From Khyber Pass to Mountain Home: Air Force Global Strike Command is adapting convoy security techniques learnt in Afghanistan to better defend warheads and ICBM components during transit, said AFGSC boss Lt. Gen. James Kowalski. “We’ve had a decade of conflict on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we’ve learned a lot about providing security … and integrating intelligence, and we’ve learned a lot about how to do convoys,” Kowalski told reporters at a roundtable at AFA’s Air & Space Conference on Tuesday. “What we want to do is capture all those lessons learned now, and apply it to our missile fields,” he explained. Since the command stood up, AFGSC has continuously been in search of ways to improve security of the nation’s ICBM fields. In the last year alone, AFGSC placed helicopters and security forces on 24-hour alert at each of the three ICBM bases, and installed remote situational awareness at every ICBM launch facility, noted Kowalski. For Fiscal 2015 “we’re going to take a very aggressive look … and make another improvement in the effectiveness of our security forces,” he stated.
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.