A new policy orders organizations across the Army to embrace advanced manufacturing to “fundamentally change” both modernization and readiness.

The experimental turret will use the technology — and the safeguards — from the Army’s ATLAS project, originally misrepresented in the media as building “killer robots.”

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

“You’ve got to remain open to change, you’ve got to remain flexible, you’ve to remain accessible,” Army Secretary Mark Esper told me. “That is the purpose of this command.”

“’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.”

The Army’s modernization initiatives aren’t plunging into the valley of death this week or even, in most cases, this year. It will take time to build prototypes, to test them and to figure out how the force will make the most of new technology. But over the next few years, enough of these projects have to make it across that daunting gap to actually change the Army.

if you can deliver new technology really fast, the US Army is now willing to pay your company much higher profits. And it’s working hard to make sure that new tech actually gets to new weapons.

“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.”

WASHINGTON: The Army will ask Congress to change current law to help it buy weapons better, Maj. Gen. Bill Hix told reporters. Sure, the service can do and is doing a lot with its existing authorities, he said, such as create a Futures and Modernization Command (FMC), but comprehensive reform requires more. In fact, Lt.… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: Can we talk? In private? If you’re a defense contractor with a good idea, the US Army wants to say yes — but laws and regulations get in the way. That’s a problem the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) is struggling to solve with what it calls a Capabilities Information Exchange. Here’s the… Keep reading →