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Defense Office Brings Small Tech Companies Into Big League

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The biggest U.S. defense contractors — such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon — provide many of the technologically advanced weapons and systems used by U.S. service members. 

But there are thousands of other technology companies in the U.S., some large and many quite small, with big ideas and capabilities that have never had the opportunity to contribute to the nation's defense, even though the idea may appeal to them.

In March, the Quick Reaction Special Projects program, which is part of the Rapid Reaction Technology Office within the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering,  published the "2021 Global Needs Statement."

The Global Needs Statement — which is just one of several proposal calls per year that RRTO engages with small and non-traditional companies to incubate innovation by showcasing new ideas and concepts to a Defense Department audience — asks interested companies to provide their most compelling and innovative technologies and ideas in areas involving artificial intelligence and machine learning; autonomy; biotechnology; cyber; directed energy; fully networked command, communication and control; hypersonics; microelectronics; quantum technology; space and 5G communications.

Spotlight: Engineering in the DOD

Those technology areas are of great interest to the Defense Department and were spelled out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy ; respondents to the Global Needs Statement aren't expected to be the big players who usually get the government contracts.

"For this particular initiative ... the vast majority of the companies that submit applications are companies that DOD doesn't do business with on a regular basis or at all," said John Lazar, RRTO's Director. "We're trying to bring in more companies that DOD either doesn't know about or rarely does business with.  We limit companies to 100 words on their applications to make it even easier to get their ideas in front of DOD."

Working with DOD can be quite daunting or bureaucratically challenging for some small companies, which can have a chilling effect on engagement. It's something RRTO can help with, Lazar said.

"Part of what our RRTO engages in, not just in this particular program but with many of our programs, is mentoring and teaching these businesses how to do business with the Defense Department," he said. "We help them with white papers, proposals — whatever the DOD customer is looking for. We help them communicate."

While the window for submitting proposals for the 2021 Global Needs Statement closed in April, more than 650 responses to the statement were received. A second needs statement is open through early June, and more will occur throughout the year.

RRTO will then read through the submissions and evaluate them with subject matter experts, finding the best of the best to bring forward to potential customers inside the Defense Department.

Then, Lazar said, DOD customers such as the military services, combatant commands and defense agencies will help decide which submissions they think have the highest potential for payoff.

"Those companies will then engage directly with those DOD customers ... from there, it's out of RRTO's hands, and it's between the company and that defense customer," Lazar said.

The DOD customer will work with the company in question to further develop technology proposals that have been brought forward into products that can meet their needs, Pena said.

By the end of June, about 35 of the 650 companies who submitted proposals this year will have been selected to move forward with continued talks with DOD customers, and eventually, that number will be down-selected further. But the end result will be  Defense Department access to new companies bringing ideas that might not have been seen before.

Last year, as part of the Quick Reaction Special Projects program's "innovation outreach" effort, 1,600 companies responded to open-ended DOD needs statements.

In previous years, new companies such as FireEye (cybersecurity), MotionDSP (software and image processing), Saratoga Data (software/engineering), and Tectus (virtual/augmented reality) became DOD partners — joining the ranks of much larger defense contractors who for decades have helped meet warfighter needs.

With this latest Global Needs Statement effort, Lazar said, DOD once again hopes to bring on board new companies with new ideas that can provide even better tools to help service members meet the nation's defense needs.

"What we're looking for are highly innovative companies with new technologies that have the potential to provide leap-ahead capabilities against near-peer adversaries and fill gaps in critical joint mission needs," Lazar said.

Spotlight: Science & Tech Spotlight: Science & Tech:  https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Spotlight/science-and-technology/

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US special operations leaders are having to do more with less

FORT LIBERTY, N.C. — Forced to do more with less and learning from the war in Ukraine , U.S. special operations commanders are juggling how to add more high-tech experts to their teams while still cutting their overall forces by about 5,000 troops over the next five years.

The conflicting pressures are forcing a broader restructuring of the commando teams, which are often deployed for high-risk counterterrorism missions and other sensitive operations around the world. The changes under consideration are being influenced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including lessons learned by British special operations forces there.

US special forces want longer reach for rockets, snipers, robots

U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which bears the brunt of the personnel cuts, is eyeing plans to increase the size of its Green Beret teams — usually about 12 members — to bring in people with more specialized and technical abilities. One possibility would be the addition of computer software experts who could reprogram drones or other technical equipment on the fly.

But similar changes could ripple across all the military services.

