Massive government documents typically hide some gold nuggets of information. In today’s report from the Pentagon’s independent Director of Operational Test & Evaluation, a famously tough grader known as DOT&E, there’s one detail that is going to make defense contractor BAE Systems very happy: “Results from the third underbody blast test also demonstrate that the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
WASHINGTON: On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, one of the Army’s leading thinkers warned Washington not to learn the wrong lessons. [Click here from top Army generals on Iraq: Shock and Awe? Never again!] Army Maj. Gen. H.R. McMaster, now chief of the tank and infantry school at Fort Benning, singled out…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.[UPDATED with comments from Maj. Gen. Michael Repass, SOCEUR]WASHINGTON: Even the celebrated Special Operations Command is feeling the budgetary bite of Washington dysfunction, SOCOM chief Adm. William McRaven said today. “I haven’t gone through the list yet,” McRaven told reporters accosting him after a speech, but SOCOM will make cuts “just like the services” (the…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: After a decade of war in which they played a key role and were rewarded with a doubling of their forces and budget, Special Operations leaders want still more — more people, more money and more authority to decide where their troops go and what they do. Those goals are likely to clash with…
By Otto KreisherWASHINGTON: As the military plans to cut thousands of troops and the military experiments with opening combat training to women, the American Civil Liberties Union has joined four female servicemembers — two in the reserves (one Army, one Marine Corps), one in the Air National Guard, and one on active duty in the Marines —…
By Colin ClarkThe commandos came under the cover of darkness. It was mid-February in Laghman province, just east of Kabul in mountainous eastern Afghanistan. A team of U.S. Army Special Forces swept in together with an elite unit of the Afghan police, known as the Provincial Response Company. But this time the target was not a Taliban.…
By David Axe
Gray Eagle is the low-cost, low-risk answer to Army modernization
Gray Eagle STOL and Gray Eagle 25M are the best options for Army aviation as it assesses where to move from its current inflection point.
AFGHANISTAN: International Special Operations Forces play an important but largely unheralded role in Afghanistan. American Army Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force, along with Navy SEALs and Air Force specialists work with the best from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and a host of other allied nations to kill and capture insurgents and terrorists. They also…
By David AxeTHE PENTAGON: While multi-billion dollar programs dominate the defense debate, the U.S. Army is quietly placing a big bet on a very small part of the Pentagon budget. The service’s strategy? Leverage the administration’s interest in rebuilding military-to-military relationships around the world – long overshadowed by the simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – by…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Over the next few years, Special Operations forces will gradually revert to the role that has been their bread and butter for much of their existence: training and assisting local forces around the globe to strengthen partners militaries. The global Special Operations presence will be large, some 12,000 troops around the world, according to…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: The White House’s newly-minted national security strategy is full of big ideas. But among all these big ideas is a much smaller one that could draw the Pentagon much deeper into the small wars that have defined America’s global counterterrorism campaign. U.S. special operations forces and counterinsurgency specialists returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are…
By Carlo Munoz
