The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) for Project ASGARD, an initiative designed to enhance the UK’s reconnaissance and strike capabilities through a software-defined, network-enabled system, according to a pre-procurement notice published on 8 October 2024.
Project ASGARD is described as a system that will “set the conditions for the unfair fight”.
The RFI seeks industry input to help define key requirements for the project, which focuses on modernising battlefield operations through advanced technologies. The MOD has divided the project into three primary areas, or ‘tents’: Effectors, Digital Innovation, and Enhanced C4 ISTAR & Networks.
Under Tent 1, Effectors, the project aims to increase the range for delivering kinetic effects in support of brigade and divisional deep battles. It also aims to integrate “all appropriate effector capabilities with the in-theatre communications and data exchange systems(s)” to ensure seamless operational execution.
Tent 2, Digital Innovation, focuses on developing an “enhanced digital operational memory” that will underpin both the Common Intelligence Picture (CIP) and the Common Operating Picture (COP) across multiple security domains. The goal is to enable faster decision-making and greater manoeuvrability in the field.
Tent 3, Enhanced C4 ISTAR & Networks, is aimed at “modernising situational awareness within the company group, to increase tempo, dispersal, and concentration of lethal force for effect.”
This will involve integrating multiple in-service tactical CIS systems across different security classifications, as well as improving communication links to support greater force dispersal and survivability without the need for radio rebroadcast stations.
The MOD’s RFI highlights the need for “enhanced seamless passage of orders to and from NATO and UK formation Headquarters to the tactical level” to ensure that all levels of command are aligned during operations.
Interested industry participants are invited to submit 10-minute presentations outlining how they would address the ‘Problem Set’ related to one or more of these areas. The MOD will hold two response days for the RFI: an in-person event on 11 October 2024 at Army HQ, and a virtual session on 21 October 2024.
The MOD notes that the timeline for Project ASGARD is aggressive, with the aim to deploy a “DROP 1 solution in Q1 2025” and continue development through 2025, subject to contract.
The contract is flagged as being suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the MOD seeking a diverse range of industry partners to help bring the project to fruition. Organisations can request further details by emailing the MOD with the subject line, and responses to the RFI must be submitted by 17 October 2024.
DROP 1 solution in QTR1 2025.
Is that panic?
How about buying two second hand Boing 737 and fitting the nice shiny new E7 radars we bought for them? Or perhaps that would deliver a much increased capability to soon ( blimey, don’t want to rush into these things)
AA
Will they provide targeting solutions for artillery?
Not specifically, but the radars are there and not being used and it’s a bit of a waste.
AA
Need to have some first. 😉
I get the idea behind these programs but it’s a bit exasperating that they go on about lethality while removing the actual kinetic nasty things we already lack.
Guns.
Top comment Daniele!
Wedgetail Boxer module!!!????
GWACS- Ground based Warning and Control
I wonder if that could be mounted on a ship. Much easier to create a drone ship large enough to carry one of these radars than a aircraft.
🙄😏😆
Dear god, we’ve moved from Greek Gods – Ajax, Ares, Morpheus, etc to Norse! MoD should be able to waste another couple of billion pounds here. We don’t seem to have learned much from the asymmetric warfare conducted by the Ukrainians. Drones taking out Warships, Armoured vehicles, Arsenals, HQ staff etc. We still seem to be aiming for omniscient, omnipresnt systems …… a silver bullet that does everything but never actually materialises.
We only have to wait until 2030 for Ajax FOC! but will it be able to instantaneously hand off data as MORPHEUS was cancelled? with no deliverables! After, of course tax payers had given £760 Million to GD> I don’t expect anyone will be fired, downgraded or disciplined though……
I remember a chap at Abbey Wood throwing a party on being put onto Morpheous. As a newbie I was surprised at his prediction that GD would ” Dance around the maypole, then deliver Forkall”
I get it now
I expect he got some nice jollies to Virginia in the USA for meetings !
Apparently he got enough Airlines to keep flying after retirement
They like to use historical names for projects to show off their classical private education, it would be simpler and avoid confusion if they named things by their function. Wonder how much time is wasted in meetings deciding on stupid names !
TENT 3- ENHANCED C4 ISTAR & NETWORKS
4. To gain decision advantage, we will need to modernise situational awareness within the company group, to increase tempo, dispersal and concentration of lethal force for effect. a. This will require seamless integration with multiple in-service tactical CIS systems over multiple security classifications.
