US Army News

[James1978]

As long as we follow through on the new plants, things seem to be looking up. Although I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing it didn't take so long to get to the monthly figures we're aiming for.

US Army eyes six-fold production boost of 155mm shells used in Ukraine
By Jen Judson
March 28, 2023

Huntsville, Ala. — The U.S. Army will boost production of 155mm artillery shells more than six-fold to 85,000 a month by fiscal 2028, according to Under Secretary Gabe Camarillo.

The goal is to replenish ammunition going to Ukraine in large numbers to aid its fight against the Russia and to ensure the service has the right levels in its own stockpiles, he said March 28.

The Army is spending $1.45 billion on capacity “to expand 155mm artillery production from 14,000 a month to over 24,000 later this year,” and 85,000 in five years, Camarillo said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

Partly to aid in the ramp up, the Army has beefed up its Organic Industrial Base, or OIB, strategy with plans to invest $18 billion over 15 years. Originally, the service wanted $16 billion to modernize the base, according to Marion Whicker of U.S. Army Materiel Command.

Now, just in FY23 alone, $2.5 billion will be injected into modernizing the OIB, mostly through supplemental funding provided by Congress to replenish stockpiles, she noted.

To dramatically increase capacity that quickly, “you need additional production lines,” Army acquisition chief Doug Bush told reporters at the Global Force event.

The Army makes artillery shells at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania as well as General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems facility nearby in Wilkes Barre. It fills them at a government facility in Iowa. The Army is under contract to build another facility with a company in Canada and is standing up yet another with GD-OTS in Garland, Texas, to make additional shell bodies. Iowa is expanding its capability, and there is some production expansion into Kansas, Bush noted.

“It’s not all in one place,” he said. “It’s literally building new factories and putting advanced machine tools in them. That’s really the only way to do it.”

The Army is investing $349 million to more than double the service’s monthly production of launchers to 41 a month and 330 missiles per month, Camarillo said. Production for Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, will increase from 566 rockets per month to over 1,100 by FY26.

[kdahm]

Exploding command pips have gotten two colonels at Fort Hood.

Married colonels at Fort Hood fired after separate investigations
623
Zamone Perez
Fri, March 24, 2023 at 12:11 PM CDT·1 min read

An Army colonel at Fort Hood, Texas, was relieved of command on Friday as a result of an investigation that launched following her suspension last month, officials from III Army Corps confirmed.

Col. Ann Meredith, commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade, was relieved due to a “loss of confidence in her judgment,” Lt. Col. Tania Donovan, III Army Corps spokesperson, told Army Times.

In October, Meredith’s husband, Col. Jon Meredith, was fired from his post as commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division due to loss of confidence. The respective dismissals were the result of unrelated investigations, officials said.

“For the investigation involving Col. Jon Meredith, the Army CID has exhausted all investigative leads and provided an interim report to 1st Calvary Division,” Lt. Col. Jennifer J. Bocanegra, spokesperson for the 1st Cavalry Division, told Stars and Stripes. “The 1st Cavalry Division does not provide comments during this stage of the process.”

The Army did not comment further on the investigation, citing a service policy that protects administrative information.

Meredith took command of the 89th Military Police Brigade at the Texas installation on July 8, 2022. She previously held command and staff positions at the company, battalion, and brigade levels, Army officials said. She served as the Military Police Branch chief with U.S. Army Human Resources Command from 2018 to 2020.

Meredith is a 23-year veteran with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In olden times, I believe there used to be a quiet phrase "For the good of the Service" and a silent vanishing from public eye.

[clancyphile]

Better force structure, too. But the industrial base is growing, if 22 years late. It never should have been drawn down.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

Exploding command pips have gotten two colonels at Fort Hood.

Married colonels at Fort Hood fired after separate investigations
623
Zamone Perez
Fri, March 24, 2023 at 12:11 PM CDT·1 min read

An Army colonel at Fort Hood, Texas, was relieved of command on Friday as a result of an investigation that launched following her suspension last month, officials from III Army Corps confirmed.

