the game. Absolutely.
15:20So what was kind of one thing that caught your eye? Right.
15:23Like one one newsworthy event that you thought, hey, we should talk about that.
15:27Well, kind of going back on drawing on our history, we've seen some of the smaller groups that had smaller booths when we started doing this grow.
15:36So you're seeing a lot of the results of folks being invested in building out the company.
15:41It's always kind of like a sign of how well they're doing by how big their booth is.
15:45Sure. And I think we've seen a lot of that, like, you know, Red Cat, much bigger booth.
15:49Andrel now has a giant booth. Huge booth, yeah.
15:52Yeah. So you can see the kind of the results of what this new focus on modernizing the military is doing for these contractors.
16:01And really that open source architecture, right? Like we have the platform, but any maker of a sensor or, you know, an intercept device of some sort, the platforms are, you know, agnostic as far as what sensors you put on it, what kind of effectors you might put on it.
16:18So you really kind of see the integration. And I guess that's my big takeaway, kind of piggybacking on yours, is we've done enough reports, been to enough of these shows with enough of these weapon systems.
16:28And now we're starting to see them really get incorporated into some of these other bigger, larger platforms.
16:34For instance, we were talking to Echodyne, right?
16:37Echodyne makes these little radars and we start seeing those radars pop up on smaller turrets and remote weapon stations and that sort of thing.
16:45Kind of just interesting to see the integration of all the weapon systems.
16:49Finally, Brett, I mean, it's AUSA. It's the biggest get-together for the biggest service branch.
16:55All the cool toys are here. Yeah, all the cool toys.
16:58What was one cool toy that stuck out in your mind?
17:00The XMAF. It's one thing to see a vehicle that large, but it's another thing to see a vehicle that large that will operate unmanned.
17:08I mean, that thing is massive. It would look at home in a quarry where they're pulling out rocks and gravel and stuff.
17:16Sure.
17:17But this thing is going to be unmanned, and I think that's pretty impressive to build something on that scale that they can just truck out to wherever without putting somebody else in harm's way.
17:27Absolutely. Speaking of unmanned, that's kind of, you know, the big push around the world for technology.
17:34So Sikorsky, a division of Lockheed Martin, unveiled their U-Hawk this week, which is the unmanned Blackhawk.
17:40Basically took out the cockpit, anything that a human might need to fly the thing, and replaced it with cargo capacity.
17:47And they can do, like, side-launched effects. They can open up the front hatch and, you know, a UGV can roll out.
17:55It really just kind of shows the integration of unmanned systems with unmanned systems carrying other unmanned systems.
18:02And repurposing an airframe. It was a 1991 helicopter that they put that into.
18:09So finding new life and new job sets for old equipment is pretty impressive.
18:15Absolutely.
18:16All right, Brett, really appreciate you joining us today.
18:19And as always, folks, all those stories that we just got done talking about, we are going to roll those out in the weeks and months ahead.
18:25So keep it tuned right here to Weapons and Warfare on Straight Arrow News.
18:29In the meantime, for senior producer Brett Baker, video editor Brian Spencer, graphics artist Dakota Patio, and photographer Sam Beattie,
18:36I'm Ryan Robertson with Straight Arrow News, signing off.
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