Taiwan taps satellite hookups to help down invading drones

MILAN — The Taiwanese military is testing a satellite-connected setup of drone countermeasures as part of a massive effort to bolster the island’s defenses of critical infrastructure and core communications network amid an uptick in Chinese probing.

The tests come as Taiwan is seeing Chinese military activity in the waters around the island, including drones flying within the country’s air defense identification zone. China views Taiwan as a rogue province and has threatened to take it back by force.

Tron Future, a Taiwan-based company, has been supporting the government in integrating counter-drone systems with Taiwan’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites through its T.SpaceRouter user terminals, expected to boost the island’s wartime communication resilience.

The T.SpaceRouter is a lightweight satellite communication terminal that uses active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology, envisioned to double as a kind of communication antenna relying on regional private 5G coverage.

“As our anti-drone systems will be able to connect with LEO satellites by the end of 2025, each C-UAS installation site can serve as a regional military communication hub with LEO satellite backbone – this will help prevent systemic collapse of the core communication network in potential future conflicts,” Dr. Yu-Jiu Wang, chief executive of Tron Future said.

The Taiwan Space Agency has launched an experimental satellite project dubbed Beyond 5G, which aims to develop two high-performance LEO spacecraft that will be deployed at an altitude of 600 kilometers.

Last year, Wang told Defense News that at the height of tensions, the company’s radars deteced as many as 100 Chinese surveillance drones above the island in the span of a week.

According to the vendor, the Taiwanese military also recently began testing a variety of counter-drone active and passive radars, including Tron Future systems, as well as jammers.

These include achieving at least a 6 kilometers effective detection range for drones over the sea, with one of the target references being a Mavic 3 Pro, for active and passive radars, and at least a 4 kilometer effective jamming capability for drones, Wang said.

The government is expected to sign a contract with the winning contractor within two months as part of an order that could total tens of millions of dollars.

“A total of 26 sets of anti-drone systems need to be installed, with 13 sets to be completed within five months after signing the contract, and the entire procurement to be completed within 10 – the systems will be installed on the frontline islands closest to China,” the CEO said.

He noted that the closest distance from Taiwan’s outer islands to China is roughly 2 kilometers.

Taiwan is a major producer of computer chips, which means the country’s semiconductor factories are assumed targets in a potential Chinese attack besides military sites.

Army secretary: Is it time to cut back on military moves?

The Army needs to take a hard look at ideas for providing greater career flexibility, stability and predictability for soldiers and families — and that could include decreasing the frequency of moves, said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington this week.

“Our own Army career engagement survey shows that most officers leaving the service today are seeking more stability, predictability and a better family life,” Wormuth said in her Monday address.

“I am not suggesting that we telework to war. Don’t misunderstand me,” she said. Nor, she said, is she suggesting the British model of the regimental army, where a soldier stays with one unit for the entire career.

However, Wormuth shared some ideas on what possible changes might look like.

“Should we restructure the force to reduce [permanent change of station] moves to every five years instead of every three years? Should we modify officer career timelines and promotion criteria to give more flexibility for broadening assignments while ensuring we’re still selecting the right officers for command?” she asked.

Other ideas Wormuth floated included increasing the options for military occupational specialty transfers within the Army to make it easier to pursue a new career path without leaving the service and finding ways to better match financial compensation with responsibilities, qualifications and job performance rather than strictly basing it on rank and time in grade.

“Standing here, I don’t have the answers,” Wormuth said, noting many of these changes would be complex and require additional resources and cooperation from Congress. “But if the Army doesn’t seriously explore these questions soon, I worry that in 10 to 15 years, we could see our recruiting challenges deepen and our historically high retention rates start dropping, placing the viability of the all-volunteer force under threat, during a time when our nation can least afford it.”

The lifestyle the Army offers hasn’t changed much since before the invention of the internet, she said.

“We still expect our soldiers to move every two to three years, uprooting children from schools and friends and upending the aspirations of spouses who want careers of their own.

“We continue to rely on our spouses and partners as a de facto, unpaid Army labor force, available to organize PCS moves and lead soldier family readiness groups, but often at the expense of work outside the home and the earnings that come with it,” she said.

For years, some have questioned if it’s necessary for military families to move so much, as a number of problems they face can be traced to moving. While many military families manage to thrive in the moving process, it often brings difficulties in finding affordable housing, affordable and good-quality child care and jobs for spouses.

Pentagon officials have discussed the challenges of frequent military moves, which are costly for both the Defense Department and families, at different times over the years.

The most recent examination of PCS moves was in a June report from the Military Family Advisory Network, in which a 2023 survey found that frequent PCS moves can make families vulnerable to a variety of difficulties.

The organization’s 109-page report questioned whether changing the frequent shuffle between bases — which military officials argue is necessary to meet operational requirements and fill empty jobs — could affect recurring issues related to financial stability, such as military spouse unemployment, and other concerns such as children’s education.

During a health care panel at the AUSA conference, a family member asked about the frequency of moves, inquiring about the best way for families to receive continuity of health care when they move every one to three years. Furthermore, military medical providers are also being transferred every few years.

Lt. Gen. Mary Krueger Izaguirre, the Army surgeon general, said the question is also being raised within the service’s medical workforce about the thought process when making decisions about moving people.

“Does it make sense for you to move, or does it make sense for us to provide you some stability?” she said.

Soldiers should have honest conversations with their leaders about whether there’s a way to make a decision that’s appropriate for both the Army mission and their families, she said.

Izaguirre shared that a few years ago, she had a conversation with the surgeon general at the time about stabilizing her own family because of her oldest son’s health care needs.

She stayed in that job for a few years, she said, and that’s a reason she is where she is today.

Recap: Highlights from the US Army’s annual conference in Washington

WASHINGTON — The Association of the United States Army rolled out its annual exposition from Oct. 14-16 in Washington, with defense industry officials, lawmakers and military personnel from around the globe huddling to discuss the future force — and what threats may await just over the horizon.

