RDECOM

Army Adapts Aircraft EW To Protect Tanks: BAE RAVEN

Will high-tech hardware developed to protect aircraft translate to the mud and dust of ground combat?

Army Picks BAE Jammer To Kill Russian Missiles (Softly)

If RAVEN succeeds in the next, more challenging round of tests, the BAE jammer will ultimately go on the 1980s-vintage M2 Bradley. That's a big part of the Army’s urgent push to protect American armored vehicles against Russian-made anti-tank missiles in widespread use around the world.

Army R&D Chief: ‘I Don’t Think We Went Far Enough’ – But Futures Command Can

For Maj. Gen. Cedric Wins, when the organization he’s led for 31 months changed its name, its mission, and the four-star headquarters it works for, it finally found the answer to a question it – and the entire Army – have been struggling with for at least 16 years.

Army Completes Biggest Reorg In 45 Years: Can Futures Command End Weapons Disasters?

"Ultimately that is what this is all about, why I get up every morning, that’s why AFC exists: to make sure, not today’s soldier, but our kids and our grandkids have the core concepts, the organizational structures, and the capabilities they need to fight and win on a future battlefield," Gen. Murray said, "or even better yet not to fight at all, because there is nobody in the world in the future that would ever take on the United States in ground combat, because we have done our job so well."

US Army’s Brain Transplant: Futurists Move To Futures Command

“We’ve done concepts for many years and, frankly, the Army hasn’t changed much,” admitted the three-star chief of the Army’s in-house think tank on future war. But on Friday, when the Army officially put its futurists under the same roof as its scientists, engineers, and program managers, the notoriously hidebound service aimed to break down the barrier between thinking about the future force and building it.

Army Futures Command Wants YOU (To Innovate)

“I get really irritated when I’m in the audience and I hear ‘startup, startup, startup,'” Army Futures Command's chief innovation officer said this morning at the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). “Startups are not the only source of ideas."

Futures Command Won’t Hurt Oversight, Army Tells Congress

The Army believes it has all the legal authorities it needs to reform. Now it just has to make the reform work.

Army Futures Command: $100M, 500 Staff, & Access To Top Leaders

“CFTs (Cross Functional Teams) and Army Futures Command will always have a place on my schedule and the chief’s schedule," Esper said. Over time, he said, "it becomes a routine… the expectation not just for AFC and the CFTs, but for future service secretaries and future chiefs of staff."

Can Army Futures Command Overcome Decades Of Dysfunction?

"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."

Army Rejects Iron Curtain APS For Stryker, Launches New Programs

By 2022, the service plans to field new advanced reactive armor tiles to neutralize incoming warheads, a laser early warning system to warn crews they're being targeted, and a signature management effort to avoid detection in the first place.

Army Outlines Futures Command; Org Chart In Flux

"If you start a process with an org chart, you’re toast," Army Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy said. "Focus on what you want to achieve."

Milley Announces Biggest Buying Shift In 40 Years: Army Will Get Weapons The SOCOM Way

AUSA: The Army will start buying weapons the way Special Operations does, Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley told reporters here, bringing different specialists together in one streamlined team. The often-insular Army is also studying the other services, Milley said, particularly the rapid development of the nuclear Navy under legendary Adm. Hyman Rickover. A three-star […]

Rebuilding Army Acquisition For Multi-Domain Battle

  Plagued by bureaucracy, budget cuts and canceled programs, the US Army is aggressively trying to improve how and what it buys by better collaborating with industry to innovate instead of evolving. A few simple changes to our current methods could have tremendous impacts on our ability to innovate and meet future challenges. A key could […]

Tiny Drones Win Over Army Grunts; Big Bots? Not So Much

Tiny drones, no bigger than your palm, were the big stars of an Army experiment in Hawaii, participants told Breaking Defense. Larger ground robots, however, struggled in the jungle. Staff Sergeant James Roe told me he was “blown away” by the PD-100 Black Hornet, a commercially available mini-drone used in PACMAN-I (Pacific Manned-Unmanned Initiative, part of […]