Reinventing the Army

Interesting article: 2018 Forecast: Can the Army Reinvent Itself

A few highlights:

  1. They are standing up the Army Futures Command this summer.
    1. Goal is to develop new weapons and new ways to use them.
    2. It has not been announced where it will be located.
  2. They currently have eight “Cross Functional Teams” already set up, lead by general officers.
    1. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley has a “Big Six” modernization priorities. They are: 1) Long-range missiles, 2) new armored vehicles, 3) high speed replacements for current helicopters, 4) secure command networks, 5) anti-aircraft and missile defense, 6) soldier equipment.
      1. There is a link for each of these in this article: https://breakingdefense.com/2017/12/army-shifts-1b-in-st-plans-modernization-command-undersec-mccarthy/
    2. This effort will start making their mark “in earnest” with the 2020 budget.
      1. The 2018 and 2019 budgets have been approved. In the current  political environment, hard to say what the 2020 budget will look like [these are my thoughts, not part of the article].
    3. The U.S. Army has approved Active Protection Systems (APS) for their tanks to shoot down incoming missiles, like Russia and Israel are using.
      1. Goal is to get a brigade of M1 Abrams tanks outfitted with Israeli-made Trophy APS systems by 2020 [why do I get the sense from the wording that this date is not going to be met].
      2. They are testing APS for Bradleys and Strykers.
        1. Also testing anti-aircraft versions of these vehicles.
        2. Also testing upgunned Strykers.
      3. Army is building the Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) light tank to accompany airborne troops.
        1. RPF has been issued, contract award in early 2019.
    4. The Army is the lead sponsor for the Future Verticle Lift (FVL) to replace existing helicopters. Flight testing has started.
    5. This is all part of the Multi-Domain Battle
      1. They are moving the thinkers behind the Multi-Domain Battle from the Training & Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to the Futures Command.
      2. Milley has identified Russia as the No. 1 threat. [We will note that several years ago some influential people were tagging China as the primary threat.]
      3. Still, Milley has stood up two advisor brigades [because we have wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Niger/Mali, Somalia, Yemen, etc. that don’t seem to be going away].
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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

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