With a proven hull and a cutting-edge gun, General Dynamics’ Griffin III might just hit the Army’s sweet spot between innovative and proven.

“Recent guidance from Army senior leadership has us looking at, emphasizing, Bradley replacement,” Miller told reporters in a conference call. “What we have now done is moved to accelerate our optionally manned fighting vehicle, the Bradley replacement, and we want to be able to focus on that.”

The Army Chief of Staff wants revolutionary new weapons. The Army Secretary wants affordable technology fast. How can they reconcile these opposites?

Looking to spend billions more on its top modernization programs, the Army is changing things up by spending those dollars in places that might come as a bit of a surprise.

“If you look back at the Iraq war, one of the most dangerous duties was driving, riding in a convoy between Kuwait City and Baghdad. We lost many, many soldiers, too many soldiers, to IED (roadside bomb) attacks, other attacks on convoys,” Esper said. “I could’ve reduced that vulnerability, that sacrifice, (with) unmanned convoys or convoys that were manned by (only) a couple of soldiers.”

Army Futures Command is just a means to an end: modernizing the Army for high-intensity war against Russia or China. That includes replacing the iconic but aging M1 Abrams main battle tank, as well as other war machines, with an all-new Next Generation Combat Vehicle optimized for urban warfare, Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

This week’s experiment used a small zoo of specialized systems remote-controlled by humans, each with its own modest niche, working closely with each other and human forces.

What mission does the Army really need armed robots for — expendable scouts, perhaps, or supplementary fire support? And does buying robots for that role really offer more tactical value than spending the same money on mundane upgrades to, say, self-propelled artillery?

The new combat vehicles must be “optimized for fighting in dense urban terrain.” Fighting in narrow streets, in turn, requires smaller vehicles than the massive M1 — and one way to reduce weight is to take the humans out.

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 →