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Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Army explores ultra-long-range launched effects to spy from the sky
NASHVILLE, Tenn. − The U.S. Army is pursuing concepts to deploy ultra-long-range effects to surveil deep in the battlespace, according to the service's Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force director. 'We may have to have standoff capability that we've not yet envisioned today,' Andrew Evans said Wednesday at the Army Aviation Association of America's annual conference. The Army is already focused on developing launched effects from both ground and air platforms for short, medium and long-range distances. 'What we're going to do in the intel space is demonstrate what we call ultra-long-range launched effects,' Evans said. 'What we're looking at doing is something that represents a thousand miles past the prime mover, so imagine a system that can deliver a launched effect that can get itself into a position of launch and then a thousand miles beyond that, which is over-the-horizon sensing. You're getting into some game-changing capabilities.' The ISR Task Force plans to conduct a user demonstration in 2026 exploring what this concept could look like using a commercial aircraft to then deploy a long-range launched effect. 'We believe industry has solved a lot of these problems already. What we have done is get all the right industry partners together to try to figure out how to build the ecosystem around that,' he said. The Army's approach will likely first focus on the 'glide body itself, the propulsion vehicle,' Evans said, then the service will layer in sensing capabilities. Lastly, it will focus on 'backhauling' or transporting the data off of the platform to the relevant command and control interfaces. 'The sensing and the backhaul are not trivial,' said Lawrence Mixon, special assistant to the Program Executive Officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. 'Our integrated sensor architecture folks within the PEO have already been working in that regard with standards from data that should help in partnering with industry to get through that backhaul piece,' he said, adding, 'it also ties back into next-generation command-and-control and standards there to enable that information to get to decision makers, to commanders.' Earlier this year, the Army issued a call to industry looking for unmanned aircraft systems to launch from medium- or high-altitude platforms that would perform tasks like ISR, according to the notice posted to the federal business opportunities portal A demonstration of operational capability is planned for the fiscal 2026 timeframe. This effort will also help inform the work in which the ISR Task Force is engaged. While the task force's demonstration would not use the Army's emerging high-speed spy jet called HADES, which is short for 'High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System,' one concept for an ultra-long-range effect uses the long legs of that platform to deeply penetrate over enemy territory, followed by an even deeper journey using the launched effect. HADES is currently in the prototyping phase. 'We're in a situation where we may not even be able to move out of a port of the United States without some sort of threat to our force projection,' Evans said. 'As intel professionals, we ha[ve] to figure out a way to overcome that because sensing has to lead that capability, to answer those questions you [have] to know where you're about to project those forces and what kind of fight they're about to get into,' Evans said. 'And something like HADES or the other work that we're doing in [Multidomain Sensing Systems] allows us to self-project, which is why ultra-long-range effects, that becomes also important.'
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ACLU sues ICE to obtain expanded immigration detention plans in Colorado, Wyoming
DENVER (KDVR) — The American Civil Liberties Union is making Colorado a battleground state against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it sues to access what the nonprofit says should be publicly requestable documents. According to the ACLU and the ACLU of Colorado, it all stems from attempts by ICE to expand immigration detention in Colorado and Wyoming. FOX31 learned during an exclusive ride-along with ICE Denver agents earlier this week that there are plans to double the number of available beds for immigration arrests in the Denver area. ICE plans to double the number of jail beds in Denver due to increased arrests in Colorado FOX31 was told the new facility will have at least as many beds as the more than 1,500 beds in the existing Aurora ICE Contract Facility, and said the new facility would likely be located in Hudson and open by the end of the year to handle a planned increase in arrests. However, the ACLU has not been given such information, according to its lawsuit. The lawsuit states that on Feb. 14, ICE issued a request for information on searching for possible immigration detention facilities, including in areas covered by ICE's Denver Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Office. Responses were needed for the RFI by Feb. 21, and on March 7, the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about those plans and potential contract proposals. The advocacy group said in its lawsuit that this should have been enough time for ICE to have received the responses and be able to release the responses as requested. 