Crooked Bough News Round-up

— US Army to stand up command for unmanned and autonomous warfare

 

at 10/13/26 10:15am

The U.S. Army has ordered the creation of its own command for autonomous systems, a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new four-star military command for unmanned and autonomous warfare.An Oct. 1 memo signed by Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle directs the Army vice chief of staff to establish the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command, or FASCOM. It also tells the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, who oversees how the Army buys weapons, to put one office in charge of purchasing its priority autonomous systems. Telle wrote that he issued the memo under guidance from Hegseth’s Sept. 30 State of the Force address.The memo does not say who will lead FASCOM, where it will be based or when it will be established. “Specifics on structure, command, mission, etc. will be announced at a future date,” Col. Marty Meiners, an Army spokesperson, told Defense News.The new acquisition office, a Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Autonomy, would have single authority over buying the Army’s priority autonomous systems. The Army reorganized its weapons buying last year under six portfolio acquisition executives, each overseeing a group of related programs. This would add another for autonomy.The memo also directs the assistant secretary to prioritize buying and fielding several types of autonomous systems no later than fiscal 2028. The list includes fires, the Army’s term for artillery, rockets and missiles; combat vehicles; watercraft resupply; breaching systems that clear obstacles such as minefields; reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition systems; and drones and robots working alongside crewed vehicles and aircraft.The Army said in its release that the memo’s initiatives build on work already underway, including an office set up earlier this year to work autonomous technology into weapons programs across the Army. Neither the memo nor the release says whether that office, the Capability Program Executive Office for Mission Autonomy, will move under the new acquisition office.The memo tasks the Army staff’s force management office, which shapes how units are organized and equipped, with quickly working out how to fit autonomous systems into at least six existing types of units: aviation, armor, fires, sustainment, engineer and training.It also tells the assistant secretary of the Army who oversees manpower and personnel policy to add drone and robotics specialist positions to all applicable Army units. Both specialties already exist: the 15X tactical unmanned aircraft systems specialist for enlisted soldiers, and the 390A robotics technician for warrant officers.“The Army is rapidly advancing to maintain our lethal edge,” Telle said in a statement released by the Army. “We are forging the U.S. Army Futures and Autonomous Systems Command to get cutting-edge technology into the hands of soldiers, while prioritizing autonomy in our formations, our acquisitions, and our training to dominate the future of warfare.”Hegseth announced the Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom, during his Sept. 30 State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Military Times reported. He said the command would have service-like authorities to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the military.Hegseth’s own memo, “Project Agincourt: Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” signed the same day as his address, puts the Pentagon’s unmanned systems office in charge of Project Agincourt, an effort to lay the groundwork for AutoWarCom.Hegseth said in his address that the project is named for the 1415 battle in which an outnumbered English army used the longbow to defeat a larger, heavily armored French force. The memo argues that cheap, precise weapons built at massive scale now threaten the expensive aircraft, ships and vehicles the military has long relied on.The Agincourt memo describes AutoWarCom as a four-star functional combatant command, a headquarters organized around a mission rather than a region, like U.S. Cyber Command. It says the command would have dedicated manpower, budget and authority to buy equipment.Powers like those require an act of Congress, which gave U.S. Special Operations Command a similar setup when it was created in 1987. The memo directs the unmanned systems office to work with Congress on the needed legislation, with a goal of establishing AutoWarCom by Oct. 1, 2027.The Agincourt memo says AutoWarCom will “define joint needs and integrate Service-provided forces in support of geographic combatant commanders,” the four-star officers who lead U.S. forces in regions such as the Middle East and the Pacific. A plan due by Oct. 30 is to lay out command relationships and what forces each service will contribute. Telle’s memo does not say how FASCOM will fit into that structure.The new command’s name revives “Futures” a year after the Army inactivated Army Futures Command. In October 2025, the service merged Futures Command with Training and Doctrine Command to form the Army Transformation and Training Command, or T2COM, headquartered in Austin, Texas.The memo does not address how FASCOM will relate to T2COM. A T2COM spokesperson referred questions about the new command to Army headquarters.Asked how FASCOM will relate to T2COM and AutoWarCom and how the changes will be paid for, Meiners said the Army had no information to provide beyond its release.

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— The Lynx XM30 is making its case to be the US Army’s Bradley replacement

 

at 10/13/26 9:45am

One of the U.S. Army’s next-gen combat vehicle prototypes is finally being seen and operated by the service members who will one day steer the final product. American Rheinmetall, one of two defense companies chosen to develop replacements for the Army’s M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, announced in September the delivery of its Lynx XM30 prototype to the service. The Army conducted initial safety tests before allowing soldiers to join the trial-and-error phase.“Now it’s in soldiers’ hands,” said Chris Haag, vice president of business development and strategy at Rheinmetall. “Seeing their eyes light up when they got to see the vehicle for the first time is pretty awesome.”While Haag could not disclose where soldiers were along the tinkering process, he confirmed that service members were in possession of the vehicle and were at least able to hop inside and turn it on, beginning a new era for Army combat vehicles.Rheinmetall is currently competing for the XM30 Army contract with General Dynamics Land Systems, which is unveiling its Wolf XM30 prototype at the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., from Oct. 12 to 14.The Army selected the companies in 2023 for the design phase of a process that will eventually replace the Bradley, which arrived in the 1980s.The Lynx XM30 is designed for modern combat environments riddled with drones and electronic warfare, like those seen in Ukraine. The vehicle will wield a hybrid-electric powertrain and an uncrewed 50mm turret, providing more firepower than the Bradley, which boasts a 25mm M242 Bushmaster.American Rheinmetall’s prototype likely wouldn’t differ from General Dynamics’ XM30 design when it came to physical architecture, Haag said, which meant the Lynx could differentiate itself from competition through aspects like power, engine, transmission and soldiers’ experience with user interface and operability in general.The Army’s initial solicitation called for a new combat vehicle shaped by a modular, open architecture, which will allow it to undergo updates more swiftly than its predecessor.For large modernization efforts, the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle may have to travel back to an Army or manufacturing facility to undergo overhauls or block upgrades, whereas the XM30 could potentially undergo software updates that revamp the system in a much shorter timeframe and require less geographical displacement.The company will deliver seven more prototypes to the Army by the end of the year, all part of a nearly $764 million Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract to expand the XM30 from digital design through validation.Regarding next steps, Haag said the Army will put the prototype through testing and evaluation with soldiers, driving it hundreds of miles to see what works and what doesn’t. The service will then provide feedback to American Rheinmetall, at which point the company can incorporate those suggestions into updated designs that it will use to try to nail down a final contract.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

— Different suppressors for training, combat? Sig Sauer offers new way to reduce toxic fumes

 

at 10/13/26 9:15am

In 2017, gun maker Sig Sauer landed a five-year, $48 million contract with U.S. Special Operations Command to upgrade operators’ M4A1 carbines with integrally suppressed upper receivers, an aggressive move toward a future warfighting concept that some have called the “stealth infantry.”The idea: to radically reduce the sound signature of friendly troops by suppressing every weapon on a battlefield. The contract also plunged the company into engagement with an emerging area of concern: the health dangers of toxic gases and particles blasted back into the shooter’s face when firing a suppressed weapon. While the full extent of the risks is still being understood, SOCOM made it clear to Sig at the time of the contract that it wanted to cut down on toxicity, setting a standard that seemed unreachable.“The requirement at the time was that they wanted a suppressed upper receiver group that produced less toxicity than an unsuppressed M4,” Josh Shoemaker, product manager for defense systems at Sig, told Military Times. “At the time the industry was all like, ‘That’s not physically possible.’ It was really a set of requirements that was defying everybody’s understanding of suppressors.”In the years that followed, Sig would come under fire multiple times for tests that showed various suppressed weapons had too much toxic blowback. But through lengthy development and the introduction of advanced manufacturing, Shoemaker said, the company reached the ability to reduce 70% of toxic gas blowback in a suppressor. But there’s a tradeoff, he added. Suppressors can excel at reducing noise, flash or blowback, but not all three at once. One solution the company is now proposing would offer specialized suppressors that maximize blowback reduction for training and signature masking for combat.The idea, Shoemaker said, is that troops are most at risk from toxic gas exposure when shooting in enclosed spaces and over long periods in the same area, both of which are more likely to happen in training. On top of that, he said, training accounts for the vast majority of the rounds a soldier will ever fire.“The Army already has this principle where they have training ammunition and go-to-war ammunition. When they go to war, they’re using a different projectile and different ammunition than they are when they’re training,” Shoemaker said. “They do this with their body armor, with their uniforms — their uniforms, when they’re training, are not all flame retardant. … Why wouldn’t we do that same thing with the suppressors?”Early in its 10-year production contract to design the Army’s next rifle and light machine gun — a program known as Next Generation Squad Weapon — military testing officials cited concerns about how much toxic back-blast the suppressed weapons were producing. The result was a delay that pushed fielding from late 2023 into 2024. And these problems continued to be reported as recently as last year. The Pentagon’s weapons testing branch noted in its Fiscal Year 2025 annual report that soldiers in an operational assessment “reported negative physiological effects caused by the noxious off-gassing from their weapons, as well as concerns about the extreme heat from the weapons’ suppressors after firing.”Shoemaker said that some of this feedback was expected when comparing the previous standard rifle, an unsuppressed M4, to the new M7, which has a larger round and a more powerful discharge. But he added that the company was listening to soldiers and “actively working” to address concerns.“Toxic fumes [are] still a very new thing, right?” Shoemaker said. “When you have a very narrow audience that you’ve been providing these products to for years, you don’t get the same feedback that you do when you’re providing to a much wider audience.”Behind the scenes, according to Shoemaker, Sig has been close to the forefront of fume-reduction technology. The company uses a 3D printing process called Direct Metal Laser Sintering, or DMLS, to build “complex labyrinths” into their SLX and SLH suppressors designed for fume reduction. Previously, suppressors were made with machined baffles that were welded together, one by one.“There would have been no way to get a tool in here to cut any of these paths or direct any of that gas,” Shoemaker said of the new suppressors. “It was game-changing for the entire suppressor industry because it unlocked all of these abilities to … make these complex geometries.”In service of developing reduced-toxicity suppressors for the Army and later the Navy, Sig acquired two specialized testing environments: the Crane box, invented at Naval Surface Warfare Center-Crane Division, Ind., to precisely measure released carbon dioxide as weapons fire in a confined space; and the Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) chamber, which now measures precise particulate amounts and concentrations of four gases: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide. Sig is the only non-military entity to possess the chambers.While Shoemaker said the company is still seeking to make incremental improvements to the blowback reduction capabilities of existing suppressors — from, say, the current 70% reduction maximum to 75% — he also said the DMLS technology would make it easy to deliver a variety of suppressors specialized to maximize reduction of either sound, flash or fumes based on use case.The Army has yet to ask for a mix of training suppressors and combat suppressors. But Shoemaker indicated it may emerge as a solution for a service that wants to have it all in terms of sound, flash and toxic gas reduction, and can’t practically have it all in one can. If so, the company will be ready.“With DMLS, [engineers] can make a new design, and we can have it and shoot it three days later,” he said.

