As troops pull out of Afghanistan and Congress looks for fat to trim from the federal budget, future Pentagon spending will dip and then flatline, with money going to the Air Force and Navy while ground forces see reductions in troops and equipment, a new report predicts. It’s not the kind of news that the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: It’s still DC’s largest conference of the year, but the 2012 annual meeting of the Association of the US Army is smaller than it was. Most obviously, all the Army branches, tribes, and fiefdoms that normally fly their own individual banners at AUSA have been consolidated into a single, relatively modest exhibit. “You’ll notice… Keep reading →

If you want to know how important conferences such as AUSA, AFA, Navy League, AUVSI or GEOINT are, just consider the fact that Lockheed Martin chose to write this MEADS op-ed and submit it so it would appear just as AUSA opened. Let the show begin! — The editor. Last month, a congressionally-mandated, Missile Defense… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Defense contractors believe they must sell to foreign countries as US spending shrinks. But what’s materialized overseas so far is much too small to make up for the decline at home. So when Lockheed Martin‘s Mission Systems & Sensors unit, nicknamed MS2, convened reporters today ahead of next week’s Association of the US Army… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: As the administration courts New Zealand’s support for its new Pacific strategy, at least some submariners are uneasy that the US might make too many concessions at the expense of the nuclear navy. “The SecDef for some reason became fascinated with New Zealand,” said Rear Adm. Robert Thomas, noting the country’s contributions in Afghanistan… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Right now, the Navy is designing the ballistic missile submarine that will provide 70 percent of the nation’s nuclear deterrent until 2080. Yet even as the service prepares to award research and development contracts this December, the submarine community is deeply worried that the rest of the military is neglecting the program — which… Keep reading →

CORRECTED Oct. 19, 2012, 9:30 a.m. to clarify imprecise information provided during the EADS press briefing. WASHINGTON: The U.S. arm of European aerospace and defense giant EADS urged the Army on Thursday to buy new armed scout helicopters instead of upgrading its aging OH-58D Kiowa Warriors — and challenged competitors to top the performance two… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: In almost every war of the modern era, artillery has played a decisive role. But the lowly IED, cobbled together explosives ignited by cobbled together detonators, has now replaced artillery as the greatest killer on the modern battlefield, according to Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, head of the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) The… Keep reading →

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: Since 9/11, robots have become commonplace tools for the military, police bomb squads, and hazardous materials teams. But as budgets tighten, not even the Pentagon can afford to buy many types of robots, each for a different mission. So Northrop Grumman’s subsidiary, Remotec, is rolling out a new robot called Titus specifically… Keep reading →

The Air Force plans to reinstate substantial formation flight training for CV-22 Osprey pilots that it eliminated four years ago, AOL Defense has learned. Reinstatement of the training four years after the service ended it is an implicit admission, V-22 aviators said, that better training might have prevented the June 13 crash of a CV-22B… Keep reading →