As in previous years, the service continues its aggressive modernization push, with efforts focused on next-gen weaponry and vehicles, personnel training, long-range artillery, unmanned systems, defense capabilities, network domains and much more.

Such efforts, meanwhile, continue to be influenced by evolving conflicts abroad.

Russia’s prolonged invasion of Ukraine is dragging toward another brutal winter as manned and unmanned innovations reshape the region’s tumultuous front lines. Tensions endure in the Middle East, where regional attacks by Iranian proxies continue to threaten U.S. troops and allies. And arsenal developments and troop movements throughout the Indo-Pacific region evolve in response to increasingly bold territorial assertions out of Beijing.

Army officials attending the conference emphasized the service’s need for flexibility and quick adaptation as the technologies, policies and spending at the core of these conflicts evolve and such developments intersect with all corners of the globe.

Defense News and Army Times covered these discussions and more from the show. Catch up on our top stories from this year’s AUSA conference and read more of our latest coverage at defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa.

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All the high-tech gear the Army is bringing to soldiers

As technology advances, the gear soldiers use to survive on the battlefield and accomplish their missions becomes more sophisticated. As the epicenter of all things soldier gear, Program Executive Office-Soldier works with Army laboratories, research and development commands to deliver ready-to-field kit to troops, with gear ranging from soldiers’ boots to advanced targeting and night vision.

Army Times spoke with experts at PEO Soldier ahead of this year’s Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C, about some of the more high-tech equipment they’re developing and fielding. Read more here.

Trial by fire: How the Army banks on frontline units to test new gear

When learning recently that a prototype of the Army’s new air and missile defense radar was performing significantly better in tests than the old Patriot radar, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George had an idea.

Why not send the Raytheon-made Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor, or LTAMDS, to units stationed in the Pacific, the Middle East or Europe to get a sense of how the new equipment works in field, he suggested.

The process would essentially outsource service test and evaluation procedures currently confined to controlled environments in the United States to what the Army calls the “tactical edge,” one step in a wider transformation initiative that prizes change driven by the deployed. Read more here.

How the Army’s chief of staff plans to modernize the service

The U.S. Army will ramp up its efforts to transform its formations with next-level technology including capabilities to counter drone threats much faster, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said.

“We have to buy smart and fast,” George said in a speech at the annual Eisenhower luncheon. “Our budget is tight, our numbers are lean and that requires us to prioritize and make informed investments.”

When George became Army chief a year ago, he announced he would focus on using units in the field to transform the service “in contact,” putting capability into the hands of soldiers in realistic operational environments to advance things that work and scrap what doesn’t. Read more here.

When will the Army embrace hybrid-electric vehicles?

The Army has long tinkered with the idea of making some of its vehicles electric or hybrid, and while the technology has become commonplace in the commercial vehicle industry, the service has yet to jump on the bandwagon.

As officials hedge their bets, companies have continued to put technology in front of the service in order to show the purported benefits, arguing that the technology is ready for prime time in the Army’s modernization plans. Read more here.

Take notes, a formation like this could be coming to your unit soon

In the piney woods of Louisiana, one brigade’s new approach to reconnaissance recently illustrated the Army’s plan to undertake more complex and demanding missions with new tech and fewer soldiers. The 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, or MBCT, with 101st Airborne Division carried out their rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center in August, the culmination of months of planning, new equipment training and restructuring.

The brigade is one of three selected by the Army chief of staff to be the focus of his “Transformation in Contact” initiative, which seeks to deliver new equipment to units as they increase their readiness and prepare for deployments. Read more here.

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Fighting ‘dirty’ — The Army’s plan to survive, and win, a doomsday war

Daring moves by U.S. adversaries foreshadow the return of sinister nuclear, chemical or biological weapons as technological advances promise to bring new tools of destruction to strike soldiers on future battlefields. A soldier’s new best friend may not be a rifle, or altogether new weapons, but instead a gas mask, gloves and a protective suit.

As threats evolve, the Pentagon, and specifically the Army, is reimagining how units may have to fight large-scale combat in deadly, contaminated environments. But experts in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) defense, must also fight complacency that’s existed for generations and bureaucratic red tape. Read more here.

From CamoGPT to life skills, the Army is changing how it trains troops

As the Army has adjusted its doctrine and modernized how it prepares soldiers for leadership and combat, the service’s Training and Doctrine Command touches nearly every aspect of those initiatives. Over the past year, new programs and updates to existing training have flowed across the force.

Army Times spoke with Gen. Gary Brito, head of Training and Doctrine Command, about some of these areas and what they mean for new and career soldiers. Brito took over his current command in 2022 after serving as the Army’s deputy chief of staff over personnel. Read more here.

Soldiers exposed to new combat realities with expanded training

A new approach to training brand new recruits in large-scale combat aims to prepare soldiers for future conflicts as the Army readies the force for a potential slugfest against foes like the Russian or Chinese militaries.

In March, the service launched “Forge 2.5,” another update to “The Forge,” which began as a concept in 2016 with a 96-hour field exercise for week-seven trainees. The Forge has been in place since 2018 as a regular feature of basic training. The event closely mirrors “The Crucible,” which the Marine Corps instituted in its recruit training in the 1990s. Read more here.

How the Army is improving care in the field to keep soldiers alive

The Army is revamping how it provides lifesaving care in the field, including new hospital setup gear, ways to preserve blood on the front lines and a new combat-ready respirator to keep wounded soldiers breathing. Over the past year, Program Executive Office-Soldier added medical devices to its portfolio of all things soldier, which includes clothing, weapons, body armor and a host of other items.