[Category: / MilTech] [Link to media]

— With the cold breed: For soldiers of the 11th Airborne Division, ‘winter is always coming’

 

at 10/13/26 8:52am

Things break in the bitter cold of America’s northern reaches. Batteries die. Fuel and other vital fluids freeze. Vehicles become trapped in ice and snow. Appendages and limbs? If soldiers aren’t careful, such injuries can unravel any semblance of situational control. Survival in Alaska’s vast wilderness, where any hint of complacency can indeed kill, presents a colossal difficulty. Training service members to fight in these environs is an undertaking even more daunting. For the soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division, this task rests, ultimately, on the shoulders of Maj. Gen. John Cogbill and the capable leaders he advises.And the commanding general of the Arctic Angels would not trade it for anything. “We have a saying that everything breaks at 40 below,” Cogbill says when asked about these challenges. Everything, except morale.From the outside, the soldiers of the 11th Airborne appear to be built differently. But Cogbill insists that’s not the case. Perhaps it’s the frigid air, wilderness that stretches beyond the horizon or a sky that unleashes snow without end, but troops reporting to Alaska for the first time often do so with “trepidation in their eyes,” he says. “But when I see them six months later, after they’ve been through their cold-weather indoctrination course and gone out to the field, they realize their team leader, their squad leader, their platoon sergeant — they’re being taken care of,” he says. “We’re not going to give them something they can’t handle. Then they start to build that trust in their leaders and trust in themselves. That’s when they truly become Arctic-tough.” Achieving that rare brand of toughness requires both sound leadership and reliable equipment, Cogbill says. Nestled in a region that places the 11th Airborne at a crucial convergence of three combatant commands — U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Northern Command and U.S. European Command — a soldier’s ability to trust in both is the difference between success and failure. Cogbill spoke to Military Times about what goes into earning that trust, and how a relentless pursuit of innovation is critical to keeping abreast of distant developments that would be reduced to ruin in the far North. For the Arctic Angels, accounting for their surroundings is part of the fun. “Winter is always coming in Alaska,” Cogbill says. “They embrace it.”Editor’s note: Some answers have been edited for clarity. MT: We’re watching the Arctic domain become increasingly vital, with threats evolving rapidly. How are developments in the region impacting how you’re preparing your soldiers?Cogbill: The Department of War has an Arctic strategy for a reason. We can range any of these locations and be within 90% of the industrial world within nine hours.Billy Mitchell, the father of the modern-day Air Force, said whoever owns Alaska owns the world. It’s a power projection platform in any of those directions — west of the International Date Line to the Indo-Pacific or over the pole to Europe. Therefore, we have to be able to fight in different environments. But we optimize for the Arctic, because we’re the only Arctic division. We have to have certain vehicles that no other unit has, such as the Cold Weather All-Terrain Vehicle (CATV), the workhorse for moving soldiers and equipment over snow. We have to be proficient in skis and snowshoes. We have to be able to jump out of airplanes with this gear. We have to be able to do air assault missions with this kit and then sustain ourselves — not just survive, but fight and thrive. You mentioned unique equipment. Today’s tech does not universally function in Arctic extremes. How are your troops innovating to overcome those challenges?Drones are a hot topic right now, and it’s something that I’d say we’re catching up a little bit with the rest of the Army.We’re not a Transformation-in-Contact division, which means we didn’t have an initial fielding of a large number of small- and medium-range drones. But continuous transformation is a mindset for the 11th Airborne Division, which means we’re learning and adapting quickly, and we’re also bootstrapping this effort by learning from other divisions in the Army and how they’ve utilized first-person-view drones, either for reconnaissance or for strike. So, we are collaborating with these other divisions — like the 101st Airborne Division and the 25th Infantry Division — to get our own parts, stand up our own Arctic innovation labs and build similar systems. The difference is, if we want to fly these drones in Alaska during our winter training exercise, the battery life will be about 1/20th of what it is in the Pacific. So, we’re trying to figure out ways to prolong battery life, to build drones that are more capable in high wind, high altitude and sub-freezing temperatures. Something that works anywhere else in the world — we bring it up to Alaska, take it out to the field and put it through its paces. If it doesn’t work, then we have innovation partners — academic partners at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, for instance — who we go to and say, “Hey, this is an engineering problem. What can you do to help us?” They’ve got one of the best small UAS engineering programs in the entire world, because they live and operate in this environment. So, we share as much as we can, learn from our peers and work closely with the modernization enterprise to pioneer some of these efforts. When you’re seeking those solutions, what combat lessons can you learn from places like Ukraine or Iran, which may be inherently different environmentally? There are certain things that just work differently in the Arctic. Mobility is harder, going from point A to point B. Sustainment is harder when you’re talking about moving things off-road through waist-deep snow. Battery life is shortened, which means you have to resupply more often. Water can’t be delivered in bulk. Fuel has to be delivered in cubed ice. Those are all the logistical challenges. For the individual soldier, it’s about just being able to maneuver. Common across all these operating environments are the need for decision dominance and for human-machine teaming. So, we understand the importance of drones, which is why we’re catching up as fast as we can and working with the Army Materiel Command and SkyFoundry initiative to get as many of these drones as possible into the hands of our soldiers so they can operate in any environment. For the decision dominance piece, it’s about being able to develop a common operating picture and a common intel picture at echelon. Everywhere from the rifle squad up to the division and corps, all the way up to a combatant commander — where we can see the enemy, see ourselves and use all the sensors at our disposal to make decisions about how to strike most efficiently. We’re using existing exercises and joint partners to pass targets through tactical data links to do machine-to-machine communication, gain and maintain custody of targets and increase our lethality as a division and warfighting headquarters.When it comes to unmanned and AI integration, what is your command doing to ensure soldiers are critical thinkers who can inform sound decision-making?It varies depending on the echelon of command. As the division commander, I’m responsible for every decision we make as a division, whether it’s in training or combat. If I make a decision to strike a target, I own that decision and the outcome. A culture where commanders feel empowered also means a culture of accountability. Having commanders in the loop — although the machines and AI are evolving rapidly, the Army still expects us as commanders to use judgment and experience to make a call to strike or not strike. You have to practice that. You have to get reps and sets, and do it through training as often as you can. So, we do exercises every 90 days to help us see the strengths and weaknesses of the algorithms, to code, to work with the engineers and our own operators. We need to be able to program new strategies and develop agentic AI solutions for targeting that allow us to not only find optimal solutions for shortening kill chains, but also to be able to incorporate large language models in things like rules of engagement and lessons learned. Anything that we’re doing in a training exercise can then be referenced using these large language models to make us better, to make my decisions faster, better, more informed and hopefully yield better outcomes. Over the last few years, it is the speed of innovation that has been most staggering. How do you ensure the 11th Airborne is up to speed a year or five years from now? With the proliferation of these machines — and not just at my level or the squad level, but throughout our formations — we have to train and rehearse this physically. I mentioned digital targeting, but when you talk about the mechanics of lethal squads, platoons and company commanders who are trying to converge fire and maneuver, you have to put that into live-fire training. Our brigades at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson recently went through nine company iterations of combined arms live fire. In every single one of those live fires, they were employing FPV drones in a strike capability and in a reconnaissance capability, while also trying to think, “Where would the enemy be attacking us right now? What is our counter-UAS posture?” So, you’re adding another dimension to a company commander’s thought process as they try to make tactical decisions about how to assault an objective. Again, it’s getting those reps and sets. It becomes ingrained in them that there’s always a machine aspect. So, maybe you’re a battalion commander, and you have to think, “Who can see me right now? Who can see this command post? How many tents do I have set up? What does that look like from above? What does it look like in the summer? What does it look like in the winter, when I’ve got a green tent on a snowy landscape?” Or, if you’re one step ahead, maybe you set up a white tent, but then you have to consider, “What kind of EW signature am I emitting that can be picked up by a machine or a sensor? What does my heat signature look like? Because I’ve got all these bodies and machines cranking out processing power inside of a tent.” So, how do you mitigate that? It requires constant thought about how we see the enemy, but also how the enemy sees us, and making sure that we can adapt and stay ahead. That’s where I think those lessons learned from the battle labs in Ukraine, Operation Epic Fury and other places inform the way we train. That feedback loop has to be super fast, because we can’t be everywhere and do everything, but we can certainly learn from everywhere. So, if we can use large language models to put all these lessons learned into a one-stop shop, it makes it a lot easier for us to access all that knowledge and incorporate it into how we train every single day.You’re not just dealing with tech that needs to work, but a changing landscape as well. Impacts of climate change have opened up sea lanes. Chinese-Russian collaboration has surged as a result. How is the Army adapting to those changes? We’re worldwide deployable and the Pentagon’s only Arctic division, but we could go anywhere. We’re very aware of the collusion between adversaries and what that would mean to us. With environmental changes — you talked about sea lanes opening — there are also strategic choke points, and we’re seeing how important choke points can be — like the Strait of Hormuz or Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea. We have the Bering Strait right off the coast of Alaska. And there are people in our neighborhood who don’t always have the best interests of the United States in mind. So, how do we deter? That’s probably the most important thing we can do is deter an adversary from thinking, “Today’s the day that we’re going to go. We’re going to take a shot at the United States of America.” You deter through forward presence. You deter through people who are trained, and you deter through capable partners that are able to prevail if it goes from competition to crisis to conflict. That’s what we’re trying to build every day through Operation Pathways. As we train with our multinational partners, we need the ability to project power, to put ourselves astride some of those strategic choke points and be capable of holding adversaries at bay if they start to encroach on our national boundaries.You mentioned that everything breaks at -40. But there is a certain love, among troops, in shared misery. How do your junior enlisted stay motivated?We get our soldiers from the same basic training as anywhere else. They may be coming from Hawaii. They may be coming from Fort Polk. But when they arrive in Alaska, they realize they have a job to do, and they are going to be expected to operate anywhere from -20 to -40, which was the range of temperatures during our last Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation in February. That’s expected. That’s what our nation needs us to do. And they rise to the occasion. My sergeant major and I use the ANGELS acronym to remind soldiers of our expectations of every paratrooper in the 11th Airborne Division as the Arctic Angels. The A is for Arctic tough. Everybody, whether you’re a sustainer, a cyber warrior or an infantryman, has to be Arctic tough, and you’ve got to be able to operate in that environment. The N means you’ve got to be able to fight at night. Night fighters have to own the night and maintain that advantage over our enemies. The G represents being a great teammate, whether that’s inside of your team, squad, company, up to your higher headquarters or down to a subordinate unit. We demand that you be a great teammate. The E represents being experts in the fundamentals — your PT, marksmanship, battle drills, medical training and mobility. This means a lot. Being part of the 11th Airborne Division means you’ve got to be able to jump out of a plane, air assault, move on snowshoes and skis, pull a sled — do all that’s expected. The L is to be lethal. That’s why we exist — to close with and destroy the enemy anywhere in the world. And then lastly, the S. We need soldiers to be standard bearers. Because if you violate a standard in the Arctic, people lose a finger, a hand, a leg or a life. It’s a natural risk to operate in this environment, so we need leaders who are very engaged, who know the standard, who uphold it and model it themselves. That builds trust in the organization. There’s ultimately so much value in Arctic warfare expertise. Not only are we training Rangers, jump masters, air assault and repel masters, but these are people who have learned how to fight and not just survive, but thrive in these conditions. And once you’ve served in Alaska, you kind of never want to leave. Most people come here a little bit nervous, but they leave kicking and screaming. That expertise is only enhanced when working with other services and allies. The Marines this year announced an Alaska rotation, for instance. Do you anticipate more collaboration as the region receives greater focus?We’re all about joint training opportunities and service interoperability. When we do our annual training exercise up there in the Yukon Training Area, we invite all of our multinational partners and all of our joint partners. We’ll never fight alone. We’ll never fight as just an Army, and we’ll never fight as just the United States of America. We want everybody to come together. There is plenty of training area in the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex. It’s two and a half times the size of the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California. So, imagine all that wild and wonderful wilderness out there with very permissive airspace and a lot of maneuver area. So, the more the merrier for us, and those joint training opportunities help us see gaps and seams where maybe our machines are not talking. But we want to be able to seamlessly have a common operating picture and share a common intel picture on a single pane of glass.You can’t know if you can do it well or not unless you train together on a regular basis, so we welcome that opportunity.Part of maximizing training is budgeting for it. If you were going to pitch the importance of the Arctic to those who distribute those resources, what would you say? With the budget, it’ll work out, and soldiers will find ways to train. PT is free, so if we have physically fit, Arctic-tough soldiers, then that’s what we’re going to be. We can go out there and train in the elements and do all those things we’ve discussed, but I think the most important thing is that we have to be able to project this power. Alaska is far away from a lot, but it’s strategically located at the center of three combatant commands. If you’re going to build an Arctic-capable lethal fighting force, you have to be able to get it to the fight, whether that’s in the Pacific, Europe, or anywhere else in the world. When I served in Alaska 25 years ago, we had an airborne battalion task force, but now we have an entire division that’s airborne and air assault capable. And we have these cold-weather all-terrain vehicles. We have all of the kit that the Army has invested in. How do you get it to the fight? That’s infrastructure, that’s power projection, that’s joint interoperability with the Air Force to make sure we can get there. That’s understanding the sea lines of communication that you brought up earlier, so we can float those things and get it there fast enough. That goes to our ready-forward concept with Operation Pathways. Not only do we train with multinational partners to build that interoperability and trust, but we also train in those locations to be west of the International Date Line with soldiers and equipment. So, if we need to do something somewhere in the Pacific, we’re already there with our gear. That really shortens the commute time, if you will. It’s critically important that we maintain that capability.