Col. Ann Meredith, commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade, was relieved due to a “loss of confidence in her judgment,” Lt. Col. Tania Donovan, III Army Corps spokesperson, told Army Times.

In October, Meredith’s husband, Col. Jon Meredith, was fired from his post as commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division due to loss of confidence. The respective dismissals were the result of unrelated investigations, officials said.

“For the investigation involving Col. Jon Meredith, the Army CID has exhausted all investigative leads and provided an interim report to 1st Calvary Division,” Lt. Col. Jennifer J. Bocanegra, spokesperson for the 1st Cavalry Division, told Stars and Stripes. “The 1st Cavalry Division does not provide comments during this stage of the process.”

The Army did not comment further on the investigation, citing a service policy that protects administrative information.

Meredith took command of the 89th Military Police Brigade at the Texas installation on July 8, 2022. She previously held command and staff positions at the company, battalion, and brigade levels, Army officials said. She served as the Military Police Branch chief with U.S. Army Human Resources Command from 2018 to 2020.

Meredith is a 23-year veteran with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In olden times, I believe there used to be a quiet phrase "For the good of the Service" and a silent vanishing from public eye.

One rumor was that they were swingers. He, commander of 1st brigade of 1st Cav, got caught fornicating with a subordinate's wife, and investigation ensued. His wife, provost marshal, tried to involve herself in said investigation and got investigated herself.

[James1978]

This one is from December 2020, but all was not well with Army CID - and I suspect not much has changed.
Short version - if you're expecting civilian level police detective experience and competence from CID investigations, expect to be disappointed.

Army CID is burned out and mismanaged by military police leadership, special agents say
By Kyle Rempfer
December 15, 2020

Army Criminal Investigation Command has been dealing with inexperienced and overworked investigators at large Army posts for years, according to four career special agents who’ve served at a mix of domestic and overseas CID offices.

Many of the problems stem from CID’s subordination to military police officers, who lack backgrounds in felony investigations but influence priorities. Equally troubling are the security details to protect senior Pentagon officials, which steal away a large number of investigators in their prime, said the four agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their current and future jobs.

Newly minted agents are routinely dispatched to large bases, like Fort Hood, Fort Bragg or Fort Lewis, where they make up a significant portion of investigators assigned there, according to the agents.

Just as junior investigators become competent at their jobs, they’re regularly sent to work security for the secretary of defense, the chief of staff and other senior officials. It’s a detail called Protective Services Battalion, and it utilizes roughly one-quarter of available CID agents, according to those with whom Army Times spoke.

“There’s a significant number of agents who are stuck there — a lot of agents come in, they do two-and-a-half years, then they get orders to [Protective Services Battalion], where you don’t do investigations,” said one agent who spent three years in the battalion. “It’s a completely separate job field … you’re not getting experience with interviews, interrogations or evidence collection.”

When agents do return to the field, “now they’re in a leadership position, and they don’t know the job. That has been going on for a while and it’s really detrimental,” the agent added.

Fort Hood report scratches the surface
CID offers world-class training and a chance for enlisted soldiers to make huge professional leaps, multiple agents said. When they are properly employed, agents curb the flow of narcotics onto installations, chase white-collar criminals and resolve decades-old cold cases. But when agents are mismanaged, investigations suffer.

Serious problems with inexperienced and overworked agents were raised this month in a report on the CID detachment at Fort Hood, Texas, which was sparked by the killing of Spc. Vanessa Guillen inside an armory on post. Ninety-two percent of enlisted agents at Fort Hood in fiscal 2019 were apprentices, not fully accredited to conduct investigations solo.

“Everything they put in that report was said on a daily basis by actual case agents,” said one such agent who was previously assigned to Fort Hood. “The real problem with the MP [officers] is that they’re trying to run CID units like normal Army units, and that is absolutely impossible to do.”

Junior agents assigned to Fort Hood bungled some key steps early in the investigation into Guillen’s disappearance and subsequent death, according to the 152-page report compiled by an independent committee.

