Mine’s bigger than yours. The Gerald Ford nuclear aircraft carrier is docked at Oslo, on its way up the Norwegian coast to the north where there have been a few scrambles.
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It is quite fascinating to read about how backward this stuff is compared with current technology.
Thread links to 2007 Raytheon brochure boasting about:
F-16 Modular Mission Computer (MMC)
- Replaces three computers
with one superior system,
reducing weight by 55%,
volume by 42% and power
usage by 32% - Increases computer processing
power and memory capacity
etc etc.
Memory capacity is 10MB!!!
Current report boasting about:
Software innovations makes F-16 more capable was published April 28, 2020
The $455 million program fielded major capability upgrades such as the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar (NORTHCOM’s #1 priority Joint Urgent Operational Need), integration with the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range as well as the latest Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, an Integrated Communication Suite, and 42 other modernization enhancements. Altogether, the upgrades bring reduced pilot workload, enhanced close air support weapons accuracy, increased lethality, and improved projected mission effectiveness rates, according to Capt. Justin R. Marsh, F-16 OFP Lead Engineer.
…
OFP M7.2+ development encompassed over 300 personnel at 7 locations. The 100% organic, in-house development met all requirements while also increasing the reliability of the F-16s Modular Mission Computer. …
The fielding of the M7.2+ OFP to over 600 USAF F-16s marks a milestone in the future of flight test efficiency,” said Lt. Col. Ben “Rex” Wysack, Director of the F-16 Test Division, OFP CTF. This was the first F-16 OFP ever managed from beginning to end, entirely under the capable hands of the fine men and women of the OFP CTF. Thanks to the incredible support and hard work from the Integrated Product Team at Hill, Edwards, Nellis, and Wright Patterson Air Force Bases, the warfighter has a much more capable F-16 than before.”OFP M7.2+ is also the official sunset of a legacy software development approach known as “waterfall.” Moving forward, F-16 OFP development will use an open source, agile approach called DevSecOps as part of a Department of Defense initiative to revolutionize software development. DevSecOps is a software engineering culture and practice that aims at unifying software development (Dev), with “baked-in” cybersecurity (Sec), and software operation (Ops). The advantages DevSecOps provides over waterfall are shorter development cycles, increased deployment frequency through continuous delivery, and more dependable releases through continuous integration, all in closer alignment with military objectives, Marsh said. “In terms of release cadence we’ll be delivering new software to flight test every 13 weeks versus 18 and new OFPs to the warfighter every two years versus every 3-4 years,” remarked Lt Col Paul Tinker, Materiel Leader for F-16 USAF Development. “The 309th is making huge strides in their software transformation efforts and leading our developmental enterprise towards the release on demand capability required for a modern Air Force.”
The F-16 SPO and 309th SWEG are already hard at work laying the groundwork for successful DevSecOps implementation. “The 309th is excited about the future of the F-16,” said David Droge, the 309th F-16 Technical Project Manager. “The changes to the Requirements Development Process allows the 309th Software teams to be more responsive to the user needs and pivot when needed to accommodate updated demands in an ever-changing threat environment. We look forward to providing continued support and to be in lock-step with our users to keep the F-16 relevant for decades to come.”
In 2019, Dr. Will Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, challenged the F-16 team to install and run Kubernetes, a key open-source platform for managing containerized workloads and services in DevSecOps, on an F-16 in 45 days. The 309th successfully conducted a proof-of-concept demonstration in front of Dr. Roper and Nicolas M. Chaillan, Air Force Chief Software Officer, in December 2019 and is already exploring the next level of integration, Marsh said. The end goal is for future F-16 software updates to be released on-demand and received in-flight without having to land, reducing software fielding timelines by 50 percent.
“After many test sorties, weapons checks, and all that goes into getting fighter aircraft software right, last week we officially requested approval to field a major upgrade to the post-block F-16 fleet,” said Col. Timothy Bailey, F-16 System Program Manager and Senior Materiel Leader. “From government coders to flight test pilots, I’m grateful for the M7.2 team’s hard work. This will be the fleet’s FINAL waterfall software program. Agile or bust!”
