Latest news with #BenjaminWatson
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
University Challenge final is dream come true
A former University of Warwick student said getting to the final of BBC Two's University Challenge, one of the UK's most prestigious quiz contests, was a dream come Hart, Benjamin Watson, Ananya Govindarajan and Oscar Siddle will appear in the final of this year's series at 20:30 BST against Christ's College Hart, 22, was in his fourth year studying maths when the programme was filmed about a year ago."I applied every single year I was at university. I made the Warwick team my first two years and we weren't cast to go on the show," he said. "I was the reserve in my third year."To actually finally make it on at the last chance, as it were, and to actually make a fairly decent fist of it was really quite gratifying."This is the university's third appearance in the show's final and both times, in 2007 and 2021, their teams walked away with the Watson, 21, was completely new to the show."I watched it a few days before we had the try-outs in the university but I'd never seen the show," he said."When I watched it I thought: 'This is pretty fun, I'd like to try out for this'."Ms Govindarajan, 20, one of his team-mates, is the only one left studying at the university."I found that once we actually started playing the game, I stopped noticing that I was being filmed because I started to focus on actually playing the game," she told the BBC. 'Excellent TV' The university is hosting a watch party of the episode."My parents are driving up to watch it with me, they're actually showing it on the big screen in the piazza of the university and so my parents are coming up," Ms Govindarajan added."A few of my friends are going to go on campus and watch it together."The team has had to keep the result a secret for more than 12 months, which Mr Hart said was its own challenge."I've had to endure a lot of family and friends trying to get us to spill the beans," he Watson added: "Although we're not allowed to say what the result was, it's a very, very good final and you should watch it."It is excellent TV." Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Business Insider
10-05-2025
- Business Insider
I spent 3 days at the Marines' big modern warfare expo. Here's what the service was buzzing about.
I spent three days at the Marines' big annual modern warfare expo in Washington, DC. Drone tech stole the show. Marines, Pentagon officials, and defense industry executives spoke extensively on panels and in private discussions about the uphill battle of preparing for future warfare, and drones were a hot topic. Marine leaders discussed the difficulties of getting many more drones into the hands of troops and the challenges of adapting to war with these systems. The Modern Day Marine expo is focused on the innovations Marines need to fight future wars, so it's no surprise that everyone was buzzing about drones this year. These highly versatile machines which can surveil enemies, carry out precision strikes, and more have been redefining contemporary warfare. Their uses were on display at the "Drone Zone," a section of the expo featuring demos from the Marines' Attack Drone Team. There was also a section devoted to wargaming, another focused on warfighting, and countless booths where companies pitched ideas on what tech Marines might need for future fights. Game-changing warfare technology In what was basically a UAS mini-symposium, held in a cluster of quiet rooms in the convention center, about two dozen Marines — from generals to senior enlisted —hashed out what's working and what's not when it comes to drones. Some expressed concerns about fielding and implementing uncrewed aerial systems within the Corps. Leaders cited the difficulty of getting drones into the hands of troops due to the slow and complex military acquisition process, as well as tricky procedural and regulatory issues, like deconflicting flight space with the FAA, negotiating on-base training flights for logistics drones, and mitigating risks for civilians on the ground. I was a little surprised by just how open to reporters like me these intimate panels were and was struck by just how frank Marines were in speaking with me and helping me better understand their challenges. "We've got to field drones at scale in order to be able to pressurize our training really, to work through some of the real hard problems," said Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, who oversees the service's Training and Education Command, during a media event. He added that he expects the service to receive more drones and loitering munitions, or one-way attack drones,over the next year. The newly established Attack Drone Team is an important part of the Corps' drive to learn from the war in Ukraine and bring small uncrewed systems into missions. The team demonstrated drone capabilities every few hours at MDM; it will serve as a foundation for competitive teams across bases. Monday, I observed our Marine Corps Attack Drone Team experimenting with FPV drones. These Marines continue working with industry to deliver an affordable, attritable solution that provides the Fleet the precise mass they need. My goal: get it into the hands of Marines fast. — Commandant of the @USMC (@CMC_MarineCorps) May 7, 2025 Other technology attendees buzzed about at the expo were electronic warfare, virtual training simulators, and the need for quantum communications. Getting Marines into the fight Drones are invaluable tools, but they won't be much help if