Washington: The future of armed unmanned aircraft will remain more man than machine, at least for members of the Army and Marine Corps. “We will always have a man in the loop,” Col. Stewart Hatfield, chief of the lethality branch in the Army’s unmanned requirements shop, said today at the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems… Keep reading →

The next generation of smart grid may be deployed first by the military. The Department of Defense is the largest energy consumer in the US, and is facing many of the same challenges as the rest of the country with aging infrastructure and an increasing need to use renewable fuels. As the forces become more… Keep reading →

Washington: Bigger, tougher and meaner — that is what the Army wants from its Humvee fleet. And according to the draft list of requirements issued by the service’s contracting shop for the iconic combat vehicle, the Army now has a plan to do just that. For more news and information on the swiftly-changing defense industry,… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army had a plan to revamp its ground combat fleet that would carry the service into the next decade. Then the debt deal happened. Now, the Army is trying to figure out how to execute that strategy while meeting the $350 billion in defense cuts included in the White House debt reduction plan.… Keep reading →

Washington: The Marine Corps does not know how it will replace ground equipment worn out by over a decade of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, or how much it will cost, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. The service has a plan to replace its fighters and helicopters lost in battle, but “a… Keep reading →

Washington: Iraqi hand wringing on whether to keep American troops in country could force U.S. military commanders to take on the difficult task of readjusting the massive wave of men and materiel currently flowing out of Iraq. American forces have already “stepped over” nearly 60 percent of DOD weapons and equipment to Iraqi security forces,… Keep reading →

Washington: The end has finally come for the Army’s Multifunction Utility Logistics Vehicle, better known inside the Pentagon as the Army MULE. The Defense Department’s procurement chief Ash Carter put the final nail in the program last week, issuing an Acquisition Decision Memorandum canceling the program on July 29, according to recent news reports. A… Keep reading →

The Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle program may be running aground before it can even sign a development contract. And that’s a tragedy. A decade of casualties from improvised roadside bombs – simple weapons easily replicated by any future enemy – has shown that what the U.S. military needs most is the very thing the Ground… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army’s ground combat vehicles are back in the Pentagon’s cross hairs, with a large-scale program review scheduled for August. The DoD-led review, known in the Pentagon as a materiel development decision, will scrutinize most of the big-ticket programs in the service’s ground combat systems portfolio, except for ongoing efforts to recapitalize the Humvee.… Keep reading →

Washington: The Army’s Humvee has become a modern military icon, replacing the World War II-era Jeep as one of the most recognizable vehicles on the battlefield. It also provides just as much protection against improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades as those vehicles built by Henry Ford in the 1940’s. The introduction of up-armored versions… Keep reading →