Defense Business Brief: Wrapping up AUSA

Defense Business Brief

WASHINGTON— Six anti-war protestors disrupted an autonomous warfare discussion featuring Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and the military service secretaries Wednesday at the Army’s annual conference. By the time the third protester shouted denouncements of the U.S.-Iran war, some members of the audience had begun chanting “USA, USA.”

The politically charged atmosphere isn’t typical at the show. But this year, it served as a contrast for what appeared to be a more prominent international presence than previous years—from the number of international companies represented to the size of the displays.

Ukrainian companies made their debut with a massive tent just two blocks from the convention center. Overall, there were 165 international companies and nine international pavilions on the showroom floor, representing Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Korea, and Norway, the Association of the U.S. Army, or AUSA, told Defense One .

The roughly 2,000-member international delegation was about average, representing 92 countries—including 27 army chiefs, 14 sergeants major of the Army, 17 ambassadors, and two ministers of defense, according to AUSA.

But the ambassador count this year was also higher, AUSA said. That could be an indication that while political tensions rise , there’s still an appetite for diplomacy—and foreign military sales .

You’ve reached the Defense Business Brief, where we dig into what the Pentagon buys, who they’re buying from, and why. Send along your tips, feedback, and song recommendations to lwilliams@defenseone.com . Check out the Defense Business Brief archive here , and tell your friends to subscribe !

1:1 with Mike Wior, CEO + co-founder of Allen Control Systems. ACS was one of 10 companies to land a counterdrone IDIQ contract with the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force-401 last month, and things haven’t slowed down since. The company makes a robotic turret , called Bullfrog, that can turn machine guns into a counterdrone weapon using AI and autonomy.

“We just got our $500 million IDIQ. We are, obviously, working on getting funds into that as quickly as we can…getting to that point where we can prove on the battlefield, yes this works, and we should be replicating this across all the different services that need this type of capability,” Wior told Defense One during a break from the bustling AUSA conference showfloor.

But the lack of a budget could stymie progress the Pentagon is trying to make in cultivating a tech-forward industrial base, he said.

“Is the military going to be able to sustain this new ecosystem of defense tech companies? Can companies survive in this environment? What do they need to survive in this environment…when the military ultimately doesn't have full control over their own budgets?” he said. “It's a challenging environment as a startup.”

But ACS is still pushing forward with a new facility.

“We just opened a 200,000 square foot facility in North Austin” with the goal of increasing production capacity beyond 50 turrets a month once the orders come in, Wior said.

“Whenever the orders come in, we start to fill out that IDIQ, and we can expand pretty quickly…by leveraging commercial off-the-shelf components, we have a lot of flexibility there, and then it's just a matter of expanding the workforce.”

And they’re eyeing international deals.

“We want to see more of an international economy for defense products…and we want to make our technologies available to other countries. Because that's needed, I think, in this environment where if it's just the United States government and they have a two-year appropriations problem, you might lose some really, really great technologies to attrition—just the ability to stay around long enough and participate.”

Up, up, and away. The Army Space and Missile Defense Agency wants “a family of stratospheric systems,” such as high-altitude balloons, in a range of platform sizes that can provide “space-like capabilities” closer to Earth, Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, who leads the agency’s transformation integration directorate for space superiority, told reporters Wednesday.

“From about 60,000 feet to 100,000 feet is what we focus on in the stratosphere. That operational space allows some persistence and broad coverage in an area where you can deliver space-like capabilities in terms of payloads” while also being able to “take advantage of winds that are pushing you where you want to go already…to get either launched effects or other types of payloads for sensing and communications.”

The agency hopes to start multiple experiments in the coming year.

Bonus: The agency is also “working on a virtual space training environment,” Mroszczyk said. “We're building the virtual space layer to be able to visualize and understand how space effects can play in modern operations.”

Biodefense prep. The Army wants biothreats to be a routine feature in major military exercises, as outlined in its updated biodefense strategy released last month.

Turning that doctrine into actual readiness requires incorporating biothreats into “big” military exercises where it's “an operational constraint, and the whole of staff has to come to bear against it,” Alison Tamasi, the Army Nuclear and CWMD Agency’s chief of survivability and effects analysis division, told reporters Monday.

“Our next target on the wall is looking toward some of those routine things like [Army warfighter exercises] where we can start to put bio defense in as one of the injects.”

Context: These can be tabletop exercises, typically at the corps level or lower, where commanders and subject-matter experts map out responses to proposed scenarios, such as a viral outbreak at a port.

Making moves + other news

Anduril will let employees sell shares through a tender offer, bringing the company’s value to about $90 billion.

BAE Systems now has two new counterdrone systems: a multi-domain artillery cannon system and high-power microwave.

Leonardo DRS landed a $500 million IDIQ contract with the Pentagon’s counterdrone task force, JIATF-401, for tactical expeditionary sensing tech.

Merlin Aerospace completed the first flight test of its new autonomous pilot, which is being designed to aid in missions like “maritime search and patrol,” the company announced on social media.

The Pentagon signed an agreement with the Small Business Administration to increase access to strategic capital to help “defense-critical manufacturers, suppliers, and innovators.” In the deal, the Pentagon will identify companies that need financing through its Business Operators for National Defense (BOND) initiative and refer potential candidates to SBA.

