General Dynamics Mission Systems boosts UK defense with proven battlefield tech

Whilst others are talking about the future battlefields, we're operational, we're delivering

real capability, real results for the warfighter to have advantage. It is a new era for defence in the UK in particular. We're looking at dealing with the

adversary market that's out there, understanding how we're going to help support the need of the

British Army to increase lethality tenfold over the next decades. To do that we're going to bring

forward key technologies both from within General Dynamics but also our wider ecosystem partner

network which is quite extensive. More recently we held an event called C4i Tech Edge at Tech UK

where we brought a whole bunch of different SMEs together to share ideas and look at how we can get

advantage to the customer in a timely fashion. That's what I want GD to be about is bringing

people together from various different backgrounds, some who might not be working into defense

and seeing how collectively we can bring technologies to bear for the customer to give the end user

advantage in this ever-changing environment that we find ourselves in. Sovereign capability is vitally important for the UK and in particular within the defense

industry We have 200 of the best and brightest C4i individuals in the UK that is there to be leveraged It also worthwhile noting the economic benefit that GED in the UK

and the indirect benefits across the supply chain brings to the UK taxpayer, the UK economy

Fighting Power is not just about lethality. It's about how you bring together all of the capabilities across the network

to enable the customer, the end user ultimately, to have advantage over adversaries

Simplicity of use and integration is absolutely a focus area for us

as is speed and evolution of capabilities that we want to actually bring to bear

in the quickest time possible for the British Army. To empower the warfighter, we listen and we learn

And what I mean by that is that we take operational context, we also take feedback from our users where they're using our capability

and then we work with our ecosystem to make those changes and improve the technology that the user has today

and bring the latest technology into their hands. Collaboration is super important, and I can't stress how important it is

We need to be able to access a diverse ecosystem of suppliers

that can help us evolve the capability that we've got today. So the way that we do that is that we attend events like this

We run our own ecosystem events. We work with Army and we experiment with other companies that are showcasing their technologies and we work collaboratively through an iterative process to bring those really niche technologies into the current C4I system today which is Bowman

The key focus starts with understanding the evolving threat context. So looking at what's happening in operations like Ukraine just now

the types of technologies and threats that are materialising in those theatres of operation

A lot of the work that we do is understanding how we can deploy our tactical CI system into those situations

how we manage it, but also how we can integrate new technologies which can provide mitigation for some of those threats

It can provide enhanced communication which deals with potentially a very difficult environment to establish comms in

So we can figure and train the users to use those systems that they've got and how we enhance them with new technologies

collaborating with other vendors and SMEs to deliver enhanced capability that actually

delivers battlefield advantage. So we have a very proud history of working with the MOD directly

and experimentation with the systems that they've currently got. So we've spent a lot of time

for example, recently, you know, with board experimentation, looking at ASGARB as a concept

and looking at how we can take our existing CIS system, but then connect to other systems as part

of the any-any network concept to deliver fully integrated effects from sensor to effector via a deciding function in the middle which typically beats it So we optimize our systems through those experiments We understand opportunities of integrating new technologies

for example, AI technologies, hosting it on existing infrastructure. Now, Bowman's on 18,000 platforms just now

There's a lot of infrastructure out there to support capability, and we can host those capabilities

and ensure how we can deliver incremental effects to the warfighter to deliver the information he needs

to prosecute the decisions that he needs to make and the factors that he needs to engage

to be successful on the battlefield. General Dynamics is one of the biggest defence companies in the world

We deliver to the British Army from a land perspective. We deliver the Bowman C4I tactical network

We also deliver our gateway and our guards capability. And we also are able to deliver what we call a service wrapper

so we can take early concept capability, we can try it, we can test it, we can integrate it

and we can assure it at pace to drive new technology to the warfighter

So it's about reusing what we've got and enhancing it with cutting edge technology

which is coming together in order to address some of these emerging threats in the battle space

Others talk about the future, we're delivering it right now. Mission proven, deployed, real capability