The New Age of Military Manufacturing: Part 2
Exploring of the DOD’s use-case for advanced manufacturing in the next conflict.
From the desk of James Blythe —
In this section we will seek to establish what it is the DOD (and military organizations world-wide) want from advanced manufacturing technologies. How do military thinkers envision the benefits and applications of new ways in making things? This background will help us establish what technologies are of primary interest to military applications and allow us to consider how they are best deployed to achieve the desired effect in later sections.
We’ll briefly review the core concepts of joint-all domain operations (JADO) put forth by the Department of Defense and the Army’s contribution to this doctrine — multi-domain operations (MDO). Information is gathered from publics sources which will be referenced in the text. Analysis is my own.
Based on an understanding of JADO & MDO, current published thinking on the utilization of advanced manufacturing in military applications will be reviewed. These sources have been drawn from releases by the United States Navy, Army, and Marine Corps. Input from international military sources is considered briefly. This analysis is primarily limited to understand the perspectives of the Department of Defense and American military services as relates to advancements in manufacturing and warfighting doctrine. A short overview of the military industrial base is provided for context as to the flow of manufactured goods within the military supply chain.
You may recall — in Part 1 — the original version of the piece had slated Part 2 to overview available commercial manufacturing advancements prior to discussing military use-cases. It occurred to me, as I began re-drafting the supporting piece, that it made more sense to ask “what capabilities does a modern military need to be successful in the future,” rather than attempt to overview all available tools and then explain their relevance later. The need for this rearrangement stems from the difference in topic focus from the original source document I’m drawing on.
Originally, this discussion was intended for an academic audience in an associated manufacturing development program. There the focus was on the manufacturing state-of-the-art. Military applications were only one facet of a larger whole. In this format, however, the focus of our discussion is “how militaries may resolve the conflicts of the future” and “what part manufacturing plays in those operations.”
I’ve since updated the final paragraph of Part 1 to lead into this appropriately.
The majority of the case I will make below is specific to the Army and its portion of the Department of Defense’s JADO framework as it seems to capture much of the spirit of the parent doctrine. Holistically, the information here touches on manufacturing capabilities as they apply to military organizations in general, but special focus will be given to the United States Army in particular.
Defining Multi-Domain Operations to Understand the Potential Future of Warfare
In 2017 the original Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) concept was established in the public domain. Prior to this, the Army utilized the Unified Land Operations (ULO) doctrine. ULO emphasizes coordination between varied ground elements including traditional military assets, local in-country supporting actors, and other joint actors within the area of operations. This doctrine developed in response to lessons learend in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and the need for extensive counter-terrorism actions. Years of conflict in the Middle East made apparent that rigorous coordination between local assets and allied forces was essential to mission success in all forms. Doctrine was limited to coordination of units for small-scale engagements, in asymmetric warfare, and in policing actions. In 2017, ULO was updated to incorporate aspects of larger scale conflicts which eventually drove the need for a more comprehensive doctrine to support near-peer engagements.
In this way, MDO evolved out of ULO as the original warfighting concepts were scaled for larger battlespaces with peer-level adversaries. In short, emphasis within JADO — and thus MDO — is placed on coordination between conventional military forces as well as joint and multinational entities in all domains — space, cyberspace, air, land, and maritime. The Army’s MDO concept is defined within the most recent version of Field Manual 3–0 (Operations). [1]
Although this seems straightforward at first, execution of MDO is more complicated than it appears. In an era defined by cyber threats, long range precision strikes, and unmanned aerial drones, one would expect MDO to deemphasize the importance of conventional surface combat and focus on high-tech emerging areas within the battlespace. In reality, MDO acknowledges that — despite technological advances — both aggressive and defensive actions occur primarily where the people are (on the surface).
The nature of war remains unchanged. The model for understanding an operational environment, specifically the physical, information, and human dimensions, reinforces the Clausewitzian idea that war is an act of force to compel the enemy’s will. In other words, physical action can influence human perceptions, behavior, and decision making. Although there are new capabilities in space and cyberspace, Army forces use them just as they employ any other capability — to accomplish missions on land.
— FM 3–0 Operations
As such, MDO advocates coordination of action in multiple domains to create relative advantages against an enemy force in your objective domain. The combined synergistic weight of these advantages is then utilized to disrupt enemy actions and destroy the coherence of their forces allowing domination of the battlespace.
