Shane Tierney

The U.S. Air Force has a goal of reducing the life cycle operating and support (O&S) costs of the F-35A. Maintenance manpower is a significant driver of O&S costs, and consolidation and reorganization of career fields could reduce manpower and training costs. The authors of this report evaluate the costs and benefits of six F-35A maintenance manpower force structures in the U.S. Air Force that merge maintenance career fields in different ways.

To prepare for its next Defence White Paper, Australia is examining an enterprise-level naval shipbuilding plan. To support this effort, RAND researchers explore the feasibility of Australia sustaining a domestic naval shipbuilding industry compared with buying ships from foreign shipbuilders. The authors outline the complex consequences and trade-offs of both options.

Analysts leveraged available data on performance of uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) platforms and developed an approach to characterizing spray coverage as a function of payload, speed, endurance, and delivery. They present performance parameters of interest, whether the spraying goal is breadth or density of coverage. Their findings are reported here.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) requires more efficient and timely methods to acquire, integrate, and interoperate systems and systems-of-systems (SoSs) to deter near-peer adversaries and prevail in combat. RAND researchers were asked to participate in a multiyear effort to help DoD understand the challenges of creating a universal command and control language to facilitate the evolution of systems and interoperability of SoSs.

To support U.S. Department of Homeland Security efforts to prioritize capability investments, this report examines trends in small unmanned aerial system development, the features that are likely to aid nefarious users, and how such actors could use an sUAS (or multiple systems) to conduct various types of operations-from surveilling U.S. government facilities to dispersing a chemical agent at a large public event.

This report is about software systems that support situational awareness and command and control (C2) for the U.S. Navy. Specifically, this report provides the results of an analysis of alternatives for the follow-on to the Navy s Global C2 system Maritime (GCCS-M), and quantifies performance of mission tasks, cost, and analyzes risk for new systems that incorporate cloud technologies afloat and ashore."

Navy analysts are struggling to keep pace with the growing flood of data collected by intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors. This challenge is sure to intensify as the Navy continues to field new and additional sensors. The authors explore options for solving the Navy s big data challenge, considering changes across four dimensions: people, tools and technology, data and data architectures, and demand and demand management."