Those agents “bought wholesale” into inaccurate witness testimony that initially deterred scrutiny of the man prosecutors now say killed Guillen, according to the report. Experienced investigators would “not have been thrown off by the red herring,” said Chris Swecker, a former FBI inspector who served on the independent committee.

Provost Marshal of the Army Maj. Gen. Donna Martin, who is also in charge of CID, said in a statement that her office welcomes the report’s findings and appreciates the hard work of those who compiled it.

“This report has not only identified certain areas for improvement, but has energized an impartial and constructive conversation within CID that we are convinced will pay huge dividends for CID and the Army as we continue to conduct very complex felony investigations around the world,” Martin said in response to queries regarding this article’s key assertions.

“We have tremendous talent and expertise in CID,” Martin added. “Our agents accomplish amazing things every single day, but we can do better and rest assured we will.”

Last week, an Army Regulation 15-6 Investigation was initiated to assess the 6th Military Police Group, which oversees agents at Fort Hood. But agents said they worry that if the investigation is led by a military police officer, problems with CID’s leadership structure could be ignored.

Military police have a separate mission
Command sergeant major and officer positions at CID headquarters units are given to MPs, according to the agents and online biographies. Despite their similar names, CID agents and MPs are significantly different.

“If you review their training and background you will see that none of them have any sort of investigative experience, either in training or in positions held,” one agent explained. “This creates sort of a two headed monster.”

The end result is senior leaders focused on what they know how to do, which is lead a field MP unit and not a criminal investigative organization, according to the agent. The emphasis is inevitably placed on soldiering tasks, NCO academy and other regular Army requirements, according to multiple agents.

“For the MP officers that are in charge, that is almost as important to them in their [officer evaluation record] [as] the investigations,” an agent said. “They are focused on typically mundane Army tasks, and criminal investigations are not always the top priority.”

That sort of command team marginalizes the effectiveness of senior CID warrant officer agents who fill the roles of group operations officers, the agent added.

Agents say they were been told that elevating MPs within the organization helps deal with shortages of senior enlisted agents and warrant officer agents.

But some in the career field believe it should be separated from the MP Corps and perhaps placed under the Army Inspector General, which is how the Air Force handles its version of CID, called OSI. The Air Force also allows officers to become OSI agents, unlike CID, helping fill out that organization’s leadership roles with agents.

Screenshots from a private social media group, where current and retired CID agents congregate, show people overwhelmingly agree with the Fort Hood report’s findings and repeatedly mention the presence of MP leadership as a hindrance to their mission.

Army Times reviewed a dozen screenshots of the group’s comment chains, but agreed not to post them to prevent retribution, as some posters are still in the service and others might seek government jobs in the future.

High case loads and no help
At a congressional hearing Dec. 9, Swecker recommended that CID offices be staffed with agents that have five to eight years’ experience. But there simply are not many agents in that demographic, according to those familiar with the career field.

Many agents “burn out” working a high case load at their first or second assignment, according to the career agents.

Big posts, like Fort Hood and Fort Drum, have large caseloads, stretching to the limit the junior agents who are predominantly sent there. But less busy assignments — in Germany, for example — allow agents to devote more time to key cases and be proactive in combating felony crimes.

“Instead of trying to keep your head above water, we really could dig in and do productive work,” an agent explained of his time assigned to Europe.

Some of the agents who manage not to burn out will opt to become CID warrant officers.

Those warrant officers, however, are not typically conducting investigations. They’re burdened with administrative tasks, and though they supervise investigations, the “ridiculous amount of checklist driven requirements sidelines them to desk duty,” said one agent who became a warrant officer.

“That’s what typically causes the junior agents to be out on their own conducting investigations,” the agent added.

Local police have also admitted to becoming frustrated as they try to develop working relationships with those field agents, as well as special agents in charge of offices, only to see them move to a new post after a few short years, according to one agent.

Checklist obsessed junior agents
Many junior agents are forced to closely follow “draconian” checklists and regulations, according to an agent. “Common sense kind of gets thrown out because people are so worried about making sure they don’t get in trouble for missing a step or deviating,” the agent added.

