A week from today, the first combat unit will get new ENVG-B goggles, which combine binocular night vision with computer-assisted cross-hairs linked wirelessly to the rifle. It’s a test case for the Army’s new high-speed approach to modernization.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Modernizing military simulation with open systems architecture
Best-of-breed common models and architecture enable virtual training and testing with the same data in a cyber-resilient posture.
Textron is not just betting it will win the Next Generation Squad Weapons contract: It’s betting the Army will want to start buying in bulk ASAP. That’s not a bad bet.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Breaking Defense contributor Arie Egozi was granted access to a usually classified simulator center Israeli troops and special operators use to train for particularly dangerous operations. Read on! The Editor. TEL AVIV: An Israeli defense forces (IDF) commando unit prepares an attack on a target in an area controlled by hostile terror groups. When the…
By Arie Egozi
Army foot soldiers are going into battle with more and more electronics, wirelessly networked both to each other and to distant command posts. So can GI Joe be hacked?
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Iron Man-style powered armor has proven impractical. New flexible, wearable electronics offer an alternative path to help the infantry.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Innovators! You have until Aug. 23 to submit white papers on how to make the future infantry squad “10 times more effective.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The 29-year-old sergeant fought with gun, grenades, and knife in a dark house with sewage flooding the floor and broken mirrors glinting on the bullet-marked walls.
By James Kitfield
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.
Ground robots still lag drones, but the Army thinks both technologies are ready to field to frontline units, just at different levels.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
After decades using the same clunky simulators, the Army is about to buy new sims drawing on the latest innovations in online gaming.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: At least a dozen major Army weapons programs face big decisions in 2019. The service will launch a competition for new armored vehicles; award development contracts for scout aircraft and helicopter engines; conduct key tests of long-range missiles, anti-aircraft defenses, rifles, targeting goggles, and multiple battlefield networks; and field new electronics for command posts.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.Don’t think about the Terminator or Iron Man: Think about Sigourney Weaver’s power loader lifting crates in Aliens.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.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.
TARDEC, soon to be part of the new Army Futures Command, is exploring a wide range of Israeli robots. But IAI is already looking into the next generation: “flocks” or swarms of robotic systems that communicate with each other and collaborate to accomplish their mission.
By Arie Egozi
Retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales is the former commandant of the Army War College, a Vietnam veteran (and recipient of the Silver Star for valor) turned military historian and futurist. He’s also one of the fathers of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force to reform the infantry. In this op-ed, Scales goes…
By Bob Scales