the service can't physically get to conflict zones. That's why an initiative called "3.0 MEU," another timely topic at MDM, is a consistent strategic concern for the Marines' top general. A MEU, or Marine Expeditionary Unit, is a response force of around 2,200 Marines and sailors who carry out combat missions like amphibious assaults or respond to crises like embassy evacuations. The Marine Corps term "3.0 MEU" refers to having three groups deployed simultaneously, one from the East Coast, one from the West Coast, and one from a US base in Japan, plus enough ships to have some preparing for deployments, with plans for others to be undergoing intense maintenance cycles. Long-standing concerns about Navy ship readiness mean that having three groups of three ships deployed with embarked MEUs, with others in training pipelines and maintenance, is really still just a goal for now. "This is about more than ships, it's about deterrence and denial," Marine Corps Commandant Eric Smith said. "That is why the 3.0 ARG MEU matters; it gives our leaders options." (ARG refers to the naval warship groups known as Amphibious Ready Groups). The Navy operates and maintains the ships that Marines deploy on. But its fleet has been forced to contend with overwhelming maintenance and repair backlogs. The bedrock of American naval power, the US shipbuilding industry, has been plagued with troubles, too. With the state of the fleet, there are concerns that it isn't sufficiently prepared for emergencies. "There's a saying that wars are a come-as-you-are game," said Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told last year on the impact of dismal ship readiness for Marines. "Well, this is where we are. And there is simply no immediate fix." Taking care of Marines by fixing their housing Maintaining a mission-ready force requires upkeep of the facilities that troops live in to ensure a certain quality of life. Renovating barracks, the military equivalent of dormitories, was another important topic at the MDM expo. Barracks across the DoD have deteriorated due to insufficient maintenance, sometimes resulting in mold, water issues, and poor ventilation. The issue has been exacerbated by decades of war in the Middle East and is one that the lowest, unmarried enlisted ranks deal with regularly. Now, Marine leaders are trying to boost barracks renovations, which they also hope can help increase force retention. "Barracks 2030" is the Corps' refurbishment answer. But it comes with a steep price tag, nearly $11 billion through 2037. "The idea is not to fix it and forget it," Lt. Gen. James Adams, Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources, said of the initiative during a panel on the topic. He added that the service "got ourselves into the position we're in now" by neglecting maintenance. But funding for Barracks 2030 hinges on Congress, and if lawmakers don't elect to fund the overhaul, it's likely to face painful delays. So it is getting more attention.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Marines can't replicate Ukraine's drone war, but leaders have another idea for figuring out attack drones
Marine bases to form competitive drone teams to boost much-needed skills Competition aims to replicate the pressure of combat Drone adoption and training are critical as technology evolves and procurement lags Starting next year, the Marine Corps wants to see each Marine base building its own competitive attack drone teams. Leaders say competition will be key to building skills in the absence of combat. "We can't replicate the existential threat that they feel in places like Ukraine, which forces the cycle of iteration and learning," Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, head of the Corps' Training and Education Command, told reporters Wednesday at the Modern Day Marine expo in Washington DC. "The closest thing we can do is put ourselves out there in competition." "We think that puts us under a level of pressure that will help us to iterate faster, particularly in the first-person-view drone space, which is one of the places we've got the most room to grow," Watson continued. More funding, held up in continuing resolution turmoil, could also help move things along. Small, inexpensive FPV drones have come to dominate Ukrainian battlefields, functioning as readily available reconnaissance platforms and cheap precision-strike ammunition, contributing heavily to battlefield casualties. Such warfare is unlike anything US troops have previously experienced. It's not something that can be easily replicated, but it is what leaders say they want the military training for, spurring the Marine Corps' plan for competition-driven training. Under such a plan, Marine bases would create their own teams mimicking the services' newly established Attack Drone Team, based out of the Marine headquarters base in Quantico, Va. Watson described the Corps' Attack Drone Team as the "leading edge" of what the service hopes to replicate across the force, including more focus on counter-UAS training and the authority for developing policies for the rest of the force. The general compared the new goal to the Corps' marksmanship team in which Marines from across the Corps compete for top spots on the namesake team from their bases. "The premise has been every Marine a rifleman, and we will still hold true to that ethos, with the idea being that every Marine can be lethal at out to 500 yards," Watson said of the Corps' intense devotion to ensuring each Marine, regardless of speciality, is competent shooting a target