The Marines are plenty happy about getting more money in 2018 and 2019, but are nervously eyeing the potential return of sequestration in 2020. And it’s influencing how the Corps is spending that money today.

The $250 million package for the rocket launcher along with guided warheads and other tactical missiles was seen as a way for Poland and NATO to push back against the Russian military buildup in neighboring Kaliningrad, which gives Moscow the ability to track and knock down Polish aircraft over Polish airspace.

The Army is modernizing three artillery systems: 155 cannon, the cheapest option, for the close fight against the enemy’s frontline forces; guided rockets for the deep fight against enemy reinforcements and supply lines; and missiles, the most expensive munitions, for very deep or even strategic strikes against targets in the enemy rear and homeland.

All this technology serves a new concept of operations for defeating dense advanced air defenses of the kind Russia and China are both building for themselves and selling abroad.

A visit to Israel’s increasingly tense border with Syria makes clear that the ground units of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are building their own “air force.” The clear benefits of tactical drones have driven the ground forces to deploy more and more aircraft and this has reached the status of a real revolution.

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… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The Army’s 2019 budget is all about old-school firepower. It’s a plan unmistakably driven by the Russian threat. Artillery, the king of battle, and armored vehicles dominate the service’s request: Joseph Stalin would approve. Meanwhile, helicopters — until this year the service’s top procurement expense — slip to second place. What’s more, the Army… Keep reading →

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office will test-fire a radical new missile defense system in less than a year. The Hyper Velocity Projectile, a supersonic artillery round, is fired from ordinary cannon at 5,600 miles per hour and can kill incoming threats for a mere $86,000 a shot. Compare that to… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: US Army helicopters can penetrate Russian-style anti-aircraft defenses, service leaders say, but many aircrew are likely to die trying without new technologies, upgrades that the Army can only afford for part of the force. That mismatch between military demand and budgetary supply may force an end to 14 years organizing and modernizing all Combat… Keep reading →