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— US Army aspires to create Indo-Pacific manufacturing hub in Korea

 

at 10/13/26 7:47am

In the Pacific, a single bolt can become a giant headache and the source of months of delay. The bolt that Col. Scott Carpenter held up Monday during the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting belonged to a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station turret, and it is back-ordered until February 2027. At U.S. Army Materiel Support Command — Korea, the unit Carpenter commands, soldiers built the bolt through the drill-out process of subtractive manufacturing for a cost of $1.27, avoiding months of delay and saving more than $300 in the process.As the Eighth Army in Korea builds out its logistics capability, it’s investing in advanced manufacturing with an eye to supplying spares, not only to local Army forces, but also to troops across the Pacific region. “I want to be the advanced manufacturing center for INDOPACOM,” Carpenter said at an engagement with reporters at the AUSA meeting. “That’s my goal.”Eighth Army officials spoke earlier this year about how establishing a Korea-based regional sustainment hub, or center for logistics, maintenance and supply, could cut down the burden and cost of long-distance sustainment. At a roundtable event Monday, Eighth Army Commander Lt. Gen. Joseph Hilber indicated the force was moving out to build that sustainment hub.“Now, rather than taking equipment that might need a major overhaul and send it back to the United States, we’re looking at ways that we can overhaul it there in Korea and keep it in the fight longer. Keep it west of the [International Dateline] longer,” Hilber said. “That’s going to involve everything from some added manufacturing capabilities to additional repair capabilities that we’ve got in there in terms of being able to fabricate parts, being able to fabricate materials, and then being able to return that equipment back into the fight.”The Eighth Army has already resourced maintenance support teams that cross service and regional boundaries, departing the Korean Peninsula to support the III Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Japan, and to Hawaii to support Army rotational units, Carpenter said. Through additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, and subtractive manufacturing, or cutting a part out of a solid block of metal, the Eighth Army is manufacturing an increasing number of critical parts, Carpenter said. The materiel support command recently acquired a metal 3D printer and is now building out infrastructure to house it.“But we think come January, February, the metal 3D printer [will be] in, and my goal is … I would like to get to a point where I can 3D print the bolt,” Carpenter said. By next summer, he said, the Eighth Army is set to receive $3 million worth of advanced manufacturing machines, with some $10 million worth of additional machinery set to be requested in the Army’s fiscal 2028 budget.“I’ll be able to print bumpers; I’ll be able to print doors,” Carpenter said. “These are not just desktop printers.”Recently, he said, a Guam-based military unit requested an assembly that would have cost $36,000. The Korea-based team built it through subtractive manufacturing for $82.Through a request system, Carpenter said, any joint forces member can now request a part and get routed to the Army’s logistics hub in Daegu, South Korea.“If you’re the Marines operating in Okinawa and you need this bolt … I get this bolt back over to the Marine at a fraction of the cost, and a lot quicker than if they were to order through the supply system,” he said. “So again, we’re maintaining combat power inside the First Island Chain.”Hilbert said some hurdles remained for the Eighth Army, including intellectual property restrictions with manufacturers; data-sharing to ensure the advanced manufacturing processes deliver components that are up to spec; and seamless connection into existing Army logistics systems not designed for these new modes of parts production.“We’re continuing to work through those pieces to enable us to fix faster,” Hilbert said.

[Category: / Your Military] [Link to media]

— The US Army is back in the jungle. Panamanians are showing soldiers the way.

 

at 10/12/26 4:32pm

Gunshots erupted from solid ground towards a boat that ferried Panamanian soldier Albis Fajardo and his team during a counter-drug mission along the country’s Pacific coastline.The team attempted to return fire as they pulled back from a harrowing effort to target a cartel leader. Fajardo, then early into his military career, felt his adrenaline surge as he realized the team had been unsuccessful: A bullet had torn through the flesh of his friend.Over a decade later, with the early autumn sun sinking over Panamanian base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, the 47-year-old, now a first sergeant, recounted the ordeal. His friend survived, but the horror changed Fajardo’s life. The brush with death, he said, fueled him to learn as much as he could, militarily, and eventually led him to become an instructor at the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama.The class, offered for decades in the Central American nation before it was shuttered in 1999, has resumed in partnership between U.S. and Panamanian forces, with Panamanian service members teaching and attending the 18-day course. As Panama’s troops have trained, lived — and in some cases, fought — in such environments, they are largely seen by U.S. personnel as the ultimate masters of the terrain.Lt. Col. Andrew Eagen, who heads the U.S. Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, said that as U.S. forces developed the course, they became quickly attuned to the deft tactics their Panamanian counterparts had developed for survival. “They are the experts of this environment. We will never catch up,” he told Military Times in a mosquito-riddled interview at the jungle school. “This does not exist in the continental United States,” he said, gesturing to the lush canopy, which was twinkling with the day’s last glimmers of sun and abuzz with the evening hum of jungle creatures. “We do not have an exposure to it. They do, and they have incredible techniques and an incredible level of comfort that the average American [does not].”Fajardo is one of nine Panamanian instructors — from three branches of the country’s armed forces — who teach at the reestablished school. The instructors assist in some parts of the course, but lead in areas where students learn about jungle survival, Eagen said.In addition to the leading group, more than 10 Panamanian service members attended the course in which Military Times took part, according to Eagen.Throughout each exercise, Panamanian troops sat interspersed with U.S. personnel and were placed in squads with a Spanish-speaking U.S. participant for course assignments. Though the language barrier admittedly made some tactical movements difficult, U.S. personnel seemingly learned just from observing their Panamanian counterparts.During one practical exercise, one squad had to hide in the jungle, cover their tracks to erase any disturbance to the foliage, and position themselves so they would be alerted to any incoming intruders. The other squad’s job was to hunt down the hiding squad using tracking clues, the activity forming a tense game of tactical hide-and-seek.The hunters ultimately won, thanks to one Panamanian squadmate who spotted a tiny vine that appeared slightly too parallel to the ground. One rule of the jungle? Nothing is a straight line. The Panamanian student correctly identified the trailing plant, hovering inches above the muddy ground, as a hasty trip wire. Made using a vine and a piece of trash, it would have alerted the hiding squad to the hunters’ presence.When the two groups gathered to discuss the interaction, the lanewalker found that the Panamanian student in the other squad had set up the tripwire; a particularly impressive development, considering a tripwire class was scheduled for later in the day.During that class, an American instructor showed students how to create different forms of tripwires that could act as early warning systems. Some set off rattling cans. Others used fauna. Before letting students practice, the instructor shared stories from Panamanian cadres who once operated in the Darién Gap, a roadless land bridge of brutally dense, remote jungle that spans 60-plus miles between Panama and Colombia and has been notoriously rife with human and drug trafficking. Trip wires there are not historical relics of warfare from decades ago, the instructor said. Cartel members are using them now.Several instructors, including Fajardo, have attended Panama’s own jungle school, called Panajungla. Fajardo shook his head and shivered as he recounted the intense course in which participants were forced to survive on their own in the Teribe region of Panama’s Bocas del Toro province.Students of the Panamanian course must shop at the “supermarket de la selva” — the jungle supermarket — to eat, using machetes to prepare or kill any nourishment they can find, Fajardo said. Fajardo’s prized jungle delicacy is ñame, a tropical root vegetable similar to a yam. He also appreciates the taste of grubs, he said, which he likens to butter.Tucked neatly into each Panamanian instructor’s backpack, razor-sharp machetes sat nestled in intricately carved leather coverings. The U.S. Army teaches machete training in its jungle school, but some Panamanian instructors have attended a separate, more intensive course on using the long, daunting blade. It can clear brush, help prepare food, carve shelter and even help start a fire.To Fajardo, it is the single most important tool for survival in the jungle. And with a smile, he jokingly referred to the machete as “mi esposa,” or my wife, in English.To date, the U.S. Army is developing the course to dedicate at least 20 of its 120 spots to partner forces and at least 15 to Panamanians. Though no other countries have sent soldiers yet, Eagen is confident that the school is close to having Colombian students join. The U.S. has partnered with Colombia’s Lancero course, which is similar to Ranger School, and all three countries exchange information. Panama supports hosting Colombian forces, Eagen added, as “they have a direct relationship with the country. “They have a lot of shared bilat right there at the Darién,” Eagen said, “so both Panamanian leaders and Colombian leaders want them to be first.” Panama’s expertise in navigating such unforgiving terrain, meanwhile, has also prompted other countries, like Costa Rica and Brazil, to express interest in the course, Eagen said.Other jungle courses worldwide have so far informed the new U.S. Army jungle school’s curriculum, and Eagen said the Army is designing a scenario construct for the school using threat characteristics seen by Panamanian service members. And while Panamanian forces often confront small-team drug trafficking operations attempting to establish supply lines, Eagen was clear that the Army endeavored to replicate a potential combat environment, not the country’s security situation.“That is not the premise of us being in Panama,” he said. “We try to make sure there are clear boundaries of understanding for the students that this is about the skills required of the environment, not about the situation in Panama.” Though public sentiment between the countries has ebbed and flowed in the decades that followed Panama’s 1994 formal abolishment of its standing army — several years after a U.S. military invasion ousted military dictator Manuel Noriega — those tensions were absent from interactions Military Times observed among the service members during the course. Eagen said the U.S. is mindful of the pride Panamanians take in their nation’s sovereignty. The Army, he added, has been purposeful in approaching the course’s renewed partnership with an emphasis on learning from — rather than simply teaching — its Panamanian counterparts.

