GE’s ITEP Win & The Army’s Inch-By-Inch Revolution

GE’s ITEP Win & The Army’s Inch-By-Inch Revolution
GE’s ITEP Win & The Army’s Inch-By-Inch Revolution

Having wasted tens of billions and almost 30 years since the end of the Cold War, the Army is out of time. But after decades of incremental improvements, its existing weapons — including the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that GE’s new engine will upgrade – are overweight, underpowered, and running out of room to grow. Meanwhile, the Army’s attempts at a high-tech great leap forward kept getting cancelled as unaffordable, unfeasible, or both.

SB>1 Revs Up In Ground Test: Expert Expects First Flight ‘In Weeks’

SB>1 Revs Up In Ground Test: Expert Expects First Flight ‘In Weeks’
SB>1 Revs Up In Ground Test: Expert Expects First Flight ‘In Weeks’

“Now that they’ve completed the initial ground run, the team can finish its work to clear the aircraft for first flight,” said Mike Hirschberg, executive director of the Vertical Flight Society. “Assuming the Defiant team doesn’t find anything noteworthy from its ground testing, it should be up in the air in the next few weeks.”

Army Completes Biggest Reorg In 45 Years: Can Futures Command End Weapons Disasters?

Army Completes Biggest Reorg In 45 Years: Can Futures Command End Weapons Disasters?
Army Completes Biggest Reorg In 45 Years: Can Futures Command End Weapons Disasters?

“Ultimately that is what this is all about, why I get up every morning, that’s why AFC exists: to make sure, not today’s soldier, but our kids and our grandkids have the core concepts, the organizational structures, and the capabilities they need to fight and win on a future battlefield,” Gen. Murray said, “or even better yet not to fight at all, because there is nobody in the world in the future that would ever take on the United States in ground combat, because we have done our job so well.”

Army Secretary Says Talent Reform Is Top Priority For 2020

Army Secretary Says Talent Reform Is Top Priority For 2020
Army Secretary Says Talent Reform Is Top Priority For 2020

Three major lines of effort will converge circa 2024, when a new breed of troops will man new kinds of combat units equipped with new technologies: talent & training, concepts & units, and money & modernization.

Bell V-280 Flies 322 MPH: Army Secretary Praises Program

Bell V-280 Flies 322 MPH: Army Secretary Praises Program
Bell V-280 Flies 322 MPH: Army Secretary Praises Program

“Our new approach is really to prototype as much as we can to help us identify requirements, so our reach doesn’t exceed our grasp,” Secretary Esper said. “A good example is Future Vertical Lift: The prototyping has been exceptional.”

Hack, Jam, Sense & Shoot: Army Creates 1st Multi-Domain Unit

Hack, Jam, Sense & Shoot: Army Creates 1st Multi-Domain Unit
Hack, Jam, Sense & Shoot: Army Creates 1st Multi-Domain Unit

A new Army unit will hack and jam enemy networks and provide targeting data for both long-range missiles and missile defense.

Trump’s Pick For Joint Chiefs Praises Allies, Kurds & Mattis Strategy

Trump’s Pick For Joint Chiefs Praises Allies, Kurds & Mattis Strategy
Trump’s Pick For Joint Chiefs Praises Allies, Kurds & Mattis Strategy

“The Army has aligned itself with Secretary Mattis’s National Defense Strategy, which we will not walk away from,” Gen. Milley told an Association of the US Army breakfast. “It’s a solid strategy, it’s written in history, it’s written in the blood of generations past, and we subscribe to it.” And allies are key to the strategy.

12 Moments Of Truth For Army Modernization In 2019

12 Moments Of Truth For Army Modernization In 2019
12 Moments Of Truth For Army Modernization In 2019

WASHINGTON: At least a dozen major Army weapons programs face big decisions in 2019. The service will launch a competition for new armored vehicles; award development contracts for scout aircraft and helicopter engines; conduct key tests of long-range missiles, anti-aircraft defenses, rifles, targeting goggles, and multiple battlefield networks; and field new electronics for command posts.

Services Wargaming Multi-Domain Consensus: Army 3-Star Futurist

Services Wargaming Multi-Domain Consensus: Army 3-Star Futurist
Services Wargaming Multi-Domain Consensus: Army 3-Star Futurist

“All the services understand the need to move to Multi-Domain Operations,” Lt. Gen. Wesley said. “Second, we all agree that MDC2 [Multi-Domain Command & Control] is the most important joint problem that we have to solve. After that, the specifics of how you conduct MDO – that’s where the variance is that we’ve got to converge on.”

Defiant Gets Real: Sikorsky & Boeing Unveil SB>1 Super Chopper

Defiant Gets Real: Sikorsky & Boeing Unveil SB>1 Super Chopper
Defiant Gets Real: Sikorsky & Boeing Unveil SB>1 Super Chopper

After years of secrecy and CGI, we’re finally getting to see the Sikorsky-Boeing dream team’s SB>1 Defiant ultra-high-speed helicopter in real life. Now they just have to prove it works.

Bell V-280 Valor: Anniversary Tour?

Bell V-280 Valor: Anniversary Tour?
Bell V-280 Valor: Anniversary Tour?

“We … are looking at opportunities to do a road trip,” Bell executive Keith Flail told me. “Can we take the V-280 to a handful of key Army and Marine Corps installations to show capabilities to the force?”

Army Picks BAE, GD For MPF Light Tank Prototypes: Upstart SAIC Is Out

Army Picks BAE, GD For MPF Light Tank Prototypes: Upstart SAIC Is Out
Army Picks BAE, GD For MPF Light Tank Prototypes: Upstart SAIC Is Out

Yes, MPF is much lighter and less heavily armored than the M1 Abrams or even Russian tanks like the T-90. But MPF is going to light infantry units that currently have no armored vehicles at all, just a handful of Humvees, towed M777 howitzers, and whatever weapons the men can carry on their backs.

Future Vertical Lift: SB>1 Defiant Flight Delayed Until Early 2019

Future Vertical Lift: SB>1 Defiant Flight Delayed Until Early 2019
Future Vertical Lift: SB>1 Defiant Flight Delayed Until Early 2019

While Bell’s rival V-280 uses tiltrotor technology, proven in widespread service on the V-22 Osprey since 2007, the Defiant uses Sikorsky’s revolutionary compound helicopter technology, which promises superior agility — but which has only actually flown in two experimental aircraft, the X2 and S-97 Raider, both of which are much smaller than Defiant.

US Army’s Brain Transplant: Futurists Move To Futures Command

US Army’s Brain Transplant: Futurists Move To Futures Command
US Army’s Brain Transplant: Futurists Move To Futures Command

“We’ve done concepts for many years and, frankly, the Army hasn’t changed much,” admitted the three-star chief of the Army’s in-house think tank on future war. But on Friday, when the Army officially put its futurists under the same roof as its scientists, engineers, and program managers, the notoriously hidebound service aimed to break down the barrier between thinking about the future force and building it.