“A 12-person detachment might be upgunned,” said Gen. Bryan Fenton, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. He said an Air Force pilot, Navy ship driver, cryptologist or cyber expert may be needed as battlefields become more challenging and high tech.

The United States is “taking a lot of lessons learned out of the experience in Ukraine, mostly through the eyes of our U.K. special operations partners, who not only have done that in their formations, but they’ve also learned very quickly that they needed other elements of their joint force,” he told The Associated Press in an interview.

As an example, he said British commandos needed Royal Air Force pilots to help advise on drone operations and Royal Navy teammates “to help them understand, more than a SOF (special operations forces) teammate could, the way a ship in the Black Sea navigates.”

The bulk of the cuts stem from the Army’s decision to reduce the size of its force by about 24,000 and restructure its troops as the U.S. shifts from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to focus more on large-scale combat operations. The Army also has struggled to meet recruitment goals and had to reduce the overall size of its force.

Army Special Operations Command , which Fenton said is absorbing about 4,000 cuts ordered over the past year and a half, is looking at bringing in people with high-tech skills.

“I think one of the questions is how much can you teach a Green Beret versus some of these specialties are extremely technical,” said Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, deputy commander of the command at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. “You can teach a person about how to use a drone. But then to say, I want to have a software engineer program that drone, that’s something different.”

The cuts to Army special operations forces have triggered some congressional opposition, including during recent Capitol Hill hearings where lawmakers noted the impact at Fort Liberty. Fenton also spoke bluntly at the hearings about the growing demand for special operations forces.

He said U.S. regional commanders around the world consistently want more and that cutting the forces means “we’ll be able to meet less of what they demand. And I think we owe the secretary of defense our assessment as we go forward.”

For years, during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the number of special operations forces and support staff grew, particularly since they were often spread out in small, remote bases where they needed additional security and other logistical help. Now, Pentagon leaders say the numbers can shrink a bit.

Personnel cuts and force redesign ahead for Army special operations

Though cuts are more severe in support and enabler areas, officials say those are the vital areas needed in army sof to compete against peer adversaries..

Fenton said a cut of about 2,000 personnel in special operations was ordered by the department about a year and a half ago, including about 750 in the Army. That was followed this year by a cut of 3,000 in Army special operations. The cuts are to be spread out across five years.

“So the real Army reduction in totality is almost 4,000, and the remaining 1,000 will come from the joint force, SEALs, Marine raiders, other Army units,” said Fenton.

For Roberson, the question is where to cut his Army troops. “Cuts have a way of crystallizing your focus and your view of, okay, what’s important to me? What’s the future? What do I really need to have,” he said in an interview in his Fort Liberty office.

He and other Army leaders said a significant percentage of the special forces cuts are in slots that are already open so would not affect existing personnel. Roberson estimated that at least 30% of the cuts are in those open jobs.

For other reductions, he said he is looking for redundancies, including among trainers and instructors. Army leaders have also said that psychological operations and civil affairs, both part of the Army command, are facing cuts.

“At the end of 20 years of war, it’s always a good time to look back and say, OK, what did I have when this started? What did I learn? What did I do, what was important to me?” Roberson said.

And even if all teams are not boosted in size, he said the Army needs to be able to quickly augment them with specialists. In some cases a mission might need just a couple technical support members, and other times could need six or seven, he said.

More broadly, as his forces absorb the cuts, their training must also be changed or increased to include more technology, robotics or sensors and signals intelligence information, Roberson added. Right now, he said, his troops are experimenting with the various options at the National Training Center in California and out in the field in Iraq and Syria.

Adaptability is the key, he said, and “we have to figure out how we’re going to make the most of this.”

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New project seeks dream solutions to fix special operators’ sleep woes

Special operators may get a 360-degree tool that will help them manage, improve and restore what might be the secret ingredient to fighting at the leading edge – sleep.

U.S. Special Operations Command recently awarded a $1.29 million contract to Aptima, Inc. to develop a program called RESTORE: Restorative and Efficient Sleep Technologies for Optimizing Operator Resiliency and Effectiveness.

Company officials told Military Times that they aim to provide a “holistic sleep optimization and remediation platform.”

Is it an eye mask? A pill? A massage chair? Soothing ocean wave sounds?

Maybe all of the above with a healthy dose of science.

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Tim Clark, Aptima senior research engineer told Military Times that the company is six months into phase I of the two-year project.

The project has two main aims at this point, he said.

First to validate a series of wearable technologies and interventions. They’ll use commercially available products at first and test those in three lab studies with at least 40 college student volunteers each.