The 1945th Medical Detachment is slated to stand up in late 2025 and will hold three Prolonged Care Augmentation Detachments, or PCADs, officials said. Early work on the PCADs began as all U.S. service branches acknowledged that large-scale combat operations would mean wounded soldiers might have to wait longer for care. Read more here.

Training changes on the horizon for Army Guardsmen

The Army National Guard must find new ways to train in a limited number of days each year so that their formations are ready to fight large-scale combat operations when called, Army National Guard Director Lt. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs said Tuesday at the annual Association of the U.S. Army conference.

Guardsmen are generally restricted to serving 39 days each year, and in that time, soldiers must practice everything from physical training and small arms marksmanship to knocking down aerial threats or planning how to move a brigade across the globe. Read more here.

Why Army divisions must prepare to get dirty

During this past year the Army sent a division headquarters and its enablers into a large-scale, on-the-ground exercise to learn how these personnel groups will approach surviving the next war.

It was the first time in decades that division headquarters and the myriad units it would go into combat with — a combat aviation brigade, sustainment, air defense brigade and division artillery — trained together in person. But it certainly will not be the last. Read more here.

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What ‘Transformation in Contact’ means for the enlisted soldier

Over the past year, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and his top generals have merged two constant Army initiatives: readiness and modernization. Keeping soldiers ready to fight when called and delivering them new gear, updated doctrine and time to train on their equipment and tactics is a balancing act.

Although the Transformation in Contact initiative is part of an Army-wide effort, three brigades have been selected to test out many of the on-the-ground changes, including 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky; 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division out of Hawaii; and 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York.

The brigades are buying commercial equipment and reconfiguring their unit structures to find out what they’ll need for a future fight. Read more here.

US Army sets ambitious new recruiting goal following years of struggle

The U.S. Army is aiming to recruit 61,000 new soldiers in the coming year, an ambitious goal that is building off of the service surpassing its goal with 55,000 new recruits in fiscal 2024 after several dismal recruiting years, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth announced Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

The Army recruited 55,000 new soldiers in FY24. The service’s Delayed Entry Program goal for FY25 is 10,000, which is twice the number as FY24, Wormuth said. The delayed entry program allows enlistees to sign up but leave for initial training later, often so that they can complete high school or college.

“This goal is ambitious but we believe it is achievable,” she said. Read more here.

How saving soldiers’ lives influenced the Army’s new kit options

While new night vision and advanced drones often attract a lot of attention, soldiers know that much of their comfort and survival in training and combat often depends on what they wear. Everything from boots and weapons to first aid pouches, new bomb suits for explosives specialists and even cold weather gear comes out of Program Executive Office-Soldier.

Such items — whether it’s the new Greens uniform, a better hot-weather boot, poncho or the beloved “woobie” — are all part of what soldiers wear. Army Times spoke with gear experts at PEO Soldier ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition about some of the items soldiers wear that are being fielded, developed or improved. Read more here.

Army wants all troops on new fitness program by 2032. How’s it going so far?

The Army recently announced that its all-around health and fitness program will now expand beyond a select 111 brigades to the entire Army. Since its inception in 2018 with a pilot program, the Holistic Health and Fitness program, or H2F, has sought to educate and improve soldier performance in physical, mental, nutrition, spiritual and sleep domains.

To that end, the force has built brigade-level civilian teams of nearly two dozen contracted staff members, which include an H2F program director; nutrition, injury control and mental health directors; registered dietitians; physical therapists; athletic trainers; strength coaches; cognitive performance specialists and occupational therapists. Read more here.

How Project Polaris is gearing up the brigade by targeting the squad

The home for all things soldier gear is partnering with a host of Army entities on a project to build a better infantry brigade by working from the bottom up at the soldier and squad level. Army Times spoke with Maj. Gen. Christopher Schneider, commander of Program Executive Office-Soldier, ahead of the annual Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition about the “Project Polaris” initiative.

Coordinating the Army’s many groups that encompass all the parts of a brigade requires significant effort. The coordination between Schneider’s command and others is now considered the service’s Close Combat Integration Enterprise, or CCIE, Schneider said.

“We have never been as aligned as we are today,” Schneider added. Read more here.

Soldiers will get $240 a month for operational deployments

Soldiers deployed for more than 60 days in an Army operation will now receive an extra $240 each month. For those already deployed, the cash benefit is retroactive to Oct. 1, said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth.

The new benefit, dubbed “operational deployment pay,” is specifically for operational deployments and does not cover exercises at the combat training centers, Wormuth said. For example, the pay is intended for brigades and battalions who’ve deployed to Europe for Operation Assurance, she said. Read more here.

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Army races to widen the bottlenecks of artillery shell production

The U.S. Army has started diversifying its supplier base for 155mm artillery shells, moving away from the bottleneck of a single source that has endangered the flow of fresh ammo, according to a top service official. The service is racing toward a goal of shoring up all major single sources that provide parts or materials for 155mm munitions by the end of 2025.

“There’s going to be a lot of ribbon cuttings between now and the end of the year,” Doug Bush, the Army’s acquisition chief, told Defense News.

The Pentagon is investing billions of dollars to increase the capacity of 155mm munition production as it races to replenish stock sent to support Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion, which began in early 2022, and to ensure the U.S. has what it might need should conflict erupt across multiple theaters at once. The Army planned to spend $3.1 billion in FY24 supplemental funding alone to ramp up production. Read more here.

Why the Army is looking abroad to close a widening artillery gun gap

More than two years into observing an artillery war play out in Ukraine, the U.S. Army finds its own gun technology options lacking. The service’s current arsenal is either old, as is the case of the towed M777, or lacking the desired range for future conflicts against near-peer armies, exemplified by the latest version of the Paladin self-propelled howitzer, made by BAE Systems.

The recent cancellation of an effort to mount an unwieldly long barrel on a Paladin body — length determines range, generally speaking — has forced the service to start from square one yet again. The Army quietly halted the yearslong prototyping effort, dubbed the Extended Range Cannon Artillery, or ERCA, a year ago, announcing only this March that “engineering challenges” had turned out to be insurmountable, as acquisition chief Doug Bush put it. Read more here.

