Good news: That’s more money than the Army thought it could get for its top priorities. Bad news: We won’t see most of it this year.

Alarming headlines to the contrary, the US Army isn’t building robotic “killing machines.” What they really want artificial intelligence to do in combat is much more interesting.

Having wasted tens of billions and almost 30 years since the end of the Cold War, the Army is out of time. But after decades of incremental improvements, its existing weapons — including the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that GE’s new engine will upgrade – are overweight, underpowered, and running out of room to grow. Meanwhile, the Army’s attempts at a high-tech great leap forward kept getting cancelled as unaffordable, unfeasible, or both.

WASHINGTON: At least a dozen major Army weapons programs face big decisions in 2019. The service will launch a competition for new armored vehicles; award development contracts for scout aircraft and helicopter engines; conduct key tests of long-range missiles, anti-aircraft defenses, rifles, targeting goggles, and multiple battlefield networks; and field new electronics for command posts.

SAIC not a traditional heavy-metal manufacturer and it shouldn’t be judged like one, CEO Tony Moraco and COO Nazzic Keene told me.

Yes, MPF is much lighter and less heavily armored than the M1 Abrams or even Russian tanks like the T-90. But MPF is going to light infantry units that currently have no armored vehicles at all, just a handful of Humvees, towed M777 howitzers, and whatever weapons the men can carry on their backs.

AUSA: The Army is investing more and more money in lasers to defeat incoming rockets and enemy drones. Across the Air & Missile Defense (AMD) portfolio, “we put over 50 percent of our S&T (Science and Technology) money going towards directed energy projects,” up from about a third previously, said the AMD modernization director, Brig. Gen.… Keep reading →

BAE System’s CV90 Mark IV is the latest upgrade of a 25-year-old vehicle widely used in Europe; the Rheinmetall-Raytheon Lynx is an all-new design, although individual components have a good track record; but the General Dynamics Griffin III is in the middle, combining a new gun and new electronics with the time-tested chassis from the European ASCOD family.

“It doesn’t have to be a tank, it just has to be decisive and lethal,” Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman answered. “If that is run by a flux capacitor, hovers, and has a ray gun — and we can make it run at a reasonable cost — we’ll look at it.”

AUSA: The Marines want their Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle to carry a scout drone that can look for threats and target them with loitering strike missiles or drones. Now General Dynamics Land Systems and drone maker AeroVironment are teaming up to offer the same built-in drone for future Army vehicles. The two companies announced here today that they’ve… Keep reading →