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— Catholics in US Army must not participate in firing squad, prominent archbishop says

 

at 10/12/26 2:48pm

Catholics serving in the U.S. Army should not participate in the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan that the Pentagon is planning to livestream in December, a prominent U.S. archbishop said on Monday.In an unusually strongly worded statement, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the spiritual care of Catholic members of the U.S. armed forces, raised a series of objections to the unprecedented plan to broadcast the execution of Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree.Broglio said he presided at the funeral of one of Hasan’s victims, and lamented the shooting. But the Ohio-born archbishop asked whether the U.S. wanted to “imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries.” “I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church,” Broglio said.U.S. Army regulations do allow for soldiers to request religious exemptions or accommodations, and the Army has yet to say how it intends to select members of the firing squad.Questions about the effect on young viewersU.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans to livestream the shooting last week, triggering a backlash among Republicans in Congress, religious leaders and international observers. U.S. President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s execution by firing squad but has said he is still deciding whether to allow the livestreaming to proceed.The event would be extraordinary, even for a country that has long employed capital punishment. A government execution has never been broadcast or livestreamed, according to death penalty experts, and the U.S. military has not executed anyone by firing squad since 1945. Hasan, now 56, requires a wheelchair, having been shot by police during his arrest.Hegseth said last week he wants U.S. soldiers to execute Hasan at the time, day of the week and location of Hasan’s shooting spree. Hegseth has argued that making the event public will help serve as a deterrent.Broglio questioned whether the effect of a livestreamed execution on young viewers had been considered. He said the U.S. military had a good reputation and asked if there was “really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheelchair to the whole world.”Broglio’s statement was issued shortly after he met on Monday in Rome with Pope Leo, who has clashed with Trump and his Pentagon over issues including the Iran war. Leo on Saturday condemned the death penalty, without mentioning the Hasan case specifically.Vice President JD Vance, a convert to Catholicism, has said that if it does ultimately get livestreamed, he would not watch it.

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— Twenty-Six Defense unveils new soldier-worn tech

 

at 10/12/26 1:59pm

The company that previously operated as Elbit Systems’ American subsidiary made its AUSA expo debut this week as Twenty-Six Defense. Under the new brand, the Texas-based defense firm debuted Primex, a lightweight wearable meant to provide soldiers with night-vision capabilities and augmented reality so they can “maintain awareness without distraction or cognitive overload.” For the design, Twenty-Six Defense said it engineered Primex for sustained operational use by equipping it with “the lightest head-borne load and near-neutral center of gravity.” The company explained Primex uses low-light sensors, thermal imagery, and real-time processing to produce an ultra-low-latency digital perception that enables operators to better interpret the surrounding area even amid challenging environmental conditions.What separates Primex from other advanced lightweight heads-up display units for operators, according to Twenty-Six Defense, is that its design was built on mature technologies that have already been fielded. The company said it already produces AN/PSQ-44 Enhanced Night Vision Goggles, which contain features that allow for rapid target acquisition and augment reality to enhance visual clarity. In August, Ernie Basic, Twenty-Six Defense’s senior director of research and development, explained how his company was developing equipment for the Soldier Borne Mission Command, a project to deliver augmented reality wearables to soldiers. He said the technology combines fighter-pilot displays with night-vision systems, so soldiers get “the full operational picture.”“You are not only seeing what is in front of you. You can leverage a feed coming from a drone or from other assets,” he said. “You can start seeing what is going on behind a house or another structure, cue a squad to a different location, and continuously update them.”In addition to Primex, Twenty-Six Defense showcased defensive weapons and equipment like the XM1168 mobile 120mm mortar system, Autonomous Relocatable Surveillance Tower and SkyStriker Block 4E.

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— US Army creates robotics technician job to focus on drone warfare

 

at 10/12/26 12:30pm

The U.S. Army kickstarted a military occupational specialty focusing on robotics and unmanned systems with an induction ceremony this month at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. During the ceremony, 10 warrant officers were formally introduced as 390A robotics technicians. They will now serve as subject-matter experts on all aspects of using robotic and autonomous systems, including programming, building and repairing them, plus integrating them into combat.The 390A inauguration is the result of a lengthy process that has been in the works since 2024, when U.S. Army Special Operations Command announced its aim to train experts in using autonomous systems.The Army deemed it necessary to introduce robotics as a separate specialization to avoid overburdening special warfare operators with having to master an additional, highly complex skill set, in addition to their existing knowledge.“What we’ve determined is it cannot be an additional task or an additional hat for someone on the ODA,” Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jerry Brown, command chief warrant officer for 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), said in a release, adding that the new specialists will be able to leverage their specific field of knowledge within robotics to help the force as a whole.The new 390A technicians will be assigned to tactical formations at the brigade and group level. As experts in autonomous warfare, they will advise commanders on how best to deploy autonomous systems during operations. They will also be required to think quickly in the field to instantly propose solutions to any problems that may arise with robotics in the field, and to use their expertise to come up with innovative ways of using drones to reach objectives. To prepare them for this role, 390A candidates are required to complete a 19-week course, where they must build drones from scratch that do not require GPS or radio frequencies to navigate.The Army stated in a release that robotic systems assembled during the course will rely primarily on artificial intelligence and machine learning to navigate to targets. Fiber optic cables also provide a way for drones to reach targets while being invulnerable to external signal interference, such as jamming. Known as “tethered drones,” cable-linked unmanned aircraft systems can use artificial intelligence for targeting and navigation while having a direct physical connection to their operator. At the time of publication, the Army had not responded to questions about whether 390A candidates would be learning to build and field tethered drones.“The Army is implementing changes in force structures, adding a multi-domain task force equipped with autonomous long-range fires,” Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, said in a statement. “These technical experts will help command teams understand integration across the force. We are scaling this across the Army.”

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— Lockheed’s New PAC-3 Edge interceptor aims for agility

 

at 10/12/26 12:11pm

The latest iteration of Lockheed Martin’s PAC-3 family of missile interceptors is designed to bring extreme agility to bear against a diverse array of missile threats, Defense News learned. The defense giant unveiled the PAC-3 Edge this Friday and debuted it at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., today.“This missile is capable of being launched from the traditional M903 launcher. It’s capable of being launched from the containerized launchers that are being sought after domestically and internationally, as well as our HIMARS FLEX, which is the offense and defense configuration of our traditional HIMARS vehicle,” Jason Reynolds, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control Integrated Air and Missile Defense, told Defense News. Lockheed in January announced a seven-year framework agreement to increase annual PAC-3 interceptor production from approximately 600 to 2,000.Designed to defend against hypersonic and advanced missile threats, the unveiling of the PAC-3 Edge comes as the U.S. military’s reliance on costly interceptors against cheap munitions, particularly those deployed by Iran during Operation Epic Fury, has come under increased scrutiny over the past eight months.The new PAC-3 Edge missile builds on the foundations of the PAC-3 MSE, Lockheed’s baseline missile, and pushes its abilities farther. The Edge system is longer and features a larger diameter, increasing its range. “It also goes higher in altitude and has more agility. It has attitude control motors, which are located near the front of the missile and basically divert the missile in flight,” Reynolds explained. “This has additional attitude control motors that give it additional agility.”While the PAC-3 MSE uses a two-pulse solid rocket motor to speedily approach moving targets, the new system has multi-pulse motor designed by Northrop Grumman. “It has a third pulse to the motor, so that means the motor will fire three times during its flight, giving it additional agility to kill the target,” Reynolds said. The weapon is designed not only for unprecedented maneuverability but to be easily integrated with both present and future missile defense networks. It is compatible with Northrop’s Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, a command-and-control network the Army uses to mesh air and missile defense sensors into a central hub. The company intends to begin testing the PAC-3 Edge in 2027 and have it ready to deploy by 2031, although Lockheed aims to have it ready earlier, Reynolds added. “The U.S. Army’s timeline is 2031. We, Lockheed Martin, are trying to pull that in and deliver this capability sooner, so around the turn of the decade,” he said.

