Project Scorpion is a multinational military modernization program which uses military-run experimentation for acquisition of new armaments. Project Scorpion also tests new military behaviors such as

effects-based operations Effects-based operations (EBO) is a United States military concept that emerged during the Persian Gulf War for the planning and conduct of operations combining military and non-military methods to achieve a particular effect. An effects-based ap ...

network-centric warfare Network-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations or net-centric warfare, is a military doctrine or theory of war that aims to translate an information advantage, enabled partly by information technology, into a competitive advantag ...

, and

irregular warfare Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations" and in U.S. law as "Department of Defense activities not involvin ...

and civilian-military concepts.

Origins

Originally a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

concept, Project Scorpion was the new name for the former Intelligent Munitions System (IMS), was re-baptized in its new name around 2004 under the

Future Combat System Future Combat Systems (FCS) was the United States Army's principal modernization program from 2003 to early 2009. Formally launched in 2003, FCS was envisioned to create new brigades equipped with new manned and unmanned vehicles linked by an unpr ...

( FCS) framework, this a program which was cancelled in April 2009 by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; parts of the FCS were swept within the U.S. Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization Program under the U.S. Army Office for Acquisition, Research and Development. From the outset in 2004, the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, t ...

promoted Project Scorpion as a means of providing domestic military

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...

, i.e. inter-agency operational facilitation U.S. military bodies such as the

Army An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by ...

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

and

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a Maritime Security Regimes, maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with cust ...

. Yet Project Scorpion was also promoted internationally by the U.S. Department of Defense as a means of promoting multinational

for closer U.S. integration with coalition (

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

) militaries. In this light, Project Scorpion was easily adopted by Defense Ministry acquisitions agencies of France, Germany and the United Kingdom; Non-NATO partners appear to have been invited to participate. As from 2010, it would appear that the United States ( DOD) and France ( DGA) are the lead-players in the multinational Project Scorpion coalition. Project Scorpion uses part of the

system of systems The term system of systems refers to a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems that pool their resources and capabilities together to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of ...

principles. Such military modernization efforts are part of a wider military concept of Revolution in military affairs, or " RMA". Larger defense companies serving as lead-system integrators for Project Scorpion include

Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry ...

EADS Airbus SE ( ; ; ; ) is a Pan-European aerospace corporation. The company's primary business is the design and manufacturing of commercial aircraft but it also has separate defence and space and helicopter divisions. Airbus has long been th ...

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figure ...

and

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales and fifth largest in the Unit ...

, SAIC,

SAGEM SAGEM (, translated as "Company of General Applications of Electricity and Mechanics") was a French company involved in defense electronics, consumer electronics, and communication systems. Founded in 1924, SAGEM initially specialised in mechani ...

, Lockheed Martin Marietta and

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

. Budget outlays for Project Scorpion are quite large - ranges of billions of dollars (and Euros) in various countries.

Project Scorpion as a joint-multinational experiment program

Press reports indicate that Project Scorpion was intended for "

Interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...

". In this light French, German, U.K and U.S. military descriptions of Project Scorpion are similar, using the same defense companies serve as "lead systems integrators" for the program. Project Scorpion is a facet of the Revolution in Military Affairs modernization program known in the U.S. as

Future Combat Systems Future Combat Systems (FCS) was the United States Army's principal modernization program from 2003 to early 2009. Formally launched in 2003, FCS was envisioned to create new brigades equipped with new manned and unmanned vehicles linked by an unpr ...

(FCS), in the UK as

Future Rapid Effect System The Future Rapid Effect System (FRES) was the name for the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) programme to deliver a fleet of more than 4,000 armoured fighting vehicles for the British Army. The vehicles were to be rapidly deployable, network-en ...

(FRES), in Germany known as Infanterist der Zukunft ( IdZ), and in France as

FÉLIN FÉLIN (''Fantassin à Équipement et Liaisons Intégrés'', Integrated Infantryman Equipment and Communications) is the name for the French infantry combat system developed by Safran Electronics & Defense. It combines a modified FAMAS rifl ...

