Episode 736: Anduril and the Promise of Autonomous Systems - with Chris Brose

Summary

In this conversation, Chris Brose, President and Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril, joins Sal and Mark to discuss the company’s mission to revolutionize defense technology by integrating commercial innovations into military applications. He emphasizes the need for mass-producible military capabilities, the importance of adaptability in modern warfare, and the challenges posed by the current U.S. acquisition system. Brose also highlights the significance of collaborative combat systems and international partnerships, particularly through the Ghost Shark program with the Australian Navy. He expresses optimism about the future of U.S. defense, advocating for a shift towards a more agile and innovative approach to military production and strategy.

Chapters

00:00: Introduction to Anduril and Its Mission
04:26: The Unique Position of Anduril in Defense
09:02: The Shift in Military Strategy and Production Needs
13:11: Designing for Mass Production and Scalability
17:50: Innovations in Collaborative Combat Systems
23:35: The Ghost Shark Program and International Collaboration
28:02: Challenges in the U.S. Acquisition System
34:34: Deployability and Operational Integration of New Systems
39:41: Cost-Effective Solutions for Modern Warfare
45:01: Optimism for the Future of U.S. Defense

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander an
Eagle one from Eagle Speak at Seer Shore your home
for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime.
And welcome board everybody for another edition of mid Rats.
And today we've got a special treat for you. We
have the president and chief strategy officer over at Androil,

(00:51):
Chris Brose, joining us for the full hour to talk
about not just what Androil does, but also the related
technologies and perhaps some of the industry quirks that go
along with this sector of the economy. Chris, thank you
very much for joining us from mid Reps.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Thank you so much. It's great to be back, Chris.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Just to kick things off. Most of our audience that
has the background that I'm sure they've seen Anderill mentioned
in the news here and there, but there might be
some that have not or just really passed right by it.
So just to kick things off that may well it
may not be very very familiar with the company. Tell
us a bit about what ANDROL does in the defense

(01:30):
sector and what your role.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Is in the company. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
So the short version of the long story with Andreil
is we're about an eight year old company, venture backed
and defense focused from the get go. So I joined
the company about a year into its journey. This was
right after I left the Senate after Senator McCain passed away.
I'd been the staff director on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
So joined the company about a year in.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
I was about employee forty or so, and you know,
we'll finish the year probably around seven thousand folks. Like
growth scaling in a lot of different directions. Kind of
the main idea of ANDRAL was that when it was started,
the goal was to build you know, kind of the
next great defense company, so sort of integrated working across
you know, different domains, different services, multiple different kind of

(02:15):
areas of product and capability, but all with sort of
some main through lines. So one is really focusing on
bringing the best of commercial technology and sort of sort
of design development, manufacturing processes from the commercial world into
defense and an area where for the past twenty years
or so, if not longer, the commercial world has just

(02:36):
been running ahead in some very key areas, things like
artificial intelligence and machine learning, autonomous systems, and low cost robotics,
a kind of new manufacturing and advanced manufacturing processes and
a whole host of other things, so really bringing those
areas of technology, know how people out of the commercial
world into defense. Second, is really focusing on being a

(02:58):
software first company, right, so really kind of at the
level of software, developing the solutions to those problems that
I mentioned earlier in a way that kind of integrates
across everything that we're doing and potentially other things that
our customers and partners are doing as well. And then
in the final side is really focusing on scaled production.
And this has been a part of the journey that's

(03:18):
kind of only been over the past several years that
we've been on here, but with an eye toward, you know,
how do we get mass and how do we get
capacity back to the United States, back to the US
military Allied militaries, where to a large extent, we've kind
of given away capacity. We've certainly given away a lot
of our manufacturing base with a bet on you know,
kind of precision and sort of low caught or sort

(03:41):
of you know, kind of more exquisite, lower density type systems,
all of which we need as well. But I think
for us, the focus is really how do we get
into hyper scale production of lower costs, more treatable type platforms,
and obviously weapons with a with a goal toward really
kind of getting to like a ten x love producibility,

(04:01):
you know, kind of quantities of production that start to
look more like what the commercial sector is doing. And
we can, you know, talk about the sort of the
underlying ways that we're getting after that. But I would
say those are the main things that we're trying to
do here at Anderill. It's been a phenomenal eight year journey.
We're still a privately held company, but growing incredibly fast
and doing a heck of a lot of you know,

(04:22):
more interesting and sort of larger scale things than we
were back when I joined.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
Yeah, it's interesting. I was looking at your I think
it's two thousand and three piece on the Moneyball Military
and one of the things you note is in there
is that the system that rewards the larger defense contractors
is this went through the pp BEE system of planning.

(04:45):
You know, I won't even go through the whole acronym,
but you guys are very unique. You're you have cast
yourselves as a defense product company. Talk a little bit
about what that means and what the difference is between
that and say some of the bigger primes.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yes, So I think what I what I talk about
in that article, and certainly what I believe is if
I were to look at like the US defense program,
and I think allied defense programs fall into the same area,
I would almost break it into two, you know, or
almost three, very distinct areas. So so on the high end,
which is where most of our dollars and most of
our calories go as a country, that's where you're talking about,

(05:21):
you know, kind of lower density, very exquisite, very expensive
systems DDGs and SSNs and B twenty one's and you know,
all the things that people are familiar with those systems
are what the ppbe process, you know, planning, programming, budgeting, execution,
the sort of Macnumera era you know, defense programming and
sort of planning process. That's what that process was designed

(05:44):
to do. So you've basically got very long government funded
research and development cycles, followed by procurement in relatively small numbers,
you know, in dozens or hundreds, then followed by operations
and maintenance that's going to go on for decades. Right,
We're going to keep these exquisite platform and many of
these exquisite weapons in inventory and in production for decades.