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— 3 US soldiers awarded Purple Hearts after March missile attack on Saudi Arabia base

 

at 10/12/26 11:32am

Three U.S. soldiers were awarded Purple Hearts for their efforts assisting fellow service members despite their own injuries after a missile attack hit their air base during Operation Epic Fury.On March 27, when a missile hit Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, Staff Sgt. Kalob Mitchell, Spc. Nicholas Cabo and Sgt. Xavier Jones, all with the 6th Battalion, 56th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division Artillery, sprang into action.A 550-pound ballistic missile exploded yards from a bunker on base, filling it with dust and debris.“We’re sitting there talking, and then all of a sudden, we didn’t hear anything, no sound at all. Everything went black, so we were hit,” Mitchell said in a recent release.While expecting just another missile warning, the soldiers were thrown from their position and slammed against the opposing interior wall, forcing all three to lose consciousness. They had their initial medical evaluation later that day at the Role 2 Medical Facility on base.“Woke up, checked on them. They were good. At that time, we heard screams from the opposite side of the bunker. Two Soldiers, I’m not too sure who they were, who had significant injuries; ran over there, applied tourniquets, T Triple C (Tactical Combat Casualty Care), everything,” Mitchell recounted.Mitchell, Cabo and Jones applied a tourniquet to a severely wounded soldier, treated another with a neck injury and helped keep a disoriented soldier safe until it was safe to evacuate the bunker, per the release.Despite their own injuries, the trio continued to assist others, carrying others out to an ambulance and helping a soldier whose leg was severely damaged, speculating that the soldier could have lost their life if not for the group.Capt. Tyler Ritter, commander of 6-56 ADAR, 1st Cav. DIVARTY, received messages from the injured soldier saying, “Sir, your Soldiers saved my life. I thank God every day that these gentlemen survived. Their actions brought great credit upon the 6-56 Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division and III Armored Corps. These Soldiers are my heroes. May God bless them.”Mitchell, Cabo and Jones’ service, described as the “ultimate description of what we mean when we talk about warfighting, readiness, grit and taking care of our Soldiers,” earned them each a Purple Heart during an Oct. 1 ceremony at the III Armored Corps headquarters building at Fort Hood, Texas.“So honestly, it’s kind of cool,” Jones said in the release. “I don’t think any of us was like going for a Purple Heart because it actually sucked. Like that situation was horrible … When I saw it on my STP (Soldier Talent Profile), I was like, man, I never would have thought I would have got a Purple Heart. I never thought I was going to see anything like we saw.”

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— ‘Noticeable shift in warfare’: US Army under secretary on the lessons of modern combat

 

at 10/12/26 11:00am

The U.S. Army is entering unprecedented territory. Demand for exquisite munitions has skyrocketed as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine — and an ever-tense Indo-Pacific — continue to redefine stockpile demand. So, too, has there developed an insatiable market for cheap systems and interceptors capable of balancing scales that, in regions like the Middle East, have been encumbered by cost-per-kill ratios as lopsided as 114-1 — in the case of a PAC-3 interceptor versus a Shahed-136 drone. If that weren’t enough to consider, there’s the lightning-quick speed of AI integration and unmanned systems into formations, and the reality of having to rethink a simple concept — hiding — that was seldom given a second thought due to the total air superiority of the Global War on Terror. Such frenzied developments, meanwhile, come against a backdrop of new Pentagon policy that aims to eliminate the antiquated red tape of the acquisition process and speed development to the battlefield. A daunting cluster of problems to solve, no doubt. But if encountering such a catalog of to-dos is stress-inducing, one would not know it when speaking to U.S. Army Under Secretary Mike Obadal, who finds himself at the center of many of these discussions. From his office and out on the trail, Obadal oversees the service’s business operations, acquisition strategy, and manpower and personnel systems, among myriad other duties. Obadal assumed the position after a stint in the private sector, which followed a military career that included time as a Special Operations officer, the status of Master Army Aviator and qualifications in nine different aircraft. Obadal spoke to Military Times about how he and the Army are approaching these seismic shifts in warfighting philosophy, and how this year’s AUSA exposition reflects the blistering pace of innovation that catalyzes them.There are many examples of individuals without military experience working in consequential positions within the Pentagon. You are not one. How has your military experience shaped how you approach this role?What I try very hard to do is not let my experience drive the way I do things. I want it to inform the way I do things, whether that’s my experience working with the interagency and seeing how other executive branch agencies operate, my experience in the conventional military or in other parts of the military, doing joint work, working with partners and allies or going out into corporate America. I don’t want any one of those things to be the driver of how I make decisions and conduct myself in the business of the Army, but I do want all of it to come together and inform it. So, it’s certainly very helpful for me when I talk to soldiers or when I look at programs or weapon systems. The biggest thing it helps me with is understanding that there’s no single weapon system that operates by itself anywhere. They are all part of a joint force, and within that, you have a maneuver Army that is reliant — tanks are reliant on infantry, infantry is reliant on fires, all of it is reliant on aviation, medical and logistics. All those components work together as a chain, and you have to make sure every link in the chain is as strong as possible. That’s one of the biggest things that I take away from being in the military: an understanding that all of these things have to work in synergy, and there are no easy solutions.We continue to watch the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran unfold. What do you expect to see at an event like AUSA that reflects what America has learned from them?If you walk around the hall at AUSA, it’ll give you a good indication of the Army’s priorities. Our priorities are reflected in what we’re procuring. Going back several years, when we were in the Middle East and we first saw adversary drones — counter-drone systems became a really important topic. It kind of started in the special operations and then expanded into the larger Army. Ukraine has not just reinforced that counter-UAS is a critical part of operations today; it’s cemented it. So, if you walk around AUSA, you’re going to see an immense number of not only drones but also counter-UAS. That’s a reflection of the procurement and the budget, not just in the Army but in the Pentagon. That’s number one. Number two is software. Being able to see, sense and integrate to understand what your positional advantage is, and understand the adversary and their vulnerabilities. That’s just military operations, but today it’s looking at how we apply the best sensors and best software to bring all of that together to give decision advantage to our commanders. The third one is fires, and when you look at current conflicts, the importance of long-range precision fires is highlighted. So, what you’ll also see at the conference is a reflection of our investment portfolio in our magazine depth, but also the variety of munitions. Expanding out the optionality that commanders have beyond just one or two exquisite munitions, with everything from longer-range artillery, one-way attack and loitering munitions, up into our higher-end missiles. All of those represent our fires portfolio, but that’s just for offensive operations. When we get into the defensive side, we’ll be seeing everything from ballistic missiles down to Group One drones. If you look at those three areas — drones and counter-UAS; software and sensors; and the fires portfolio — and were to roll back the clock to AUSA 10 years ago, the difference is remarkable. At that time, the focus was very vehicle-centric, armor-centric, pieces of kit for individual soldiers. All of those things are important and are continuing to advance, but these newer investment areas represent a noticeable shift in warfare.These conflicts are obviously influencing the speed of acquisition. But that process includes an emphasis on both cost-friendly and exquisite munition stockpiles. What is the best balance to ensure success?The conflicts are definitely influencing and accelerating the way the Army — and certainly the broader Department — are innovating, prototyping, procuring and then fielding different capabilities. If you were to roll back a decade or even less, you would see very traditional models that go from experimentation into writing an initial requirement document, then into prototyping, then selection, then low-rate production and then finally into fielding and high-rate production. That’s years long. That process is very deliberate, and it built our military to where it is today, which is still the most dominant, but with a number of vulnerabilities because of technical innovation in the commercial market that adversaries are able to take advantage of. So, where can we compress this cycle and get it more into a process where we ask the commercial industry to experiment on their dime? A lot of this has to do with private capital being interested in the defense market. They’re making a bet that they can get through some of the experimentation, and then we can follow on with prototyping and quickly get into low-rate and high-rate production before fielding.Fielding then allows us to get immediate feedback that goes back into industry. That is essentially what had to happen in Ukraine because it’s existential to them. So, when we say wartime footing, Ukraine is on the ultimate wartime footing, and there are lessons to draw from there. What are the unnecessary steps in the acquisition process? Where can you smartly accept risk? Probably one of the biggest drivers of speeding things up is acknowledging that we’re willing to accept risk. We know that if we get a tighter innovation cycle, we’re accepting more risk on the battlefield, but we’re also driving down risk on the battlefield because we’re getting it to them much sooner. So, then we get into how that translates to fires. Exquisite versus low cost. It’s a balance, or a high-low mix, essentially, where we have to have both offensive and defensive exquisite weapons. We have to have certain stockpiles to be able to counter the exquisite weapons of our adversaries and have our own effects. Then you get into mass, which comes when we start going beyond the first few days of a conflict, and we’re in protraction. We have to have affordable mass. The cost curve needs to come back in our favor.While balancing the above, how much of a difference has the surge in domestic manufacturing made in having these pre-positioned elements assisting efforts? A massive difference. The Infantry Squad Vehicle is a perfect example. That’s a Chevy Colorado chassis; the drivetrain and suspension are a little different, but it’s nothing unusual. Essentially, it then goes to a detailer that puts the military-specific equipment on top of it. It’s everything that we need it to be. As with anything, it has its vulnerabilities. We’re sacrificing heavy armor and survivability, which we needed throughout the GWOT years, for mobility, transportability and ease of repair.But using this model also allows us to sustain it far more easily because so many of the components are commercial. It especially matters when you get into keeping the ISV — or domestically made equipment — in the decades ahead and needing improvements over the years. With the ISV, as Chevy makes improvements to its chassis and drivetrain, that immediately feeds back into the production line of ISVs. So, we’re now getting upgrades that are just byproducts of the commercial market.With acquisition, there’s a major emphasis on AI. What are you discussing with tech companies to ensure the human-in-the-loop element equates to maintaining final say despite the speed of the tech?Every company that deals with this emerging technology and the military is of the same mindset, which is that the human-in-the-loop factor has to be the default. There are workflows and cycles that human commanders can say, “I need this to run in the background, and I don’t need to see it or be on it.” But when it comes to kinetic kill chains and making decisions on the battlefield, the workflows that enable commanders have to have very hard stops. It’s not just a commander saying yes or no. It’s far more complicated and nuanced. It’s presenting options based on a tremendous amount of computing analysis and saying, “Here are all the courses of action based on the priorities that you gave, based on the environmental factors that the agents have been able to ingest and all of the long-term planning that goes into it. That allows the commanders to then take highly complex tasks like mission planning and distill it down into areas where they can consume it more easily, and then apply what only humans can do, which is context and reason. That context and reason part is what the tech companies that work with us are very focused on enabling, as opposed to taking over entire workflows. Autonomy is important, really, in three areas when it comes to warfighting.Think about combat breaching. That’s one of the most dangerous things we ask a human to do: to breach a linear minefield or barrier. If we can automate that, that removes something inherently dangerous. The second is highly complex, like command and control. How do you distill what would take human staff officers hours or days into seconds, and give a commander not only several options, but the analysis behind it and the confidence in the product being presented? The third is the ability to remove repetitive and mundane things human soldiers are doing. Resupplying via trucks, for instance. If we can automate that, we are removing that task from our logistics soldiers and allowing them to apply their talents to solving real problems with a clear vision and mindset. Beyond weapon systems, something as simple as staging — or hiding — equipment or personnel requires a vastly different strategy than even 10 years ago. How does something as simple as saying, “How do we hide this helo?” impact your conversations with industry?It’s not something that we’ve had to truly consider as an Army for 40 or 50 years because we were guaranteed air superiority. We don’t have air superiority at this point because of long-range fires and precision targeting from space. So, you go back to dispersion, displacement of assets and disaggregation of large headquarters. As you remember from recent decades, a division headquarters would be a massive entity with satellite dishes and other assets in the open. Those days are gone. We now have to consider how we bring in technology from the companies to allow us to displace 10-foot satellite dishes and 20 miles of wire, and actually have small-scale edge compute and transport systems that can disaggregate everyone. That’s incredibly important. Certainly, camouflage comes into play. Other classified capabilities come into play as well, and that’s all just the visible element. Then you get into electronic warfare and the ability to monitor. So, how do you disaggregate some of that? Those are all things that we are actively moving — and coming back to — in a more modern stance.