It is important to note that, unlike older military thinking, MDO is not solely concerned with active combat — overt or covert. Rather, it covers a wide range of actions in prior to the need for armed conflict and at scales from small cover actions to larger application of conventional or strategic forces. The DOD has recognized, as China and others did 20 years ago, that military action of any kind is but one tool in the arsenal of conflict resolution and that advantages can — and should — be cultivated well before and outside of conventional armed actions. [2] An abbreviated representation of this continuum of conflict is shown in Figure 1.
This illustrates that military organizations globally are no longer simple instruments of open defense or aggression. Rather, the military mission spans a set of covert and overt operations from humanitarian aid to peacekeeping to economic influencing and active combat. All of these actions have potential uses in competition with adversarial forces.
In reference to MDO, rather than rejecting the importance of conventional surface conflict domains, it recognizes the need to leverage advantages in all areas to create the intended, final effect. Often, the final domain where victory is determined in armed conflict or unarmed conflicts are surface domains (land and sea).
Any discussion of the future of military manufacturing should be viewed through the lens of modern military doctrine. Not only in terms of how new manufacturing technologies can provide the systems required to operate in — and dominate — the five key domains within MDO, but how the manufacturing infrastructure itself operates within these domains and what inherent capability beyond the weapon system it can confer to allied forces.
While JADO and MDO define the highest-level doctrine in military thinking, the DOD services must translate those “ways of thinking” into strategic objectives and those strategic objectives must be supported by effective tactics and warfighting capabilities. To move from ULO to MDO — despite their similarities — requires a significant restructuring and reassessment of what the “military of the future” looks like.
The Army’s Vision for 2040
The Army has developed two strategic pushes for the future of warfare named the “Army of 2030” and the “Army of 2040”. Each of these concepts is intended to represent the state and capability of the United States Army within these timeframes. Given the length of the DOD procurement cycle, this article assumes the capabilities for the Army’s 2030 goals are established. As such, the focus of this series will be on the Army of 2040 and beyond. This piece assumes that JADO and MDO doctrines as defined previously will persist — in some form — beyond 2040 and remain relevant as they adapt to new challenges.
Several documents have been released in the public domain which describe the key elements of the Army of 2040. [3] While reorganizing and modernizing existing forces, a few key areas come into focus — improved investment in people, novel warfighting capabilities (weapon systems), and improved agility in sustainment. At a high-level, the Army envisions a modern force that realizes the potential of MDO through superior technology and increased agility in all aspects of all missions.
The Army’s long-term strategy is notable as it acknowledges the importance of the underlying civilian industrial base to its future success. Advanced manufacturing touches on all three of these focus areas.
Development of personnel for a modern fighting force is focused on attracting and developing highly skilled personnel within a positive command environment. Talented personnel must be equipped with the best tools. These tools will be manufactured throughout the existing military industrial base. Augmented reality is one examples of where manufacturing of advanced devices will aid the warfighter of the future. This technology is of interest both for active warfighting applications [4] and learning. [5]
In order to develop novel warfighting capabilities, six areas of modernization have been identified. Those are long-range precision fires, air & missile defense, future vertical lift, the “network”, next-generation combat vehicles, and soldier lethality. Each of these modernization priorities contains several major programs which look to develop or procure relevant capability in these areas. These programs will not be reviewed in-depth here. However, it is important to note that major technological advances in manufacturing are necessary to support each of these modernization efforts.
Agility in sustainment has long been a major issue for defense logistics world-wide. Here, the DOD sees the largest applications of advanced manufacturing coming into focus. Additive manufacturing (AM) and various digital industry tools including the “internet of things” (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) are central to these efforts. Advanced manufacturing technologies support both the essential logistics trail — how parts are sourced, moved, and forecasted — and the production of the spares themselves.
This wide set of focus areas for the Army of 2040 underlines the challenge that modern militaries are likely to face in the battlespace of the future.
JADO and MDO acknowledge that America’s adversaries are capable of striking at any time in a range of places. In the next conflict, it may no longer be possible to deny an enemy the ability to operate and multiple domains may be contested at any given time. As a result, a wide array of rapidly adaptable weapon systems that are capable of converging or diverging from objectives at need will be essential to the Army of 2040 and the DOD’s future strategy for conflicts ranging from open, armed force to clandestine activities and those well below the threshold for active fighting.
The Army has begun exercises on the implementation of MDO as they prepare to realize the Army of 2040. [6] Additionally, the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia has been utilized as a proving-ground for both surplus and advanced weapon systems and tactics within western militaries. In this way, MDO is seeing its first applications in the world at the time of this article’s publication.