US Army quits plan for next-gen Patriot missile replacement

The U.S. Army has decided to back off an effort to replace its Patriot missile with a next-generation interceptor, according to Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano, program executive officer for missiles and space.

“We are not going to move forward on what we were calling a Lower-Tier Future Interceptor,” Lozano told Defense News in an interview at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference, adding that those scrapped plans would have been “a very expensive endeavor.”

The effort would have completed the final piece of the puzzle in a new Integrated Air and Missile Defense System. Already the service has fielded its command-and-control system, and is developing and will soon field a new radar capable of detecting threats from 360 degrees. Read more.

What the Army is planning for its vehicle-protection push

The U.S. Army wants to pursue a more layered approach to protecting combat vehicles and formations, a step away from the singular push over the last decade to outfit them with active protection systems, Army officials in charge of ground combat modernization told Defense News.

Army Futures Command has been working on a Formation Layered Protection requirement and is releasing what it calls a “characteristics of need” statement to industry. The Army is looking for ways to protect dismounted soldiers, vehicles and full formations from a variety of threats. Potential approaches include masking vehicles or hardening them with both active and passive protection tactics. Read more here.

GM Defense pitches silent-drive vehicle as heir to the Humvee

Emerging rapidly out of dense foliage, a truck swings around a bend on a washboard gravel road, but the only sound is the crunch of gravel beneath tires and the occasional ping of a rock hitting its underside.

The truck is a new hybrid vehicle that GM Defense has developed to show the Army what is possible for a Humvee-type capability that meets the needs of modern warfare. The Army does not yet have a requirement for a new Humvee, or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or something else to replace the 40-year-old vehicle with 50-year-old technology. Read more here.

How the Army’s upgrading ammo to destroy targets large and small

From pistol rounds to artillery shells, the Army is developing a host of new ways to destroy targets large and small. The service is working on one-way tracer rounds for current standard rifle ammunition and reduced-range training rounds for some of the same cartridges.

Additionally, the service is testing proximity fuses for grenade launcher rounds that would help defeat enemies behind barriers and blast drones out of the sky. Meanwhile, on the larger end of the caliber spectrum, Army scientists are building new rounds for the 120mm tank rounds they expect will be needed to defeat enemy armor. Read more here.

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One on one with US Army Pacific Command chief Gen. Charles Flynn

The Army has spent the last year increasing the complexity and breadth of its exercises in the Pacific while trying out new capabilities that will soon be a part of formations in the theater. Relationships with Pacific nations have grown amid continuing tensions with China, and U.S. Army Pacific chief Gen. Charles Flynn has staked out a role for land forces in a region associated primarily with air and naval power.

Defense News sat down with Flynn prior to the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference. Here are edited excerpts of the conversation. Read more here.

US Army Pacific to absorb new units under ‘transformation’ mantra

The U.S. Army command for the Indo-Pacific finds itself at the front of the service’s transformation initiative, incorporating new unit types created to facilitate rapid adaptation to adversary tactics, according to U.S. Army Pacific Command chief Gen. Charles Flynn.

Several units in the Pacific, from Hawaii to Alaska, were chosen as part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s initiative, dubbed “Transforming in Contact,” Flynn said in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

“But there’s a whole other transformation in contact that’s going on out here at the operational and theater level.” That transformation has to do with absorbing new organizations and capabilities designed to facilitate the quick incorporation of new tactics and technologies in the field. Read more here.

Project Convergence to plant a flag in the Pacific

The military’s massive experimentation event, Project Convergence, will plant a flag in the strategically vital Pacific region next year, the first time that U.S. and allied forces will kick the tires of the Pentagon’s latest warfighting concepts at the edge of America’s sphere of influence.

“Our large experiments need to be concept-informed, and the concepts we’re talking about are the sets of capabilities and relationships that we think we’re going to need to win in the operating environments we are going to face in the future,” said Army Brig. Gen. Zachary Miller, who heads the Joint Modernization Command at Fort Bliss, Texas. “And the priority theater for the Department of Defense is the Pacific.”

The joint force has simulated Pacific scenarios in the United States during previous iterations of the exercise, which began as an Army-only event in 2020 at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. But the experimentation campaign has never been held forward in relevant theaters aside from some peripheral activities at the Army Pacific headquarters level earlier this year. Read more here.

Sending THAAD to Israel adds to strain on US Army, leaders say

The deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it will add to already difficult strains on the Army’s air defense forces and potential delays in modernizing its missile defense systems, Army leaders said Monday.

The service’s top two leaders declined to provide details on the deployment ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over the weekend. But they spoke broadly about their concerns as the demand for THAAD and Patriot missile batteries grows because of the war in Ukraine and the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas militants. Read more here.

Army weighing sending missile defense prototypes forward into theater

Tasked by the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, the service’s missiles and space shop is examining the possibility of sending new air and missile defense capabilities still in the prototype phase into theater, the program executive officer told Defense News.

“The chief has challenged us and has asked us to look at opportunities, present some options, by which we would accelerate [the Integrated Battle Command System] to the field, accelerate [the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor] to the field and accelerate some of the [Indirect Fire Protection Capability] capabilities to the field,” Maj. Gen. Frank Lozano said in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

Both the Raytheon-developed LTAMDS and Leidos’ Dynetics-made IFPC have experienced successful test events over the past year. Read more here.

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How the US Army is helping Ukraine with front line repairs

It starts with a message on the secure messaging app Signal.

Front line units in Ukraine see an issue with their equipment and send notes to translators, who soon share those with the U.S. military. Then, operating from one of seven stations in Poland, American forces schedule video calls with the Ukrainians to help them repair the weapons.

