WASHINGTON: Army planners are thrashing out how many electronic warfare specialists the service needs, not just to rebuild radio-jamming and spoofing capability in combat units, but to create a training cadre that can sustain the EW corps for the long-term. Whether this plan for robust growth — certainly hundreds of soldiers, possibly over a thousand… Keep reading →

“Long-range precision fires… would provide us the capability (to) either, for example, support the Air Force by suppressing enemy air defenses at hundreds upon hundreds of miles or support the Navy by engaging enemy surface ships at great distances as well,” said Army Secretary Mark Esper. But those examples are two distinctly different missions, each most relevant to a different theater of war.

The defense budget may be caught between doves on the left and budget hawks on the right, but so far Army Secretary Mark Esper isn’t ceding any ground.

The Army plans to move at least $25 billion over the next five years from low-priority programs to preparing for major war. That includes developing a wide variety of new weapons, from high-speed aircraft, to partially-robotic armored vehicles, to a long-ranged 6.8 millimeter rifle to replace the venerable M16/M4 family and its controversial 5.56 mm round.

“When I was here before,” said Lt. Gen. James Pasquarette, who returned to the Pentagon last week for his fifth tour there, “the four-star commanders around the Army had no say, no input. They’re in the room now when the big decisions are made.”

“CFTs (Cross Functional Teams) and Army Futures Command will always have a place on my schedule and the chief’s schedule,” Esper said. Over time, he said, “it becomes a routine… the expectation not just for AFC and the CFTs, but for future service secretaries and future chiefs of staff.”

“None of this would be happening without someone who’s not here today, and that’s Senator John McCain, an American hero,” General Milley said to some of the loudest applause of the day.

The Army is ready for unmanned vehicles but not yet for a completely unmanned convoy. The 2020 iteration is called Expedient Leader-Follower because the Army still wants a human soldier driving the lead vehicle, with up to nine autonomous trucks following in its trail. But Oshkosh and Robotic Research told me they could take the humans out altogether, if the Army wanted.

The Army is just weeks away from awarding contracts to begin buying prototypes of new infantry weapons, with live-fire tests next year.

Gen. Milley lays out what the Army needs, embodied in its Big Six modernization priorities. Sec. Esper then works on how to fund and deliver those needs.