Basically this means the thing is unmaintainable - unable to meet “#1 priority Joint Urgent Operational Needs” at anything like the speed of relevance due to still using obsolete engineering approaches that were prohibited by DoD directives many years ago.
They are now boasting that they can “install and run Kubernetes, a key open-source platform… for DevSecOps” in 45 days.
Ok I’m not a DevSecOp but here goes in less than 3 lines of typing and 3 minutes waiting:
[admin@fedora ~]$ date
Thu May 25 11:00:56 PM AEST 2023
[admin@fedora ~]$ sudo bash
[sudo] password for admin:
[root@fedora admin]# dnf install kubernetes
…
Installed:
conntrack-tools-1.4.6-6.fc38.x86_64
containerd-1.6.19-1.fc38.x86_64
kubernetes-1.26.4-1.fc38.x86_64
kubernetes-client-1.26.4-1.fc38.x86_64
kubernetes-master-1.26.4-1.fc38.x86_64
kubernetes-node-1.26.4-1.fc38.x86_64
libnetfilter_cthelper-1.0.0-23.fc38.x86_64
libnetfilter_cttimeout-1.0.0-21.fc38.x86_64
libnetfilter_queue-1.0.5-4.fc38.x86_64
runc-2:1.1.7-1.fc38.x86_64
socat-1.7.4.4-2.fc38.x86_64
Complete!
[root@fedora admin]# date
Thu May 25 11:03:16 PM AEST 2023
[root@fedora admin]#
So Ukraine needs to find a way to blast through these idiots.
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So what’s your view? Are the obstacles likely to be easily overcome?
Video of the naval drone attack on Ivan Hurs
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1661724958236499970?s=20
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Sweden will train Ukrainian pilots on the SAAB Gripen. (Could indicate these planes will be provided along with F-16)
https://twitter.com/nyheternajohan/status/1661702563874447361?s=46&t=A5S-z5IJslFoC5SVN0Jodg
Finland will provide Ukraine with additional military aid worth €109 million. The package contains ammunition and anti-aircraft weapons, Andriy Yermak, Head of the Presidential Office confirms.
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1661722198992736258?s=46&t=A5S-z5IJslFoC5SVN0Jodg
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That’s interesting given this article from yesterday
Two interesting articles in Thursday’s “The Australian” p8 both from UK “The Times”. Unpaywalled.
Lieutentant General Ben Hodges said President Biden’s pledge to back Ukraine for “as long as it takes” was “meaningless” as he challenged western leaders to state clearly what they wanted to achieve and then equip President Zelensky’s forces accordingly.
Biden, Rishi Sunak and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, needed to say “we want Ukraine to win”, he said, adding: “If they did that, this war would be over by the end of the year.”
…
“This is what failed deterrence looks like. Yes, deterrence is expensive but as we’re seeing now failed deterrence is much more expensive,” he said. “We need to spell out the desired strategic outcome. We need to say we want Ukraine to get all its territory back, to rebuild its economy, bring back thousands of Ukrainian children deported to Russia and get accountability for Russian war crimes.“If we don’t do that, I don’t think the Chinese will be too impressed with anything we say about Taiwan or the South China Sea. And that will be a much more difficult war, given the geography and the distance involved.”
He stressed that any resolution to the war must include the return of Crimea to Ukraine, a move that France and Germany fear could never be made palatable for Putin. “If Russia retains Crimea . . . it will be just a couple of years before they come back,” Hodges said.
…
Ukraine’s generals would not be rushed into launching their counteroffensive too soon, Hodges added, despite it having been widely advertised as a spring offensive.
“The number one condition is whether they have enough combat power that’s trained, ready, logistically supported — tanks, mechanised infantry, armoured engineers, air defence and mobile artillery — to penetrate on a narrow front in two or three places all these linear Russian defences,” he said.
Pretty clear compared with the still dominant but meaningless “whatever it takes”.