This is the process for the Army’s virtual repair mission to help keep equipment working as long and as close to the front line as possible in Ukraine. Read more here.

How the Army plans to remove soldiers from the deadly breach

If a collection of soldiers and scientists are successful, troops may never again have to run, on foot, into a breach, swinging a grappling hook in a scene resembling medieval foot soldiers breaking through enemy fortifications.

Instead, soldiers of the future may pilot explosives-laden drones and robotic bulldozers into the tangle of concertina wire, steel barricades and landmines. Over the past nine months, the 264th Engineer Clearance Company, with the 20th Engineer Brigade at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, began its third phase of human-machine teaming experiments. Read more here.

Make counter-drone training as routine as marksmanship: Army general

Soldiers recently deployed to the Middle East often had less than a minute to decide how to take down an incoming drone. A unit detecting, intercepting and destroying a drone often took less than four minutes, said Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann, commander of the 10th Mountain Division.

To meet that threat, the two-star is working with his unit and using a soldier-created tool to prepare troops to counter drones more effectively.

“Training [counter-drone] should be as routine as drawing our rifles, going to the range and honing our marksmanship skills,” Naumann said. Read more here.

Army closes in on autonomous boats to ferry supplies into battle

The Army is developing requirements to distribute supplies to troops on the battlefield in a contested environment using a network of autonomous boats and aircraft, according to the general in charge of logistics modernization.

“Our focus is an ecosystem looking at how we improve the supply chain, but also ensuring that we could keep that supply chain in motion — given a peer adversary like China — [when] we’re not able to [establish] fixed sites and keep them there for long periods of time,” Brig. Gen. Shane Upton, the Contested Logistics Cross Functional Team lead within Army Futures Command, told Defense News. Read more here.

For Replicator 2, Army wants AI-enabled counter-drone tech

The Army is eyeing a mix of existing and new technology to potentially scale through the second iteration of the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, including systems that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to target and intercept small-drone threats.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced last month that Replicator 2 would center on countering threats from small drones, particularly those that target “critical installations and force concentration,” he said in a Sept. 29 memo. DOD plans to propose funding as part of its fiscal 2026 budget request with a goal of fielding “meaningfully improved” counter-drone defense systems within two years. Read more here.

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As Ukraine builds better drones, do American firms still have a role?

In mid-September, massive explosions erupted in Toropets, a city in eastern Russia near the border with Belarus.

Ukraine had struck a military warehouse, igniting bombs and missiles in what Pentagon officials later said was Russia’s largest loss of Russian ammunition during the war — hundreds of thousands of rounds destroyed.

Almost as important, though, was how Ukraine conducted the strike.

Toropets is more than 300 miles from the Ukrainian border, outside the range of western weapons Kyiv wants permission to fire deep into Russia. Instead, Ukraine used drones it built alone.

Two and a half years into the war, the strike demonstrated a growing confidence in Ukraine’s own ability to design and build drones, perhaps the war’s defining weapon so far. Officials in Kyiv have said they can build weapons that are more precise and resilient than those sent by the West — an argument some American military officials dismissed in private as late as this summer, when speaking with Defense News.

Now even the Pentagon is bullish.

“The Ukrainian-made drones are doing very well,” a senior U.S. military official told reporters last week, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive assessment.

This success is forcing American firms to adapt. When Russia invaded in early 2022, U.S. drone companies sent Ukraine systems by the thousands, both to support its self-defense and to test their gear. Many firms have continued sending them, and even set up shop inside the country.

A more self-reliant Ukraine may change those relationships. American companies are finding different demands for their equipment, and in some case less demand at all. If that’s the case, American companies may struggle to refine their equipment, applying lessons from a conflict many officials say is showing the future of warfare.

“We remain in constant connectivity with the units that are using the systems that we’re providing,” said Chris Brose, chief strategy officer at Anduril, of Ukrainian soldiers. “They are our toughest critics.”

Graduation

Drones have been crucial for surveillance, targeting and strikes on the battlefield throughout the war in Ukraine. In response, its president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become more intent on bringing them into the military.

In early October, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine can build up to 4 million drones each year and has contracts to build 1.5 million in 2024.

Many of these are small, first-person-view, or FPV, drones — not that different than what people can buy in the commercial market, said Sam Bendett, an expert at the Center for Naval Analyses who studies the use of drones in the Ukraine war.

Still, he said, Ukraine is also developing more high-end equipment that can take on more daring missions, as shown by the strike on Russia’s ammunition depot.

This spring, Ukraine started attacking oil fields deep into Russia in an attempt to pinch a key source of revenue for the Kremlin. While Kyiv was using its own drones to do so, the targets were civilian, rather than military, and had less intense jamming around them to stop incoming attacks.

American officials now say Ukraine has graduated past that level.

“There certainly are capability enhancements that have happened very rapidly,” the senior military official said. “Also, they are getting more sophisticated in their tactics, techniques and procedures.”

With that success, though, Ukraine needs fewer drones built by foreign partners. And American companies are noticing.

“They’re probably going to do a better job of meeting their own requirements than nations are going to be able to do for them,” Brose said of the small drones Ukraine is building in high volumes.

Instead, Brose argued that firms like Anduril are better placed to help Ukraine with “complementary capabilities” that can help make drones built in the country survive longer. He didn’t specify what those weapons could be but argued they could help protect drones against Russian jamming — which is only getting more intense as Moscow also invests in drones and electronic warfare.

‘Open market’

This is not to say that Ukraine no longer wants or needs American-made drones.

Skydio, a California-based company on contract with the Army, says it has sent more than 1,000 drones to Ukraine in the last two years. The company has since hired a small team of engineers and other employees in the country to adjust its own equipment on a timeline closer to front line needs.

Earlier this year Ukraine requested a further 8,000 of Skydio’s top-tier drone, the X10D, though the company is still trying to get enough money from other countries to send them.