(06:07):
That is probably what we have to do for those
types of things where you're only going to have you know,
one or two or three companies in America that are
going to be able to build those systems, and we're
not really going to have, you know, the laws of
capitalism the way we would sort of understand them to
be in existence in the commercial sector. This is just
a very monopsimistic, very kind of state led process. On

(06:29):
the other end of that spectrum is really kind of
where ANDROL has been focused to date on two classes
of capability, right, it is expendable systems and atridable systems.
So expendable things are exactly what they sound like. I'm
going to shoot them, I'm going to launch them, and
I'm never going to get them back. A triadable is
more interesting because I am going to you know, send
them out into the world and I'm going to hope

(06:49):
to recover them, right, whether that's robotic submarines or autonomous
fighter jets or other types of things that we're working in.
These are larger systems, They're more capable, they have more payload,
more range at self, and I'm going to have a
certain amount of desire for reuse over a certain period
of time, but it's not going to be decades and decades.
I'm going to think about it probably more like I
would a commercial car truck. I'm going to use it,

(07:11):
I'm going to get great life out of it. I'm
going to keep it for a couple of years, maybe
three or four, and then I'm going to go buy
the next best version because the technology will have moved on.
That's really I think where ANDREL has been focused to date,
and I think that you just need a very different
process for how you think about how the government thinks
about acquiring that technology right where it's almost the exact

(07:32):
inverse of what the PPBE process is. So your requirements
are not going to be locked early. They're going to
be very flexible. They're going to need to change. The
assumption is that they're going to need to evolve over time.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
You are, if you.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Do it right, capable of actually pushing a lot of
the incentives for research and development cost onto industry so
that the government doesn't have to bear thatduction. You're going
to buy large quantities of these systems over some period
of time, and then you're going to have the opportunity
to buy again or to recompete, but you're not going
to just keep these things around for you know, for
decades and decades and and and sort of the the

(08:07):
you know, the so what of it, right is how
do you start to create more of these market mechanisms,
you know, more capitalistic behaviors, more kind of competitive processes
in what remains a monopsimistic sector of the economy. That
I think is the whole goal here, and I think
that's where Androil has really sought to distinguish itself and
those kinds of classes of capabilities. But again, it's all

(08:28):
with an eye toward in the future. We're going to
need a force mix which is much more of a
high low mix rather than an exclusively you.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Know, kind of high end military.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
It's a good thing we're doing in audio and a video
podcast because there's a reason why I don't I don't
play poker, because I don't have a poker face. A
couple of words you're using here, it's it's music to
our ears, things that Mark and I have talked about
through the years. It you know, kind of trigger words,
a triatable exquisite, you know, all these things, they're important words.
And one thing I wanted to I'm gonna quote. I'm

(08:58):
going to quote you back to yourself here because as
I was reading up on a lot of your work,
there's a couple of quotes I want to stitch together
here because I think it outlines the fact that what
y'all are doing isn't something that's just quirky. Our neat
are a different way of doing things. It's a mature,
well thought out answer to a challenge that really isn't

(09:20):
being addressed, or in many cases, in spite of all
the warnings, has really been inculcated on how we do business.
We're still doing things as we have since Bactum here
to a certain extent, and I just wanted to give
a chance to flesh out a little bit this little
quote of yours. Music to my ears. I know our
listeners here will be not in their heads as I
go ahead. So beginning of the quote, now quote most
wars in US hit history which were protracted struggles of production, attrition,

(09:46):
and regeneration. American needs military power that is mass producible,
that is adaptable, that is scalable, and it is fundamentally replaceable.
When God forbid, the war doesn't end in the first
one hundred hours or the first month, but drags on
for months and years. What I liked about that so
much is you've seen it as well, both up at
the Hill and in private industry. There is an influential

(10:08):
group of people that continue to try to sell even
in spite of what we've seen in Ukraine and the
extended war with Israel, that maybe just has come to
a completion that there is no seventy two hour war,
there is no quick precise strike that we need to
be prepared for a war that is going to look

(10:28):
very similar to like wars have for centuries. Right.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think you nailed it, and I definitely stand by
that quote.

Speaker 5 (10:35):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
I mean, it's interesting I find that a lot of
what a lot of the way I think about, you know,
kind of where we need to go for the future
of military power actually looks a lot more like a
return to the past. And you know, I think that
in the fullness of time, you know, prepared to be
challenged on this, this sort of post Cold War a
few decades that we've that we've had here feels a

(10:56):
lot more anomalous historically than it does like you know,
kind of a you know, fits into a pattern of
American history. And what I mean by that is had
this period where we weren't really challenged in terms of
global geopolitical rivalry. You know, we were laps ahead of
the competition, and we believed with a lot of evidence
that we would be capable of generating to terrens and

(11:17):
war winning capability through a relatively small number of very expensive,
very exquisite military platforms and weapons systems, and that whole
conception of military power assumed, you know, and this is
exactly what you were just suggesting, we would not have
to plan for protracted conflict. We could end worst quickly
that when they started, we were going to have or

(11:38):
we would soon very quickly establish technological superiority in military overmatch,
and that we weren't going to lose a lot of systems,
we weren't going to shoot a lot of weapons, we
were not going to have to replace and regenerate a
lot of capability. And that model worked, you know somewhat,
you know, so to speak, for past few decades. But
I think that when you look at the sort of

(11:59):
broader sweep of American history, that's just not how wars
have gone. You know, most of the conflicts that we've
been in as a country have been protracted. They've been
wars of production. We've lost a lot of military capability
and capacity, we've lost a lot of human lives, and
we've had to regenerate. And I think that's been the
strength historically of the US industrial base, is that ability

(12:19):
to produce at scale, that ability to regenerate quickly and
just outlast and outproduce our rivals. And I think that
is going to be a feature of warfare moving forward.
And it's exactly what you alluded to. You know, this
is not a thing that's going to happen to us
in ten or fifteen years. All of the fact patterns
are visible right now in Ukraine, in the war in
the Middle East certainly kind of going back in a
bit more, you know, prior to that, you know, in

