“The Army is looking at this too but probably on a different timeline — the Marine Corps wants to get after this pretty quickly.”

It’s a major shift after decades in which submarines focused on projecting power ashore, with their only anti-ship weapons being their rarely-used torpedoes. Driving the change: increasing anxiety about China.

By 2021, plans call for Japan to have eight Aegis destroyers, four of them capable of launching the SM-3 Block IIA missiles, whose second successful test in a row comes as a vindication after two previous failures.

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.

WASHINGTON: Even as Congress inches toward cutting off arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Riyadh’s grinding war in Yemen, the United States is preparing to ship $14.5 billion worth of arms to the increasingly embattled kingdom. Those weapons include “helicopters, tanks, ships, weapons, and training,” a… Keep reading →

Hollywood gives us the idea that US troops control their weapons with the latest video game-style graphics in glorious, full-color 3D. The reality is more like Pong — only with life and death at stake.

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 →

After the Army’s director armored vehicle modernization raises concerns about weight, the companies respond with new details.

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.

As Jon Kyl, the new senator who brings a long track record of spending on missile defense and nukes returns to the Hill, Democrats in the House might have other ideas.