Washington: The Army faces one of the great post-war declines in budget and people, a time of great uncertainty. How should it cope? The Army can’t just go into a defensive crouch and try protecting what it has, argued a high-powered group of retired generals: The service’s top leaders must articulate a positive vision of… Keep reading →

Washington: If you want proof that budgets are getting tighter and the Pentagon gets the message, just look at the last two days. One system is dead and two are badly wounded, potentially totaling cuts of more than $22 billion. The Army made it sort of official yesterday that the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and… Keep reading →

The Army has launched a major effort to strengthen its seven thousand infantry squads — an effort that will require overcoming cultural and bureaucratic resistance to succeed. Light-infantry traditionalists will have to get over their longstanding suspicion of digital technology both on the battlefield and in training, which will increasingly rely on simulations. Tech geeks… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army needs a new way to connect soldiers on the battlefield, and it doesn’t care how it gets there. The service is taking a “platform agnostic” approach to the way it is carrying out its new network strategy, a senior Army program official told me yesterday during the U.S. Army Association’s annual symposium… Keep reading →

Washington: Army acquisition is facing the largest financial crunch since the infamous defense drawdown of the 1990s. To meet that challenge, service officials today rolled out a list of seven “commandments” it will follow to get the Army through these tough times. The problem is these “commandments” — increased focus on cost and schedule, increased… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army has given up on developing an entirely new armed scout helicopter for now, but plans to invite companies with existing helicopters that can do armed reconnaissance to demonstrate their wares. Maj. Gen. Tim Crosby, who runs Army aviation programs, announced at the annual Association of the US Army conference in Washington that… Keep reading →

Washington: Despite cutting over $1 billion from a key weapons program designed to keep American troops out of harms way, the Army can get enough systems into the field when U.S. troops need them. Last month, Army officials cut the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS), built by Norwegian defense giant Kongsberg, from $2.6 billion… Keep reading →

Washington: The first of up to seven new Army units, created to train and help foreign militaries will be operational by the next fiscal year. The first of these “Regionally Aligned Brigades” will be assigned to Africa Command, but will be stationed in the continental United States, according to British Army Col. Andrew Dennis, attached… Keep reading →

Washington: The balance between the Army’s resources and its commitments is “precarious” even as the number of soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan declines, because the total size of the Army is going down at the same time. If the demand for troops continues to drop as planned, Army leaders say they should be able… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army uses Native American tribe names as nicknames for its helicopters – Black Hawk, Kiowa Warrior and Lakota, for instance — but Boeing Co. officials at the Association of the United States Army’s annual convention in Washington are joshing that the service may want to start calling the company’s AH-64D Apache attack helicopter… Keep reading →