(12:41):
places like Niguerno, Karabakh. You know this, this evidence is here,
and you know, I think that we are not learning
these lessons at our own peril and not preparing for
this kind of future at our own peril. I think
the good news is that people are starting to get
their heads around that. But I still worry that we're
not doing enough fast enough to be ready for again.
God forbid that type of scenario where the terrence breaks

(13:02):
down and we have to fight a protracted conflict much
as the Ukrainians have that goes on for years, where
we lose a lot of things and have to regenerate
a lot of things on a rapid basis.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
Yeah, a couple of points. But one was that I
was watching one of the videos about your new unmanned
Wingman aircraft. Yeah, and it was pointing out that the
landing year on that is stuff that can be made
manufactured in any shop mechanically inclined shop in the in
the country. And I was wondering the focus as we

(13:32):
look at scaling up stuff does that include being is
the systems you're looking at being able to include things
like I go, this is one of my specialties. I go, well,
you know, the best boat guys can make boats out
of fiberglass or a bunch of other stuff. Do you
guys look at that kind of uh of outsourcing? You know,
we could go if we had to, we could We

(13:53):
could scale up by going to some of these smaller
outfits that make a lot of a lot of things
and and you can plug your your your autonomous data
systems into that.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
You absolutely nailed it in terms of how we're thinking
about production. So when you take a military system, our
goal at the design phase is to limit as much
as humanly possible the amount of content in that military
system that is defense unique. You know, that could be
critical materials or raw earth, rare earth elements, or you

(14:25):
know some very kind of militarily specific subcomponent, and you're
never going to be able to eliminate it entirely, right,
I mean, we're building weapons, So weapons are going to
have rocket motors that are going to have energetics, they're
going to have you know, critical materials and seekers. So
you're never going to be able to reduce it to zero.
But our goal, and again I have to emphasize this
has to be solved at the level of design. These

(14:46):
weapons and weapons systems need to be designed to enable
exactly the kind of outsourcing to commercial manufacturing that you
just described to the greatest extent possible. So when you
look at the low cost cruise missiles that were built,
you know the system that we call Barracuda family of systems,
different sizes, ranges, et cetera. Most of that system can

(15:07):
be built in commercial manufacturing facilities in the United States
or allied countries. The entire outer you know, kind of
airframe is a you know, is a composite material that
is produced and can be kind of produced in the
exact same way that composite bat are basically pressed with
a ten thousand pound press. The fuel tank is not

(15:28):
something that we did a kind of exquisite sort of specialized,
heavily welded metal structure. We outsourced it to a plastics manufacturer.
It meets all the requirements, but it's basically a process
or a subcomponent that can be produced by anybody who
makes like plastic coolers. So the point here is that
most of the system can then be produced by different

(15:51):
manufacturing facilities in the country where we're you know, three
or four or five percent of their overall work. But
if God forbid we end up in conflict and we
have to massively ramp production, there's a huge amount of
capacity that we don't have to pay for that is
ready and available at the direction of the government to
then be able to produce these things at an extraordinarily

(16:13):
increased rate. And then where we put a lot of
our focus in terms of our internal investment is verticalizing
the elements where we need more capacity in the sort
of unique elements of the defense industrial base. So a
couple of years ago, we acquired a solid rocket motor
company and we've been pouring investment into that, you know,
segment of our business to be able to produce rocket

(16:33):
motors of all classes by the thousands. That's an area
where we just need more of that capacity to be
able to produce weapons, even as a lot of the
other components of that weapon, as I was just saying,
can and need to be outsourced to commercial manufacturing, you know, producers.
So a lot of that thesis is exactly what you said.
And I just have to emphasize this again. If you

(16:54):
do not solve that at the level of design, where
you design that weapon to be producible, to be replaceable,
you know, all of that needs to be solved at
that level, You're never going to be able to deal
with those problems upstream. And that's why I think the
critical munitions that everybody talks about, the legacy munitions that
we are all focused on, that are you know, decades old.

(17:15):
That's why we're struggling to be able to produce them
as a country is because they were never designed in
the first place to be mass producible in the way
that I was just describing.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
I believe you'll mention at one point, and I thought
it was an excellent comparison to a guy who is
a quasi collector of World War two firearms, Singer Sewing
company made in one carbines, and the people who made
railroad switches made in one garage. You had anybody who
had a basic machine shop could go away for a weekend,

(17:44):
retool and start producing things. And I like what Mark
said about, you know, making a cooler. Let's talk a
little bit about the loyal Wingman or the collaborative combat
aircraft whatever we're calling it this week is about a
dozen years ago when Jerry Hendrix was on and we
were talking about what was in the X forty seven Bravo.
We were all kind of heartbroken what happened to that program.
I still think we lost a decade of being able

(18:07):
to operate and understand it better. So companies like yours
could pick up some of the lessons sailors and make
it even better. But my end of the spectrum was
I use the analogy that my vision of what we'd
won't ultimately want to do as an old te Lamb guy,
is you know, give me whatever the same concept x
forty seven bravos, give me an unmanned system from a

(18:29):
carrier that I can stack like a bunch of the
remake of Battlestar Galactica. They're raiders. You could stack them
like so many pringles in the hangar, and when you
need them, pull them out fuel, send them out. They
come back great. If not, we can redo. That's on
one end. The other end, and there are some of
the proposals for the loyal Wingman that when you do

(18:49):
the math on it, I don't know if you're familiar
with the study. I think they were paid like four
hundred million to do it. Govini produced on our supply
chain issues in some of our systems. How much actually
really lyles that relies on the PRC. I think their
data point was about twenty twenty two, right, twenty three.
Things that slowly changes. But anyway, at the other end
is you have your collaborative combat aircraft that cost about

(19:11):
point x of a man system. So there's your spectrum.
Where do you think that sweet spot is between the
raiders stacked in the hangar deck like so many pringles
potato chips, and a point X of a man strike aircraft.
Where do y'all see that happy spot is in that spectrum?