In the Guillen case, the Fort Hood report chided agents for not examining or taking custody of the alleged killer’s phone when they first interviewed him. That’s likely the result of junior investigators being obsessed with checklists, according to the agents.

“It would totally make sense to check that … but that’s not what they’re worried about,” one agent said. “They’re worried about covering bases. And that’s largely because of a lack of experience, but it’s also being stretched too thin and having a thousand things to do.”

The agents’ complaints echo the Fort Hood report, which found CID agents at the post were pushed to develop “a complete file as opposed to identifying and working leads and suspects that are most likely to resolve cases.”

One agent Army Times spoke with compared the checklists to looking for a lost set of keys. Even if you retrace your steps and find the keys immediately, you have to continue looking for the keys at all the other places you went that day, the agent explained.

When Army CID is partnered with outside law enforcement agencies, the disparity in freedom to think creatively on the job is striking.

“Many times I have been working investigations and have been asked by our state and federal partners why I was doing a specific thing, that it was a waste of time and would have no impact on a case,” an agent recalled. “My answer was always ‘that’s what the book says I have to do.’ ”

There’s a lot of pressure every two years to pass IG inspections that look at how the thoroughness of investigations. This often causes agents to eschew independent decisions and adhere blindly to regulations, even though it may not make sense, according to multiple agents.

It results in simple cases being investigated as if “they are the crime of the century,” one agent added. “We would spin our wheels and work, work, work these cases, and that eats up a lot of time.”

Even if a preliminary investigation yields video evidence revealing no crime has been committed, and an Army judge advocate agrees, full investigations are regularly ordered to curb any scrutiny from IG inspectors later on, agents said.

Abusive sexual contact cases and narcotics-related offenses, even minor ones, make up a significant number of caseloads.

“None of the senior leaders have faith in MPI [military police investigators] to investigate anything,” an agent explained. “That’s why we’re working drug residue at a gate. We have federal agents out there because a roach had some sort of residue on it.”

‘Leaning forward on the findings’
Several agents said that “civilianizing” the CID ranks by removing some mandatory Army requirements might help address the issues present in the career field. However, all four agents said that CID’s location under the MP Corps has been limiting.

Multiple agents noted that recruiting into CID is not an issue, but retention is. In order to close the gap in supervisory roles, a program was started to allow officers to resign their commission and become warrant officer agents.

“They’re immediately placed into that middle management category with zero experience,” an agent said. “It was just a bad program.”

One agent believed that MP officers want influence over the CID enterprise because the high-profile felony cases they handle are briefed up to the highest levels of the Army.

More typical MP tasks involving petty crime, like traffic violations, domestic violence and larceny, don’t receive as much attention, the agent explained.

“There’s no MP cases being briefed on a daily basis,” the agent added. “If you want face-time with the brass, then you better somehow be involved with CID, because that’s truly what’s being briefed up there at that DoD level.”

Provost Marshal of the Army Maj. Gen. Martin said in her statement to Army Times that she was focused on mining the Fort Hood report for solutions to move the career field forward.

“I can tell you without a doubt, CID is leaning forward on the findings from the report and will continue to perform all felony-level criminal investigations at the highest level,” Martin said in her statement. “We are embracing the findings and immediately considering many options and changes in how we move forward, as well as how we are organized and resourced.”

[James1978]

Looks like Bell will be a little busy. I suspect the winding down of V-22 production might have something to do with this.

Lockheed unit loses protest of Army tiltrotor award to Textron’s Bell
By Jen Judson
April 6, 2023

WASHINGTON — Textron’s Bell can move forward with building the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, the Army’s largest helicopter procurement in 40 years, after the Government Accountability Office rejected a competitor’s protest.

Lockheed Martin-owned Sikorsky filed a protest late last year. Boeing, Sikorsky’s teammate, also filed a protest.

