Bradley Replacement: Did Army Ask For ‘Unobtainium’?

Bradley Replacement: Did Army Ask For ‘Unobtainium’?
Bradley Replacement: Did Army Ask For ‘Unobtainium’?

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?

Will Milley Replace The Abrams Tank? Futures Command Advances

Will Milley Replace The Abrams Tank? Futures Command Advances
Will Milley Replace The Abrams Tank? Futures Command Advances

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.

Army Wants Armed Ground Robot Prototype by 2019

Army Wants Armed Ground Robot Prototype by 2019
Army Wants Armed Ground Robot Prototype by 2019

The new combat vehicles must be “optimized for fighting in dense urban terrain.” Fighting in narrow streets, in turn, requires smaller vehicles than the massive M1 — and one way to reduce weight is to take the humans out.

Milley’s Future Tank: Railguns, Robotics & Ultra-Light Armor

Milley’s Future Tank: Railguns, Robotics & Ultra-Light Armor
Milley’s Future Tank: Railguns, Robotics & Ultra-Light Armor

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The tank is far from obsolete and the US will need a new armored vehicle to replace its 1980-vintage M1 Abrams, the Army Chief of Staff said here this afternoon. But what kind of tank, on what kind of timeline? Gen. Mark Milley made clear he was looking for a “breakthrough,” not…

Tank 2022: Demos & Decisions For Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle

Tank 2022: Demos & Decisions For Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle
Tank 2022: Demos & Decisions For Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: The year of decision for the Army’s nascent Next Generation Combat Vehicle will be 2022. That’s when “at least two” NGCV demonstrators get field-tested by real troops, officials told the Association of the US Army conference here today. What the soldiers learn will then help Army leaders’ decide whether to fund a full-up program to…

The Long Road To Army’s Next-Gen Combat Vehicle

The Long Road To Army’s Next-Gen Combat Vehicle
The Long Road To Army’s Next-Gen Combat Vehicle

  ARLINGTON: Two years after the demoralizing cancellation of the Ground Combat Vehicle, the Army is rallying round a new vision for its future armored force. That vision has come into sharper focus just in the last few months, armor leaders said Tuesday. Facing a rising Russia with an aging American arsenal, the Army will…

Army Armor Modernizes In Slow Motion

Army Armor Modernizes In Slow Motion
Army Armor Modernizes In Slow Motion

WASHINGTON: The US Army is deploying extra stocks of heavy weapons to Europe to deter Russia’s increasingly naked aggression. These are the most advanced ground weapons America can field — but the tanks and other heavy fighting vehicles in this buildup are the same ones we had the last time the Russians were a danger, back when…

Army To Congress: We Are Fixing Acquisition

Army To Congress: We Are Fixing Acquisition
Army To Congress: We Are Fixing Acquisition

WASHINGTON: The top question on defense lawmakers’ minds right now is: “Can we trust you with the people’s money?” And no large military organization has a worse record in that respect than the US Army, with its unhappy track record of canceled programs and wasted billions dating to before 9/11. It’s such a sensitive and high-stakes question that, when I started to ask Army…

Shyu On GCV, Upgrades, Sequestration; US ‘Overmatch’ At Stake

Shyu On GCV, Upgrades, Sequestration; US ‘Overmatch’ At Stake
Shyu On GCV, Upgrades, Sequestration; US ‘Overmatch’ At Stake

AUSA: The Honorable Shyu, as everyone in the military calls the head of Army acquisition, is often bright, humorous and insightful. Today, she got passionate in public, clearly frustrated at the painful limits that the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration have forced her to adopt. American military power has traditionally rested on technological overmatch. We…

Tank Goodness: Armor Programs Will Recover Despite GCV Kill, Sequester

Tank Goodness: Armor Programs Will Recover Despite GCV Kill, Sequester
Tank Goodness: Armor Programs Will Recover Despite GCV Kill, Sequester

Sometimes dark clouds really do have silver linings. The winding down of two wars and the automatic spending cuts called sequestration have been brutal for the Army budget. The service recently had to cancel its top-priority weapons program, the tank-like Ground Combat Vehicle. But even if sequestration continues, said one leading analyst, ground vehicle spending…

Shyu Sings The Army Electric: 2015 Budget Sacrifices Weapons For Electronics

Shyu Sings The Army Electric: 2015 Budget Sacrifices Weapons For Electronics
Shyu Sings The Army Electric: 2015 Budget Sacrifices Weapons For Electronics

UPDATED 2:00 pm Tuesday with detailed 2015 budget figures WASHINGTON: The 2015 budget effectively kills the Army’s top priority weapons program, the 60-plus-ton Ground Combat Vehicle — as we’ve been predicting since November — but GCV did not die in vain, the Army’s acquisition chief insists. “We sacrificed the GCV” to save programs upgrading electronics…

Uparmored Bradley Could Be Tough Enough For AMPV: Testers

Uparmored Bradley Could Be Tough Enough For AMPV: Testers
Uparmored Bradley Could Be Tough Enough For AMPV: Testers

Massive government documents typically hide some gold nuggets of information. In today’s report from the Pentagon’s independent Director of Operational Test & Evaluation, a famously tough grader known as DOT&E, there’s one detail that is going to make defense contractor BAE Systems very happy: “Results from the third underbody blast test also demonstrate that the…

Bird Dogs & Drones, Terminators & Swarms: The Race Towards Robotic Warfare

Bird Dogs & Drones, Terminators & Swarms: The Race Towards Robotic Warfare
Bird Dogs & Drones, Terminators & Swarms: The Race Towards Robotic Warfare

More robots, fewer people. That’s where the US military is headed in the future. But what kind of robots? Army Gen. Robert Cone, four-star commander of the powerful Training and Doctrine Command (aka TRADOC), said that the service is studying how robots could help replace 25 percent of the soldiers in each of its 4,000-strong combat brigades. That’s because the…

BAE, GD: We Can Cut Weight From Army’s GCV

BAE, GD: We Can Cut Weight From Army’s GCV
BAE, GD: We Can Cut Weight From Army’s GCV

As storm clouds loom over the Army’s controversial Ground Combat Vehicle, both contractors competing for GCV say they’re focused on completing the program of record still on the books. But if the Army slows the program down — a near-certainty at this point — both BAE Systems and General Dynamics told me they are ready to adapt. In…