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah, it's a tough question, right, And this gets back
to the idea of a chritability that we were talking
about earlier. Right, I'm pretty sure that the triatable does
not appear in the Webster's Dictionary, despite the fact that
you know, it's one of the great buzzwords in Washington
right now. But you know, the tricky thing about a
tridable is that I think to some extent it's in the.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Eye of the beholder.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
Right.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
What it means is that you are, on the one hand,
you're survivable enough that you know you're not just throwing
capability away, but you're not paying orders of magnitude more
money to try to eke out you know, that last
additional percent or so of survivability. And then on the
other side of the spectrum has to do with cost. Right,
So the question of how much cost am I incurring

(20:13):
to increase what degree of survivability reusability increasing the odds
that when I launch it, I'm going to get it back,
I'm going to be able to use it again. That's
where I think, you know, this, this whole discussion around
collaborative combat aircraft, you know, currently resides right how expensive
is too expensive, how survivable is is too survivable or

(20:33):
not survivable enough. There's a lot of analysis being done
on that. I think where we at Anderill landed with
the solution that we're building for the Air Force is
on the cheaper side of that in terms of what's
what's currently in the market right now, meets all the
requirements you know, performs the mission. Is on the lower
cost side in the sense that you know, we're making
some trade offs here or there in order to get

(20:55):
that cost down.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
But it has a lot to.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Do with you know, kind of the stems were choosing
the processes we're using, you know, so really reducing costs
that way. I think the interesting question, and I think
this is what you're getting at, is if you were
to think about, you know, sort of the next increment
of that, does it go in the direction of more exquisite,
more expensive, more survivable, or does it go the other
direction And it starts to frankly look more like a

(21:19):
cruise missile. So back to your t LAMB example that
I think is a great debate right now, I think
that we're going to need both of those types of systems.
So I think we're going to need collaborative combat aircraft
of the type that we are developing, you know, that
have landing gear. When you launch them, the expectation is
you're going to bring them back. You're going to land
them on the runway, you're going to land them on.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
The carrier deck.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
You're going to refuel, you're going to rearm, you're going
to relaunch, and you're going to be able to get
additional use out of that. But if it comes a
time where you've got to send that system out on
a highly likely to be one way mission, you know,
that is something that you're prepared and willing and able
to do because you're not throwing away, you know, an
extremely expensive asset and certainly not an asset that has

(21:58):
a human life aboard. At the same time, I think
we're just going to need a massive increase in the
weapons inventory, which again does start to look like, you know,
it's one way attack drones, it's low cost cruise missiles,
it's systems where I can move the decimal point on
the cost around, you know, one decimal space to the left,
and I can move the overall inventory one decimal space

(22:20):
to the right and really generate an increase, you know,
an order of magnitude increase in my inventory. And when
I lose those things, when I'm shooting a lot of them,
as you know, the Ukrainians are, I can regenerate them
a lot faster. I can produce them a lot faster.
I can adapt them with the threat, with the you
know kind of evolution of technology a lot faster. That
I think is is the sort of the sweet spot

(22:41):
of capability that Androil is very much focused in playing
in where it's unclear is is it an airplane or
is it ammunition?

Speaker 2 (22:49):
Is it a drone?

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Is it a low cost missile? These are I think
the areas where are frankly are our competitors are are
innovating and disrupting us, and I think this is an
area where the United States is starting to get some
game back to really focus on how how we can
out innovate our competitors and and generate a lot of
additional capacity in an area or a part of the
force where we're capable of having it, and with an

(23:12):
industrial base that's capable of producing it that isn't going
to require you know, decades of capital investment, hiring all
kinds of specialized workforce that we don't have in order
to produce on decades long timelines. I think this is
a capacity that we can create very quickly to generate
or an industrial base that we can create very quickly
to generate additional capacity where we need it.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
One of the things I saw was you all are
working with the Australian military and working on developing the
ghost hart Yes underwater vehicle. Can you kind of talk
about how much input you take from the from the
military people who might be using this equipment and and
and a little bit about the ghost Start program about
how that how that worked out forel.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, So it's it's it's an amazingly cool program that
it's an awesome capability. So so just for everybody listening,
the Ghost Shark program with the Australian Navy is an
extra large autonomous undersea vehicle. So it's basically a robotic
submarine the size of a school bus, can go thousands
of kilometers, carries a lot of payload, it's entirely battery powered,

(24:17):
so it can remain underwater for a very long period
of time. It's acoustically very quiet, so has an enormous
amount of advantage to it. Again, not to replace manned submarines,
because you're never going to replace something like a Virginia
class submarine with something like a ghost shark. The vision
of the Australian Navy was always to augment the submarine

(24:38):
force that they have, the submarine force that they hope
to be getting through Aucus in terms of Virginia class boats,
aucust class boats or whatever that's going to be, where
you can focus those exquisite manned submarines on the uniquely
difficult missions that they and only they can do, and
then augment through the sort of deployment of large quantities

(24:58):
of these robotics systems to be able to go out
and do a lot of the ISR and targeting, a
lot of the other kind of undersea weapons delivery and
a host of other different kinds of missions that you
can actually offboard onto a robot, you onto a robotic
mint and augment demanded under sea force. The partnership that
ANDROL has had with the Australian Navy has been remarkable.

(25:20):
So this program began a little over three years ago.
Andrew actually incorporated ANDROL in Australia, so we now have
a company in Australia that is Androl Australia. It's an
Australian company with Australian leadership. We're probably now around two
to three hundred people. So that company in Australia has
grown to be kind of a proper company unto itself.

