Electronic Warfare Funding Up, But Short of DSB Marker
“We have not achieved $2.3 billion in budget growth,” Pentagon EW acquisitions director Bill Conley told me. "We are continuing to add investment (and) we are addressing the most pressing gaps."
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 […]
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Why enterprise IT modernization matters now – and how to “delight by design”
Do more with less: streamline workflows, reduce duplication, invest upfront to save long-term.
DoD AUDIT: Air Force Finds Mystery Motors, Other Highlights
After waiting almost three decades to audit itself, the Pentagon still failed miserably in its first attempt. Despite top officials brushing the failure off an an expected learning experience, real questions remain over whether it can fix itself.
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.
Marines Furiously Cutting Programs As Tighter Budgets Loom
As old programs go, the Corps is looking at new cyber capabilities and getting back into the air defense game.
F-35 Flights Suspended While F135 Fuel Tubes Checked; UK F-35Bs Keep Flying on HMS QE
UPDATED: Adds Rep. Turner Pledge To Hold HASC Hearings WASHINGTON: It may not last long, but the entire F-35 fleet — all versions from all countries — was just grounded “while the enterprise conducts a fleet-wide inspection of a fuel tube within the engine on all F-35 aircraft.” The British — clearly hungry to keep […]
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America must adopt a Sixth Domain of warfare doctrine
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.
Congress Traded Operations & Maintenance For Modernization In 19 Appropriations
Now that President Trump has signed the fiscal 2019 defense appropriations bill — marking the first time in nine years that defense is not bound by a Continuing Resolution — the broad trend was cuts to Operational and Maintenance (O&M) to fund Research, Development, Testing, & Engineering (RDT&E). The top line was consistent with the […]
Robot Aircraft For Robot Tanks: GD & AeroVironment Team Up
AUSA: The Marines want their Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle to carry a scout drone that can look for threats and target them with loitering strike missiles or drones. Now General Dynamics Land Systems and drone maker AeroVironment are teaming up to offer the same built-in drone for future Army vehicles. The two companies announced here today that they’ve […]
Lord OKs F-35 Operational Test And Evaluation
PENTAGON: It’s official — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will begin operational test and evaluation next month, marking one of the most significant transitions for the closely watched program. Next summer, presuming no show stoppers appear during OTE, the program will move to full production. “On October 2, 2018, Undersecretary of Defense Ellen Lord convened […]
SB>1 Defiant Will Be Worth The Wait: Sikorsky & Boeing
Sikorsky and Boeing are saying that their aircraft is taking longer than Bell's because their design is more inventive -- harder, riskier, and more time-consuming, yes, but ultimately better. In particular, while the SB>1 looks like it'll be a little slower than the V-280, going by the companies' projections for top speed, Sikorsky and Boeing say their machine will be much more maneuverable.
Breaking Defense announces Breaking Defense Europe, a new, distinct, European edition
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
F-35 LRIP 11 Signed: $89M For An F-35A, Including Engine — But SC Crash Casts Shadow
102 F-35As (Air Force) for $89.2 million apiece, down 5.4 percent from LRIP 10; 25 F-35Bs (Marines & Royal Navy) for $115.5 million each, down 5.7 percent; and 14 F-35Cs (US Navy) for $107.7 million each, down 11.1 percent.
F-35’s First Combat Strike Won’t End Debate
WASHINGTON: The first-ever real-world strike by an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a big symbolic moment, as the Pentagon is well aware. It’s also a milestone towards making the F-35 a close-support aircraft to bomb targets threatening US ground troops, replacing the beloved A-10 Warthog. That’s why the military not only had a press release […]
Mr. President, Leave Syria
No one knows precisely what happened inside the White House that resulted in President Trump’s sudden about-face on Syria. One day he was planning to extricate American ground troops from Syria; then he wasn't. Regardless, whoever is urging the president to leave a small contingent of 2,000 lightly armed soldiers and Marines in a remote corner of Syria is doing the president and the nation a grave disservice.
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 […]