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— Mangroves and mud: Inside the Army jungle school’s notorious ‘Green Mile’

 

at 10/12/26 10:33am

Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón, Panama — A howler monkey looked down from his perch atop the lush canopy before unleashing a bellow so guttural that it seemed to temporarily swallow up the jungle’s hum.To his likely irritation, hordes of uniformed soldiers had gathered beneath the petite primate, filling his muddy underbrush with the heaving sound of heavy rucksacks and the smell of body odor that had been brewing in the moist terrain for days. The soldiers, some wearing days-old green face paint, had congregated amongst the moist fauna to complete their final task in the U.S. Army’s Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama: The Green Mile. The notorious event — in the thick of Panama’s “Green Hell” — is the 18-day course’s culminating exercise, testing participants’ newly learned jungle maneuver techniques, survival measures and fighting skills. By that point in the course, the soldiers had run a days-long jungle reconnaissance and attack operation. That portion of the field exercise was complete, and perhaps to the howler monkey’s dismay, so were the soldiers’ attempts to stay quiet. The course in 2025 returned to Panama at Base Aeronaval Cristóbal Colón, formerly known as the U.S. Army’s Fort Sherman, decades after it was originally shuttered. The new course is a joint U.S.-Panamanian partnership, with Panamanian instructors leading lessons on jungle survival. With staggered start times, each squad took off running down a soggy, uneven path. Squads in the September course had participants from across the U.S. force, including those from the Army, Marine Corps and Space Force. Some squads had Panamanian soldiers. Other countries, such as Colombia, have expressed interest in sending soldiers in the near future. In classes with Panamanian students, instruction is given in English and Spanish. When the course is English-only, the duration shrinks to 12 days, but without partners, officials say U.S. students can miss out on opportunities to connect with other forces. Spc. Duncan Vaupel, a member of September’s jungle school course, said he talked with and learned from Panamanian troops who described treating soldiers who had lost legs and fighting gun battles in the jungle that stretched into the night. “These guys not only teach it, but they live and breathe it, too,” he said. The squad’s first major Green Mile task was to carry some of the service members’ rucks in a litter made from whatever they could find. Logs or long branches coupled with issued wet weather equipment — a poncho — did the trick. During the course, participants are provided instructions on jungle first aid. They also practice with medical evacuation helicopters, transporting a casualty to some sliver of open sky where a medical team can send a rappel line down to hoist the injured soldier up. Jungle landing zones are few and far between. Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Reeves, a combat medic and an instructor at the school, said that heat injuries are common because of the oppressive humidity and temperature. Animal-related injuries are also widespread, he said. Wild, territorial bees are sensitive to loud noises and will defend their hives by attacking the camouflaged intruders. “We do have wild bees down here that tend to get a lot of the students as they move throughout the jungle,” Reeves said. “I know we’ve had to evac a handful of students before to the aid station for bee stings, scorpion stings and a variety of insect bites.” Once the section of muddy pathway came to an end, there was the sea to deal with. Muddy boot after muddy boot sank into the swirling sand beneath unforgiving waves. Soldiers were instructed to file one behind the other, sometimes sinking waist-deep into the water as they skirted rocky outgrowths and navigated dense mangroves. Fewer troop formations work in a jungle environment, said Lt. Col. Andrew Eagan, who oversees the Jungle Operations Training Center. Wedge formations, for example, do not work, he said. “Here you fight in a column, you fight in a line, and the reason for that is the environment,” Eagan said. “The environment is so punishing.” When the Green Mile took the service members back inland, the soldiers traded the wet coastline for brutal terrain. Their next challenge? A hill so steep that it required crawling on hands and knees. With a grade impossible to climb with waterlogged rucks, the scrappier soldiers scaled ahead, breathlessly anchoring a rope bridge from the top so other soldiers could cling to it as they ascended while lugging the squad’s wet gear. Soldiers slipped, ripping pants and filling scraggly fingernails with brown mud. Weapons became caked with slippery earth as they reached the peak. During Eagen’s interview, he said Panama’s environment was the part of jungle school that U.S. students underestimated most. During The Green Mile, the true magnitude of the jungle’s hazards was revealed — relentlessly. There was no walking down the other side of the hill, for instance. Course participants scooted or slid down on their rears, praying that their nether regions would not cross the path of a black palm — one of the treacherous plants students learn about in the jungle, in addition to the school’s flora and fauna blocks of instruction. With pointy spikes that can reach up to 8 inches long, flaring from every inch of its trunk, soft flesh is no match for nature’s black needles. Other plants, students learn, are edible and can help them survive in such harsh environs. Some of nature’s bounty, however, keeps the jungle students’ digestive systems unusually active. 2nd Sgt. Rubén Rodríguez, a Panamanian instructor for the course, said American students are often particularly hungry. They love to pick and eat coconuts for extra nourishment, he said. Though delicious and healthy in moderation, coconuts can be laxatives in large quantities. The Americans’ frequent snacks, Rodríguez said, send them straight to the jungle bathroom.As the troops progressed through the course, lanewalkers added full water jugs and ammo cans to soldiers’ loads. The extra weight pushed boots even deeper into the muddy ground. Red-faced and exhausted, the squad hoisted the extra weight over and under the first leg of an obstacle course that represents the final, brutal stretch of the Green Mile. The squad dragged themselves — and their equipment — through sticky, brown goop as they low-crawled beneath barbed wire. Soldiers tossed gear over a high wall before hurling their own bodies over after the dumped equipment. Before the finish line, the squad trekked up another uneven hill — even more slowly than any hill they had summited before. Once they hit concrete — and the familiar terrain near the schoolhouse’s campus — the jungle-battered squad had just minutes to sprint the last stretch of what was actually a four-plus-mile endeavor. The instructors imposed a time cap on the event (because what is Army training without the addition of some artificial stress?).As the afternoon sun beat down on the squad, the sprint slowed to a heavy shuffle. One participant, who had been carrying extra weight, stifled a gag as he trod onwards. In a haze of instructor-cracked purple smoke, the squad finished, collapsing in a heap under the shade of a cluster of trees. Some soldiers emptied the water jugs over each other’s heads. Others lay spread-eagled in a lukewarm puddle of mud. Two participants — one with a ripped pant seam exposing a dirty, pale leg — reveled in their success. “It was a good time,” one said, looking at his friend. After a millisecond of hesitation, the friend responded.“Nah,” he said, shaking his head with a smile.

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— ‘We’ve drowned ourselves in buzzwords’: Acting US Army secretary gives sermon-like first speech

 

at 10/12/26 9:35am

One year ago, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll eviscerated bureaucratic delay and acquisition roadblocks in a profanity-laced public address. On Monday, his successor, Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, took things back to the biblical book of Genesis in his first public speech to troops since assuming the role.“Controlling land is fundamental to humanity,” he told a packed ballroom at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting. “The Army does it better than anyone, and it’s on us, the people in this room, to keep it that way. Humanity’s connection to the land is biblical, and it even transcends faith, since the dawn of creation, as recorded in Genesis.”Telle, who previously served as the assistant secretary of the Army for public works, enlisted the Old Testament to preach a message of simplicity of purpose, invoking the sacred ground of past battlefields and the Army’s long history of protecting American territory.“It makes me wonder why the United States Army, again the most lethal and dominant institution in human history, struggles to explain in common terms who we are in 2026, who we really are,” Telle said. “We’ve drowned ourselves and the public in buzzwords, strategies, slideshows, government acronyms and bureaucratic doublespeak — things that are advertised as revolutionary. But the Army’s value proposition is actually too fundamental for goofy corporate jargon.”Though Telle’s rhetorical approach differed from Driscoll’s, he quickly made it clear that the Army was holding the course set by his predecessor, who resigned Aug. 31 over growing disagreements and friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.Telle hailed the Army’s work to streamline acquisition and reduce roadblocks to getting soldiers the gear they need, citing the Army’s work to reduce service “fiefdoms” from thousands to a few newly named portfolio acquisition executives. The service, he said, is moving away from what he called “compound self-interest,” or bureaucratic risk avoidance.“We’re empowering a small number of teams to address our biggest mandates to make difficult trade-offs around speed, manufacturability and supply chain realities early, often and together,” he said. “This is how you generate compound soldier-interest. That’s the opposite of compound self-interest.”He demonstrated the Pentagon’s new small drones online marketplace, likening it to Amazon.com and showing how soldiers could access it on their smartphones and leave reviews for future soldiers based on how well their gear worked. Likewise, he compared the Army’s new online test range reservation system for industry, initiated under Driscoll, to the hotel reservation site Booking.com. The site, he said, is like a “white-glove concierge service that allows innovators to get a reservation on the range faster.” Officials have previously said the new system can accelerate companies’ range-testing schedules from as much as 18 months to 30 days.Telle also reasserted the Army’s commitment to what the military has called a “right to repair,” meaning that it will demand open-architecture systems from all future vendors and limit industry’s ability to control intellectual property and charge a premium for fixes and spare parts.“Right now, we’re sprinting to field low-cost interceptors with open architecture built in from the outset. We need these low-cost interceptors to shoot down missiles and drones headed our way,” Telle said. “We know we need thousands of these things, but they have to seamlessly connect to our network.“If the data is trapped behind proprietary moats, and we have to call a contractor to decode the data, our superintelligent command and control doesn’t matter,” He continued. “Everything we buy from here on out will have open architecture; it’s non-negotiable.”A ‘manufacturing rodeo’Next, he said, the Army will launch a new project: a “manufacturing rodeo,” to be held early next year, that will put the service’s industrial base suppliers in competition with each other.“We’ve invested a lot in our organic industrial base. Now we need to strain it in the nation’s larger industrial base,” Telle said. “We’re going to stress-test the supply chain, the manufacturing processes and see where it breaks.”Telle did not provide specifics, such as the precise mechanism for competition or the challenges in which companies would be asked to compete.“We’re going to learn by doing, not by sitting around postulating at the Pentagon,” he said. “We’re going to find the weak links. We’re going to make them stronger, and we’re going to keep iterating.”Telle did not refer to Driscoll or allude to the fact that the service has no current Army secretary nominee. He did, however, address the “beautifully chaotic” system of American government, saying that while it wasn’t efficient, it centered human freedom and allowed for creativity and innovation.“The United States Army laid the groundwork for that, and will continue to guarantee that it’s never extinguished. Meanwhile, the other team’s human spirit, its imagination, is bounded and boxed and regulated,” Telle said. “The United States of America is where the magic happens, where brilliant people turn science fiction into science fact, and you can’t flip a switch to turn that on.“The Army’s work over the course of history has been so fundamental, so successful that the American spirit it unleashed is now the most important and potent force we have,” he continued. “It’s a potent force that the other guys don’t have.”