Mark Valentine, an executive at Skydio, said that his firm has noticed Ukraine needing less Western support on smaller and larger drones — ranging from commercial-style weapons to precise munitions.

That said, “the microelectronics and some of the AI capabilities that we’ve been able to integrate on a drone have not necessarily been reproduced at scale in Ukraine,” Valentine said. “I still think that is a sweet spot.”

This fall, U.S. President Joe Biden approved a $2.4 billion package of long-term aid for Ukraine, including what a senior defense official called a “significant investment in Ukraine’s drone capability.” The aid will eventually help provide thousands of aerial drones and smaller components to build more inside Ukraine.

The assistance reflects a new posture for the Pentagon and U.S. defense firms — moving from only sending Ukrainians their drones to helping them design and build them.

“Ukrainian drone companies in many different domains are going to be a global, legitimate player,” said Wahid Nawabi, head of the drone company Aerovironment, which has sent Ukraine thousands of systems during the war.

Aerovironment, Nawabi said, still has many systems in Ukraine and continues to get data from front-line soldiers using them. Even more, he said, his firm was working to partner with these counterparts to design and build drones together.

Ukrainian operators, he said, demand the best, and if home-grown firms are providing that, perhaps American ones can join them.

“It’s an open market for competition,” Nawabi said.

Army moves ahead on plans to replace storied Bradley Fighting Vehicle

DETROIT ARSENAL, Michigan — Two industry teams competing to design a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle replacement have completed preliminary design reviews, clearing a hurdle ahead of the next milestone in 2025, Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, Army program executive officer for ground combat systems, said.

American Rheinmetall Vehicles and General Dynamics Land Systems were chosen from a pool of bidders in June 2023 to continue into a detailed design phase of the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.

Both teams are designing a hybrid vehicle featuring a suite of lethal capabilities to include a 50mm cannon, a remote turret, anti-tank guided missiles, machine guns employed through an advanced third-generation, forward-looking infrared sensor, an integrated protection suite, kitted armor, and signature management capabilities as well as intelligent fire control, according to Army officials.

The total value of both contracts is approximately $1.6 billion; the overall program is expected to be worth about $45 billion, according to the Army.

The last preliminary design review wrapped up in August, and the service will have a quick turnaround to complete critical design reviews in order to begin building physical prototypes, Dean said in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference this week.

Here’s who will move forward in the Bradley replacement competition

“At that point [when] the design is final, all of the elements and parts are defined, and at that point the contractor is ordering all their material to build prototypes,” Dean said.

Prototypes will take 18 to 20 months to construct after the critical design reviews wrap up. Once prototypes are delivered, the Army will move into a test and evaluation phase with both competitors before deciding on a winner in fiscal 2027. The first vehicles are expected to be fielded in fiscal 2029.

The Army is moving on an aggressive schedule between completion of a preliminary design review and a critical design review, Dean said.

Such a schedule is possible because of the designs taking place in a digital engineering environment and frequent soldier touch points in physical and virtual mockups, Col. Kevin Bradley, who is in charge of combat vehicle modernization within Army Futures Command, said in the same interview.

“Having soldiers get in and actually see what the seating in the back looked like, how their evacuation drills would go, definitely was beneficial to both vendors in giving them feedback to help adjust designs to better suit what we were looking for in the requirements,” he said.

“I would say we’ve had everything from small user interface changes up to, in one case, at least a fairly significant structural change to the base design,” Dean said. “There are some fairly dramatic shifts, and this is the time to do them.”

American Rheinmetall Defense’s team includes Textron Systems, RTX, L3Harris Technologies and Allison Transmission as well as artificial intelligence-focused company Anduril Technologies.

GDLS is teamed up with GM Defense; Applied Intuition, a specialist in modeling and simulating autonomy for the automobile industry; and AeroVironment, which is providing its Switchblade loitering munitions for integration into the design. GDLS also continues to work with General Dynamics Mission Systems to incorporate networks, radio gear and cyber capabilities.

RTX agrees to pay $252M penalty to resolve Qatar bribery charges

NEW YORK — RTX Corporation, the defense contractor formerly known as Raytheon, has agreed to pay the U.S. government $252 million to resolve criminal charges alleging it paid bribes to secure contracts with Qatar, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

The company entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on charges of violating the anti-bribery provision of the Foreign Corruption Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act.

It also agreed to pay a $52.5 million civil penalty to resolve a parallel Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and must forfeit at least $37 million to satisfy both probes.

At a brief hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, lawyers for RTX waived their right to an indictment and pleaded not guilty to both counts. They did not object to any of the allegations in court documents filed in conjunction with the agreement.

Under the agreement, the company will have to demonstrate good conduct for the next 3½ years and foster a culture of ethics and compliance with anti-corruption laws.

Messages seeking comment were left for RTX Corporation and the Qatari embassy in Washington.

RTX said in a July regulatory filing that it set aside $1.24 billion to resolve pending legal and regulatory matters. The company’s president and CEO, Christopher Calio, told investors that the investigations largely involved issues that predated the Raytheon-United Technologies merger that formed the current company in 2020.

“These matters primarily arose out of legacy Raytheon Company and Rockwell Collins prior to the merger and acquisition of these companies,” Calio said. “We’ve already taken robust corrective actions to address the legacy gaps that led to these issues.”

According to court documents, Raytheon employees and agents offered and paid bribes to a foreign official between 2012 and 2016 to gain an advantage in obtaining lucrative business deals with the Qatar Emiri Air Force and Qatar Armed Forces.

The company then succeeded in securing four additions to an existing contract with the Gulf Cooperation Council — a regional union of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — and a $510 million sole-sourced contract to build a joint- operations center for the Qatari military, the court documents said.

Raytheon made about $36.7 million in profit from the Gulf Cooperation Council contract additions and anticipated making more than $72 million on the joint operations center, but the Qatari government ultimately did not go forward with the deal, prosecutors said.

