The Army has sent lawmakers a $2.2 billion unfunded priority list for FY25, while US Central Command says it would happily funnel an additional $450 million towards regional security.
Meanwhile, the Air Force’s Vice Chief of Staff Gen James Slife said his service has several “compelling programs in the pipeline” but they are “not quite as technologically mature as some of the Army programs.”
If lawmakers could free up $250 million in the FY25 budget, the service could use that to purchase two additional CH-53K helicopters, or $341 million could be used for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle 30mm Cannon (ACV-30) line.
US Indo-Pacific Command’s $11 billion unfunded priority list includes 44 programs, from missiles to maritime mines.
The service wants to begin a new Multi-Domain Artillery Cannon System prototyping initiative, to slow down PrSM Inc 2 production and to launch IVAS Next.
“There’s no way we go into a large-scale fight without relying on allies and partners for supply chain airfields [and ports]. We've identified [those], you know, down to every airfield and port there is,” said Army Materiel Command head Gen. Charles Hamilton. “Have we done the same thing here in the United States?"
"Ukraine is not running out of courage and tenacity: They're running out of ammunition, and we're running out of time to help them," said CIA director William Burns.
“There was a debate which ... about so-called ‘reveal, conceal’ [and] how much detail we want to put out,” said Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller Mike McCord. "We're sort of leaning on the side of not disclosing the details..."
The Extended Range Cannon Artillery (ERCA) platform joins the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) on the budget cutting room floor for America's largest service.
“We kind of depend on having [that] ‘24 bill finish and finish in a way that looks a lot like what we asked for. Otherwise, we're going to have to go back to the drawing board on a couple of fronts,” said a senior defense official.
In the meantime, the service anticipates the return of delayed Dark Eagle hypersonic testing this summer, acquisition chief Doug Bush said.
"Mechanical issues" sidelined the Army from debuting its new Maneuver Support Vessel-Light at this year’s experiment, while the USMC tested out the Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel and a stern landing vessel concept design.
The Army’s new Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus recently sat down with Breaking Defense to discuss a few of his priorities that include network changes to include transitioning from a ‘C2 Fix’ to ‘C2 Next.’
“Is it 100 percent ready? Is it going to work perfectly? Probably not but we're going to learn from it,” Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus told Breaking Defense.
“We are transforming our force structure, we are transforming our weapons systems through our modernization programs and what we've done, through the force structure changes, is make room for some new formations,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.