The Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) program has ambitious goals that will require development of new technological capability that ranges from autonomous operations to advanced materials.

A week from today, the first combat unit will get new ENVG-B goggles, which combine binocular night vision with computer-assisted cross-hairs linked wirelessly to the rifle. It’s a test case for the Army’s new high-speed approach to modernization.

Gone are the days of a stately, deliberate, laborious acquisition process in which the Army would plan out the future in detail before going to industry. “We’d almost always guess wrong,” said Maj. Gen. David Bassett. “Eventually we’d deliver yesterday’s technology tomorrow.”

At issue is not just this particular program, but the much wider question of how a Pentagon testing apparatus designed for big industrial age programs can keep up with the much faster and more fluid upgrade cycles of information technology.

After decades using the same clunky simulators, the Army is about to buy new sims drawing on the latest innovations in online gaming.

The new approach will focus on an urgent but largely unmet threat: Russian and Chinese cruise missiles.

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.

WASHINGTON: At least a dozen major Army weapons programs face big decisions in 2019. The service will launch a competition for new armored vehicles; award development contracts for scout aircraft and helicopter engines; conduct key tests of long-range missiles, anti-aircraft defenses, rifles, targeting goggles, and multiple battlefield networks; and field new electronics for command posts.

Yes, MPF is much lighter and less heavily armored than the M1 Abrams or even Russian tanks like the T-90. But MPF is going to light infantry units that currently have no armored vehicles at all, just a handful of Humvees, towed M777 howitzers, and whatever weapons the men can carry on their backs.

Don’t think about the Terminator or Iron Man: Think about Sigourney Weaver’s power loader lifting crates in Aliens.