Inside the Army highlights

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

1. The Army's highest-priority acquisition program to modernize its combat vehicle fleet is off to a delayed start, as the service is taking more time than originally planned to refine requirements and request proposals for a future Bradley replacement.

Full story: Army lags on Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle development

2. The Army is launching a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon program to develop a capability to punch through contested, anti-access environments -- a big-ticket acquisition project that will re-purpose a Navy hypersonic booster being developed by Lockheed Martin for use on a road-mobile system, giving ground forces a conventionally armed strategic system for the opening salvos of a major fight.

Full story: Army to re-purpose Navy booster for road-mobile, hypersonic weapon

3. The Army's top civilian leader said Nov. 8 the service's current rotation of forces across Europe is suitable for its training goals in the region and did not indicate a need for more permanent forces there, despite recent congressional interest in doing so.

Full story: Esper: Rotational deployments to Europe satisfies current need

4. The Army's newly announced radar "sense-off" in New Mexico will be open to all interested vendors, marking a significant change of plans that effectively opens up a second competitive track in tandem with the Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor program of record while jettisoning the requirement for 360-degree detection, according to service officials.

Full story: Army scraps 360-degree detection LTAMDS requirement, opens competition to all