5. We will fight with greater dispersal of force elements both for effect and survivability, this will drive the need for increased throughput and range on communication links, without the need to deploy radio rebroadcast stations.
6. The need for enhanced seamless passage of orders to and from NATO and UK formation Headquarters to the tactical level.
MoD has fallen victim, like elsewhere, to gobbledegook?
Someone will be getting serious Brownie points that work “streams” have now graduated to “tents”
That’s so the Russians aren’t worried we’re improving anything.
If it looks practical it’s a bugger when you cancel it.
What? With terms like dominate the battlespace? Surely not? 😉
Hey Daniele, you’ve got to keep up with the latest jargon so that everyone feels like they’re having to catch up to you! makes it easier to pass off recycled ideas as new ones.
AS an aside, particularly with “tent 3”, should I be concerned that they’re talking specifically about the situational awareness of the “Company Group” to increase tempo… fight with greater dispersal… dispersal of orders from HQ to the tactical level? I would rather expect that they’d be referring to battlegroup or brigade combat team in terms of the size of a British Army force delivering effects on the battlefield- not a company. Could we be seeing the Army low-key reducing their expected contribution down to the company-level..? Seems horrifically small…
It also sounds a lot like reheated Strike, but that’s a separate thing.
Surely not mate. We are small and getting smaller but not that small.
I wonder…..I recall there have been studies and trials underway over the last few years around the future shape of a Company, and of attaching greater firepower responsibility to it as opposed to being at BG or Bde level command.
Saw a video on the subject, I forget who it was… logically.. 2 Yorks, being the Infantry component of the E&T Group. They were at one of the FIBUA locations, Eastney maybe.
I forget what it’s official name is now, but may be the ref to Company Group is due to this new thinking.
Strike was similar as that too involved smaller widely distributed units.
And with the new Drones threat, another reason for dispersal.
Edit, Eastmere, not Eastney.
I also very much hope I’m wrong, I’m just reading the quote and being (hopefully unreasonably) pessimistic.
I can understand the drive to delegate/devolve greater organic firepower to smaller units- from the perspective that you’re giving the commanders the tools they need to apply directly, rapidly and responsively. However, I remember reading a report that reviewed how this worked out with the US Army in Iraq, and I believe they found problems with the approach; they were putting too much responsibility for activity on too small a command element in some instances; obviously the command element of a Company is much smaller than a Battalion, and even more so than a BCT etc. If you’re devolving drone operations (both ISR and some kind of offensive FPV capability); artillery (120 mm mortars, even 105 mm and 155 mm tubes, maybe even GMLRS or the Brimstone launcher thing which I can’t remember the name of; GBAD beyond shoulder mounted Starstreak/LMM. Other capabilities potentially as well. That’s a lot for a company-level command to be dealing with alongside the stuff they already have now. Unless you start building out that command section with additional people, I suppose. I believe the US Army sometimes found that the capabilities were underutilised in Iraq because the because they didn’t have the bandwidth to be doing it all.
Hi Joe.
To be fair, that is all well above my level mate. Though I agree having MLRS and 155mm at Company level a bit of a stretch!
Maybe the 120mm mortar if it ever appears?
Even 81mm is at Battalion level, I can’t see 120 ever being at Coy level.
Ah, welcome back. Very true. Can you recall the name of that Company future something or the other I ref above?
Or maybe I am barking entirely up the wrong tree.
Yeah, 120 mm mortars, and drones (certainly FPV and some ISR) would make sense.
I am hardly an expert in this either- civvie all my life. My interest in equipment and suchlike stems from my engineering and projects background, and the military in general because I think it’s vital to maintaining British interests- and I believe we’re a generally positive force in the world. I’m exclusively recounting what I’ve read, with some of my input based upon my experience in engineering and delivering projects. I hope no-one takes my posts as anything more profound!
However anyone takes your posts is their problem, not yours.
I’m of the same views as you we are, and should be, somebody on the world stage.
As someone who works as a contract manager for a MoD supplier that word salad of an RFI made my brain hurt. I’m sure they could bring costs down if they just spoke in plain english. We spend weeks going backwards and forwards with clarification questions just trying to work out what it actually is that the MoD wants.
I was hoping the MoD was about to confirm the existence of the Stargate.
Can anyone translate this into English?
Civil servants wasting oxygen