Wednesday’s penalty is just the latest legal fallout from RTX’s business dealings.

According to court and regulatory filings, the company is expected to soon enter into another deferred prosecution agreement to resolve civil and criminal investigations in Massachusetts into defective pricing claims for Raytheon contracts dating from 2011 to 2017.

In August, the company agreed to pay $200 million to the State Department after voluntarily disclosing more than two dozen alleged violations of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Among the allegations were that the company provided classified military aircraft data to China and that employees took company-issued laptops containing information about missiles and aircraft into Iran, Lebanon and Russia.

From CamoGPT to life skills, the Army is changing how it trains troops

As the Army has adjusted its doctrine and modernized how it prepares soldiers for leadership and combat, the service’s Training and Doctrine Command touches nearly every aspect of those initiatives.

Over the past year, new programs and updates to existing training have flowed across the force

Army Times spoke with Gen. Gary Brito, head of Training and Doctrine Command, about some of these areas and what they mean for new and career soldiers. Brito took over his current command in 2022 after serving as the Army’s deputy chief of staff over personnel.

The four-star has a deep, personal history within Army training, having served as commander over the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, and twice serving at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, earlier in his career, according to his official biography.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

What are some additions or changes to Army training from this past year that readers might not have encountered?

Gen. Gary Brito: Over the past year, we’ve made significant improvements to our initial entry training and professional military education. Some of the programs include the quick-fire observation portal that was created by the Center for Army Lessons Learned.

The portal is a web and mobile application that allows users to submit observations. We’ve added foundational skills development to our curriculum. This training promotes skill-specific proficiency, cohesion among soldiers and camaraderie while also aiming to lower harmful behaviors.

The foundational skills include such areas as life skills, from financial planning and time management to suicide prevention and resilience training.

We’ve updated how we consider the operational environment in all that we do to plan for potential large-scale combat.

That document was released earlier this year and explains the current operational environment considerations all soldiers should understand. We’ve also expanded basic combat training, adding more training companies to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Senior leaders gauge readiness by how units perform at combat training centers. What’s going on to prepare for and take home lessons from a center rotation?

Our mission command training program and warfighter exercises give corps and divisions a chance to conduct collective training, at scale, with multinational partners.

The mission command program specifically focuses on leader development by advising, observing and consulting commanders on how they run their units and how to improve. We also host a quarterly general officer steering committee meeting.

That Army Lessons Learned Forum captures gaps, issues and lessons learned from commanders in various theaters. That forum generates a list of recommended solutions to tactical and operational level concerns that’s disseminated across Army leadership.

How is the Army modernizing its force while still training new and experienced soldiers on evolving doctrine, new equipment and fundamental soldiering?

We are making changes to our program of instruction to accelerate training development. Across our centers of excellence, we incorporate observations and lessons learned to adjust curriculum, training events and cadre and faculty development.

We’re introducing tools and practices such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and human-machine integration. For example, at the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Moore, Georgia, the center has developed and updated various Army training publications to address the use of small drones, counter-drone and aspects of electromagnetic warfare into our courses.

An MCOE team, partnered with Army Futures Command, is experimenting with robotic-enabled maneuver, introducing air and ground robots into live, virtual and constructive training across the spectrum of our courses, from basic training to the captain’s career course.

What are some programs or initiatives you can highlight in Army training for the coming year?

TRADOC is integrating data literacy into Army professional military education. New data literacy curriculums are being developed for the Basic Officer Leader Course, Warrant Office Candidate Course, Basic Leader Course and Advanced Leader Course.

The Cyber Center of Excellence initiated a proof of concept for CamoGPT, a generative AI application that improves productivity and operational readiness at all echelons.

Like ChatGPT, the CamoGPT uses a large language model to incorporate data from joint and Army doctrine, lessons learned, best practices [and] TRADOC content, among other sources.

The Reconfigurable Virtual Collective Trainer is being delivered to the force. It is a hardware system that connects to the Army’s Synthetic Training Environment.

Users can access collective, mixed-reality training scenarios. It has a heads-up display, high-resolution monitor and controllers.

This gives soldiers, squads, platoons and companies the ability to navigate exercises using real and computer-generated movements.

The trainers, which have been installed at Fort Moore, Georgia, and Fort Cavazos, Texas, will allow for collective training with the Abrams tank, Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, Stryker and dismounted troops.

We’re also working to add future vehicle variants and their capabilities, such as the M1256/A1 Infantry Carrier Vehicle Stryker and Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense systems.

Senior enlisted leaders to share career lessons in Army writing push

The Army has launched a new way for soldiers at any level to glean valuable lessons from the combat-tested, seasoned enlisted leaders in its ranks.

The “Muddy Boots” initiative recently launched as a dedicated section of the NCO Journal, with the backing of Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer.

The section seeks to capture the insights of nominative command sergeants major across the force.

“We believe that experience gained and not shared is experience lost,” Weimer told Army Times. “The most valuable lessons come from the mud, from the field, and from the boots that have been on the ground.”

Army fellowship offers paid degree, editor jobs to revitalize journals

Weimer and other senior leaders want soldiers of all ranks to take note of what their comrades can teach them, but also to offer their own experiences as a guide.

The writing project seeks input, writing and discussion on key Army topics in the service’s journals and online platforms.

The contributing sergeants major bring with them upwards of thirty years’ worth of experience, Weimer noted. That “experience is a gift that should be shared, not hoarded,” Weimer said.

The effort aligns with the Army’s broader Harding Project and a series of efforts to rekindle professional military reading, writing and feedback from troops. The Harding Project, which launched last year, selected a group of fellows for journalism training and assignment at their respective branch journals, such as “Infantry” and “Armor” magazines.

