Page 34 - Maritime Services and the Kill Web

The Maritime Services, the Allies and Shaping the Kill Web

We are very focused on the evolving man-machine relationship, and the ability of manned and unmanned
systems, as well as kinetic and non-kinetic systems, to deliver a broader spectrum of capability to the force.

We are aiming to use the machine for the OO (Observe-Orient) part of the OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-
Act) Loop and optimize our human capabilities to do the DA (decide-act).

Fighter pilots have always been “thinking aviators” but we are adjusting what we expect from them as they
become key nodes and crucial enablers in the kill web.
Becoming a Top Gun pilot in this world will be quite different than in the legacy one.

Question: We have written about software upgradeability as a key element for shaping the way ahead
st
for 21 century air systems, such as in the Wedgetail, the P-8, Triton and the F-35.
How do you view the importance of such an approach?

Rear Admiral Manazir: Common software upgradeability is an essential element, especially to be able to
alter the web or portions of the web at the speed of technology to be able to outmatch our adversaries in an
evolving threat environment.

We are working to shape such a cross-cutting capability throughout the fleet so that we can have interactive
modernization, even machine learning and cognitive processes which can be done rapidly and cost effectively.

This can only be done through a software-defined process.
We need to have open systems architecture; truly open systems, where there is middleware that enables the
creation of multiple apps to provide innovative responses to evolving threats.

We are learning as we go: Navy Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) is a system of systems
approach, which is a huge engineering challenge. Here you have to connect different proprietary systems
retroactively.

They were all created under different sets of standards, based on separately developed requirements, with
data rights in each commercial company, and so you have to engineer the network that connects these nodes;
in this case the NIFC-CA web.

Our goal as we build warfighting systems, is to partner with OPNAV N2N6 (Deputy Chief of Naval
Operations for Information Warfare) to build a systems of services approach, which is an app-based
approach.

Vice Admiral Jan Tighe and her team are focused on shaping an open architecture standard into our systems;
the government defines the standard, and owns the standard, and hands the standard to the firms who then
create the systems.

It is crucial to create systems which are built to be “integrateable” from the ground up; and to allow for
applications which can be developed for one platform which can then be migrated to another one, as
appropriate.
We are moving in that direction.

Second Line of Defense

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