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— US Army, GM Defense agree to add 12,000 Infantry Squad Vehicles to fleet

 

at 10/12/26 9:30am

GM Defense announced on Monday that the Army has expanded orders for the Infantry Squad Vehicle, or ISV, from the initial 649 to nearly 12,000. The announcement, made at the annual exposition for the Association of the United States Army, means the service will be increasing its fleet of ISVs by roughly 1,750%. Company President Steve duMont praised his GM Defense’s ability to deliver on the fast-paced needs of the Army, touting the company’s ability to meet the demands of the “modern defense landscape” with “advanced capability, rapid fielding and sustainable scale.” “By transferring GM’s world-class engineering, supply chain and manufacturing scale directly to the service member, we are transforming customer needs into mission-ready capability faster than ever before,” duMont said. To illustrate the pace at which it operates, the company referenced how it delivered PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement housing components to Lockheed Martin in just 22 days. The company said the feat shows how “GM’s advanced casting and precision-fabrication capabilities can immediately scale” to deliver critical components. Ahead of development of the ISV, GM worked closely with the Army to identify “a clear operational gap,” according to the company. It then used the information to self-fund the creation of an ISV-Utility prototype. In turn, the GM Defense delivered seven prototypes of the “highly versatile five-soldier variant” for unit-level assessments “at no cost” to the Army. The company added that those variants will be fielded across 39 active-duty and National Guard mobile brigades. Unlike traditional combat vehicles, the ISV does not have armor. In fact, the standard design doesn’t even have doors or windows. The ISV and ISV-Heavy, which are modeled after GM’s Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 and Chevrolet Silverado HD 3500 ZR2, respectively, are designed to be adapted to changes on the battlefield rather than specific mission sets. Using lessons learned from Ukraine, Army officials say the ISV will serve as a platform for newly established Mobile Brigade Combat Teams, or MBCTs, which are designed to quickly respond to evolving threats and the demands of large-scale combat operations.At AUSA, GM Defense also unveiled concepts for an unmanned ground vehicle, or UGV, and an expeditionary energy storage system.The UGV uses what the company described as “Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD dual-rear-wheel skateboard architecture” and is intended for “silent logistics and casualty evacuation.” GM Defense aims to begin testing the vehicle in 2027.The company also showcased the EPIQ Hybrid prototype, an Army-inspired expeditionary energy storage system. According to GM Defense, the 60-kilowatt, 100-kilowatt-hour system is paired with an onboard generator designed to reduce thermal and noise signatures.

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— Airport training site in Laos extends China’s clout in Southeast Asia

 

at 10/12/26 8:31am

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — China’s design to use a Laotian airport for joint military training has put much of Southeast Asia on guard about how far the People’s Liberation Army will extend its reach.The China-Laos Joint Support and Training Center at Ban Keun Airport some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Lao capital Vientiane and the China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy kicked off in September, the Chinese Ministry of Defense said on its website.China’s role at the military airport, which had just finished major upgrades and features a 2,000-meter runway, suggests that the People’s Liberation Army intends to springboard into other parts of Southeast Asia – a land-border neighbor where several countries have territorial differences with China – experts say.“As China in reality aspires to be a major power, it has to gradually and in a low-key manner build up military bases, albeit for training or other seemingly innocuous purposes,” said Oh Ei Sun, principal adviser at the Pacific Research Center think tank in Kuala Lumpur.“Laos has long been considered to be a close ally for (China) in Southeast Asia and it is of course no surprise that China’s first base in Southeast Asia is located there,” he added.The two countries share a border, a Communist Party leadership and a recent history of economic cooperation led by large Chinese infrastructure projects such as a railway line.The defense ministry in Beijing said the training center, to be jointly maintained and operated, is aimed at helping Laos strengthen the training of its air force pilots.Ban Keun will allow a “continuous” Chinese presence and primarily be used to “steer procurement to Chinese equipment” and support PLA air operations, the China Global South Project media platform says in a study.The ministry website says China’s role at the airport is “not directed against any third party”, contributing instead to improving “practical military cooperation.”But instead, China may be increasing its military foothold “deep inside mainland Southeast Asia” after earlier establishing a naval presence at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a political scientist at Fulbright University in Vietnam. Mainland Southeast Asia includes Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand as well as Laos and Cambodia.Chinese operational military presence and privileged access at the Cambodian base grew from 2019 through 2025, Asian mainstream media reports have said.China is keen on Laos now “because the Chinese feel it’s time to complement the naval facility in Cambodia with nearby air power capability,” said Denny Roy, a ­senior fellow at the East-West Centre think tank in Hawaii.Using both its navy and air force, Beijing has shored up its South China Sea claims over the past two decades by building artificial islands, often for military use. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam dispute parts of the sea with China.Sporadic China-Vietnam incidents have occurred in the waters since the 1970s. China and the Philippines are jousting for control over tiny islets west of Luzon and Palawan islands.“Vietnam is probably the most sensitive, as Laos has long been its strategic buffer, and for now the foothold looks more like China asserting leverage over Hanoi and Phnom Penh,” said Hangyu Lee, East Asia Pacific analyst at the nonprofit organization Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. He said Ban Keun and Ream “together could look like a wider Chinese security network.”Myanmar, Lee added, could be “indirectly affected” if the airport improves China’s ability to monitor activity across continental Southeast Asia. Myanmar, with its own Chinese border, has been in civil war since 2021.China’s presence at the Laotian airport has been linked to its first confirmed overseas base, in the East African country Djibouti. The People’s Liberation Army uses it as a support base. The African base and now Ban Keun mark China’s gradual, low-key buildup of bases, Oh said.But the Laotian site “represents a new air-centered model” distinct from Djibouti and Ream in Cambodia, the China Global South Project study says.“Eventually it can be a pre-positioned base for PRC aircraft as needed,” Roy said. “It could also be expanded to accommodate more and larger aircraft.”

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— Powerus unveils fully autonomous drone interceptors

 

at 10/12/26 8:20am

The South Carolina-based startup Powerus unveiled a fully autonomous version of its Guardian interceptor on Monday at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting.Brett Velicovich, the company’s president and co-founder, said in an interview with Military Times that logical product upgrades have been key to the company’s success. He explained how the company’s growth, the evolution of its interceptors and rising U.S. military demand for drone-defense systems amid the war in Iran have converged.“You know, the U.S. government had a big problem at the beginning of the Iran war, when they sent a bunch of Ukrainian interceptors to the Middle East thinking that it was going to solve a problem,” he said. According to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. used roughly two-thirds of its inventory of certain missile-defense interceptors by Aug. 1 to stop drones like Iran’s Shahed. Because rebuilding the supply could take years and cost billions, the government has sought quicker and cheaper solutions like those used in Ukraine, but implementing them hasn’t been easy. “When you go to Ukraine, most of the interceptors, believe it or not, are manually controlled,” he said, explaining that Ukrainian operators are highly skilled at finding and stopping one-way attack drones in the air. “And that’s great for Ukraine, where you could probably throw a rock and hit a drone pilot.” The problem with the government’s initial thinking, according to Velicovich, was that Ukraine has a “proper drone army,” as the country has “entire brigades that are pilots. So those guys have extreme combat experience in knowing how to take a drone and send it into another drone. In other countries, they don’t.”With that understanding, Velicovich explained how Powerus provided the U.S. with the Guardian 1 — modeled after manually controlled Ukrainian drone interceptors — to the semi-autonomous Guardian 2, which, when paired with a radar to detect threats, will launch the interceptor in the direction of a drone. “It’ll know the speed and the telemetry. It’ll launch it in that direction, but you still have to do that final phase of manual kill,” he said. And finally, Powerus developed the fully autonomous Guardian 3. He explained that when the radar cues it, the system launches in the direction of the threat and can detect and strike using artificial intelligence and navigation systems. “So you kind of take the human error out of it,” he said. Velicovich credits this strategy, which he and his team derived from first-hand experience in the military and using drones in combat, to the company’s recent success. In about one year, Powerus has transformed into a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of nearly $390 million. On Oct. 1, it completed a merger with Aureus Greenway Holdings Inc., a golf course holding company backed by the two eldest Trump sons.As the U.S. government looks for ways to find low-cost drone interceptors, it’s also looking for low-cost missile interceptors. Power has partnered with the Netherlands-based defense company Destinus to help meet that challenge. “Destinus brings this just overwhelming, incredible ownership of the technology,” Velicovich said, adding that Powerus will be its “business development channel in the U.S. to sell systems that otherwise had not really been sold here yet.” He added that Powerus received the demand signal from the Pentagon and aims to deliver. “We know you’d be crazy not to buy these products because of just how effective they are on the battlefield,” he said.

