Which Depots Can Army Modernize?
“There’s going to be winners and losers,” Gen. Ed Daly told us. “[But] this transition… is not code for ‘reducing the workforce.’”
Army Ammo Plants At ‘The End Of The Rope’: Jette
The Army can’t keep modernizing around the edges at its World War II-era ammunition plants, Assistant Secretary Bruce Jette said: It has to “transform” them. The detailed plan -- and cost -- are TBD.
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Turning R&D into reality to meet the challenges of the modern battlefield
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
Replacing Spatulas With Robots At Army Ammo Plants
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.
AI To Fly In Dogfight Tests By 2024: SecDef
After an AI beat humans 5-0 in AlphaDogfight simulations this summer, Mark Esper announced, a future version will be installed in actual airplanes for “a real-world competition.” But military AI will adhere to strict ethical limits, he said.
Contractors Recovering From COVID Shutdowns: Bruce Jette
While the pandemic continues, Pentagon metrics show production on Army programs is returning to normal, the Army’s acquisition chief told Breaking Defense.
AI, Initiative, & Lots Of Smart Bombs: Gen. Perna On Supplying Major Wars
The massive Army Materiel Command needs to get a lot lighter on its feet for future conflicts, its four-star chief says.
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Keeping sensitive information safe in a new AI era
Why edge and endpoint security can’t be an afterthought.
Cyber Force Fights Training Shortfalls: NSA, IONs, & RIOT
CAPITOL HILL: The military’s new cyberspace force is working to overcome recruiting and retention shortfalls, training bottlenecks, and its dependence on the National Security Agency, officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. These devils in the details are an inevitable part of standing up a new kind of force for a new kind of […]
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How To Recruit Young Cyber Warriors When There Aren’t Enough
COLORADO SPRINGS: One topic dominates just about every conversation here at the AFCEA cyber symposium: where to find promising cyber warriors and how to hire them and keep them. Deloitte, which is building a substantial cyber warfare portfolio, put on a Capture the Flag game where five teams of college hackers had to find code […]
Army Cyber Accelerates; Electronic Warfare Lags
PENTAGON: The Army is ahead of schedule building cyber teams — but its equally essential electronic warfare branch is lagging badly. Like a fiddler crab, one arm is much more developed than the other. While effective in the current fight against Daesh (aka ISIL), this unbalanced force would be at a severe disadvantage in future Multi-Domain Battles […]
Open DoD’s Doors To Cyber Talent, Carter Asks Congress
UPDATE with Hill reaction WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter today asked Congress to help the Pentagon’s quest for talent in specialized areas such as cyber warfare. Among many other reforms, this latest iteration of Carter’s “Force of the Future” initiative requests changes to existing law to: None of these ideas is new, and none is as radical […]
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Next-generation C2 won’t be next-gen without the network transport
The network transport architecture for NGC2 could be a hybrid approach that combines high assurance communications with 5G, WiFi, and multi-orbit satellites.
Too Much To Be Thankful For
Never have so many been so thankful to so few for so long. America has been at war now for 14 years, two months, and 14 days. Nor is there any end in sight to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines eating their Thanksgiving dinners in dusty outposts far from home. We are thankful for their […]
More Ships Can’t Save Overworked Navy; Basing Ships Abroad Can: CSBA
CAPITOL HILL: The Navy and Marines are deploying at a pace they can’t sustain, says a report released today.And no feasible defense budget can build a big enough force to solve the problem, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says. Even the Navy’s famously optimistic 30-year shipbuilding plan — denounced by House seapower chairman Randy […]
Top 25 Cuts To NDAA: $5B In Fuel, People, Readiness, & Weapons Detailed
WASHINGTON: The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have found the $5 billion in cuts required under the budget deal. As HASC chairman Mac Thornberry promised, some of them are painful. The committees released the detailed list Tuesday after close of business, formatted into categories only a legislative aide could love, such as “Increases to […]
Army Briefs Hill On Civilian Cuts; Methods But No Numbers
WASHINGTON: The Army has another 40,000 troops to cut, but how many of the civilians who support them will have to go? The answer to that is actually getting more uncertain. In July, the service reported to Congress that “total Army-wide civilian reductions through FY19 are expected to be ~17,000.” The more the service wrestles […]