ABMS In Trouble: Rep. Smith Wants $85M Cut

UPDATED TO INCLUDE HASC STAFF COMMENTS

WASHINGTON: The Air Force’s top-priority Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) is in trouble on Capitol Hill, with both House and Senate authorizers raising concerns in the wake of a damning Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

HASC Chairman Adam Smith’s markup of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), obtained by Breaking D, would cut $85.5 million from the Air Force’s $302.3 million request, citing unspecified “unjustified costs.”

UPDATE BEGINS. “The committee still has questions about ABMS,” said one HASC aide today. “Over the past two and half to three years since it was first rolled out, the concept of what ABMS was supposed to be has changed significantly. …the committee is still looking for some additional information and better clarity on where all that money is intended to go.”

The aide added that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Air Force has been forced to push back some of its planned “On-Ramp” demonstrations. The second demo, involving a scenario based around Space Command operations, was originally slated for April but has been postponed until Aug. 31-Sept. 4. UPDATE ENDS.

The HASC’s tactical air and land forces subcommittee, in its June 22 markup, subcommittee expressed broad skepticism about the ABMS program, which is being designed as the service’s technological pillar upholding DoD’s high-priority Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept. In addition, it holds 50 percent of ABMS hostage to block retirement of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unless and until DoD can certify that the ISR drone’s replacement would cost less both to operate and sustain, as well as provide equal/better capability to Combatant Command commanders.

UPDATE BEGINS. “It’s grown significantly more complex, and with that added complexity there comes a need for some added oversight,” the HASC aide said, noting that in effect “there was a 50 percent increase in the request this year. If you look at what the Air Force did in their budget request, they combined the old ABMS PE line with their multi-domain operations line. Last year, that had about $140 million in it; this year they’re asking for a combined $302 million.” UPDATE ENDS.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is also skeptical of ABMS. While it would fully fund ABMS, their draft NDAA would require Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett and senior military commanders to first develop requirements for approval by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, headed by Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Hyten.

While the authorizing committees do not actually hold the purse strings — annual spending for DoD is approved by the appropriations committees — their NDAA actions likely will mean that Air Force acquisition head Will Roper will have his work cut out for him to convince defense appropriators of ABMS’s worth.

What’s Down

The chairman’s draft, which Smith expects to take up in the full HASC next week, also takes aim at Boeing’s long-troubled KC-46 tanker program. The markup would cut $540 million and three aircraft from the Air Force’s Tactical Airlift procurement request of $2.85 billion; another $15 million from the Tactical Aircraft line (citing “excessive airworthiness directives and service bulletins); and $20 million from the service’s RTD&E request of $106.2 million due to “slow execution.”

In other noteworthy cuts, the chair’s mark would whack $20 million from the Air Force’s procurement request of $21.8 million for the B-1B bomber bringing the total to only $1.8 million, citing “slow modernization execution.” The B-52 also took some hits: a cut of $31.7 million from the Air Force’s procurement request of $53.9 million for procurement; and another $181.5 from the RTD&E request of $520.2 million — citing contract delays, but also chiding the research side for failing to include an acquisition strategy for links to the military’s key communications satellites, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites produced by Lockheed Martin.

The HASC draft would also chop $26.2 million from the Air Force’s procurement request of $387.9 million for the F-22A fighter jet, citing contract delays and snip another $16.1 million from the service’s RTD&E request of $665 million.

Air Force Research Laboratory’s Golden Horde, one of its premier Vanguard efforts designed to build data links that enable semi-autonomous weapons to ‘swarm’ a target, takes a hit. AFRL planned to begin demonstrations late this year on the Collaborative Small Diameter Bomb I (CSDB-I) and the Collaborative Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (CMALD). HASC would clip $30 million from the service’s $151.6 million request for “inappropriate use of S&T funds for Golden Horde demonstration & validation.” SASC, for its part, chopped $50 million for the same reason, saying the program is “too mature for science and technology prototype.”

Special Operations Command’s Armed Overwatch program to acquire an existing aircraft to perform close air support for its troops on the ground, light attack and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions also is in serious trouble. SOCOM has asked for $106 million in 2021 — $101 million to to buy the first five of up to 75 aircraft ; and the rest for research and development. The planes would replace Air Force Special Operations Command’s current fleet of U-28 Draco aircraft. The HASC chair’s mark would slash $80 million of the procurement request. The SASC zeroed the procurement request, citing a lack of “validated requirements and analysis.”

What’s Up

The MQ-9 Reaper is a big winner in the HASC chairman’s mark, receiving a whopping $108 million increase to the Air Force’s procurement request of $29.5 million. The SASC version of the NDAA also adds $50 million to the program — signaling widespread congressional support for the armed drone program.

The venerable EC-130H Compass Call airborne electronic warfare system, carried on a Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules aircraft, also gets a boost of $130 million above the service’s procurement request of $161.1 million. The SASC fully funded the request but included no additional funds.

The chair’s mark would also speed prototyping of Kratos’s XQ-58A Valkyrie under the Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology (LCAAT) program, being managed by AFRL. It would add $30 million to the program. The Senate draft would pump up the program by $128 million. As Breaking D readers know, right now Valkyrie is the only drone being tested with the Skyborg artificial intelligence package. Prototyping of that topped the service’s unfunded priorities list for 2021.