"It comes down to data standards and it comes down to architecture. How does the Air Force architecture integrate with the Army architecture and with the Navy architecture? What are those crossover points?"
“There are a lot of differences between the FCS experience and the path we're on,” the Army Futures Command chief told us. This time, he said, “I don't think there is hubris. I think there's actually humility.”
The GPS network continues to prove its unmatched reliability, and it’s only getting stronger.
Each service has unique problems to solve and billions invested in legacy systems. "I just can't throw away everything we own -- nor can the Air Force -- and start over," Gen. Mike Murray, head of Army Futures Command, says. "How does the Air Force architecture integrate with the Army architecture, with the Navy architecture?"
“Decision dominance … is the ability for a commander to sense, understand, decide, act, and assess faster and more effectively than any adversary,” said Army Futures Command chief Gen. John “Mike” Murray.
New technologies and organizations will give soldiers an edge, Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe said, but tanks and foot troops will still face brutal close combat.
The ongoing reboot of the Bradley replacement program reminds many in Congress and industry of the disastrous Future Combat Systems. The Army has changed a lot since FCS – but has it changed enough?
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
The reboot of the Bradley replacement reminded many on the Hill of past procurement disasters like the Future Combat System. Can the Army exorcise the specter of FCS?
General Dynamics’ cancelled OMFV prototype could only meet the requirement for armor protection by growing too heavy to meet the requirement for air transport, sources say. So which will the Army give up?
The Army must take risks to modernize, the Futures Command chief said, and the modernization effort will survive the inevitable failures along the way.
All told, the Army's investing $57 billion in modernization over five years -- but it wants to take time to test new technologies before it commits to them.
Reducing cognitive overload on warfighters while improving “time to trust” for autonomous systems is a matter of design.
The actual Robotic Combat Vehicle that gets mass-produced and fielded by 2028 will be an all-new design, not a converted M113. But why wait for someone to design and build the perfect hardware, when you can start testing the software and the tactics on something cheaply available today?
"There are ways to be innovative in the Army," retired Lt. Gen. Tom Spoehr said. But you have to protect the innovators from the institutional culture of the Pentagon: "You can send them someplace else, like Austin."
Army Futures Command will not become a comfortable resting place for platoons of old generals. Rather, I think the secretary and the chief expect Futures Command to be the engine of innovation for the Army.
“I know that I have good numbers in '18. I think if the budget agreement holds, we’ll have good numbers in ’19. I cannot predict the future," Sec. Esper said. "What’s in my control to lay out the clearest possible vision of what the Army of 2028 should look like."