'We refuse to allow ICE and other federal agencies to hide their work from the public,' said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. 'ICE cannot continue to withhold basic information about its operations and plans for expanded immigration detention from journalists, advocacy organizations, and our communities.' Under U.S. law, agencies must respond to FOIA requests within 20 working days. The ACLU says that ICE acknowledged it had received the FOIA request on March 12 and noted in its lawsuit, filed on April 21, that more than 30 working days have passed since the request was filed. Some documents requested by the ACLU from ICE through FOIA requests have been returned, although redacted — the ACLU shows on its website documents from ICE that detail plans to expand ICE detention facilities in 10 states, including California, Michigan, Kansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and Texas. However, details in Wyoming and Colorado have not been made available. 'ICE has taken aggressive steps to expand immigration detention at an unprecedented rate in service of President Trump's campaign promise to tear apart families and deport immigrants who contribute to our communities and our economy,' said Eunice Cho, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project, in a release on Monday. 'Already, we are seeing the consequences of the administration's immigration policies – and the public has the right to know how their taxpayer dollars are being misused in service of this dystopian agenda.' Location unknown: 18th District Attorney, ICE spar over undocumented suspect The ACLU said it filed the lawsuit after reports in April that the Trump Administration had sought proposals for up to $45 billion to expand immigrant detention in America. The civil rights advocacy group also said that private prison companies like the GEO Group, which runs the Aurora ICE Detention Facility, have celebrated the president's plan for mass detention and deportations, saying the prison company's chairman called it an 'unprecedented opportunity.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What's next for Army artillery modernization? More demos
The U.S. Army still wants a mobile, long-range artillery capability after canceling an effort to build its own cannon system, but it's not poised to decide a way forward for nearly two years. The Army held demonstrations for self-propelled howitzers in 2021 at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, but decided to prioritize an investment in the development of its Extended Range Cannon Artillery, or ERCA, system. The system used a 58-caliber gun tube on an M109 Paladin howitzer chassis, aiming to fire out to 70 kilometers — roughly double current cannon ranges. When it decided to cancel the ERCA program, the Army acknowledged it still had a requirement for a long-range cannon, and so it gave industry the opportunity last fall to show readily available and fielded systems abroad. A team traveled to Germany, South Korea, Sweden and Israel to see those systems in action. Now, the service is planning another Yuma-based demonstration for January 2026. The Army plans to award each industry team roughly $5 million to bring in artillery systems for a nine-month evaluation process before nailing down requirements and developing a strategy, according to a draft solicitation on the government contracts website The official solicitation for the evaluation was expected to be posted weeks ago but had yet to be released as of Monday. While some might argue the future demonstration is a repeat of the 2021 round, industry is seeing the effort as an opportunity to show more capability. It opens the aperture for systems to be demonstrated that might not have existed just a few years ago. Artillery modernization has been moving at full force as cannon warfare plays out in Ukraine. Several of the systems likely to be demonstrated at Yuma have now had a chance to prove their capabilities in the country fighting against the Russian invasion that began in 2022. This time the Army is looking not only at the range and mobility of the cannons, but emphasizing a thorough evaluation of the rate of fire and the ability to shoot, move, shoot again, and then be resupplied. Why the Army is looking abroad to close a widening artillery gun gap 'They're asking us to demonstrate rate of fire, not just on the howitzer, but the ability to reload the howitzer, so now you have ammunition-carrying vehicles with some reload capability that helps them get after, 'How fast can this thing actually do what it's supposed to do on the battlefield?'' BAE Systems' company vice president Jim Miller told Defense News. 