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— US Army helicopter pilots test new in-flight ‘relief’ system

 

at 10/12/26 5:28am

U.S. Army Helicopter pilots in the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade are evaluating a system designed to let them relieve themselves in flight. Soldiers will evaluate whether it can help address a problem pilots face during prolonged missions: limiting fluid intake to avoid restroom breaks.The brigade completed the Army’s first-ever helicopter test flights using the Advanced Inflight Relief Universal System, or AIRUS, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, from Oct. 5 to 7. The testing examined the system’s airworthiness for use on Army helicopters.Aircrews from 1-101 Attack Battalion “No Mercy,” 6-101 Assault Helicopter Battalion “Eagle Assault” and 7-101 Heavy Lift Battalion “Eagle Lift” completed human-factors surveys, checked AIRUS for fit and tested its ability to let them relieve themselves in flight. The crews believe AIRUS will help them stay in the air longer.The brigade’s Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, team sought out AIRION, the aerospace medical systems company that developed AIRUS, to help reduce the number of pilots purposefully dehydrating themselves to limit the need for restroom breaks during missions.“We had pilots tell us they tactically dehydrate,” Capt. Gena Baisa, lead dietitian for the 101st CAB H2F team, said per an Army release. “So, we thought, how can we get a system specifically designed to allow them to use the bathroom in air so they can stay hydrated and optimize their performance?”Chief Warrant Officer 2 Collin McAllister, an AH-64 Apache pilot who tested AIRUS, said the system differs from previous systems that used bags containing coagulant, according to an Army account of the testing.“As we look to fight in contested environments where we will need to stay a lot longer to support the ground force, this could be a great contribution,” McAllister said in the account.Representatives from Redstone Arsenal observed the test to provide recommendations on AIRUS’ flight suitability. A critical aspect of the evaluation involved assessing how aircrews with different body types could move while wearing the system.“We tested AIRUS to see its airworthiness and started with egress testing,” said Elizabeth Rhonenus, a human-factors engineer with the Aviation Flight Test Directorate, in the release. “We took our smallest participant around the fifth percentile and our largest around the 95th percentile and saw if they could get in and out of the aircraft safely.”The testing marked a developmental milestone, transitioning the system into the Army’s rotary-wing fleet, according to the Army. It was AIRION’s first time testing with the Army and its first time testing the system on helicopters, according to Colt Seman, the company’s founder and chief executive officer.“We tested to get the system integrated into the Apache, Black Hawk, and Chinook helicopters,” Seman said per the release. “The pilots were able to put on AIRUS, wear it, and be able to use it. It was comfortable, and it worked.”Baisa said the brigade is preparing for upcoming missions, including the Long Range Large Scale Air Assault concept and the new MV-75 Cheyenne II helicopters’ ability to stay in flight longer.“We are setting the foundation now to support the upcoming missions our Soldiers will face,” Baisa said. “Looking at L2A2 and the new MV-75 Cheyenne II helicopters’ ability to stay in flight longer, we want to improve Soldier readiness. The AIRUS is a capability that could help us achieve it across the enterprise.”

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— US Army gets first mobile cannon to replace M777 howitzer, officials say

 

at 10/12/26 4:00am

The U.S. Army has taken delivery of its first Korean-made mobile tactical cannon less than a year after first issuing a solicitation, service officials said Thursday.Speaking to reporters ahead of the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting, the Army’s leader for offensive fires said that the mobile tactical cannon, made by Hanwha Defense USA, was on display at a first-of-its-kind “Army Modernization Day” held on Capitol Hill earlier this month.“We’re excited to have that and get ready to test it,” said Brig. Gen. Robert J. “RJ” Mikesh Jr., portfolio management executive for offensive fires. “And get that soldier feedback, that we think is so important.”The Army in August announced it had entered a prototyping contract with Hanwha for the Mobile Tactical Cannon, a 155mm self-propelled howitzer intended to replace the legacy M777 155mm howitzers that have been in service since 2005. The four-year contract, worth up to nearly $263 million, covers procurement of up to 18 of the systems for “rapid prototyping, testing, and Soldier experimentation,” the Army said in August. It calls for “accelerated delivery” of the first six system prototypes and allows the Army to execute options for up to a dozen more.While the service hadn’t released full details about the testing regimen, officials said a series of operational experiments would take place to ensure the systems could perform reliably in “realistic combat conditions.”The Mobile Tactical Cannon, which was contracted through an Other Transaction Authority agreement, is based on Hanwha’s K9 mobile howitzers, which have been employed by the South Korean military since 1999 and now have variants operating in 10 other countries, making up more than half of all self-propelled howitzers in service around the world.The company announced at the time of the contract award that it was building an integration and test site in Opelika, Alabama, to develop and roll out the cannons.“What enabled that was this close partnership under the PAE construct and trying new and novel ways of contracting,” Mikesh said Thursday. “In this case, we were not going after a clean-sheet design; we were looking for mature and available technologies. We opened our aperture for companies around the world, knowing that they’d have to onshore production within two years. That howitzer is now on contract.”The Army has said in budget solicitations that its fielding effort for the new self-propelled howitzers will focus initially on Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, followed by Mobile and Infantry Brigade Combat Teams. And while the solicitation that received the Hanwha contract is for a wheeled self-propelled howitzer, the Army in late August published a new solicitation for a tracked variant of the Mobile Tactical Cannon. Hanwha officials told Breaking Defense they’re seeking to fill that requirement as well. Army budget request documents for fiscal 2027 illuminate an additional testing role for the Mobile Tactical Cannon: It will facilitate work in the Army’s 155mm Artillery Propulsion Modernization project, designed to improve range and performance by pursuing novel propulsion technologies and advancements in “propelling charge, modular charge, ignition systems, propellant, and packaging solutions.” “Solutions will be integrated into a system of systems capability to ensure interoperability, closing fires capability gaps to destroy or neutralize artillery targets out to 70 kilometers,” the document states.The M777 has an effective range of under 24 kilometers, or about 15 miles, and up to 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, with the extended-range Excalibur round. The K9, a 52-caliber system, has a range of more than 60 kilometers, or about 37 miles.Army leaders have said they want to field a ready version of the Mobile Tactical Cannon by 2031.

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— Vector, Nammo expand push to mass-produce armed drones

 

at 10/12/26 3:00am

Defense companies Vector and Nammo Defense Systems announced Monday at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting that they had expanded their partnership to integrate munitions into small drones for U.S. military use.The companies first teamed up earlier this year to pair Nammo’s munitions with Vector’s unmanned aircraft. The expanded agreement aims to scale that work to help address what the companies describe as a growing need for drones that can deliver more than just explosive payloads. Andy Yakulis, Vector’s chief executive officer and co-founder, called the partnership “highly complementary” because together they produced a system that reflects “the realities of how warfighters will employ them.” “The battlefield is demanding unmanned systems that can do more than simply carry a payload,” he said, adding that their systems will be produced at scale and “continuously improved based on real-world requirements.”According to Vector’s website, the Utah-based company launched in 2024 with three veterans, including Yakulis, as well as the founder of Teal Drones, which was later acquired by Red Cat and awarded millions in military contracts for short-range reconnaissance drones.Vector also supplies a High Voltage Electronic Safe Arm Device, or HV-ESAD, that serves as the electronic interface between the drone and its munition. According to both companies, the device enables the safe integration and controlled use of compatible munitions.Vector has a drone listed on the Defense Department’s Blue List, which includes unmanned aircraft systems that have undergone the department’s relevant assessment and approval process for military use.The company also placed in the top five in the latest round of the Defense Department’s Drone Dominance program, a billion-dollar initiative to procure affordable small drones that can be manufactured at scale.Andy Schreiner, the president and general manager of Nammo, said the “expanded agreement will benefit warfighters defending freedom globally” because it combines “Nammo’s proven expertise in munitions, energetics, and advanced manufacturing with Vector’s unmanned systems capabilities.” Nammo, a Norwegian defense manufacturer with U.S. operations headquartered in Arizona, specializes in ammunition, shoulder-fired weapons and rocket motors. According to its website, its products range from small-arms ammunition to tank rounds.“We are bringing together complementary strengths to accelerate the development and production of integrated solutions that can evolve with warfighter requirements,” Schreiner said.

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— Pentagon, Raytheon sign $6.3B deal to replenish US missile interceptor supply

 

at 10/9/26 2:17pm

The Pentagon inked a five-year contract with Raytheon for the steady production of ballistic missile interceptors that use force to destroy targets, rather than explosives. The $6.3 billion contract, which provides two additional option years, will see Raytheon provide the Defense Department with a continuous supply of Standard Missile-3 Block IB interceptors manufactured primarily in Tucson, Arizona and Huntsville, Alabama. “SM-3 Block IB has proven its relevance in combat and this contract helps ensure we can replenish inventories and keep pace with the evolving threats the U.S. Navy, MDA and their partners face around the world,” Raytheon President Phil Jasper said in a statement. The SM-3 Block IB interceptor belongs to a larger family of “hit-to-kill” SM-3 missile interceptors, which seek and destroy incoming ballistic missiles using sheer speed and momentum. The Block IB type can be used by land forces and ships and is frequently deployed on vessels due to its range and highly flexible steering. The interceptor tracks flying targets with a two-color infrared seeker and propels itself towards them in short bursts, giving it accuracy at high speed as it homes in on targets. It is designed to knock short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles out of the sky when they are halfway to hitting their targets, and has long striking reach. It was used in combat for the first time in 2024 when the U.S. Navy destroyers USS Arleigh Burke and USS Carney fired them to intercept Iranian missiles aimed at targets in Israel. The Center for Strategic and International Studies named the SM-3 Block IB among “seven critical munitions” in an April report detailing ammunition shortages, alongside Patriot missiles, Precision Strike Missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles, Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and others.The contract for more SM-3 Block IBs, announced by Raytheon on Thursday, was among five framework agreements the defense giant signed with the Pentagon this February. The deal comes at a time when the DoD is seeking to avert diminishing munitions stockpiles. National security specialists, defense analysts and foreign policy pundits cautioned in March that the U.S. military’s increased use of missile interceptors during the war with Iran poses strategic risks to integral defense capabilities if fighting spills into a long-term conflict. Raytheon stated in its release that the contract for SM-3 Block IB supply “supports urgent replenishment of missile defense inventory that has been successfully used in combat and remains central to protecting U.S. forces, allies and critical infrastructure.”

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As of 10/13/26 10:34am. Last new 10/13/26 10:34am.