from half a kilometer. The idea behind building these new competitive drone teams is that small arms fire is still necessary but now insufficient for contemporary conflict, he added. "Now that same individual Marine, using a different weapon system, can also be lethal out to 15 or 20 kilometers with a first-person-view drone." Marine leaders consistently highlighted drone adoption and training as a critical need at the Modern Day Marine symposium, with small group discussions and panels comprised of combat arms, logistics, and aviation Marines trying to work through the headaches of getting drones to junior Marines quickly, in whatever way possible. Until the service can formalize these plans, units will likely be expected to get troops trained using any scrappy, unconventional method possible. As the DoD tries to adopt a more rapid procurement process, whatever tech various base drone team Marines use will inevitably be behind the power curve, Watson said, given the lightning pace at which this tech is evolving. But the service has got to make something coherent happen to get Marines using drones, he said. Soon, service-wide competitions will be an answer. "We've got to field a system and get it in the hands of Marines so that we can start learning and confronting some of these problems that we're going to face head-on," he said. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
Marines can't replicate Ukraine's drone war, but leaders have another idea for figuring out attack drones
Starting next year, the Marine Corps wants to see each Marine base building its own competitive attack drone teams. Leaders say competition will be key to building skills in the absence of combat. "We can't replicate the existential threat that they feel in places like Ukraine, which forces the cycle of iteration and learning," Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, head of the Corps' Training and Education Command, told reporters Wednesday at the Modern Day Marine expo in Washington DC. "The closest thing we can do is put ourselves out there in competition." "We think that puts us under a level of pressure that will help us to iterate faster, particularly in the first-person-view drone space, which is one of the places we've got the most room to grow," Watson continued. More funding, held up in continuing resolution turmoil, could also help move things along. Small, inexpensive FPV drones have come to dominate Ukrainian battlefields, functioning as readily available reconnaissance platforms and cheap precision-strike ammunition, contributing heavily to battlefield casualties. Such warfare is unlike anything US troops have previously experienced. It's not something that can be easily replicated, but it is what leaders say they want the military training for, spurring the Marine Corps' plan for competition-driven training. Under such a plan, Marine bases would create their own teams mimicking the services' newly established Attack Drone Team, based out of the Marine headquarters base in Quantico, Va. Watson described the Corps' Attack Drone Team as the "leading edge" of what the service hopes to replicate across the force, including more focus on counter-UAS training and the authority for developing policies for the rest of the force. The general compared the new goal to the Corps' marksmanship team in which Marines from across the Corps compete for top spots on the namesake team from their bases. "The premise has been every Marine a rifleman, and we will still hold true to that ethos, with the idea being that every Marine can be lethal at out to 500 yards," Watson said of the Corps' intense devotion to ensuring each Marine, regardless of speciality, is competent shooting a target from half a kilometer. The idea behind building these new competitive drone teams is that small arms fire is still necessary but now insufficient for contemporary conflict, he added. "Now that same individual Marine, using a different weapon system, can also be lethal out to 15 or 20 kilometers with a first-person-view drone." Marine leaders consistently highlighted drone adoption and training as a critical need at the Modern Day Marine symposium, with small group discussions and panels comprised of combat arms, logistics, and aviation Marines trying to work through the headaches of getting drones to junior Marines quickly, in whatever way possible. Until the service can formalize these plans, units will likely be expected to get troops trained using any scrappy, unconventional method possible. As the DoD tries to adopt a more rapid procurement process, whatever tech various base drone team Marines use will inevitably be behind the power curve, Watson said, given the lightning pace at which this tech is evolving. But the service has got to make something coherent happen to get Marines using drones, he said. Soon, service-wide competitions will be an answer. "We've got to field a system and get it in the hands of Marines so that we can start learning and confronting some of these problems that we're going to face head-on," he said.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The US military needs to get out of its own way on drones, Marine Corps leaders say