'We always had rate of fire on the howitzer. But, you know, I was a battalion commander in the early 2000s. I was pretty comfortable that I could win the first couple fights, but I wasn't going to get a resupply of ammo fast enough to do anything in the second fight, right? And so that's the challenge they're going to pursue,' Miller added. BAE Systems is submitting its Archer system for the demonstration, which it demonstrated in 2021. Elbit Systems America, which submitted its Atmos self-propelled howitzer system in 2021, demonstrated its newer Sigma howitzer last year. New competitors are likely to be present at the demonstration, too. General Dynamics Land Systems, Rheinmetall and Hanwha all demonstrated capability in November and December for the U.S. Army and plan to submit systems for the upcoming evaluation effort. It's possible others could emerge as the Army opens up the aperture. The previous demonstration in 2021, for example, locked out Hanwha's K9 tracked system because it required the systems be wheeled. Companies with smaller vehicles and different gun systems could be considered. 'You can't maneuver without artillery,' Gen. James Rainey, commander of Army Futures Command, told reporters last week at a conference in Arlington, Virginia. 'That's the Army's main contribution to the joint force.' Army artillery needs more range, mobility and autonomy, study finds High explosive artillery 'is indisputably the number one killer on both sides. So that is not going away, so modernizing, transforming our tactical cannons … towed artillery is problematic,' Rainey said. 'There's some partners, we have some allies who have really, really good, interesting mobile cannons that we're looking to partner with.' The demonstration will also serve as a way to look again at the Army's overall plan for fires capability. According to several industry sources, a fires strategy was presented to the Army vice chief of staff in January, but he rejected it because it was limited to one solution and didn't consider things like rockets. The vice sent the strategists back to the drawing board. The Army plans to select teams for the demonstration in the first quarter of fiscal 2026. While those companies will get some government dollars to attend, there is a pay-to-play element, as the teams will still need to provide some funding to get the systems to Yuma and provide all ammunition. And many of the systems will need to be borrowed from the companies or even other governments. Artillery systems are in high demand amid the war in Ukraine. South Korea's Hanwha wants to bring both a tracked and wheeled version of its K9 howitzer, if they're available, according to company officials. The tracked version is fielded among over 10 allied countries, six of which are NATO members. The wheeled version is in development. 'Our goal and intent is to fully be ready to deliver both a tracked and a wheeled platform,' Jason Pak, Hanwha Defense USA's director of business development, told Defense News. The company is 'full steam ahead in terms of accelerating the production of a wheeled variant,' he said. US Army mobile howitzer shoot-off participants emerge Additionally, while the K9 A1 variant requires three or four people to crew the system, the K9 A2 will allow the crew to drop to two with the introduction of an autoloader said Carl Poppe, Hanwha Defense USA business development director. The Korean Army will field the first A2 unit in 2027, and it will enter production shortly, he added. BAE Systems would bring back Archer, but it could bring the system on a new MAN truck, which is what the Swedish government has ordered as part of its modernization of the system, according to Miller. The company has swapped out the system's ride, even demonstrating it on a vehicle from Oshkosh Defense. Additionally, the company continues to present the option to the Army — separately from the demonstration effort — of a PIM howitzer with a 52-caliber gun tube, Miller said. The current gun is a 39-caliber cannon tube. Elbit, which demonstrated Sigma in the fall, is expected to bring the system to Yuma. Sigma is in full-rate production in Charleston, South Carolina, and Elbit is fielding the cannon system to the Israeli Defense Forces, according to Luke Savoie, the company's president and CEO. American Rheinmetall Vehicles plans to bring what it demonstrated in Germany last fall: the RCH 155, a howitzer developed through a joint arrangement between the company and KNDS and created from an association of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter. The system is integrated onto a Boxer armored fighting vehicle. US Army scraps Extended Range Cannon Artillery prototype effort GDLS is submitting its Piranha system on a 10x10 platform using the same 52-caliber gun mounted on the KNDS-Rheinmetall RCH 155. 'It's fully automated,' Kendall Linson, the US business development manager for GLDS, said in a recent interview. 'The crew size is reduced significantly from what we currently have, of five to six people, down to two or three. The vehicle could handle two ... It's all fully automated.' The team is confident that with the ammunition it will bring, it could achieve desired ranges from the ERCA program, Linson noted. As a new team in the mix, Linson said, 'We're really happy about that opportunity to get into that adjacent market … a market that we're not in right now.'