But the war has already entered a phase in which the flag has been openly raised for armed overthrow of the Russian fascist regime. It is time to move what passes for policy debate these days beyond just rejecting the “meaningless” to explicitly stating strategic goal:
Unconditional surrender of Russian fascism to Russian democracy
Apart from being obviously necessary for European democracy and long overdue since the nineteenth century, Chinese fascism is far more likely to be deterred by what is actually required for Ukraine to win than by Russia’s regime merely failing to win without actually ceasing to exist.
…Now the dictator Bashar al-Assad has had his pariah status lifted by his colleagues in the Arab League and a new Syrian migrant wave is about to grip the western world again. No one is ready for it; not in terms of policy, border controls, accommodation or deportation procedures. Assad’s rehabilitation last week was a collective act of amnesia by the Arab world. There was no talk any more about the 500,000-plus killed on Assad’s watch, the thousands tortured and the millions displaced. They want Assad back in the fold so they can send home the Syrian refugees who have become such a burden to the neighbourhood.
By dint of his improbable survival, Assad is deemed by his peers to have won the Syrian civil war. True, Assad’s country is both fractured and broke, the prisons are full and his family can rule only with the help of Russian intelligence, Russian control of the country’s air space and Iranian ghost ships bringing it oil. It is a hollowed-out dictatorship. But his dependence on Iran is no longer seen as anathema by his Sunni allies, not since the Saudis made tentative peace overtures to the regime in Tehran. Nor is Russia’s sway over Damascus seen as offensive. Better Moscow’s lurking presence than American lecturing; that’s the consensus.
• Syria’s Assad retakes Arab League seat after 12 years in isolation
What matters to them today is that Assad takes back his dispersed people, the many millions who still live in encampments around the region. There are 1.5 million in Lebanon, the highest number of Syrian refugees per capita at a time when the economy is spiralling downwards. Jordan struggles with 1.3 million, Iraq has 260,000 and Egypt 140,000.
The story is much the same in all these host countries. Global inflation eats into the aid on offer. Syrians can no longer afford the rent. Living in crowded family tents, they are unwelcome on the local job market. They build up debts just to survive in impoverished limbo, scavenging for food. Children who arrived from Homs at the age of seven in 2011 are now 19 and have received little education. They grew up doing odd jobs.
Turks, though more prosperous than Syria’s Arab neighbours, consider their refugee population to have reached a breaking point. They have sheltered some 3.6 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands of Afghans fleeing the Taliban. With the Turkish economy tanking, the search is on for scapegoats and the Syrians are natural fall-guys, the supposed spongers.
…
For sure, European states can’t simply chant that the best place for a refugee from war or repression is in a neighbouring country. When refugees arrive en masse from a particular crisis zone they bring with them expectations not only of respite (which Britons often happily offer) but of a permanent alternative. If the cause of flight is a devastating war, as it was in Syria and remains in Ukraine, then they know that going back home could be a reckless decision. If they are fleeing an entrenched dictatorship, as Hongkongers and Afghans do, they know it could take a generation or more for those leaders to be replaced. The next Syrian wave will test us all; not only our compassion but the inner resilience of society.
Again by not facing up to necessary obligations to protect people from regime’s like Assad’s the West will suffer the consequences along with Syria’s neighbours.
This is the wrong century for developed countries to stand by and leave undeveloped countries to put up with entrenched kleptocrat dictatorship for decades, let alone generations.
Just being satisfied with the West no longer actively intervening on the side of the dictators as it did quite recently is like congratulating ourselves for having come down from the trees. It is way past time to move on to the whole world being a modern world.
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YES!
with some suppression and obscuration of the troops supposed to guard them, the mines, tets and ditches are easily pushed aside.
It’s a combined arms thing - coordinated with EW, uav, arty supplying smoke and HE, tanks (in sufficient numbers), engineers and infantry.
The crude video created by Ryan McBeth
How Ukraine Will Breach Russian Trenches in their Counterattack - YouTube
covers some of it.
He only shows one breach by a BG. For the open terrain I wouldn’t do it with anything less than a Bde and try at least 4 breaches; with another Bde following up to do the breakthrough. Each BG having 18 tank Sqn, an Eng Sqn and at least a Bty in Direct support - and now with a Sqn of UAV with a few dozen of them for attack/recce. So 2 BG doing 2 breaches each, one BG in reserve, and
An obstacle without observation and fire is just a speedbump.
