Army soldiers are testing goggles with an image-recognition system that can automatically spot threats like tanks and warn the rest of the squad — or transmit the target data to a distant missile battery so they can take it out.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.While the Strategic Long-Range Cannon will hit targets at ranges comparable to bleeding-edge hypersonics missiles, Army officials emphasized the cannon is built on proven principles, just bigger.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.The Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) must have enough artificial intelligence to fly unmanned at least part of the time, a secure network to control drones, and combination of speed and range that’s impossible for traditional helicopters.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.One Army weapon would be a hypersonic missile, tearing through missile defenses at Mach 5-plus to kill critical hardened targets such as command bunkers. The other would use a gun barrel to launch cheaper, slower missiles at larger numbers of softer targets like radars and missile launchers.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“CFTs (Cross Functional Teams) and Army Futures Command will always have a place on my schedule and the chief’s schedule,” Esper said. Over time, he said, “it becomes a routine… the expectation not just for AFC and the CFTs, but for future service secretaries and future chiefs of staff.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“There are ways to be innovative in the Army,” retired Lt. Gen. Tom Spoehr said. But you have to protect the innovators from the institutional culture of the Pentagon: “You can send them someplace else, like Austin.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.“We were never above probably a total of eight people,” the aviation Cross Functional Team chief, Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen, told me. “We’re not this big colossal thing, we’re a lean, mean organization.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Manned air and ground forces would work together and protect each other along the front line, while relatively expendable drones and missiles go deep into enemy airspace.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.This internal budget battle in the Army could cede the actual battlefield to high-powered Russian and Chinese jammers, electronic warfare advocates fear, with the same lethal consequences for US troops that Ukrainian forces have suffered since 2014.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.