Danny Stillion’s Post

U.S. Army electronic warfare (EW) experts are reaching out to industry for new ways to design electronic payloads that counter enemy positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). Counter-PNT seeks to defeat enemy satellite navigation and timing systems, such as the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), which are essential for navigation, communications, weapons guidance, surveillance, transportation, and financial transactions. https://lnkd.in/enSqQ5eS

Future of Air Defense: Lasers and Traditional Systems Team Up _________________________________________ Laser-based Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) are unlikely to completely replace traditional air defense systems in the near future. There are two main reasons for this: ⬛ Limited Range: The Earth's curvature restricts a laser's range due to the horizon. Additionally, atmospheric conditions can further limit a DEW's effective range to around 10 miles. This is because intense laser beams heat the air, causing deflection and spread (divergence). This is similar to how light bends when it travels through materials with different densities (Snell's Law). ⬛Engagement Window: Since lasers rely on line-of-sight, they can only engage targets that are visible. Modern air defense often needs to intercept threats well beyond this range. Take, for example, a supersonic sea-skimming missile approaching a group of ships. A laser could only engage once the missile is much closer, giving the ships a limited window (around 30 seconds) to react. Conversely, traditional kinetic air defense systems can utilize information from other platforms, like E-2D aircraft, to target threats beyond their own radar range using a technique called Networked Fires Control – Capability (NIFC-CA). This is why development continues on improving traditional methods like artillery and gunfire. Even advancements like adding guided projectiles, while increasing cost, offer a storage advantage over missiles. #directedenergyweapons #laser #military #innovation #technology #ocean (Image Source: US Navy)

I try to stay out of politics here, LinkedIn friends, but this crosses too far into 'the practical'. We all want to live in a world where US and allied interests are sufficiently defended by a smaller, less funded US military. However, it's hard to imagine anyone believing that is the world we live in today, or that will exist in the near-to-mid-term future. Should our DoD do its best to spend and invest funding wisely? Of course, it should; but at a time when global instability and the likelihood of larger conflicts are increasing is not the time to be allowing inflation to erode US military funding. Doing this only increases the odds of us not being prepared for what seems to be coming in the next few years, and reducing readiness to address real threats is not a recipe for the kind of "peace" we should be willing to accept.

The fascinating concept of a Destroyer Strike Group (DSG) as highlighted by Robert, as an evolution from the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is an interesting discussion that we’d love to hear played out in real time! #defence #navy #taskforce

Please take a moment to read and critique the attached short paper on the implications of recent missile warfare in the Middle East. Like many, I'm trying to enhance my understanding of these rapidly evolving form of warfare.

Floating toolboxes. That's what you can call the 2 new 'multifunctional support vessels' for the Dutch Navy. Based on the commercial Fast Crew Supply design they are lightly manned ships with modern weapons systems and capable of transporting additional firepower, disrupting adversary radar systems, amd monitoring the undersea environment. Technology exists already to make the vessels autonomous. Perhaps these vessels would be a start down the path of "Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels" highlighted in the 2024 Surface Fleet Review.

China says it has developed a technology that could use the signals emitted by the radars, warships or even early warning planes of other countries, to track cargo ships on the high seas. And it only requires simple gear such as a laptop and small antenna. For countries like China, with vast radar networks, this might not be a game-changer. But for smaller nations or forces whose radars are destroyed or not affordable at all, this could be a lifesaver. By hijacking enemy signals, they could gain a crucial advantage with little effort. https://archive.ph/ZTPtU

The war in Ukraine shows that 21st-century conflicts will be decided by electronic warfare capabilities. While the private sector is rapidly advancing with faster, more cost-effective, and distributed systems, the U.S. Military remains bogged down by bureaucracy. Instead of embracing bottom-up experimentation and empowering operators to identify mission-critical solutions, it continues to rely on upgrading legacy systems. This highlights a critical gap in how the military adapts to modern warfare.

Did you know that the use of circular error probability (CEP), commonly used to characterize GPS receivers, has predated GPS for many decades? Originally, CEP was employed in artillery targeting and aerial bombing. The commonly used CEP of 50% represents the radius of a circle within which half of the weapons targeted for the center of that circle can be expected to land. In other words, if a given munitions design has a CEP of 100 meters, approximately 50 out of 100 munitions targeted at the center point will fall within a circle with a radius of 100 meters around that point. Since GPS is operated by the Dept. of the Air Force, it’s no surprise that CEP became a standard measure of positioning precision specified in GPS receiver datasheets. The earliest mention of CEP I was able to find dates back to 1939 after brief research.

We should consider the concept of a Destroyer Strike Group (DSG): A single manned destroyer controlling as many unmanned weapons and sensor platforms as possible and distributed as widely as secure communications allow. The limiting factor - and weakest link - would be C6 (command, control, communications, computers, cyber-defense, combat systems). Developments in quantum laser communications, autonomy, and quantum computing may dramatically improve its feasibility.