Model for the Military Industrial Base and Targeted Procurement Benefits of Advanced Manufacturing
From a manufacturing perspective, the DOD’s military industrial base has two primary contributing sectors — the Organic Industrial Base and the Commercial Industrial Base. The Organic Industrial Base (OIB) is internal to the DOD and formed by the network of shipyards, depots, arsenals and logistics centers within the various services and agencies. As far back as the early 2000s, it was known that the OIB had been in decline for some time and was under-utilized as a result. [7] As of 2020, there has been increased focus in reviving the OIB to ensure that it is able to support the nation’s needs. [8] The majority of the nation’s defense manufacturing currently provided by the Commercial Industrial Base (CIB) which are a network of civilian defense contractors and other, non-defense companies who provide goods and services to the DOD in various forms. A rough diagram of the approximate relation between the OIB, CIB, procurement authorities and supporting research entities is illustrated in Figure 2.
Although there is some division of labor between the OIB and CIB, overlap is common. Critical security technologies are often exclusively handled within the OIB and government laboratories, though exceptions do exist. Within the CIB, conventionally civilian goods are often manufactured on contract to the military. Overlap in responsibilities in the design and manufacturing of various munitions and weapon systems is common. This has historically lead to some competition between the depots, arsenals, and commercial manufacturers.
Regardless of division of labor within the OIB and CIB, the application of manufacturing technologies is often the same. For the purposes of this discussion, we will not distinguish between which activities are to be conducted within the military or civilian sectors. It is understood that the concepts discussed here could be executed within the either industrial base as is most advantageous for the nation.
Currently, most military thinkers consider advanced manufacturing technologies have two important roles in national defense. First, they are used to create a robust domestic manufacturing base able to support military products within a conventional supply chain. Second, they can be leveraged to confer added capability to the warfighter at the point of need.
These two roles roughly encompass three types of procurement. First, is the procurement of weapon systems and goods along established production lines. Second, is the procurement of spares — parts already designed and qualified — for existing platforms. Third, the procurement of novel technologies ad unique capabilities not currently produced for the DOD.
In the instance of procurement of new weapon systems and goods, these are conventional programs put in-place by the DOD to buy production hardware. New tanks or planes or small arms which are batched and sent out to units for fielding. These exist within the standard procurement practices of the DOD and federal government and typically rely on a series of established manufacturing centers and organizations within the United States and its allied countries. In these places, advanced manufacturing may have a niche use as a technology for specific aspects of prototyping, design, and production.
When producing spares, advanced manufacturing processes are utilized as a stop-gap to fill in for a capability which no longer exists or is not available at the time of need. A prominent example of this is the Army’s funding of a “digital twin” of the Blackhawk Rotary Aircraft. [9]
In the final use-case, truly novel component designs and capabilities are fielded — being those that are created with the latest technologies and cannot be reasonably produced with conventional processes. In this instance, novel part designs and materials are utilized to create weapon systems with better performance or unique traits not previously achievable. They are provided in a manner outside traditional procurement channels and the manner in which they are produced allows for condensed delivery times and sustainment by novel rework methodologies outside the typical spares cycle.
In theory, for each of these use-cases military organizations desire cost, lead-time, or performance benefits from the adoption of new manufacturing technologies. It is typically not considered acceptable to produce a part — by advanced manufacturing — that is more expensive, more difficult to procure, or of lower performance than the incumbent manufacturing method.
Current Military Concepts for Deployment of Advanced Manufacturing in MDO
Within the procurement cases described previously, military thinkers in recent years have considered how best to deploy advanced manufacturing assets and how they might be utilized in the battlespace. In these investigations, advanced manufacturing is seen primarily as a logistics tool. [10][11][12] Manufacturing technologies are posited as having the potential to enable a decentralized supply base. Theoretically, this helps improve combat readiness and decrease supply chain vulnerabilities. Original concepts for this deployment of technology were based on lessons learned during the Global War on Terror and concerns over guerilla warfare targeting forward operating bases (FOBs) and “Iron Mountain” supply centers for the USMC. [13] An example of the Iron Mountain supply chain concept is shown in Figure 3.
It should be noted in the existing supply chain model, each supply route — typically surface-based — is vulnerable to attack, surveillance and disruption. Similarly, the “Iron Mountain” as a fixed installation is a known quantity that can be targeted and disrupted by adversaries. This stockpile is intended to be highly fortified to prevent disruption, but in the age of MDO there are many avenues by which it’s functionality may be threatened. An example of a decentralized, expeditionary model is shown in Figure 4.
Despite the added complexity of Figure 4, advanced manufacturing makes it possible to establish a series of small log (logistics) nodes that manufacture and distribute supplies to frontline units. The advantages of this is that any one node is closer to the point of use and has less supply volume than in the Iron Mountain case. This limits the need to transport supplies over long distances and makes the loss of any single node less impactful to combat effectiveness of the force.
