Moving away from the lightning bolt

[Sun Who]

Today I went to a presentation on a 'Roadmap' for technologies to support UK Uninhabited Air System development. It was given at 3* 'equivalent' civil servant level (there's a whole discussion about * equivalency that's probably been done to death elsewhere and I'd appreciate if this thread could avoid) and it depressed me immensely.
Over the past 25 or so years, I've been involved in numerous capability investigations/assessments, Military Vision Planning groups and 'Roadmapping' exercises. They all seem to culminate in very pretty .ppt presentations showing data 'clouds' with various futuristic (un-funded) air platforms zapping data to the 'shooter' on the ground via ubiquitous lightning bolts. I've yet to see any of these lightning bolts have substance behind them, such as how bandwidth issues will be addressed or where the money will come from.
Further, many of these 'lightning bolt' presentations are patent repeats of work that took place 5, 10 or even 15 years ago.
Now, to get to the question, whilst I strongly suspect that this lightning bolt generating activity exists to fill the void created by lack of both cash and vision:
"What has to occur to move away from .ppt lightning bolt presentations to actual, substantive plans that identify the necessary resources and, where necessary, acknowledges their absence?"

Sun Who

[glad rag]

Brilliant post!

The lightning things are the first line of defence when the inevitable "it doesn't work' scenario comes into force....

...It's the "thingamajigs" fault!!:suspect:

[Wensleydale]

What one must remember is that military thinking and precurement is driven by the contractors who come up with these expensive dreams in the hope that some of their ideas will keep them in business for years to come.

How often have you been to a meeting, and the loudest voice is the contractor explaining the necessity of the latest technology, and not the military strategist. (Typical example is comms/data networking).

[Sun Who]

I'm not so concerned about the 'lightning bolt' presentations served up by industry - it's easy to spot BAeS/THALES/Selex/L3 bull**it. My real worry is the 'data cloud'/'lightning bolt' network rubbish served up by the MOD/Dstl/DE&S establishment as 'direction'. My question (paraphrased) still stands:
"What needs to happen to move away from the veneer of 'lightning bolt' solutions and towards properly thought out, objective, resource determined, direction?"

Regards,

Sun Who

[Pontius Navigator]

Time, people and money.

At the moment there seem to be too few staff officers with sufficient time to step back and do futuristic, or holistic thought. They are fully occupied with the here and now. They do not have the time to devote to such thinking.

There will be some concept work in QWI courses, AeroSystems and Staff Colleges but these necessarily occur away from the front line.

Then there is lack on money to drive such concepts through to fruition. One such I recall was the F3 QWI symposium that proposed a SEAD role for the F3. Well argued and wholly realistic but no funds and a dead duck.

On industry led concepts I recall a document on the Trykon Missile (IIRC) written in 1963 by AVRO I think. It was for a TV-guided missile that could be launched outside enemy defences and then navigated down a river or line feature to attack a bridge. It became a MARTEL but of course was never deployed for land attack on bridges.

[jwcook]

Look towards the university's, especially those that are paired with industry.

There are some smart people out there working hard in that area. (not me I hasten to add), and isn't the bandwidth supposed to be taken up mainly with PPT presentations:)

Cheers

[L J R]

and here is me thinking this would be a thread on how good the Lightning was with the mighty Hunter as its back-up and the venerable Bucc as the platform o' choice to take on the fleet of Sovremminys (sp..?), and finally the TSR-2 as the offensive support asset as a Response Option........ohhh no, did I say TSR-2...!

[Sun Who]

I'm still curious about what needs to shift, other than a lack of cash (which I don't believe is a bar to innovative thinking) in order for staff officers and the MoD to start producing plans which can be used, rather than vague visions with no technical substance.

Sun.

[Herc-u-lease]

I've thought about this for a while before answering. My initial knee-jerk reaction was Link-16 - that is a starting point for NEC. Then I read Sun Who's further posts about what needs to shift.

I then thought "it must be the DEC"; then i considered that without a clearly defined requirement, .ppt data clouds and lightening bolts will stay just that.

Then does it come from doctrine? maybe, but is that not of a slightly higher level than getting into nuts and bolts of "what real time data and where"?

I don't think it comes from universities; they provide concepts and industry picks up on them and shows lightening bolts and data clouds to 3* who are (not unreasonably) impressed by the concept.