NEXT STORY: Shield AI expects to fly its unmanned fighter jet within months

国防商业简报

华盛顿——周三，在陆军年度会议上，六名反战抗议者扰乱了五角大楼负责人皮特·赫格塞斯和各军种部长就自主作战问题举行的讨论。当第三名抗议者高喊谴责美伊战争时，一些听众开始高呼“美国！美国！”

展会上政治氛围浓厚，这在往年并不常见。但今年，这种氛围与展会上日益凸显的国际化特色形成了鲜明对比——从参展的国际公司数量到展位规模，都体现了这一点。

乌克兰企业首次亮相，在距离会展中心仅两个街区的地方搭建了一个巨大的帐篷。据美国陆军协会（AUSA）向Defense One透露，展厅内共有1​​65家国际公司和9个国际展馆，分别代表澳大利亚、加拿大、丹麦、法国、德国、希腊、以色列、韩国和挪威。

据美国陆军协会称，此次国际代表团约有 2000 名成员，规模适中，代表 92 个国家，其中包括 27 名陆军总司令、14 名陆军总军士长、17 名大使和 2 名国防部长。

但美国陆军协会表示，今年的大使人数也有所增加。这可能表明，尽管政治紧张局势加剧，但人们对外交和对外军售仍然抱有热情。

欢迎来到《国防商业简报》，在这里我们将深入探讨五角大楼的采购内容、采购供应商以及采购原因。欢迎将您的建议、反馈和歌曲推荐发送至 lwilliams@defenseone.com。点击此处查看《国防商业简报》往期内容，并邀请您的朋友订阅！

与艾伦控制系统公司（Allen Control Systems，简称ACS）首席执行官兼联合创始人迈克·维奥（Mike Wior）的一对一访谈。ACS是上个月与五角大楼联合跨部门特遣部队-401（Joint Interagency Task Force-401）签订反无人机无限期交付合同（IDIQ）的十家公司之一，此后业务发展势头强劲。该公司生产一种名为“牛蛙”（Bullfrog）的机器人炮塔，利用人工智能和自主技术，可以将机枪改装成反无人机武器。

“我们刚刚获得了 5 亿美元的无限期交付/无限期数量合同。显然，我们正在努力尽快将资金投入其中……争取尽快在战场上证明，是的，这是行之有效的，我们应该在所有需要这种能力的不同军种中复制这种模式，”维奥尔在熙熙攘攘的美国陆军协会 (AUSA) 会议展厅间隙告诉《防务一号》杂志。

但他表示，缺乏预算可能会阻碍五角大楼在培育技术领先的工业基础方面所取得的进展。

“军方能否维持这种新型国防科技公司生态系统？这些公司能在这种环境下生存吗？它们需要什么才能在这种环境下生存……尤其是在军方最终无法完全掌控自身预算的情况下？”他说道，“对于初创企业来说，这是一个充满挑战的环境。”

但美国化学学会仍在推进新设施的建设。

Wior表示：“我们刚刚在奥斯汀北部开设了一家占地20万平方英尺的工厂”，目标是在订单到来后将炮塔的月产量提高到50个以上。

“每当有订单到来，我们就开始填写 IDIQ 合同，我们可以很快地扩大规模……通过利用现成的商用组件，我们在这方面有很大的灵活性，然后就只需要扩大员工队伍了。”

他们正着眼于国际交易。

“我们希望看到国防产品领域更加国际化……我们也希望将我们的技术提供给其他国家。因为我认为，在当前环境下，这是必要的。如果只有美国政府，而他们又面临两年的拨款问题，那么一些非常优秀的技术可能会因为损耗而流失——仅仅是为了能够长期存在并参与其中。”

向上，向上，飞向远方。美国陆军太空与导弹防御局希望拥有一系列平流层系统，例如高空气球，这些系统拥有各种尺寸的平台，能够在更接近地球的地方提供“类似太空的能力”。该局负责太空优势转型整合的约瑟夫·姆罗什奇克上校周三告诉记者。

“我们在平流层主要关注大约 60,000 英尺到 100,000 英尺的高度。这个作业空间允许我们在有效载荷方面具备一定的持久性和广泛的覆盖范围，同时还能“利用风力将我们推向目标……从而实现发射效应或其他类型的传感和通信有效载荷。”

该机构希望在来年开展多项实验。

补充信息：Mroszczyk表示，该机构还在“开发虚拟空间训练环境”。“我们正在构建虚拟空间层，以便能够可视化并了解空间效应如何在现代作战中发挥作用。”

生物防御准备。正如陆军上个月发布的最新生物防御战略中所述，陆军希望将生物威胁作为重大军事演习的常规内容。

陆军核与大规模杀伤性武器局生存能力和影响分析部门负责人艾莉森·塔马西周一告诉记者，要将这一理论转化为实际战备，需要将生物威胁纳入“大型”军事演习中，使其成为“作战约束，全体参谋人员都必须应对它”。

“我们接下来的目标是关注一些常规活动，比如[陆军作战演习]，我们可以开始将生物防御作为其中一项内容。”

背景：这些可以是桌面演练，通常是在军团级或更低级别，指挥官和主题专家会针对拟议的场景（例如港口病毒爆发）制定应对措施。

最新动态 + 其他新闻

Anduril 将允许员工通过要约收购出售股份，使公司市值达到约 900 亿美元。

BAE系统公司现在拥​​有两种新型反无人机系统：多域火炮系统和高功率微波系统。

Leonardo DRS 与五角大楼的反无人机特遣部队 JIATF-401 签订了一份价值 5 亿美元的无限期交付/无限期数量 (IDIQ) 合同，用于战术远征传感技术。

梅林航空航天公司在社交媒体上宣布，该公司已完成其新型自主飞行员的首次飞行测试，该飞行员旨在协助执行“海上搜索和巡逻”等任务。

五角大楼与美国小企业管理局签署了一项协议，旨在增加战略资本的获取渠道，以帮助“国防关键制造商、供应商和创新者”。根据协议，五角大楼将通过其“国防企业运营商”（BOND）计划，确定需要融资的公司，并将潜在候选企业推荐给美国小企业管理局。

下一篇报道：Shield AI预计将在数月内试飞其无人战斗机。