US Army Project Convergence 2020

[FJAG]

Project Convergence is a month long exercise to bring together the weapons and capabilities the US Army envisions fighting with in the 2030s and beyond in a seamlessly networked environment. It involves incorporating artificial intelligence, autonomy and robotics in the air and on the ground.

For more information on Project Convergence, see this article in Defence News

See also the below article on the outcome of the exercise.

Attacking at speed': Army Project Convergence and breakthrough lightning-fast war
The exercise was a part of the Army’s Project Convergence 2020
By Kris Osborn

The U.S. military recently conducted a live-fire full combat replication with unmanned-to-unmanned teaming guiding attacks, small reconnaissance drones, satellites sending target coordinates to ground artillery and high-speed, AI-enabled “networked” warfare. This exercise was a part of the Army’s Project Convergence 2020, a weapons and platform combat experiment which, service leaders say, represents a massive transformation helping the service pivot its weapons use, tactics and maneuver strategies into a new era.

Taking place at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona, Project Convergence involved live-fire war experiments aligned in three distinct phases, intended to help the Army cultivate its emerging modern Combined Arms Maneuver strategy. Through carefully coordinated attack maneuvers, the force sought to hit and disable the outer defensive perimeter of an enemy system such as its air defenses.

Second, as explained by PC20 coordinator Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, was a “disintegration phase” wherein operational aircraft including advanced helicopters, drones and mini-drone Air Launched Effects, found and attacked the enemy’s long-range precision fires apparatus. The third and final phase, as explained by Coffman, included the use of armored vehicle ground force fires to directly engage with, fire upon and destroy enemy assets and formations.

“This follows the multi-domain operations concept of how we plan to fight,” Coffman said.

...

See rest of article here.

And also this article from C4ISRNET

Note from the Defence News article the following:

In 2022, Murray said the plan is to bring coalition partners and so far the United Kingdom has committed to participation and Australia will also likely sign on to attend.

Where's Canada? Maybe if we participated we'd realize that we need more and better artillery to participate in the fires component.

:cheers:

 

[PuckChaser]

Where's Canada? Maybe if we participated we'd realize that we need more and better artillery to participate in the fires component.

I know the Guns are near and dear to your heart, but if we participated we'd realize we need more and better everything to actually be a peer contributor. We're still years away from a RPA, a 1960s era ad-hoc ISR platform, no tracked IFVs, submarines that will be long retired, strat air lift that would take months to deploy a battle group and poor EW capabilities.

 

[FJAG]

I know the Guns are near and dear to your heart, but if we participated we'd realize we need more and better everything to actually be a peer contributor. We're still years away from a RPA, a 1960s era ad-hoc ISR platform, no tracked IFVs, submarines that will be long retired, strat air lift that would take months to deploy a battle group and poor EW capabilities.

Fully on board with the issues about the RPA and ISR. Both are critical elements of an equally high priority joint strike capabilities of which artillery is one part. It's the interconnecting mush that brings the sensors and strike capabilities together that we should get work with the US on. Their research and development capability exceeds ours although I don't doubt we have companies that have capabilities that would be useful. Besides, an allied useable system would be greatly superior to several stand-alone ones. Essentially an allied-wide core component with various plug and play standards to attach various national sensor and strike systems.

We won't see a tracked IFV until the US has fully acquired a new fleet of NGCVs as our LAVs are too new and will suffice in a pinch. NGCV is still too speculative and too far off while extended range artillery (tube and rocket) is moving along quickly. As an aside, we also need better anti-armour and anti-air components for the fleet.

I'm not too au fait on submarines but understand that they are supposed to stay in service until the late 2030s/early 2040s and, when actually operating, fairly capable systems for surveillance. I understand their weapon systems are limited to the Mark 48 torpedos which sometimes makes me wonder if the MCDVs (and for that matter the AOPSs) are capable of being modified to carry long range anti-ship missiles and anti-missile/anti-air defences and thus spice up our fleet once the new CSCs come on line. I know weapons systems are pricey but let's face it, Navies are all about weapons not just sailing around.

Even the Americans have problems with strategic airlift at scale. The original plan for Stryker brigades was to lift them anywhere in the world in 96 hours. Never happened. For any deployment for a peer enemy, we will never be able to use strategic airlift unless all of the equipment is prepositioned. Even then, assuming every CC-177, CC-130J , CC-150 was operational, we could only lift the personnel of slightly over one half of a brigade in one lift. I favour a sea lift capability for anything substantial. I do think we have enough strat air for special ops and light quick reaction force deployments.

Regardless of what we don't have and what we need, we need to be on board with this initiative so that we can figure out what our future directions will need to be or, at least, will need to consider.

:cheers:

 

[PuckChaser]

Definitely agree WRT being involved. If we want to be a proper FVEY partner these are the exercises we need to contribute to. Unfortunately SSE wasn't a real white paper on defense and basically keeps us as a pre-GWOT power with limited funding for modern battlefield technologies. AI and robotics aren't even on our 25 year plan...

 

[Good2Golf]

Definitely agree WRT being involved. If we want to be a proper FVEY partner these are the exercises we need to contribute to. Unfortunately SSE wasn't a real white paper on defense and basically keeps us as a pre-GWOT power with limited funding for modern battlefield technologies. AI and robotics aren't even on our 25 year plan...

Agree fully, PC.  About the best thing about SSE was an attempt to cost as accurately as possible, the capabilities aspired to in the strategy. That said, I think that capability-specific cost summation notwithstanding, the policy did not encompass sufficient strategic (true long-term, pan-party political) vision and guidance worthy of a true Defence White Paper.  Of late, Australia has done much better in this regard, including the embracing of advanced technologies such as AR and AI to enhance all-aspect/multi-domain capability. Canada is (arguably?) #4 in FVEYs and headed for #5 if we choose not to care substantively about our own, or coalition/alliance defence capability.  I foresee most being content with continuing to ride the coattails of our allies...

Regards
G2G