Then they’ll see if that tech can work with special operators and measure what the operators are doing now to manage their sleep, what’s effective and what’s not.

All of this data and experience blends together to create algorithms that can be applied to find the right mix of tech and habit to create better sleep for probably the highest stress, demanding job on the planet — special operator.

Retired Army Master Sergeant Scott Neil, a career Special Forces operator, did seven combat deployments after 9/11 before retiring.

He’s been on the short end of the sleep stick.

The brutal pace of pre-deployment prep before there were even boots on the ground often meant nights of perhaps four hours of sleep for months on end. And that was for a staff position he held later in his career.

Sleep experts recommend a minimum of six hours of sleep every 24 hours and suggest seven to eight hours as the goal.

“Now on the operator side, not only are you up for 18 hours, then you break your sleep up by getting up half an hour to be on guard, then 20 minutes to get back to sleep,” Neil said.

But operators are unlikely to turn down a mission or complain or even report if they’re having sleep problems. They don’t want to be pulled from the next mission or training cycle.

And those bad sleep habits compound the physical and psychological beating operators face, all rolling into their civilian lives when they get their eventual discharge, he said.

Some take sleeping pills, but those can have often dangerous side effects, he said.

Neil was weary of more sleep studies. He said through his career he saw plenty of studies or talk about sleep problems. He wants to see action taken to help current operators get better help and build better habits that don’t rely on unsustainable prescription drug use just to sleep.

“We were given a drug to make you go to sleep on flights. Some drugs you can take and it only has a two to four-hour effect and it only creates drowsiness because if you were attacked on the deployment, you can’t do anything,” he said.

Also, there were drugs to keep operators awake.

“It was always a measure for medication,” Neil said. “There was not this tactical athlete approach. Or this Zen alternative.”

Mostly it was up to the operator.

“Some guys would have masks on for sleeping, some guys would have mood music, all of these things but it was not a program. It was all self-discovery,” he said.

Aptima has partnered with researchers at the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, Oura Health Ltd, and Fusion Sport for the study and development, officials said.

The testing will help determine if the commercial products can be used for military personnel with their somewhat unique sleep demands, which only emergency responders come close to mirroring.

“Is it feasible to have intervention strategy for these wearables, could you have these, could you wear these in an operational environment, training is feasible but is the operational environment?” Clark said.

That’s the initial, general work. But the real task is to understand how to tailor sleep technologies, interventions, monitoring, planning and programming to the individual.

A sample of some of the questions Clark and his team will ask:

“How can you bank sleep in advance?” “How well do you clear a room based on your sleep profile?” “What are the downstream effects of any sort of cognitive ability you gain or lose as a result of sleep patterns?”

They’ll be looking at measures such as caffeine use, alcohol consumption, not eating meals, physical exertion and recovery.

That’s phase II of the project, diving in with SOCOM volunteers to measure their habits and test their rest while building ways for them to improve their sleep, he said.

Aptima works defense projects on performance augmentation and assessment, learning, training and other areas.

The company has worked on sectors of the Marine Corps’ Force Fitness Instructor program and more high-tech projects such as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, basically an “Ironman” suit for soldiers.

The next 18 months will give them a footing in understanding where to go with the tech, but Clark said a follow on phase will be needed to build and implement the full suite of tools needed.

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

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Special operations outlook 2019 digital edition is here, project delta, detachment b-52, 5th special forces group, deep in 'indian country'.

By Dwight Jon Zimmerman - January 1, 2013

Members of the 5th Special Forces Group who were part of Project Delta pose with Vietnam Special Forces (VNSF) soldiers they were training. S. L. A. Marshall Photograph Collection

Special Forces – the Green Berets – whose motto is De oppresso liber (“To liberate the oppressed”) take pride in accomplishing their missions well and without fanfare; thus their nickname “the Quiet Professionals.” Within that select fraternity, one unit that fought in the Vietnam War stands out for being, in the words of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Henry H. Shelton, who served as a captain in that unit in 1967, “the quietest of ‘the Quiet Professionals.’” Beginning in October 1964 and continuing for more than five years, this unit – Detachment B-52 of the 5th Special Forces Group – conducted the longest-running and most successful deep-penetration reconnaissance and counterintelligence operation in the war.

A soldier from the 5th Special Forces Group who is assigned to Detachment B-52 in Vietnam. U.S. Army photo

Despite the high number, tempo, and risk of its missions, the unit lost only 19 men killed and 12 men missing in action. That extraordinary statistic is matched by another achievement.