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Now test it with your HW and specific applications.
Have another team review your methodology and another to review the test results (has to be different teams. )
and do the paperwork to get the approvals.
During war, yes; but peacetime progress has to overcome bureaucratic inertia.
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Yes agreed. An important piece of history, that is nevertheless ungoogleable, is that Blitzers changed this slogan to
#whateverittacos, and we even hash-tagged it, printed it on signs which we carried to the footy whilst wearing sombreros.
This phrase has much more meaning such as -
- New Mexico is not in Mexico
- the media should be mocked when they make up shizen
- www is an acronym for word whhore witch, queen of gutter journalism.
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Omg that is ■■■■■■. Good practice is one click deploy
Edit: and that’s the entire tool chain, not just kubernetes
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"A pair of Russian Su-34 tried to hit targets at the Grayvoron border post but despite flying low they both just hit empty fields, the 2nd one misses even by hundreds of meters. At least I don’t see any targets there.
It is anyway revealing that they fly $35 million planes but in the end just drop cheap unguided bombs, risking their planes by MANPADS."
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It’s indicative of the panic and substandard equipment. The Russian airforce isn’t equiped or trained for accurate ground strikes, they can’t fly at high altitude because they are too inaccurate. They can’t fly at medium altitude, which might give them a chance to accurately drop dumb bombs, because they are afraid of Stinger missiles. Their only option is tree height attack runs, which gives them no time to line up a target.
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Thread has comment from another ArthurD which I could not resist translating from German:
Die wollten wohl nicht für Putin sterben. Schön, wie der 2. reichlich Flares raus haut, bevor er seine Bomben zum Pflügen benutzt.
Translated from German by
They probably didn’t want to die for Putin. Nice how the 2nd throws out plenty of flares before using his bombs to plow.
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Air Force types tend to be a bit more worldly
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Flying too low to drop smart bombs or launch air to surface missiles? Total waste of resources. To think the same job can be successfully completed with a drone or two, well if they are UA drones and operators that is.
Yep.
Nope. I don’t have an F16, AESA radar, JAASM etc. or their digital twins software handy and I am not a DevSecOp
But any DevSecOp team reviewing their “methodology” would just say “sack them”, preferably as @andrewb hints, with a one flick process.
This is war time and the bureaucratic inertia needs to be ploughed under.
They don’t have DevSecOps guarding them, so the anti-agility paperwork obstacles they have established to prevent deployment of Urgent Operational Requirements in less than 2 years are just a speedbump that can be blasted through without the need for smokescreens and a tank Bde with a squadron of UAVs.
Just needs a clearly worded explanation of what can be done right now, with currently available technology and methods to convince decision makers to allocate the staff and other resources to do it.
Here’s some background on the way this stuff is actually done now.
Here’s the DoD DevSecOps Strategy Guide telling their “Agile or Bust” PR flacks how to not get busted for idiocy.
Here’s how the challenges of testing, reviewing and paperwork for complex systems have to be and are overcome:
Using Digital Twins to Tame the Testing of AI/ML Systems
The current war needs, at the speed of relevance, integration of sensors on UAVs and elsewhere, their data links and the shooters into a combined arms force with passive EW support (including acoustic) that covers the battlespace with a continuous mesh of counter artillery and counter air capabilities as well as close air support for combat forces.
Any main battle tank or fighter aircraft already has software that connects multiple sensors and shooters with laser designated precision munitions delivery. That software can be ported to devices with tens of thousands times more capacity than a 2007 F16 10MB computer and that are about the size of a slice of toast.
Typical UAV engagement would include ISTAR and relay drones with and without laser designators and bombs supporting counter artillery radar, tanks etc as part of an integrated system like layered Integrated Air Defence.
eg Challenger tank video mentions tank commander can handoff to gunner while scanning for additional targets with both the tank and the targets moving.
This stuff can be done now.
Question is how can Ukraine take the initiative to connect the industry developers who can do it quickly to the US decision makers that can allocate the resources for them to get it done.