“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?”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Autonomy changes everything about combat engineering
Sending robotic vehicles into the breach saves lives by removing humans from one of the most dangerous places on the battlefield.
PENTAGON: Of all the technologies and tactics that the defense secretary’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force has looked at, I asked one battle-hardened noncom here this morning, what’s the one thing you personally think has the most potential to save lives? His answer wasn’t a bigger gun or a new drone. Instead, Sgt. Major Jason…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
One variant, in Army colors, has missile racks sticking out of what was originally the passenger cabin — a conversion that units could potentially install or remove as needed in the field. The other, with Marine Corps markings, is a sleeker thoroughbred gunship with internal weapons bays, stealth features, and folding wings to fit in shipboard hangars.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The concepts the Warfighting Lab comes up with aren’t holy writ, but rather a baseline for young Marines to build on, “a point from which to deviate,” said Maj. J.B. Persons, a special projects officer at MCWL. “Give Marines new tools or toys, and they’ll surprise you every time.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
China’s increasingly aggressive rise puts the Pacific theater in play in a way it hasn’t been since 1945. In this essay, Singaporean scholar Ben Ho Wan Beng and retired US Marine Gary Lehmann look at what a critical but overlooked World War II battle has to tell us about the potential strengths — and weaknesses — of the Marine Corps’s new concept for waging the next Pacific war. — the editors
By Ben Ho Wan Beng and Gary Lehmann
The initial contract announced today was just $198 million for the first 30 vehicles, to be delivered by next fall, but Marines want to replace approximately 870 existing AAVs with better-protected, more mobile ACVs “as rapidly as we can,” which will take into “the mid to late ’20s.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
China and Russia are outmaneuvering the US, using aggressive actions that fall short of war, a group of generals and admirals have concluded. To counter them, the US needs new ways to use its military without shooting, concludes a newly released report on the Quantico conclave. The US military will need new legal authorities…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Capability exists to simulate the future of kill chains at theater scale
A tool to explore what-if scenarios and tradeoffs at the theater-level faster than traditional analysis.
WASHINGTON: The Senate Armed Services Committee has proposed the most sweeping reevaluation of the military in 30 years, with tough questions for all four armed services but especially the Marine Corps. While its provisions cover topics ranging from swarming robots to “construction and maintenance of public works in Cis-Lunar Space,” its overwhelming focus is reorienting…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Some Marine Corps units, but not all, will get extra training in large-scale combat as the Pentagon refocuses from counterinsurgency to great power conflict. While every Marine would have a role in a major war with Russia or China — the service isn’t big enough to leave anybody on…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Marines want new missiles for multiple missions: attacking enemy aircraft, ships at sea, and ground targets. But getting them on a tight budget will require working closely with the Army and Navy.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“There is a good chance… we’d lose the opening stages of this war,” said one speaker. “Parts of the Pacific, parts of Europe are probably going to be overrun before we can gather ourselves.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
It’s important to explore a wide range of options and not lock down requirements too early, Lt. Gen. Walsh said. (By contrast, FCS set precise objectives and only then looked to see if they were possible). “We’re trying to solve the problem of what is reconnaissance (and) counter-reconnaissance in the future,” he said, not simply replace an old vehicle with a new one.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“Everything that Marine wears — from their boots to their socks to their utilities to their helmet — is all going to be changed,” the Commandant said. “We’ve got money now to do that, and so we’ve got to make it happen now. We’ve got to make it happen now, because I’m not going to make the assumption that that money’s going to be there.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Marines are plenty happy about getting more money in 2018 and 2019, but are nervously eyeing the potential return of sequestration in 2020. And it’s influencing how the Corps is spending that money today.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
