Increasingly anxious about Russian drones and helicopters, the US Army is inviting contractors to demonstrate Short-Range Air Defense systems at a “SHORAD shoot-off” this September. The closest thing to an incumbent in this race is Boeing, which developed the Army’s current Avenger, an old-school unarmored Humvee carrying Stinger missile pods. Now Boeing has upgraded the […]
HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: The robotic war machines of the future are strangely cute. Here at the Association of the US Army winter conference, BAE Systems is showing off a 12-ton robot mini-tank that looks like a baby M1 Abrams. There’s serious lesson here which the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle effort is taking to heart. Automation, […]
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 […]
CAPITOL HILL: Sen. John McCain wants an ambitious plan for new ground vehicle designs and new kinds of combat units from the Army. So does the Heritage Foundation, which has provided much of the brain power for the Trump administration. But the Army isn’t on board: Burned by past program meltdowns like FCS and GCV. […]
ARLINGTON: As Russia and other adversaries stock up on drones, rockets, and missiles, the US Army is building up defenses to shoot them down. But that Short-Range Air Defense force has been devastated by a decade of cuts. The service’s plan to revive SHORAD involves deploying to Europe about 50 more of its current Avenger […]
The military’s top generals have called Russia the number one threat. The incoming administration doesn’t seem convinced that Russia is a threat at all, with Trump himself speaking warmly of Vladimir Putin and dimly of NATO allies. But whatever Putin’s intentions for the future, Russia has proved what its capabilities are in Estonia in 2007, […]
The armored workhorse of the US Army, the M113 tracked carrier, first entered service in 1960. This morning, less than two years after signing a contract to replace the M113 in its roles as armored ambulance, mobile command post, and more, the Army and BAE Systems rolled out the first production-representative Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV). […]
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 […]
ARLINGTON: The US Army wants its Next Generation Combat Vehicle to serve as pack master to a swarm of crawling and flying robots. It wants lighter weapons with heavier firepower, able to aim almost straight up to shoot drones out of the sky and hit rooftop snipers. It wants miniaturized missile defenses to shoot down incoming anti-tank […]
WASHINGTON: It looks like a tank, drives on tracks like a tank, fires 120 mm shells at several times the speed of sound like a tank — but don’t call it a tank. The General Dynamics “Griffin” is a kind of concept car on steroids, a demonstration of existing technologies that could be quickly fit […]
WASHINGTON: One of the Army’s most successful weapons programs is now under fire over safety shortfalls. The Automatic Fire Extinguisher System (AFES) in the upgraded M109A7 Paladin artillery vehicle “did not protect the entire howitzer crew compartment during fire survivability testing,” the Department of Defense Inspector General reports today. DoD IG says this safety system […]
WASHINGTON: This morning, Sen. Dick Durbin set off heart attacks across the Army when he said the service’s $13.8 billion Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program was a whopping $2.6 billion over budget. AMPV is the last survivor of 14 years of cancelled major programs and deliberately designed to be modest, achievable, and affordable, so the previously […]
WASHINGTON: The Air Force’s top priority programs — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Long Range Strike Bomber, and the KC-46 tanker — will cause Pentagon procurement spending to balloon in the early 2020s, says one of the capital’s leading defense budget experts. Army ground combat programs are also increasing rapidly, but they are rising from such […]