(25:41):
When we started the program, the agreement was Andro was
actually going to fund half of the development cost of
the system, so very different than traditional acquisition models in
the United States or Australia. We put our own skin
in the game, we put our own capital at risk,
and the goal was to develop three operational prototypes so
relatively high technological readiness across a series of different undersea

(26:04):
missions and do all of that in three years. Again
from a flat start of basically having no company in Australia.
When we began this journey a little over three years ago,
we got on contract very quickly, We got to work
very quickly. We actually delivered the first systems a year
ahead of schedule. We have been in the water for
an incredibly long period of time and develop those systems

(26:26):
and built the confidence of the Australian Commonwealth to an
extent that they were so ecstatic about the work that
had been done that we actually just signed a production
contract to be able to go into sort of large
scale production on the ghost Shark program for the next
decade to the tune of you know, billions of dollars

(26:46):
Australian and we have a production facility that's been stood
up in Sydney where we'll be printing these things, building
these things by the dozen. They will be deployed as
part of the Royal Australian Navy, and I think, you know,
there's a lot of focus now in terms of where
they could go in internationalizing that capability. So a lot
of discussions with the US Navy about how that capability

(27:07):
could help here in the United States and then potentially
other international allies and partners. So all in all, a
remarkable story, a remarkable journey in just a little over
three years from the time we got on contract to
the final signing of the production contract to really take
this production to scale. And I think again it just

(27:28):
it reinforces and this is a theme I know you
guys hit often all of this is possible. It's possible
to have great capability, leading edge capability. It's possible to
do it quickly using authorities that we have, using money
that we have. You know, this is something we can
have nice things now, right. We don't have to wait
decades and decades for new modernization programs to land.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
We don't have that time.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
And I think what the Australians have done have really
shown away for not just future Australian programs, but modernization
programs and new capability develop and efforts here in the
United States as well.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
That's the one thing about the Ghost Shark program besides
the sexy thing about talking about you know, new lightweight
torpedoes that we can play around with, but it was
was just what you outline there where the I love
this whole idea, the shared risk in pursuit of speed
and capability. I have a little pet reference of time
that I use in acquisitions. For years, I call it

(28:23):
a world war. You know, the US was in World
War two for a three years, eight months and twenty
six days, I think it was. And so you know,
we say about three years so roughly the length of
World War Two, which in modern acquisition system that is
very fast, that is very robust, and so I think
it's also valuable that you all are getting experience with
how the Australians do things, because you can always learn

(28:45):
from people, especially those that have cultures similar to yours
and anglospheric nation, similar cultures, not the same, but similar.
One frustrating thing that we see over and over, and
I know you you're basking in this on a daily basis,
is the US military system. We have this acquisition system
that has developed a life of its own. It's created

(29:06):
by people in order to serve the military, but it
almost seems as if it's treated like it's a part
of Newtonian physics. Is here, we have to do it,
we have to use it, when actually it's fully under
our control to adjust and change. But there's so many
people that have their careers, egos and paychecks vested in
maintaining it, that this system that's become so accretion encumbered

(29:32):
and immobile and ineffective in a lot of ways, is
stopping a lot of this speed and capability from taking place.
What are some of those bold faced items, And you've
got experience up on the hill, so you know how
it works on the outside of the house the UC
Really are those points of the US acquisition system that
could help companies like yours and even some of the

(29:53):
primes who want to be nimble as certain areas could
could open up open up some lanes for people to run.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, so I would agree with everything you said on
the acquisition system, and to answer your question, I would
actually broaden it right because, as you guys and your
listeners know well, the acquisition system acquisition process is only
one part of a series of processes that are involved
in how the US military, for example, gets capability into

(30:21):
the hands of warfighters. So you know, upstream of the
acquisition process is the requirements process defining what it is
we actually need to solve our operational problems. You know,
Following requirements definition is how are we going to program
money for it? How are we going to create budgets
and future years defense plans to ensure that we have

(30:41):
resources to buy the thing we say we need. And
then only once that's done, you know, do you run
something through an acquisition process where you can compete it
out and go acquire it. Point being is when you
when you stack this process up, and that's not even
to get into the legislative role author rising and appropriating
money to enable the Department of War to do any

(31:04):
of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
This whole process is years long.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
I mean, it's become elongated to nearly a decade in
many cases. So it's not possible to work through that
kind of process. To do a program like a ghost Shark,
it has to be compressed into an alternative pathway. What
I would submit is, and I'm obviously drawing on a
lot of my experience on the Hill where year after
year the Congress was doing acquisition reform, is still doing

(31:30):
acquisition reform. It's providing new and more flexible authorities and
processes to the Department to be able to do the
kinds of things that everybody wants to do, to be
able to move faster, to be more flexible, to take
more risk. I would argue at this point, the Department
has every authority it needs to do pretty much whatever
it wants, and a lot of the challenges that those
authorities are often they do require senior leaders to take

(31:53):
that risk. Right to understand, in the case of a
ghost Shark program, how are we going to go a
lot faster and run a very non te additional process.
I mean that required a ministerial level decision to say,
I understand the risks involved, but it is worth doing
in order to potentially get the you know, the benefits
of what this program could offer us. So I think

(32:16):
in the US context, a lot of this has to
do with a lot of the problems that are upstream
of acquisition, which is actually defining what are the new
capabilities that are going to be important for the future.
You know, you mentioned the X forty seven Bravo, and
that was something I was very involved in when I
was on the hill. To the point that the technology
has been around for a long time. The problem isn't

(32:37):
that we don't know how to buy it, it's that
we don't have institutions that value it and understand what
operational problems they want to employ it to solve, such
that they would be motivated to spend more money on
it to displace potentially investments in legacy programs in order
to get a new capability like that into the fleet.
So you know, here we are the US Navy is

(32:59):
talking about out collaborative combat aircraft as well. It's publicly
acknowledged that andrel is part of that program. Is one
of the companies that are competing for that program. That's great,
you know, we are actively pursuing that. But again, this
is a capability, this is an idea that's been around
for a long time. I don't think it's necessarily the
acquisition process that's standing in the way. It is in