If we consider advanced manufacturing’s primary benefit to military organizations to be logistical, as shown previously, the exact form of the product — new part or old, novel or conventional — is irrelevant. All that is desired is that a part be available at the point of need when it is called for. Advanced manufacturing’s contribution is to improve the agility with which DLA delivers a range of products while reducing supply chain vulnerabilities.
Readiness, then, is assessed by the amount of time it takes for the CIB or OIB to fulfill an order for a part. The “velocity” at which orders are filled is then thought to be directly related to the down-time (or lack thereof) in a weapon system needing repair or a unit requiring resupply. Recently, this capability has been demonstrated in Ukraine during the existing conflict though public details are sparse. [14]
Despite the promise demonstrated by using advanced manufacturing techniques to realize truly new capabilities for the warfighter, military thinking has lagged behind in exploration of these ideas. As such, the continued mindset in those looking to adopt MDO is how modern manufacturing technologies can be used to do “business as usual but better”.
Conclusions for the New Age of Manufacturing Part 2
At current, the United States Department of Defense and Army have defined and begun experimentation with the latest warfighting doctrine — JADO and MDO. These documents describe the way the US will conduct operations in armed and un-armed conflicts globally with an eye to near-peer threats. Innovative technology use creates relative advantages for blue and green forces in multiple domains — land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace — to disrupt and defeat adversaries. Technological superiority is essential to this doctrine as it is assumed that, in the next conflict, most conflict domains will be contested and convergence of multiple, non-linear strategies may be necessary for mission success.
The Army has recognized existing weaknesses within the domestic military industrial base. Currently, extensive funding to renew the OIB are in-process while the Army intends to more readily leverage its civilian counterparts through the Reserves and other non-traditional actors to help innovate the Army of 2040.
Despite the innovations apparent in JADO and MDO style thinking, the Army and other services have yet to showcase an effective use of advanced manufacturing in supporting this doctrine in a holistic manner. It is clear that the DOD accepts the importance of the CIB/OIB to national security but less clear how they envision the details of its utilization. Current military thinking is focused on advanced manufacturing — specifically additive manufacturing and digital industry — as a logistics tool to increase the velocity at which orders for spares are provided and harden traditional supply lines by decentralizing them. The effectiveness of this technique is being demonstrated in the current Ukraine-Russia conflict.
This vision, however, only addresses a very small segment of MDO which is concerned with active, armed conflict of a more conventional nature or supply fulfilment along traditional channels. Advanced manufacturing has significant roles to play in the full breadth of conflict including non-armed, crisis, and armed confrontations not yet realized by modern militaries.
In the next segment, we will define the advanced manufacturing technologies that are central to the new age of military manufacturing and their potential. Although these technologies will not be reviewed in minute detail, an overview of their strengths, weaknesses, and current technological limitations will be addressed.
References and Footnotes
[1] Reference Army Publication Field Manual 3–0 (Operations, 2017).
[2] Reference publication Unrestricted Warfare by Qiao Liang and Wang Xangsui (1999).
[3] Reference article The Army of 2040: An Extension of 2030 Goals by MAJ Roy Locklear, Jr.
[4] Reference article Soldiers test integrated augmented reality tech with Stryker vehicles by SPC Chandler Coats.
[5] Reference article U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division Hosts Augmented Reality Demonstration by SGT Jose Escamilla.
[6] Reference article Army tests new multidomain ops doctrine in Warfighter exercise by MAJ Orlandon Howard.
[7] Reference report Rethinking Governance of the Army’s Arsenals and Ammunition Plants by Hix et al.
[8] Reference article DOD Metrics-Based Goals Will Strengthen Organic Industrial Base,Official Says by C. Todd Lopez.
[9] Reference article Wichita State will take apart an Army Black Hawk helicopter to 3D print new parts by Jason Tidd.
[10] Reference report The Future of Additive Manufacturing in the US Military by MAJ Dylan Bell et al.
[11] Reference report Potential of Additive Manufacturing in the after-sales service supply chains of ground based military systems by Gino Balisteri.
[12] Reference report Additive manufacturing in military and humanitarian missions: Advantages and challenges in the spare parts supply chain by Jelmar Boer et al.
[13] Reference conference proceeding Network Logistics and Additive Manufacturing by Susan Sanchez et al.
[14] Reference article Pentagon arms Ukraine with ‘industrial-size’ 3D printers by Jon Harper.
