UPDATED 1:35 pm Wednesday with more details from Lt. Gen. Glueck WASHINGTON: The Marines are about to move out sharply with their once-stalled Amphibious Combat Vehicle, the smallest service’s biggest program. After years of uncertainty and a last-minute change of course that came too late to make it into the administration’s budget request for 2015,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Modernizing our supply chain is a national security imperative
Closing supply chain gaps in innovating technology will reposition the industrial base to be a strategic source of value.
Imagine you’re a military supply officer, weary but proud as you watch the train you’ve laboriously loaded with gear roll out of the depot towards the front. And then you realize: You packed the wrong tank. Now you need to get that vehicle off and the right vehicle on — while the train’s already leaving…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CRYSTAL CITY, Va: For years the Marines have argued they need a new amphibious combat vehicle that can cut through water at high speeds so Marines can get to the beach safely and then fight their way inland. But Marine Commandant James Amos signaled yesterday there just isn’t enough money to buy a “planing” vehicle…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. Marine Commandant James Amos must make a tough call this year on a program that will define the future Marine Corps: whether to develop and buy the Amphibious Combat Vehicle. “The Commandant considers a replacement craft for his aging AAV7 Amphibious Tractor to be his number-one priority,” said Gen. Amos’s spokesman, Lt. Col. David Nevers,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.SAN DIEGO: Saturday saw the formal christening of the USNS Montford Point, the first of a new class of Navy vessel, the Mobile Landing Platform, meant to revolutionize the conduct of amphibious operations. By serving as a kind of floating pier, the MLP allows an amphibious force to offload heavy combat vehicles and bulk supplies…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.ARMY WAR COLLEGE: For the last decade, the Army has emphasized “boots on the ground.” Large numbers of foot troops slogged through valley and village, field and town, to safeguard civilians and hunt insurgents. Now, as the largest service looks beyond Afghanistan, a classified wargame about a hypothetical Korean conflict shined a spotlight on high-speed,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
ROC-X – The solution to organic precision strike capabilities
At AUSA Global Force 2024, IAI will present integrated, AI-driven combat systems – both manned and unmanned – that are opening new opportunities on the battlefield.
While the Marines are famous for amphibious landings, they depend on Army assets (shown here) for large-scale logistics. Going back to the future ain’t easy. After a decade largely spent waging land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. Marine Corps wants to reemphasize large-scale amphibious operations, like its recent “Bold Alligator” exercise. But to…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.THE PENTAGON: If there was one big takeaway from the Defense Department’s fiscal 2013 budget rollout yesterday, it was this: being forced to do more with less means having to take some risks. And the Navy has decided to is risk its future amphibious capabilities to cope with the fiscal realities inside the Pentagon. Navy…
By Carlo MunozWASHINGTON: The Navy’s biggest amphibious exercise in a decade, Bold Alligator, is not specifically designed to counter Iranian threats in the Persian Gulf. But it comes awfully close, according to two senior service officials. The joint Navy and Marine Corps exercise is geared toward honing the services’ amphibious warfare capabilities. Training operations began this week…
By Carlo Munoz
80,000 Tons Of Innovation: USNS Montford Point, The Navy’s New Mobile Landing Platform
We attended the christening last week of the newest US Navy ship, an 80,000 ton (fully laden) vessel that is not an aircraft carrier. Instead, the USNS Montford Point is the first of a new class of Navy ships, a Mobile Landing Platform, in essence a deployed port at sea. The ship, built at General…
By Robbin Laird