(33:21):
this case an institution that needs to value that as
a as a capability and make the invent to bring
it into the fleet at scale on the timeline that
it could be introduced, which is rapidly. That I think
is the problem that we see kind of across the
board here, which is often upstream of acquisition. It's identifying
the new ideas, the new programs that are really going

(33:42):
to move the needle and sort of disrupt what our
adversaries are doing to us, you know, through the introduction
of new technology. If you can get past that part,
you know, where you really have stakeholders and these new
ideas and these new types of programs, then I think
there's a lot of different ways to make the acquisition
system buy those capabilities or acquire those capabilities in new

(34:03):
and novel and non traditional ways. And again I believe
the Department has all of the authority that it needs
to do that. Oftentimes where or the problem is that
we never even get to the acquisition process because the
ideas never even make it that far. They're killed at
the requirements level through indecision or paralysis by analysis, or
just sheer opposition to the introduction of some new idea

(34:27):
or capability that threatens a legacy program or that people
just can't get their heads around. That, to me, I
think is the change that we need in order to
really move the United States military into the future. It's
often upstream of acquisition, and if you can solve it
at that level and bring these kinds of new ideas
forward in a very specific way, then I think there's

(34:47):
a lot of ability and willingness to take risk in
the acquisition process to acquire them in a non traditional way.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
Well like your plant way of saying that there are
stove pipes in the system that don't like some new
ideas enough to remember when we had drone anti submarine
helicopters on board destroyers, right ideal that we should have
continued to develop because we could have had drones a
lot longer and more capable than we currently have. Anyway,
it's it's just one of those things. I have a

(35:14):
question about deployability. I mean, we one of the concerns
everybody talks about it. We've got all these great systems
coming on line. You guys have these wonderful ideas. How
do you see these things being deployed? Are they somewhere
self deploying? I guess if you can run a submarine
for a UAV for quite a while, But what about
some of these other systems.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
How do you see this.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
Working in the in the way that the US military
will use them.

Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah, it's a great question because I think you know,
this kind of ties back to your last question what
we're just talking about in terms of the obstacles that
have to be cleared in order for an idea to
become a program or a capability for something to become real.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think everybody wants.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
To focus on, you know, the you know, the particular
capability or area of technology or the way in which
we're going to acquire it, But there are all of
these related questions that ad absolutely pertain to how a
military is going to own and operate or control and
operate and deploy and use a system that if you

(36:13):
can't answer those questions it's it's not going to become real, right,
it can't bridge into being a useful system that an
institution can actually take into the field with them.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
So at ANDERW we take those questions very seriously.

Speaker 3 (36:25):
I mean, in the case of the ghost Shark program,
for example, the program or the extra large Autonomous Undersea
Vehicle was sized to be able to fit into a
shipping container so that you reduce the logistical burden of
how a system like this could be moved around, you know,
in the you know, kind of.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Area of operations.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
If you were to look at how we're thinking about
weapons development, where you know, back to that sort of
Barracuda low cost or sort of family of low cost
cruise mus A lot of what we're focused on is
how do you how do you containerize that system again
into something like a twenty foot shipping container. Because if
I want to try to increase tenfold the number of

(37:09):
weapons that say the United States Navy has, well, I'm
going to start to very quickly run out of ships,
and I'm going to run out of VLS cells. And
the way that we traditionally deploy weapons, well before I
run out of weapons, systems can be rearmed at sea.
So I need to start thinking about how I get
all of that additional capacity that I'm trying to create
deployed in ways that doesn't itself get limited on our

(37:32):
traditional means of deployment, you know, again in this case
being VLS cells. So if I can put those into
shipping containers, I can put them on the decks of
lower cost robotic systems, or commercial systems, or frankly just
in you know, places ashore where I want to have
additional capacity of weaponry. It starts to get to a
different conception of deployment, which which also then feeds into

(37:54):
you know, how do I get rearmament faster? How do
I get replenishment faster? Regeneration? All of this has to
be factored in through sort of a you know, a continuous,
you know, full spectrum sort of concept of operation, concept
of employment. We put a lot of work into this,
a lot of analytical rigor into this, because these are
questions that they make or break the utility of a

(38:15):
military stem. If I have an amazing technology that I
can't deploy, I can't maintain, I can't fight with put
aside whatever utility it has, it's it's not practical, it's
not useful for how that institution has to adopt it
and use it. So I think in all these instances,
we very much are trying to solve that deployability question,
reducing the burden of deployment and logistics and resupply, especially

(38:39):
if you're assuming this has to be done at scales
that we're not operating at currently as a military. They're
going to have to be done in you know, areas
of contested logistics where it's not going to be easy
to get you know, spare parts and other things flowing in,
you know, the way that we've assumed that they would,
you know, over the past several decades. It just changes
the way you have to think about the ployment and

(39:00):
logistics for this class of lower costs, more attardable military
systems and weapons. And it's again something we put a
lot of time and thought into and I think are
coming up to some very novel solutions that will help
to solve problems that the US military has.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
And that intro just teed up the ball for two
things that really do flow together, you know, first about
fitting in the shipping container and how you deploy these things.
Give credit where credit is due. I think the Iranians
with their Shahed drones kind of doing the stacknum like
pringles potato chips, right, they have done the first people
to bring that into the field to good for them.

(39:37):
But speaking of the Shahed drone, we've talked a bit
about a couple of offensive solutions that y'all bringing to
the table, the Barracuda, the Ghost Shark. But when you
look at the challenge that we saw on the Red Sea,
but also what Ukraine is facing every day, it's how
do you get a low cost attack drone down with
a hyper expensive missile. Y'all have also developed the road

(40:00):
Owner that for those that aren't familiar with it, go
ahead and google it. That looks like a system that
can be deployed about anywhere you can put down a
little bit of airfield matting.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah, so that's totally right.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
I mean, for again, for folks who are not familiar,
Roadrunner is a surface to air weapon that we developed.
It is a dual turbojet weapon, so not rocket motor propelled,
and it is recoverable. So what I mean by that
is it is going to launch vertically out of a
small kind of launch box. It'll transition to horizontal flight.