When the operation concluded in 1970, the unit, never numbering more than 100 officers and enlisted men at any one time, would become the most highly decorated unit of its size in the Vietnam War, and the second most highly decorated unit in the conflict.

Few people knew of the unit then, and fewer today know the story of Project Delta, Detachment B-52, 5th Special Forces Group.

Project Delta was a “lessons learned” result of its predecessor, the failed Operation Leaping Lena. Leaping Lena recon teams, composed of Vietnam Special Forces (VNSF) and the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG – usually Montagnards and Nungs), proved incapable of providing high quality, accurate reconnaissance intelligence.

Reorganized and renamed Project Delta, the operation now had 5th Special Forces Group in command and some of its members, Detachment B-52, assigned to lead individual teams.

“For freedom’s cause in lands far gone, Remember brave men called recon.” – excerpt from the poem “Recon” by James R. Jarrett, Project Delta Recon Team Sergeant

In December 1964, Project Delta ran its first operation, inserting three teams, each composed of five men (two Special Forces, three VNSF/CIDG) in separate locations in the Viet Cong-held Ninh Hoa Peninsula about 40 miles north of the growing U.S. military facilities at Cam Ranh Bay. Team Three was able to accomplish its mission, bringing back important intelligence and a prisoner. The other two teams were detected as soon as they landed and had more adventurous experiences. Team One was extracted after a running firefight with the enemy. Three members of Team Two ­– Sgt. First Class Henry M. Bailey, Staff Sgt. Ronald Terry, and a wounded VNSF soldier – got separated from the rest of the their team and wound up spending two harrowing nights hiding from the enemy. The closest available landing zone was 50 meters from their hideout – and on the other side of a village that housed two Viet Cong platoons.

More than 50 members of Project Delta proudly display their unit colors, Oct. 31, 2008. Project Delta was a covert Special Forces operation in Vietnam which began May 15, 1964. A single SF detachment, B-52, was tasked with training the Civilian Irregular Defense Group and the South Vietnamese Special Forces, known as the Luc Luong Dac Biet, in conducting long-range reconnaissance patrols in uncontrolled and enemy territory. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tony Hawkins

Their escape is described in the book The Ether Zone: U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment B-52, Project Delta . Author R.C. Morris, who served as executive officer for the 5th Special Forces Group Operational Detachment 106 in 1966, wrote, “Just before dawn the two exhausted troopers, supporting the wounded VNSF recon man between them, simply stood and strode through the middle of the enemy encampment. They had counted on the darkness and rain to fool the VC into mistaking them for their own comrades. The gutsy ruse worked; they waved to a guard hunkered down, smoking a cigarette, and he nonchalantly gestured in return!” Despite receiving fire from the surprised Viet Cong, the rescue helicopter successfully extracted the three men. Bailey then called in an air strike that almost wiped out the VC.

This first mission was a complete success. Fewer than 20 men had disrupted an entrenched Viet Cong network, almost destroyed a reinforced VC company, and punctured the myth of Viet Cong invulnerability. And, by proving that properly led VNSF and CIDG personnel could perform admirably in combat, it boosted morale in the South Vietnamese Army command.

Project Delta ceased operations on June 30, 1970. Among the many decorations Detachment B-52 soldiers received were two Distinguished Service Crosses, 18 Silver Stars, 58 Bronze Stars with V devices, 53 Purple Hearts, the Valorous Unit Award, the Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, the Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Honor Medal with Palm, and the Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon. In addition, 5th Special Forces Group soldiers would receive 17 Medals of Honor (eight posthumously), the Presidential Unit Citation, and other high honors.

On March 5, 1971, the 5th Special Forces Group service in Vietnam officially ended when its colors were returned to Fort Bragg , N.C.

By Dwight Jon Zimmerman

DWIGHT JON ZIMMERMAN is a bestselling and award-winning author, radio host, and president of the...

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9:32 AM January 5, 2013

These guys were the true American Badasses. Even the most elite troops of today would have a hard time shining the boots of these brave heroes. To the men of B-52, I salute you all.

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Russia's brash invasion plan for Ukraine wasted special-operations units on missions they weren't meant to do

• The Russian dash toward Kyiv in February 2022 was thwarted by stiff Ukrainian resistance.
• Russia's invasion also struggled because of flaws in its planning for the operation.
• One misstep was how Spetsnaz was used, and it may have lasting consequences for Russia's military.

Special forces are highly-trained troops reserved for high-value missions. But using them as assault infantry? That's a wasteful way to use a scarce and precious resource.

