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 →

CRYSTAL CITY: The Army needs revolutionary technologies from robot tanks to a long-range super-rifle, the Chief of Staff said today — and it can get them without repeating the mistakes that doomed high-tech programs in the past. By reforming the acquisition bureaucracy, embracing commercial technology and rigorously prototyping new tech to work out bugs, Gen. Mark… Keep reading →

UPDATED: McCain Endorses Army Move AUSA: Army leaders are creating eight interdisciplinary teams to jumpstart modernization programs in six key areas, from (non-nuclear) ballistic missiles to body armor. Each team will be led by a battle-hardened brigadier general and consist of specialists drawn from across the Army. These Cross Functional Teams are linked to a… Keep reading →

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB: The tank is far from obsolete and the US will need a new armored vehicle to replace its 1980-vintage M1 Abrams, the Army Chief of Staff said here this afternoon. But what kind of tank, on what kind of timeline? Gen. Mark Milley made clear he was looking for a “breakthrough,” not… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: The robotic war machines of the future are strangely cute. Here at the Association of the US Army winter conference, BAE Systems is showing off a 12-ton robot mini-tank that looks like a baby M1 Abrams. There’s serious lesson here which the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle effort is taking to heart. Automation,… Keep reading →

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: The year of decision for the Army’s nascent Next Generation Combat Vehicle will be 2022. That’s when “at least two” NGCV demonstrators get field-tested by real troops, officials told the Association of the US Army conference here today. What the soldiers learn will then help Army leaders’ decide whether to fund a full-up program to… Keep reading →

  ARLINGTON: Two years after the demoralizing cancellation of the Ground Combat Vehicle, the Army is rallying round a new vision for its future armored force. That vision has come into sharper focus just in the last few months, armor leaders said Tuesday. Facing a rising Russia with an aging American arsenal, the Army will… Keep reading →

ARLINGTON: The US Army wants its Next Generation Combat Vehicle to serve as pack master to a swarm of crawling and flying robots. It wants lighter weapons with heavier firepower, able to aim almost straight up to shoot drones out of the sky and hit rooftop snipers. It wants miniaturized missile defenses to shoot down incoming anti-tank… Keep reading →