(40:34):
It is capable of flying incredibly fast, you know, turning
very hard to be able to go after exactly that
kind of class of Shaheed one way attack drone kind
of Group three uas low cost cruise missile, you know,
that class of threats, but also then having performance all
the way up to Group four, Group five unmanned aerial systems,

(40:55):
rotary wing aircraft, things of that sort. But the kicker,
the cool part is in the event that you don't
expend the round in an intercept, you can actually recall
it to base and you can land it. It will
transition to vertical flight and it will land like a
Falcon nine rocket on landing gear. You can refuel it
with standard JP eight no fuel, and once it's reloaded

(41:16):
or rather refueled, you can launch it again. So I mean,
we've flown road Runners, the same Roadrunner you know, a
dozen times before, we've actually you know, detonated it. You know,
it's got a fragmentary warhead, so it essentially flies up
close to a threat and then explodes and kills it
in that type of an intercept. But what I think
like the bigger and more exciting aspect of Roadrunner is

(41:38):
is the way that it enables the operators to change
their shotdops. So rather than shooting you know, one or
potentially two weapons and an incoming threat out of a
belief that you know, if the first one doesn't successfully intercept,
you need to have a second.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
One there ready.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
What I can do now with road Runners, I can
launch multiples. The first time I get an even inkling
that there might be a threat coming in before I
identified it as a threat, I can launch without regret
because I understand that in the event that you know,
I get up close to it and I see that,
you know, this actually isn't a threat, or if it's
a false detection, you know, or if I, you know,
I do an intercept, I successfully defeat an incoming drone

(42:16):
or missile. With one Roadrunner, I can recall all of
the other ones to base. I can land them, I
can refuel them, I can use them again. So it
totally changes how air defenders base defenders, you know, ship defenders.
We're integrating Roadrunner with the US Navy, We're bringing it
onto US Navy vessels. It completely changes how they can

(42:37):
defend their ships and sort of employ those kinds of weapons.
In a way that again reduces costs because I'm not
throwing away an interceptor every time I hit the launch button,
I have the ability to recall it, reland it, recapture it,
and reuse it.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
I was going to ask about lessons learned from the
Red Sea and the hoothy mess. Yeah, is this roadrunner
at Sea program? Well, one of the concept you all
would would say, kind of, this would help solve that
problem because we were using F eighteen's and all kinds
of other weapons systems to down these things.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
You absolutely nailed it. I mean, I think we've expended
billions of dollars of standard missiles shooting at you know,
Iranian one way attack drones that cost you know, a
couple hundred thousand dollars if that. So we're absolutely on
the wrong side of a cost exchange ratio in that regard.
And again back to the conversation we're having earlier, right,
the industrial base cannot reproduce those kinds of standard missiles

(43:33):
on anything like a relevant timeline. I mean, we're struggling
to produce them as it is, so we can't just
keep throwing that type of an exquisite weapon away, which
was designed to defeat you know, far more capable threats
that we really need to have them an inventory to
go after. Roadrunner is not going to defeat you know,
sort of you know, high altitude exo atmospheric ballistic missiles, right,
things that standard missiles can do. So we really need

(43:55):
to keep the standard missiles in inventory to go after
the threats that they were uniquely designed to feet and
then leverage something like a Roadrunner to defeat those lower class,
higher volume threats that we're starting to see proliferate the
battlefield all over from the Red Sea to Ukraine, you know,
and many other places. So that's exactly the thesis. Roadrunner
was not designed for the US Navy. It was designed

(44:17):
for another US government or another with another US government partner.
But the Navy is moving urgently, i think, specifically because
of that experience in the Red Sea, to get road
Runner as well as additional interceptors onto the decks of
ships to increase the magazine of self defense capability that
they have and reduce the cost per shot of defending

(44:37):
that ship. I think the benefit of Roadrunner is the
range at which you can intercept off the deck of
a ship is much farther out than a lot of
the other sort of similar, low cost alternative solutions that
are out there. We are not currently landing road runners
on the decks of ships. I think that we would
absolutely be capable of doing it. I think it's more
from the standpoint of, you know, just kind of doctrine.

(45:00):
You know, the Navy isn't there yet, but you know,
maybe someday we'll get there. But even if you're not,
even if you're just throwing it away, it's still a
better deal. It's still a better outcome for the US
Navy to be able to fire that class of a
weapon at that price as compared to what it's been
using to date in its standard missile inventory.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
If we get near the top of the hour, I
always want to try to wind things up in a
real positive direction. And there is something positive. You know.
We talked a lot about some of the challenges that
we have both institutionally and with our bureaucracy and stuff
like that, but as we face the big challenge, and
of course the big challenge is the People's Republic of China,

(45:38):
and I want to, like I did early on the show,
I want to quote back to you because I think
it's an important point in something that y'all are trying
to do. When you're in a competition with another entity,
you're looking for a comparative advantage, and if we don't
get in our own way, we do have a great
comparative advantage. So first thing I want to quote is
when you kind of describe really well the challenge we

(46:00):
face from China. And then the second part of the
quote from a different article of yours, I want to
quote something that people need to keep in mind about
our comparative advantage. So here's the initial part of the quote. Quote,
China now possesses an industrial base with a production capacity
that dwarfs our own nearly in every area that matters
to national power and military competition, from shipbuilding and munitions

(46:22):
to drones and rare earth elements. It has taken America
four decades to get itself into its present predicament. And
the unfortunate but unavoidable reality is that we will not
recover those traditional industrial advantages quickly, easily, are in many
cases at all. Now, for the second part of the quote,
we the US not only tolerate, but actual reward all