Yet that is precisely the mistake Moscow made during its invasion of Ukraine, according to a recent report on Russia's planning for the war.

The problem wasn't just that Spetsnaz commandos and other special-operations forces were assigned missions that should have gone to conventional units. The Russian military's focus on creating those elite formations, which pre-dated the war, also stripped the regular infantry of its best soldiers.

"The lack of effective line infantry units caused Spetsnaz units to be deployed mostly as light infantry, which also led to a high level of casualties among these units. Far fewer Spetsnaz were therefore available for special forces missions," according to a study of Russian unconventional-warfare operations in Ukraine by Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Spetsnaz date back to the early 1960s, when they were tasked with sabotage, assassination, and other missions meant to disrupt NATO defenses in advance of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Spetsnaz is distinct from Western special operators in that the Russian focus is on special tasks rather than the "special-ness" of the operators themselves, according to Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian military.

Unusually for commandos, Spetsnaz units include conscripts — or at least the more capable ones — as well as volunteers, and there are some 17,000 Spetsnaz in total. Most Spetsnaz are assigned to the GRU, Russia's military-intelligence agency, rather than the military itself. (Russian federal agencies also field Spetsnaz units that generally act as rapid-response forces.)

It wasn't until 2012 that Russia formed a unit closer to the Western concept of special-operations forces. The Special Operations Forces Command (KSSO) is a strategic-level force assigned to the Ministry of Defense and comprises about 2,500 volunteers. Its troops have already seen combat, including in Syria.

The RUSI report focuses on the operations Russia carried out , in some cases for years, to undermine Ukrainian institutions. It details not only structural flaws but also the tactical misuse of Russian special forces during the invasion itself.

The February 2022 invasion assigned key roles to Spetsnaz commando units. Under current Russian doctrine, special forces should have gone in first to disrupt Ukrainian defenses, alongside covert operations carried out by agents of Russia's main intelligence agency, the FSB, who were already in Ukraine, including in the Ukrainian government and military.

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Instead, the invasion began with airborne units attempting to seize key locations from which the paratroopers were to fan out and secure Kyiv before being relieved by mechanized columns.

But where were the special forces? "Most Spetsnaz deployed in conventional reconnaissance roles ahead of" those columns, according to the report.

Rather than operating behind enemy lines, KSSO forces were tasked with pacifying captured Ukrainian territory, in conjunction with Russian and Chechen Rosgvardia, or national guard. (Rosgvardia units aren't part of Russia's armed forces and function like internal security forces.) This would have included capturing Ukrainian leaders and securing critical infrastructure.

Russian leaders were so confident of a quick victory that their support elements had already rented apartments near key sites in Kyiv were their special forces were supposed to operate, the report said.

When the airborne assault on Kyiv failed and the tank columns stalled , the special forces were left adrift. "When the occupation of much of the target territory failed, these troops were neither in position to fulfill their traditional role nor able to fulfill the role specified in the invasion plan," the RUSI researchers wrote.

Special forces by their nature are supposed to be adaptable, so perhaps they could have used their unique capabilities for other missions in Ukraine. But within the first days of the war, the tactical clumsiness and rigidity of Russian line infantry became evident. The Kremlin's solution was to use elite units — paratroopers, naval infantry, and special forces — as assault troops.

"Once the Russian military found itself in heavy fighting, however, the shortage of infantry became a serious problem," the report said. Russian commanders then sent Spetsnaz units in to operate like light infantry, which increased their casualties and left fewer Spetsnaz units available for their designated missions.

Ironically, the Russian military's approach to special forces in recent years compounded the problem in Ukraine. Efforts to increase size of those Spetsnaz units drew in the cream of the volunteer contract soldiers who have begun to replace the often-reluctant conscripts who made up most of the Soviet army.

"The expansion of Spetsnaz units had contributed to a shortage of competent contract infantry for the wider Russian military — as most competent infantry had been pushed toward Spetsnaz and airborne units," the RUSI report said.

Tensions between elite forces and conventional units are not uncommon. During World War II, critics complained that diverting the best recruits to US and British airborne divisions led to less proficient line infantry. Those airborne units earned legendary reputations for bravery and prowess in battles their expensively trained and equipped troops weren't intended to fight.

The diversion of talented soldiers into elite units is also an issue for the US military, but Russia's problem is bigger and more urgent. With its losses mounting in Ukraine, the Russian army may eventually have to choose between maintaining a special-operations capability or rebuilding its demoralized regular infantry.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn .

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