QUANTICO, Va. — Modular open systems architecture is essential to rapidly developing, fielding and incrementally upgrading future platforms, Marine Deputy Commandant for Aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis said Sept. 22.
The best way to shave time from the Pentagon’s infamously laggard acquisition process to keep up with the pace of technology is to build in modularity and common systems that allow for swift integration and affordable upgrades, Davis said during a panel discussion at the 2015 Modern Day Marine Expo in Quantico, Va.
He singled out integration of the F-35B’s IT systems—owned and closely guarded as intellectual property by manufacturer Lockheed Martin [LMT] onto Navy amphibious ships and other Marine Corps computing networks.
“The more we can design systems and put in the requirement that it is going to be open architecture, so it’s plug-and-play, kind of like general aviation is today” the faster the Marine Corps will be able to field and incrementally upgrade its platforms, Davis said.
Technology advances at a six- to-nine-month cycle while the Defense Department operates on a five-year development and test cycle for IT “and it comes in way too late,” Davis said.
“So, develop your platform and have open architecture system out there so we can plug and play systems and upgrade those much faster,” he said. “It won’t be six months, but it will be a lot faster than five years.”
Experimental general aviation has the greatest degree of innovation, the greatest cycle change, the best gear,” he said. “The cheapest gear is in experimental general aviation.”
Still, Davis had praise for the F-35B and VMF-121, the squadron that was declared battle ready with the jet in July. Pilots and maintainers in the squadron already are doing things with the jet “that we didn’t even have in mind when it was on the drawing board, he said. When the short-takeoff and vertical-lading F-35B is deployed, it will fundamentally change the capabilities of a Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF), he said.
For one, it will be the first Link-16 network-enabled aircraft assigned to the MAGTF level of deployed Marine Corps forces, he said. The dramatic increase in communications, ISR and targeting capability offered by the F-35B started Marine higher-ups thinking about the rest of its equipment and how low-tech much of it was in comparison, he said.
“You talk about that kind of capability, but how integrated are we with our naval force? … What about the rest of our gear? We discovered that none of our gear is connected to the fleet. The only platforms that we have in the Marine Corps that are Link-16 compatible are the F-18 and the EA-6B, airplanes that normally go on a CVN. Nothing on the MEU is in the link.”
“From a network standpoint, we are in the dark,” he added.
The Marine Corps could hold the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) up as an example of a platform fulfilling both needs–network connectivity and the capacity for potentially infinite upgrades. John Bryant, senior vice president for Oshkosh defense programs, told Defense Daily that the vehicle selected for JLTV is both connected and open to upgrades.
“This vehicle is designed to plug into the network,” Bryant told Defense Daily. “It provides a network-ready capability from day 1. As soon as you hit the beach, you have the ability to integrate into the network with this vehicle.”
Oshkosh was selected last month for an initial $6.7 billion contract to build JLTV to replace Humvees in the Army and Marine Corps. The Marines plan to buy about 5,500 of the vehicles.
Oshkosh also built the vehicle to adapt to the rapid evolution of command and control, communication, computer and information (C4I) technology by building it with modular, open systems architecture.
“Computers and C4I equipment evolve so rapidly that whatever suite of equipment the customer wants to mount this year, it will be different next year,” Bryant said. “The Oshkosh JLTV is designed to be agnostic as to which C4I equipment is mounted in the vehicle. We provide the space, the weight, the power margin…the connectivity, in a scalable way so that as requirements increase, the Oshkosh JLTV can handle the changing requirement.”