, an abbreviation for '' Fantassin à Équipments et Liaisons Intégrés'' (Integrated Infantryman Equipment and Communications). All such programs are designed using the "

System of Systems The term system of systems refers to a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems that pool their resources and capabilities together to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of ...

" (SOS) military concept philosophy, whereby humans, munitions and "sensors" are jointly used to achieve desired military objectives, these being part of a wider concept under a RMA, or " Revolution in Military Affairs umbrella. None of this nomenclature is especially descriptive or specific in terms of outputs, non-descript nomenclature perhaps being perhaps the hallmark of activities and operations under the Project Scorpion umbrella.

Project Scorpion in France

Project Scorpion is viewed as a new means of practicing procurement by the French military, in the same manner as the controversial Boeing-SAIC Future Combat Systems program, and British Future Rapid Effects program. Project Scorpion supports the French

infantry combat system. France views Project Scorpion as “preparation for future land combat systems, intended to build an armaments program to support ilitarytransformation,” to be operationalized as a “system of contact for versatile capabilities and information networking,”. On 22 February 2010, France launched an "investigation phase" of Project Scorpion under the aegis of a special military ''investment committee'' (''Comité ministériel des investissements'') composed of the French Minister of Defense, the French Joint Chiefs of Staff and the French arms acquisition authority ( Directorate General for Armaments). France has put forth Project Scorpion as a "multinational project"

Project Scorpion in the United States

Project Scorpion and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence

In his May 2006 confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen described Project Scorpion as "an archetypal national-level collaborative partnership with DHS, DOJ, and DOD counterparts under Coast Guard leadership to identify, track and intercept special interest aliens with possible terrorist or affiliate ties before they arrive in the U.S. via maritime means.". As well as being a tool for 'intercepting persons deemed as threats' outside the United States, Admiral Allen noted the importance of Project Scorpion as part of the wider U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), pursuing the acquisition of data on the global environment which may have bearing on threats and vulnerabilities to U.S. ports.

Project Scorpion probable name for U.S. Coast Guard Deployable Operations Group (DOG)

In 2007, U.S. Coast Guard Deployable Operations Group (DOG) commenced with management of a single command authority to rapidly provide the Coast Guard, DHS, DoD, DoJ and other interagency operational commanders adaptive force packages drawn from the U.S. Coast Guard's deployable specialized force units. An MOU was signed between the Department of the Navy (DON) and U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) bringing the U.S. Coast Guard into the world of special operations and tactical command. It appears likely that the USCG DOG is the implementation of Project Scorpion.

Project Scorpion and U.S. Army Acquisitions, Research and Development

That Project Scorpion was used as an operational tool for moral combat against human beings. The program was approved for qualification testing in spring of 2010. The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Survivability Lethality Analysis Directorate lauded and awarded the project as an achieved "mobility kill". In "engagements against an approved threat target""XM1100 Scorpion Completes Successful End-to-End Live Fire Testing", Jan 2010, Project Manager Close Combat Systems (PM CCS), U.S. Army Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, http://www.pica.army.mil/pmccs/docs/Scorpion.pdf claimed that Project Scorpion was useful in urban (civilian) as well as active war domains.

References

Government

Programme Scorpion (France) French military acquisitions authority (DGA) - Official webpage

French military acquisitions programs run under Programme Scorpion - official webpage
*
NDIA 2009 Munitions Executive Summit

U.S. Naval acquisition authority for Project Scorpion (DTIC)
United States Army projects Military equipment of France

Origins

Project Scorpion as a joint-multinational experiment program

Project Scorpion in France

Project Scorpion in the United States

Project Scorpion and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence

Project Scorpion probable name for U.S. Coast Guard Deployable Operations Group (DOG)

Project Scorpion and U.S. Army Acquisitions, Research and Development

See also

References

Further reading

Project Scorpion in France

Project Scorpion in United States

Project Scorpion in Germany

Project Scorpion in Israel

Project Scorpion in United Kingdom

Government