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… Keep reading →

After two decades of canceled combat vehicles, the Mobile Protected Firepower program is a crucial test for the Army’s new approach to acquisitions. The service is seeking off-the-shelf technology instead of gambling on breakthroughs. It’s bringing together industry, combat officers, and acquisition professionals together at an earlier stage than ever before. And it intends to rein… Keep reading →

This week at Fort Benning, Ga., the Army told some 200 industry representatives from 59 companies what it wants in its next war machine, the Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle (MPF). The MPF must be light and nimble enough to accompany foot troops where the massive M1 Abrams cannot go: into dense jungle and narrow streets, up mountains and… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The US Army is deploying extra stocks of heavy weapons to Europe to deter Russia’s increasingly naked aggression. These are the most advanced ground weapons America can field — but the tanks and other heavy fighting vehicles in this buildup are the same ones we had the last time the Russians were a danger, back when… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: This afternoon, the Army announced the painful details of long-awaited cuts. The service must shed 40,000 active-duty troops between now and October 2017, with almost half of them coming from 26 installations across the country. The hardest hit: Fort Benning, Ga.; Fort Hood, Texas; and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska — all of which… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Army officers and officials hit Capitol Hill this afternoon to brief congressional staff on the coming round of personnel cuts. We’ve known for over a year that the Army would cut 40,000 active-duty soldiers — going down from 490,000 troops to 450,000 — but now the service is finally saying which units get cut. Further,… Keep reading →

You are reading the first of three in-depth stories on the future of US land forces and their new combat vehicles.  In this first piece, Sydney details what the Army wants in its new air-droppable vehicles for the oft-outgunned light forces who are first to the fight. The next two stories will explore the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV),… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Between fear of Russia, urgency from the Army, and lobbying from General Dynamics, funding to upgun the Army’s GD-built Stryker armored vehicle has grown 350 percent in three weeks. In mid-May, the House approved a $79.5 million addition to the administration’s budget request. Yesterday, the Senate, not to be outdone, voted $371 million — four… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: “Everybody’s got to change,” Army Gen. David Perkins told me last week. But can the biggest, most bureaucratic, and most fractious service really break a 12-year streak of cancelled multi-billion-dollar programs? It turns out the Army is already taking some important steps. A new doctrine and a long-range planning process instituted two years ago have begun to… Keep reading →

Here’s the latest exciting — and unnerving — unmanned system to catch our eye: a 1.5-ton robot that shoots the ever-living crap out of things. Oh, and the manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, most famous for building the B-2 stealth bomber, decided to call it MADSS, as in angry or insane. Perhaps they could’ve been a little… Keep reading →