Inside the Army highlights

Some must-reads from this week's edition of Inside the Army:

1. Senate lawmakers, afraid the Army might award a foreign company a sole-source contract to replace transmissions for the entire fleet of Bradley fighting vehicles, have taken steps to insulate U.S. manufacturers by proposing legislation requiring a full and open competition, Inside Defense has learned.

Full story: Race to replace Bradley transmissions stirs up defense industrial base issues

2. In a signal of strong congressional support, lawmakers are backing the Army's high-priority project to develop a new cannon for its self-propelled artillery fleet -- a key part of the service's goal to improve its long-range precision fires portfolio.

Full story: Effort to develop new Paladin cannon winning support for FY-19 funding boost

3. The Army is working to provide more timely reset and recapitalization of recently deployed Patriot surface-to-air missile systems after the Government Accountability Office found that delays in returning the refurbished systems to soldiers have degraded unit readiness.

Full story: GAO says Army readiness suffers from delays in Patriot system availability

4. The Army's network cross-functional team has begun expanding its mission, taking the lead on "all four lines of effort" for tactical network modernization, according to its director.

Full story: Army Network CFT broadens its scope