science and technology

Hypersonics: 5 More Army-Navy Flight Tests By 2023

The first four flight tests – one a failure -- took nine years. The next five will take less than three years.

EXCLUSIVE DoD Seeks $2.9B For Hypersonics In 2021

While Army and Navy spending nearly double, Air Force and independent agency spending drops almost 40 percent.

Army Ramps Up Funding For Laser Shield, Hypersonic Sword

Research and development spending on hypersonics will nearly double in ‘21, and it will triple for lasers, as the service rushes to deploy combat-ready prototypes.

Carbon Nanotubes & Quantum Dots: Army Thinks VERY Small

Some 80 percent of Army science funding supports the service's Big Six modernization drive — but the 20 percent left for long-term basic research could transform military and civilian electronics.

Air Force Unveils S & T Strategy to Confound China, Russia

Air Force wants China and that other, much poorer competitor known as Russia, to worry the US is in the early stages of fielding weapons systems that will tip the strategic see-saw to the American side. As outgoing Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson made clear here today, it is, in part, a cost-imposition strategy.

Lasers: Beyond The Power Problem

Miitary lasers are getting more and more powerful, fast. But raw power isn't all you need for a workable weapon.

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.

DARPA, Army & Team Platypus: Big Boosts For Artificial Intelligence

The near-term payoff for military AI isn't replacing human soldiers in the physical world, but empowering them to understand the world of radio waves. That's an invisible battlefield which Russia's powerful electronic warfare corps is poised to dominate in a future war, unless the US can catch up.

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."

EXCLUSIVE — Army Moves $$ To Modernization To Cross Valley Of Death

“'20 and '21 is where we need to make sure we don’t kind of hit turbulence," McCarthy said. “The budget deal was great -- we had an enormous increase, and we’re grateful for that -- but this (sequestration) still looms."

DoD Breakfast Club: Service Secretaries Coordinate R&D Spending

“We’ve started getting together for breakfast every week or two,” said Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, “just the three of us. It’s absolutely terrifying the staffs.”

DoD Boosts Hypersonics 136 % In 2019: DARPA

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will ramp up research on hypersonic weapons with a stunning 136 percent increase in the 2019 budget request. Here’s the breakdown of the $257 million: $139.4 million, the lion’s share, goes to the Air Force-DARPA collaboration on rocket-propelled hypersonics, Tactical Boost Glide (TBG), which will produce an “operational prototype” by 2023; $14.3 […]

Army Hopes For $6.8B From FY18 Budget Deal: 70% For Modernization

UPDATED: Adds SecArmy Esper Roundtable PENTAGON: The figures aren’t final, but the Army hopes to get about $6.8 billion in additional funding for fiscal year 2018 thanks to the recently concluded budget deal, Army Secretary Mark Esper said this morning. The service’s new plan would start delivering a Next Generation Squad Weapon to the infantry […]

261 M1 Tanks Getting Trophy Anti-Missile System As Army Reorients To Major Wars

PENTAGON: The Army’s 2019 budget will upgrade 261 M1 tanks, enough for three brigades, to carry Israeli-made Trophy Active Protection Systems (APS) to guard against anti-tank missiles, service officials said this morning. That’s just one of many funding changes — from buying more howitzer shells to intensifying training exercises — meant to reorient the Army […]