“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.”

What should the device show the soldier? “Where am I? Where are my buddies? And where is the enemy?” said Gen. Townsend. “Then other stuff could be optional.”

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.

It was a Marine reservist, transport officer Maj. Chris Thobaben, who had the idea to repurpose the scout drones for logistics after seeing too many comrades killed or wounded on supply runs in Iraq.

“My eyes are watering with what our young people can do right now,” the Assistant Commandant said.
“They’re really smart and they’ve got a lot of really good ideas,” Commandant Neller said. “We would be well served to turn them loose.”

What’s the one technology the Marine Corps Commandant wants more than any other for his riflemen? It wasn’t an amphibious vehicle, more JLTVs, a new rifle or friggin’ lasers. It is “a smart way to recharge batteries,” Gen. Robert Neller told reporters.

The Army is studying 30 cities as possible sites for the Futures Command it’s standing up this summer — but the winning city may hardly notice.

The new head of Pentagon R&D delivered a scathing critique of how the military develops and buys equipment. “I did not take this job to reach parity with adversaries,” Griffin said. “I want to make them worry about catching up with us again.”

UPDATED: Adds SecArmy Esper Roundtable PENTAGON: The figures aren’t final, but the Army hopes to get about $6.8 billion in additional funding for fiscal year 2018 thanks to the recently concluded budget deal, Army Secretary Mark Esper said this morning. The service’s new plan would start delivering a Next Generation Squad Weapon to the infantry… Keep reading →

“The United States has been fighting weak and isolated regional adversaries for the last 25 years, and a result we have a very inflated view of how good we are,” warned the study’s lead author, Mark Cancian of CSIS.