"All of these parochial interests and all of these lobbyists that crawl around this building and crawl around Congress, they have succeeded for far too long, and so the first thing is, we are going to start to cut the things we don't want or need," Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll told reporters.
Moving masses of military materiel requires managing masses of data, from automated Pentagon logistics feeds to late-night Signal chats with Ukrainian officers. Army Materiel Command’s latest digital tracking tool: blockchain.
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
“There’s no way we go into a large-scale fight without relying on allies and partners for supply chain airfields [and ports]. We've identified [those], you know, down to every airfield and port there is,” said Army Materiel Command head Gen. Charles Hamilton. “Have we done the same thing here in the United States?"
“Think about Ukraine as an island... we are not allowed to cross the border,” Army Materiel Command’s deputy Lt. Gen. Christopher Mohan told Breaking Defense.
As the Army charges ahead with its signature modernization programs, Army Materiel Command is about to kick off its own sprawling plan to upgrade its facilities that will sustain the new equipment.
A new directive from Army leadership shifts some acquisition authority from Army Futures Command in order to clear up "ambiguity" about roles, a service spokesperson said.
As threats rapidly evolve, digital engineering, manufacturing capacity and robust supply chains are critical to meeting challenges.
The strategy will tackle facility modernization, supply chain vulnerabilities and workforce.
“After 20 years of war, we have a tremendous amount of excess,” said Maj. Gen. Chris Mohan, commanding general of Army Sustainment Command.
“There’s going to be winners and losers,” Gen. Ed Daly told us. “[But] this transition… is not code for ‘reducing the workforce.’”
In future wars, AI, networks, and analytics won’t just help target precision weapons: They can also liberate combat units from long and vulnerable supply lines. But to make that work, AMC commander Gen. Ed Daly told us, frontline troops need a constant flow of data.
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
Before you can 3D print a part, you need a detailed 3D model of it. So Army Material Command is figuring out how to scan tens of thousands of parts. One method: pull apart an entire helicopter.
A worker died in 2017 scooping up explosive tetrazene by hand with a spatula. The Army and Congress agree an upgrade is long overdue — but it won't be cheap.
“This was a tough decision,” association president Carter Ham told Breaking Defense, but with over 6,000 people expected to gather in close quarters, “I am confident this is the right decision.”
To deter Russia and China, the Army is building new prepositioned equipment sets for Europe and studying new stockpiles for the Pacific.