US Navy to Deploy Anti-Surface ‘Tactical Cloud’

The goal is to integrate satellites, aircraft, ships, submarines and the weapons themselves into one tactical network

US Navy to Deploy Anti-Surface ‘Tactical Cloud’

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According to a report on the usni.org website, the US Navy is creating an offensive anti-surface network that will tie targeting information from satellites, aircraft, ships, submarines and the weapons themselves to form a lethal “kill web” designed to keep pace with the expanding lethal power of potential adversaries.

The scheme will use information ranging from sensors in space to the undersea to share information in a so-called tactical cloud that will allow aircraft and ships to access a range of targeting information to launch weapons against surface targets, said Rear Adm. Mark Darrah.

The All Domain Offensive Surface Warfare Capability is “integrated fires, leveraging all domains, the ability for us to utilize air-launched capabilities, surface launched capabilities and subsurface launched capabilities that are tied together with an all domain [information network],” he said. “We call it the tactical cloud. We’re going to put data up in the cloud and users are going to go grab it and use it as a contributor to a targeting solution.”

The concept is a direct response the increased sophistication of adversary networked sensor systems.

“Specifically their ability to take all of their sensors and nets them together to project their ability to see me faster and farther away and [now] my sanctuary been decreased,” Darrah said. “It’s about their ability to reduce the amount of space I have to operate in by tying their capability together and force me to operate from a farther distance from a threat.”

The scheme will allow the Navy to increase the effective ranges of their own weapons against surface targets.

NAVAIR’s Darrah walked through an anti-surface scenario with information shared via the tactical cloud in which military space assets – known as National Technical Means — share data with aircraft like F/A-18s fighters, E-2D sensor aircraft and the unmanned MQ-4C Triton. In the scenario data was combined with surface ship information from a Littoral Combat Ship and an attack submarine that also feed into the tactical cloud.

“The important part is that the nodes are able to move in and out of this kill web over the time we’re prosecuting this threat,” Darrah said. “What you got now is a thread that’s been run through a multitude of sensors. The important piece of these is they are nodes within domains. I can replace an F-18 with a Harpoon with a JSF and another weapon [in the future]. That’s the important piece. This is about [being] role based. Role-based means I don’t care what the platform is, what I care about is the sensor that generates the information.”