“All too often,” the enemy in training scenarios is “two guys… with AK-47s and then another guy with an RPG,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe says. “That’s not the threat we need to be training our force against today.”
The deadline for industry to submit proposals is May 5. The AI, networking, and robotics experiment, which had been postponed by COVID, will be part of the Project Convergence wargames in 2022.
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
“Shadow could never fly in this type of moisture, couldn’t even come close,” Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen said, but all four FTUAS candidates made it through the rain. The formal Army Requirements Oversight Council process begins in weeks.
In wargames at Fort Benning, troops used radio sensors to detect “enemy” forces long before patrols stumbled across them.
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 militarized Microsoft HoloLens headset was designed to spot targets day and night on future battlefields. Then engineers tweaked its infrared sensors to detect fevers.
AI, autonomous systems, cyber, and EW converge as industry targets faster battlefield effects.
Training bases are now taking new recruits after a two-week pause. “We have enough test kits” for all of them and their instructors, Gen. Paul Funk said.
US and UK soldiers tried out the Israeli-made Safe Shoot in field exercise at Fort Benning. The results were… mixed.
A simulated infantry platoon, reinforced with drones and ground robots, repeatedly routed defending forces three times its size — without losing a single human soldier. Would this work in real life?
In a massive simulated conflict, the human players adapted rapidly to futuristic technologies and tactics. But their command-and-control software couldn't keep up.
The Sixth Domain is not defined by geography. It’s a new kind of conflict in which autonomy and networked systems allow thousand-dollar consumer electronics to destroy multi-million-dollar conventional weapons systems.
Innovators! You have until Aug. 23 to submit white papers on how to make the future infantry squad “10 times more effective.”
Ground robots still lag drones, but the Army thinks both technologies are ready to field to frontline units, just at different levels.
"Recent guidance from Army senior leadership has us looking at, emphasizing, Bradley replacement," Miller told reporters in a conference call. "What we have now done is moved to accelerate our optionally manned fighting vehicle, the Bradley replacement, and we want to be able to focus on that."
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.