A worker died in 2017 scooping up explosive tetrazene by hand with a spatula. The Army and Congress agree an upgrade is long overdue — but it won’t be cheap.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.A major overhaul is coming in software for missile warning
Space Systems Command’s FORGE program is the first, major missile-warning software modernization effort in 20 years.
The Army’s drive to modernize by 2035 is too big for traditional five-year spending plans, acquisition chief Bruce Jette said. So he’s reviving long-term economic forecasting used in the Cold War.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
While the pandemic continues, Pentagon metrics show production on Army programs is returning to normal, the Army’s acquisition chief told Breaking Defense.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
US and foreign missiles alike are welcome at next year’s missile defense “shoot off,” the Army’s acquisition chief told us, as long as they can share data with the Army’s IBCS command system.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
After rejecting prototype vehicles built at industry’s expense, the Army is starting over with a competition for low-cost ‘digital prototypes.’ When will they physically build something? TBD.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The multi-million-dollar move will help Army Futures Command focus on new technology while Army Materiel Command focuses on sustaining the current force, Gen. Gus Perna told us.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The upgraded arsenal will be the flagship of a much larger move towards advanced manufacturing across the Army. The goal: streamlining supply chains for major war.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
A new approach to speed, scale and efficiency for the industrial base
Radars, EW, EO/IR, space imagery, and microelectronics are brought under one roof for a streamlined approach to common people and factories.
A new policy orders organizations across the Army to embrace advanced manufacturing to “fundamentally change” both modernization and readiness.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The experimental turret will use the technology — and the safeguards — from the Army’s ATLAS project, originally misrepresented in the media as building “killer robots.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Army believes it has all the legal authorities it needs to reform. Now it just has to make the reform work.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“You’ve got to remain open to change, you’ve got to remain flexible, you’ve to remain accessible,” Army Secretary Mark Esper told me. “That is the purpose of this command.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“’20 and ’21 is where we need to make sure we don’t kind of hit turbulence,” McCarthy said. “The budget deal was great — we had an enormous increase, and we’re grateful for that — but this (sequestration) still looms.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Army’s modernization initiatives aren’t plunging into the valley of death this week or even, in most cases, this year. It will take time to build prototypes, to test them and to figure out how the force will make the most of new technology. But over the next few years, enough of these projects have to make it across that daunting gap to actually change the Army.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
if you can deliver new technology really fast, the US Army is now willing to pay your company much higher profits. And it’s working hard to make sure that new tech actually gets to new weapons.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
