UPDATED: To add comment from former SecAF Heather Wilson and HASC Chair Adam Smith. WASHINGTON: Frank Kendall has a reputation as a tough nut — having wrestled to the ground any number of messy DoD programs when he led the Obama Pentagon’s acquisition shop — including the troubled OCX operating system for GPS, and the…
By Theresa HitchensWeapons and radars built with modular design are relevant and flexible as threats evolve
Next-generation modular radars and new composable weapon capabilities solve a critical problem for the U.S. and allied militaries.
“It comes down to data standards and it comes down to architecture. How does the Air Force architecture integrate with the Army architecture and with the Navy architecture? What are those crossover points?”
By Theresa Hitchens
“Decision dominance … is the ability for a commander to sense, understand, decide, act, and assess faster and more effectively than any adversary,” said Army Futures Command chief Gen. John “Mike” Murray.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
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.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The ongoing reboot of the Bradley replacement program reminds many in Congress and industry of the disastrous Future Combat Systems. The Army has changed a lot since FCS – but has it changed enough?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The reboot of the Bradley replacement reminded many on the Hill of past procurement disasters like the Future Combat System. Can the Army exorcise the specter of FCS?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
General Dynamics’ cancelled OMFV prototype could only meet the requirement for armor protection by growing too heavy to meet the requirement for air transport, sources say. So which will the Army give up?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Display screens are the eyes for maneuver forces needing to command and control
The Army is upfitting vehicles with big 24 or 32-inch displays that present multiple sources of data for a full operational picture.
The Army must take risks to modernize, the Futures Command chief said, and the modernization effort will survive the inevitable failures along the way.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
All told, the Army’s investing $57 billion in modernization over five years — but it wants to take time to test new technologies before it commits to them.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The actual Robotic Combat Vehicle that gets mass-produced and fielded by 2028 will be an all-new design, not a converted M113. But why wait for someone to design and build the perfect hardware, when you can start testing the software and the tactics on something cheaply available today?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“There are ways to be innovative in the Army,” retired Lt. Gen. Tom Spoehr said. But you have to protect the innovators from the institutional culture of the Pentagon: “You can send them someplace else, like Austin.”
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.
Army Futures Command is just a means to an end: modernizing the Army for high-intensity war against Russia or China. That includes replacing the iconic but aging M1 Abrams main battle tank, as well as other war machines, with an all-new Next Generation Combat Vehicle optimized for urban warfare, Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The last time the US Army tried to modernize it spent $20 billion buying the Future Combat System, which was cancelled as it foundered. Is the Army repeating the same mistakes with its Big Six?
By Doug Macgregor