(46:43):
of these disruptive tendencies in our society and in our
economy that I'm not sure the Chinese Communist Party is
capable of dealing with, and it's not clear to me
that Chinese society is capable of generating. So we do
have an intellectual comparative advantage that other people talked about
as well, and that's something I don't think that that

(47:03):
not only is it fully appreciated, but we're not really
leveraging that. And there's some opportunities to do that with
I think some of the changes and mindsets that you've
outlined earlier.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, so I couldn't agree more on ending on an
optimistic note because I am, at the end of the
day an optimist, even if I can can sound pessimistic
or cynical or realistic, whatever you want to call it
about the challenges we face. The reason I'm optimistic is
exactly what you said. Rights As a country and as
a society, we have phenomenal advantages in terms of you know,

(47:36):
population that is critical thinking that is prone to being disruptive, right,
I mean, I think as a society and even in
government and the ranks of our military, like we tolerate
dissent in many cases in the commercial economy, we actively
incentivize it.

Speaker 6 (47:52):
Right.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
We have a capitalistic business.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Model that is always rewarding the next great idea, the
next great company, the next great that is capable of,
you know, turning the market upside down like that is
the American success story. Capital markets that are looking to
fund those opportunities. We have phenomenal well trained engineers that
are hungry and ambitious to go build those types of capabilities.

(48:14):
And I think now at a societal level, we're motivated
and mobilized in a way that I couldn't have said
existed ten years ago for exactly the reason you said
in the question. It is the recognition that we are
now back in a geostrategic competition with a peer adversary.
And I do not say near peer, because I believe
China is a peer of the United States in many respects,

(48:37):
and only I think will become more that way. I
think that we now have all of these strengths that
are sort of at our disposal, and the real challenge
when we get to national defense is can the government,
which has to be the prime mover again back to
this notion that defense is a monopsony, so the government
as buyer and demander of national defense. Capability has to

(48:57):
be the prime mover. It has to create the right
and centive is. If it can do that, I believe
all of those downstream effects can be brought into alignment. Right,
the people, the capital, the technology, the energy, the disruptive tendencies,
the willingness again to to not just tolerate dissent, but
to encourage it and to reward it that exists in

(49:20):
this society. And I my frustrations with the uh, you know,
kind of the the way that we procure military capability
historically is that it looks all too much like China
at its worst and not enough like America at its best.
Like we've got to get all of these strengths and
virtues and sort of capitalistic tendencies back into defense the

(49:40):
way that they have been historically. They can be brought
in again, and I think that's something the current administration
is very much trying to do. That's something that we
now have a whole cadre of companies, not just anderill,
but companies that are that are well capitalized, that are
you know, that are well led, that are that are
motivated to try to solve this problem. This is an

(50:01):
incredibly exciting time to be doing this work. It's an
incredibly exciting time for national defense. I mean, it feels
like a revitalization is in process, and I feel like,
you know, we are being mobilized to action in a
way that I couldn't have said, you know, ten years ago.
That doesn't mean that we're guaranteed to be successful. It
doesn't mean that, you know, all this is going to
turn out well for us. So it is still incumbent

(50:21):
upon leaders and members of Congress and those of us
in industry and those of us like you outside, who
are you know, leading and thinking and agitating to keep
pushing this thing in the right direction. But you know,
it does feel like we have momentum in a way
that we haven't had before, and we have all the
underlying raw material, in my opinion, to be successful on
a timeline that is relevant. We don't have to wait

(50:41):
till the twenties to get nice things. We can begin
to rebuild that deterrent capability. Now it's going to look
very different than the sort of traditional deterrent capability we've
relied on the industrial base that's going to build it.
In many cases is going to look very different than
the traditional industrial base that we have, but there too,
you know, there's a lot of amazing opportunity for change

(51:03):
and disruption, and not just from the new entrance, but
you know, I think when you look at the kind
of established defense companies in America, they're all rethinking, you know,
what their future is going to look like and how
they're going to develop capability and work with government partners.
I think that's all to the good. So having those
kinds of you know, kind of competitive pressures in defense,

(51:25):
I think pushes this thing in the right direction. And
if we continue to have good leadership that's that's focused
and a budget to sustain it. You know, I'm very
optimistic about the future.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
I want to appreciate how you guys keep talking about mass,
and it always reminds me to end this up with
a quote from the Confederate General Nathan Bedford. For us,
we want to be the firstest, with the mostest and
without that mass, without that structure. You guys are pushing that,
and I think that's an extremely key element in any

(51:56):
hope of the future.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (51:57):
We're definitely trying, and yeah, I think it's going to
be essential to how we kind of compliment the you know,
the legacy, very exquisite capabilities we have with a degree
of mass that that we can we can produce a
lot of we can regenerate quickly, we can adapt as
new threats and new technologies require. Again, that's I think
what has has made America successful in military endeavors in

(52:23):
the past, and I think it's going to be critical
to our future again.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
And Chris really appreciate you taking time out of your
day to join us, and we'll keep an eye on
what y'all are doing there and we look forward to
an opportunity to talk to you next time.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Pleasures Online. It's great to be back with you guys.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Look forward to it again, and thanks for what you're doing,
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Thank you, and thank you everybody for joining us for
another edition in mid Rats and until next time, I
hope you have a great Navy day.

Speaker 5 (52:53):
To marry me and a.

Speaker 6 (53:03):
Friend of becdily for you being to blame more longly
love me said, folding your name.

Speaker 5 (53:16):
It's a long way to Dimperary, It's a long way
to go, It's a long way to dipper Ary. To
the Queen.

Speaker 6 (53:33):
Go by becdi farewell left, don't well.

Speaker 5 (53:41):
It's a long long way to dipperate, but my life,
my