Weimer, along with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Training and Doctrine Command head Gen. Gary Brito, co-authored an article published on the Modern War Institute website when they unveiled the Harding Project, noting the Army needs diverse dialogue in the historic interwar period it currently faces.

The interwar period references the namesake of the project, Maj. Edwin “Forrest” Harding, who assumed the helm of the Infantry Journal in the interwar period leading up to World War II.

Harding doubled the magazine’s circulation in four years by pushing “critical debates over changing tactics and technology before America joined World War II,” Zachary Griffiths and Theo Lipsky wrote in an article on the Modern War Institute website.

While the Harding fellowships are reserved for captains, master sergeants and senior warrant officers focused on branch-specific or operational matters, Muddy Boots seeks to share the lived wisdom from senior noncommissioned officers.

The NCO Journal has long featured career guidance from soldiers. For example, current articles exhort NCOs to analyze their own critical thinking when leading soldiers, monitor behavioral health among troops as a function of readiness and explain the revised enlisted promotion process.

A featured article published by the journal in May even explained why NCOs should write in the first place.

The “Regaining Relevance Through Effective Writing” article by Sgt. Maj. David Cyr encourages budding military writers to start by answering the professional journals’ call for submissions on a specific topic. He then advises soldiers to work with a battle buddy on their topic and drafting of the article.

Above all, and maybe the most difficult, Cyr tells soldiers to “risk rejection.” Not all submissions will be published. But he wants them to keep at it, regardless.

“Remember, failure is not measured by the number of rejections but by when you give up,” Cyr wrote.

How the Army is improving care in the field to keep soldiers alive

The Army is revamping how it provides lifesaving care in the field, including new hospital setup gear, ways to preserve blood on the front lines and a new combat-ready respirator to keep wounded soldiers breathing.

Over the past year, Program Executive Office-Soldier added medical devices to its portfolio of all things soldier, which includes clothing, weapons, body armor and a host of other items.

The 1945th Medical Detachment is slated to stand up in late 2025 and will hold three Prolonged Care Augmentation Detachments, or PCADs, officials said.

Early work on the PCADs began as all U.S. service branches acknowledged that large-scale combat operations would mean wounded soldiers might have to wait longer for care. The commonly referred to “golden hour” of getting a wounded individual to higher-level medical care now might look more like the “golden day.”

Future Army medics will lean hard on new tech to help mass casualties

“We got spoiled in [the Global War on Terror] where nobody was more than an hour away from a surgeon,” said Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Proctor, senior enlisted advisor for Project Manager Soldier Medical Devices.

That means medical personnel from field surgeons to medics will need to keep soldiers alive longer with what they have on hand as compared to flying them off the battlefield for care at a full-fledged hospital.

With PCADs, the aim is to push more advanced care options, training and equipment down lower in the chain of care.

Army medical personnel put care into three main categories: Roles I, II and III.

Role I care covers treatment between the time a soldier is injured to when the soldier arrives at a forward aid station — combat medics keeping a soldier stable, for example.

Role II care is typically delivered by an area support medical company — usually part of the soldier’s higher command. This is the first time during the chain of care that a soldier might receive surgery.

Meanwhile, Role III care is a full field hospital, formerly called a combat support hospital. The PCAD concept allows commanders to expand or shrink the footprint of their field hospitals.

The “modular” setup of the detachments allows them to start with as few as 32 hospital beds and expand up to 248 beds, said Maj. Felicia Williams, a nurse consultant for the assistant program manager of hospitalization.

“This allows commanders to make decision on how large of a footprint do I need,” Proctor said.

Another piece of gear that will ease the strain on critical care is the 2.6-pound Sparrow Respirator. The respirator keeps a patient breathing instead of tying up an individual while manually using a pump to inflate the patient’s lungs. The service plans to field 6,900 respirators beginning in mid-2025.

“That’s a huge win for us, anybody who’s had to sit there and squeeze a bag for hours will tell you patient care has improved,” Proctor said.

The service is also working on new blood storage refrigerators for the field. The devices it’s now testing can hold up to 40 standard bags of blood and keep it viable for up to 78 hours, officials said.

White House approves $425 million in new Ukraine aid

The White House on Wednesday announced its latest package of military support for Ukraine, including $425 million worth of air defense, air-to-ground missiles, armored vehicles and other munitions.

President Joe Biden spoke Wednesday morning with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the White House announced the latest round of aid to help Kyiv in its ongoing war against Russia’s invasion.

The two leaders discussed the state of the war and a “victory plan” Zelenskyy has touted to end the conflict, according to a readout of the call.

The Ukrainian president publicly discussed that plan for the first time in a speech before the country’s parliament Wednesday. Arguing that his framework could halt the war by the end of 2025, Zelenskyy described five main points — chief among them membership in NATO and long-term military support from the West.

This week’s package includes many of those weapons Ukraine needs most, though it solely involves equipment America has sent in the past. The White House’s authority to send more assistance was set to expire at the end of September, forcing the president to designate the aid toward the existing list of approved systems.

The White House pledged that within months the U.S. would send “hundreds” of air defense interceptors and “dozens” of smaller air defense systems, both of which have become as valuable as they are scarce two-and-a-half years into the war. Russia has consistently overwhelmed Ukraine’s air defenses with cheap drones and ballistic missiles in attacks on military and civilian targets.

Kyiv is bracing for more such strikes heading into the winter as Ukraine struggles with a damaged power grid.

A Pentagon release specified that the air defense ammunition would include interceptors for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS. The package also features artillery and “thousands” of armored vehicles, according to the White House.

Biden had intended to host an October summit of leaders from countries supporting Ukraine’s self-defense but cancelled to help coordinate the response to Hurricane Milton. The White House said that meeting will now occur virtually in November.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin flew to Brussels Wednesday for meetings with his NATO counterparts. Austin will later attend a summit of defense ministers from the G7, a group of developed countries, where support for Ukraine will be on the docket.