“All too often when we bring things up inside the Beltway, it immediately devolves to material and programs and technology,” said Scales. “What we hope comes out of this is not just new machines but new ways of thinking about warfare at the tactical level.”

“To get a quantum increase in the quality of close combat forces, we can do it in the next two years, (and) the cost compared to the rest of the DoD budget is very small,” said retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who chairs the advisory board for Secretary Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force.

PENTAGON: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps rifle platoon leader, wants better technology and training to keep frontline foot troops alive. He sent a Feb. 8 memo (below) to the Joint Chiefs, service chiefs, combatant commanders, and other top officials to create a Close Combat Lethality Task Force, applying the kind of top-level… Keep reading →