‘Bob, How Do We Bottle This?’ Making Infantry As Good As Special Ops

‘Bob, How Do We Bottle This?’ Making Infantry As Good As Special Ops
‘Bob, How Do We Bottle This?’ Making Infantry As Good As Special Ops

Our elite close combat forces are outnumbered. As a national priority we must increase the numbers of those capable of doing these hazardous jobs by transferring the skills of JSOC warriors to Army and Marine conventional infantrymen.

Mattis’s Infantry Task Force: Righting ‘A Generational Wrong’

Mattis’s Infantry Task Force: Righting ‘A Generational Wrong’
Mattis’s Infantry Task Force: Righting ‘A Generational Wrong’

Retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales is the former commandant of the Army War College, a Vietnam veteran (and recipient of the Silver Star for valor) turned military historian and futurist. He’s also one of the fathers of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force to reform the infantry. In this op-ed, Scales goes…

Grunts To Get High-Tech Targeting Goggles In 2019

Grunts To Get High-Tech Targeting Goggles In 2019
Grunts To Get High-Tech Targeting Goggles In 2019

This kind of effort to get fighter-jock technology to ordinary grunts — who do most of the fighting and dying — has enjoyed some high-profile attention in the last 12 months. The efforts cover everything from developing a new, more powerful longer-range rifle to buying off-the-shelf quadcopters, from adding VR training simulations to eliminating tedious safety lectures.

Virtual Training Will Save Real Army Lives: Close Combat Task Force

Virtual Training Will Save Real Army Lives: Close Combat Task Force
Virtual Training Will Save Real Army Lives: Close Combat Task Force

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…

Smart Rifles For Foot Soldiers: Army NGSW Prototype Contracts Out In June

Smart Rifles For Foot Soldiers: Army NGSW Prototype Contracts Out In June
Smart Rifles For Foot Soldiers: Army NGSW Prototype Contracts Out In June

The Army is just weeks away from awarding contracts to begin buying prototypes of new infantry weapons, with live-fire tests next year.

Lockheed, Army To Test Exoskeleton In December

Lockheed, Army To Test Exoskeleton In December
Lockheed, Army To Test Exoskeleton In December

The Lockheed Martin ONYX doesn’t seem particularly high tech when it’s surrounded by displays of mini-drones, wheeled robots, and VR simulators here. But lean in close and listen as the soldier bends his knee.

HASC Endorses Mattis Infantry Task Force – With Some Suggestions

HASC Endorses Mattis Infantry Task Force – With Some Suggestions
HASC Endorses Mattis Infantry Task Force – With Some Suggestions

The amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act came from freshman Congressman Jimmy Panetta, son of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and a Navy Reserve veteran of Afghanistan.

Stop Wasting Infantry’s Time: Mattis Task Force

Stop Wasting Infantry’s Time: Mattis Task Force
Stop Wasting Infantry’s Time: Mattis Task Force

“All too often when we bring things up inside the Beltway, it immediately devolves to material and programs and technology,” said Scales. “What we hope comes out of this is not just new machines but new ways of thinking about warfare at the tactical level.”

Guns, Drones, & Augmented Reality: Army Seeks Infantry Revolution

Guns, Drones, & Augmented Reality: Army Seeks Infantry Revolution
Guns, Drones, & Augmented Reality: Army Seeks Infantry Revolution

The catch, of course, is that the Army’s tried to field all these things before — and failed. Why would things go any better this time around? Brig. Gen. Christopher Donahue has an answer for that.

War Games: Army Replacing 1980s Simulators With Gaming Tech

War Games: Army Replacing 1980s Simulators With Gaming Tech
War Games: Army Replacing 1980s Simulators With Gaming Tech

The first phase of the Synthetic Training Environment initiative replaces existing simulators for vehicles. The second phase aims to create — in just two years — something the Army’s never had before: an “immersive” virtual training environment for troops on foot.

Top Gun For Grunts: Mattis May Revolutionize Infantry

Top Gun For Grunts: Mattis May Revolutionize Infantry
Top Gun For Grunts: Mattis May Revolutionize Infantry

“To get a quantum increase in the quality of close combat forces, we can do it in the next two years, (and) the cost compared to the rest of the DoD budget is very small,” said retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who chairs the advisory board for Secretary Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force.

Batteries, Bullets, & Drones: Commandant’s Wishlist For Infantry Task Force

Batteries, Bullets, & Drones: Commandant’s Wishlist For Infantry Task Force
Batteries, Bullets, & Drones: Commandant’s Wishlist For Infantry Task Force

What’s the one technology the Marine Corps Commandant wants more than any other for his riflemen? It wasn’t an amphibious vehicle, more JLTVs, a new rifle or friggin’ lasers. It is “a smart way to recharge batteries,” Gen. Robert Neller told reporters.

Mattis Upguns Infantry: Task Force To Invest Over $1B

Mattis Upguns Infantry: Task Force To Invest Over $1B
Mattis Upguns Infantry: Task Force To Invest Over $1B

PENTAGON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps rifle platoon leader, wants better technology and training to keep frontline foot troops alive. He sent a Feb. 8 memo (below) to the Joint Chiefs, service chiefs, combatant commanders, and other top officials to create a Close Combat Lethality Task Force, applying the kind of top-level…