So i've gone round in a circle and the only thing i can think of is that it is about requirement definition and execution. Is there any single group looking at the holistic thinking? i would like to think so, but one of the key problems we face is the effective integration of information and data technologies to provide workable data across all 3 services.

Does it answer the question? probably not, but it has let me procrastinate from coursework for a while.:)

[Sun Who]

Herc,
Your thinking pretty much mirrors my own. I also feel the necessary detail will only flow from a well articulated requirement supported at an appropriate level. I suspect that requirement hasn't been forthcoming because, up where the air gets thin, it's recognised that opening the box properly would reveal how far we really are from being a first rate armed force (both kit and ideas-wise).
However, I'd rather that gap was discussed openly by the adults, than have them fund and (apparently) support more Capability Assessments and Investigations that result in the lightning bolt .ppt presentations I mentioned earlier.
I also have a suspicion, that the defence industry (BAeS, THALES, QQ etc) actively encourage the 2/3* chasing their tails and turning the ideas wheel round and round. I see no potential for direction from them, or indeed from academia. The various Defence technology Centres, and the comically named Centre for Defence Enterprise certainly won't/don't provide technical or doctrinal leadership.
So, I guess my question has morphed into:
"Where should we expect the doctrinal and technical leadership necessary to take Bril Mil into the 21C to come from?"

Sun Who

[Melchett01]

I've had a very similar discussion with my Boss a few weeks back in response trying to hammer out the disconnect between where our unit should be going vice the direction it is currently going thanks to the equipment / capability it has now - it was a thrilling conversation :\

I came to a similar conclusion as already mentioned, albeit in a probably far lees articulate fashion (I really don't do 'Staff Officer' very well at all :ok:), namely that the tail is wagging the dog.

Industry, possibly in collusion with the IPTs, come up with some bright idea that they think they can pitch to MOD and make a quick buck from. If Defence is lucky, it won't get ripped off, and if it's really lucky, this bright idea will actually enhance capability without necessitating a complete re-think of how we operate to fit in with what industry wants to sell us.

What is needed is for operational units / HQs to sit down and think about where they want to go within the bounds of the direction tasked to them in the Management Plan. How they achieve that should be up to them rather than being proscribed in detail. As such, if units / HQs decided what they needed to meet their tasking in a future-proofed manner and then put that into an articulate and well reasoned statement of requirement, there is actually a chance of getting the DECs on board. Once you have influenced the DECs, then surely their sponsorship will drive DE+S / IPTs along a route that suites the needs / requirements of the operators rather than waiting for the lighting bolt .ppt to turn up? Or am I missing a trick here?

If not, then I think there is an argument to be said that lightning bolt concepts only occur because of a lack of forward thinking / direction from the operators and operational level HQs failure to influence the key stakeholders further up the chain. However, one could also argue that this lack of forward thinking is down to HQs being in a permanent state of firefighting due to budgetary and resource constraints, leaving little option other than to concentrate on the here and now rather than looking out to the longer term.

Would a bringing the concepts & doctrine people closer to the operational level units help any? Working together, could they not come up with an idea for future ops and then feed that back into the Centre / DEC / J5 chain? I recall seeing a DCDC paper on the 'Comprehensive Approach' a while back; I had never heard of it until then and didn't have time to read it owing to sorting out the here and now, but recently I have started to see it cropping up in briefings, papers etc. Surely an example that getting into bed with DCDC may pay dividends in the longer term. If nothing else, it will be a good cure for insomnia!

[TheInquisitor]

House!

..........

[Jackonicko]

Is one of the problems that at present, the technology simply isn't mature enough to do more than fulfil fairly niche roles. Looking beyond how Reaper does business is difficult - because at present, a UCAV can't do much more than that?

Would an honest .ppt be simply too unpalateable? Too restricted?

Clouds and vague lightning bolts are more punchy and can-do, and perhaps they do allow for the growth in capability and for the solutions to today's problems? Vagueness covers imminent capabilitygrowth, perhaps?

If an uninhabited vehicle could do everything that a GR4 (say) could do, with no caveats about operator situational awareness, bandwidth, etc., then perhaps it would be easier to write conventional requirements, and for the .ppt presentations to be less amorphous and nebulous?

Just asking....