Thursday, April 25, 2024
Thursday, April 25, 2024
The Association of the U.S. Army conference dominates this Tuesday INSIDER Daily Digest.
We start off with news from AUSA:
Army testing RCV platforms in Colorado next spring
The Next Generation Combat Vehicle's cross-functional team will deliver Robotic Combat Vehicle test platforms to Colorado in the spring for the next round of experimentation, following a "rodeo" in Texas that took place earlier this year.
Boeing adding countries to Chinook Block ll portfolio
Boeing is on track with its current CH-47 Block ll foreign military sales and is adding new countries to its portfolio, according to company executives.
OMFV moves to prototyping phase with one bidder
The general in charge of Army Futures Command today confirmed one of the two expected competitors for the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program did not make the initial evaluation and will be sitting out the prototyping phase.
(Related: Army estimates $45 billion total price tag -- or $11 million per vehicle -- for OMFV)
Army advances plan to realign $10B to boost investments in 'signature systems'
The Army's fiscal year 2021 budget will propose realigning $10 billion in investments across the Pentagon's new five-year spending plan to pump additional resources into 31 so-called "signature systems" that underpin the service's modernization plan.
In other Army news, Inside Defense accompanied senior service officials to Texas A&M University over the weekend for the opening of a new hypersonic testing facility:
Army to open hypersonic testing facility at Texas A&M
COLLEGE STATION, TX -- Texas A&M University and Army Futures Command broke ground Saturday on the new Bush Combat Development Complex, featuring a hypersonic weapon testing facility for the Army Research Laboratory and industry.
Turning to the Air Force, Inside Defense recently interviewed the head of the munitions directorate at the Air Force Research Lab:
Ill-fated Gray Wolf networked cruise missile program extended into 2020
The initial and final phase of the Air Force's Gray Wolf project -- a short-lived effort to create a networked cruise missile capability -- will not come to an end this year as expected, since scheduling issues have delayed flight tests of the preliminary platform developed by Northrop Grumman.
On the Navy side, Inside Defense also spoke last week with the director of the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile program:
LRASM misses September 2019 EOC goal due to 'minor production discrepancies'
The Defense Department's developmental anti-ship missile last month did not reach early operational capability on the Navy's F/A-18 fleet, missing the program's stated goal.