Marine Corps leaders say that things need to change if the service is going to field drones the way it wants. The Corps faces cultural and acquisition challenges. More often than not, the military is standing in its own way. That's how it is for the Corps. Some Marine leaders are desperate to see a major cultural shift when it comes to drones, saying old mindsets and acquisition processes are what's holding back the Corps from going all in on this technology. "It's not enough," Col. Sean Hoewing, the director of the Capabilities Development Directorate's Aviation Combat Element, said of the speed at which the Corps is adopting drone technology. "It's nowhere near where it needs to be," he said on Tuesday at the Modern Day Marine symposium in Washington, DC. Marine Corps leaders at the symposium are taking drones seriously, with a palpable sense of urgency. But the service, and the rest of the Defense Department, are still struggling to break free of a cumbersome acquisitions process that has proliferated over the last two decades. "Our acquisition system is designed to reduce acquisition risk to zero," said Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, who oversees the Marine Corps' Training and Education Command, acknowledging the challenges in policy and regulation. A service's tightly controlled budget can contribute to an environment in which sometimes perfect becomes the enemy of good, he said. And in the Corps' quest to spend dollars judiciously (its the only service to have passed a Pentagon audit), it can foster an unwillingness to take risks like rapidly and widely fielding technology like drones. "We've got to field drones at scale in order to be able to pressurize our training really, to work through some of the real hard problems," Watson said, adding that he expects to see the Marine Corps fielding drones and loitering munitions more broadly over the next year. The war in Ukraine has seriously highlighted the value of employing small uncrewed aerial systems like quadcopter drones at scale, down to the squad level. The era of large fixed-wing drones like the Reaper dominating uncrewed warfare has ended as a wide range of drones surge onto the scene. Some military drones can even fit in a backpack or pocket. The US is coming around, but has been slow to adopt the tech widely, burdened by decades Global War on Terror-era bureaucracy. "We are not coordinating as tightly as we need to," Maj. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, the director of the Marine Corps Capabilities Development Directorate, said. "We are part of the Valley of Death," said Sullivan, referring to the arduous path companies embark on when doing business with the DoD, often ending up in bureaucratic quicksand. Drones are the name of the game at this year's Modern Day Marine, where commanders and senior enlisted advisors have consistently expressed concerns about how to get Marines of all ranks skilled up on drones, just as they are with their rifles. Marine leaders — from mid-grade battalion commanders and senior enlisted advisors up to generals like Sullivan and Watson — were quick to point out that the Corps has to do more to obtain and integrate drones. "The biggest obstacle is one million percent cultural," said Col. Scott Cuomo, the commander of the service's Weapons Training Battalion, which oversees the Corp's new Attack Drone Team. The team will serve as a repository of knowledge to help boost drone usage throughout the service. Cuomo spoke of a young enlisted Marine who used a $20 commercial simulator for 20 hours, and found a six-hour course, to develop drone proficiency. Such ad hoc training is a far cry from formal months-long certification-driven courses that the military uses, but that's the type of out-of-the-box thinking the Corps needs. Attempts to shift things up include newly established advisory boards to streamline communication from junior troops to Beltway-based colonels, but the Corps is poised to run up against problems not easily remedied in its quest to field more drones. The Marine Corps is less agile financially than other services, a senior Marine told Business Insider, adding that the Army and Special Operations Command are better equipped to quickly divert funding to new priorities like drone platforms. Much of the Corps' money is heavily invested in its Force Design initiative, and those plans don't really include making UAS platforms major priorities. Plus, the Corps is up against competing funding priorities for things like retention and big initiatives like Barracks 2030, the service's initiative to fix — and then maintain — decades-old shoddy barracks where the bulk of junior enlisted live. To help the Marine Corps achieve its drone goals, Sullivan and Hoewing have established two advisory boards focused on offensive and defensive drone operations. These boards will provide a faster conduit from ground-level troops experimenting with UAS platforms on local ranges to Pentagon leaders with influence who can advocate for their needs and coordinate with other key players. The forthcoming advisory boards come on the heels of the establishment of the recently announced Marine Corps Attack Drone Team, Rapidly adopting and proliferating the tech is bound to bring more headaches for Marines to figure out too, Marines said. Batteries alone are a hassle. Drone battery operations varies depending on the environment and temperature, Sullivan said. The DoD has extensive safety requirements for storing and transporting batteries, meaning that the technology will inherently bring more and more problems for Marines to solve. There are also doctrinal requirements and training programs to sort, and actual battlefield operations to figure out when it comes to drones. And if something isn't an official DoD "program of record," getting an investment long-term in any equipment is nearly impossible. Read the original article on Business Insider