“In denying the protest, GAO concluded that the Army reasonably evaluated Sikorsky’s proposal as technically unacceptable because Sikorsky failed to provide the level of architectural detail required by the [request for proposal],” an April 6 statement from the office reads. “GAO also denied Sikorsky’s various allegations about the acceptability of Bell’s proposal, including the assertion that the agency’s evaluation violated the terms of the solicitation or applicable procurement law or regulation.”

The FLRAA competition pitted head-to-head Bell’s V-280 Valor, a tiltrotor aircraft with Sikorsky and Boeing’s Defiant X, which features coaxial rotor blades. Both aircraft were designed to fit into the same footprint as a Black Hawk.

The deal for the next-generation helicopter is worth up to $1.3 billion and is set to replace about 2,000 Black Hawk utility helicopters. FLRAA won’t serve as a 1-to-1 replacement for existing aircraft, but it will take over the roles of the Black Hawk — long the workhorse of the Army for getting troops to and around the battlefield — around 2030.

“We remain confident the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky and Boeing team submitted the most capable, affordable and lowest-risk Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft solution,” Lockheed said in a statement. “We will review the GAO’s decision and determine our next steps.”

The engineering and manufacturing development stage as well as the low-rate production phase could be worth roughly $7 billion in total. If the Army purchases the full complement of aircraft across the entire life of the fleet, the program could be worth around $70 billion, including potential foreign military sales, the program executive officer for aviation, Maj. Gen. Rob Barrie, said during a Dec. 5 media roundtable following the Army’s selection of Bell.

Army officials have said the service sought to make the FLRAA program decision unassailable. Yet, Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said during the Dec. 5 briefing the service “anticipated [a protest] potentially happening and [has] accounted for that in our timelines.”

Ahead of the decision, Byron Callan, of Capital Alpha Partners, said in an April 4 report he assessed a 25% probability the award would be overturned and believed a successful challenge was not likely, “despite Team Defiant’s (Lockheed Martin/Boeing) protest that elements of the Army’s evaluation of the competing bids were subjective.”

Sustainment cost assessments “could be one conceivable point of friction in how GAO viewed the Army’s evaluation,” Callan added.

There has been consistent support from Congress for the FLRAA program.

[James1978]

From October 2022, but seems relevant.

US Army seeks new watercraft to beef up Indo-Pacific capability
By Jen Judson
October 13, 2022

WASHINGTON — For the first time in decades, the Army is pursuing a new watercraft effort in a bid to prepare for operations in the Indo-Pacific theater.

“With renewed focus on the Indo-[Pacific Command Area of Operations] and the Army’s responsibilities in terms of logistics resupply, it has led to a renewed emphasis on the Army watercraft fleet,” Brig. Gen. Luke Peterson, program executive officer for combat support and combat service support, told Defense News in an interview just ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

The Army has not embarked on a new watercraft program since the mid-1990s, Peterson said, so “it is a pivotal time for Army watercraft.”

The service hit an important milestone on Oct. 10, when the service put its first new prototype of the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light) into the water in Portland, Oregon.

The service and manufacturer Vigor slowly walked the vessel from the manufacturing facility on dollies and worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to raise the water level so the vessel could go into an inlet to access the Columbia River.

The Army will begin testing the capability once it takes formal delivery of the vessel in February.

In 2017, the service awarded a $980 million contract to Vigor to build the new Army landing craft.

The plan is to ultimately procure 13 of the MSV(L)s, but the Army is reevaluating its delivery schedule due to supply chain challenges Vigor encountered when a vendor went into bankruptcy. Following court proceedings, the company was able to bring in a new vendor to finish up the work.

“We’re getting the program back on track, while at the same time we are evaluating the path forward,” Peterson said.

Meanwhile the Army is continuing to perform a service life extension program on its Landing Craft Utility vessels, or LCUs, used to transport equipment and troops to shore.

The service is also performing a SLEP on its Modular Causeway Systems, a bridging capability connecting a ship and a dock, and has modernized an integrated bridge system, which is now undergoing tests.

The Army is also partnered with Combined Arms Support Command and the chief of transportation on the Maneuver Support Vessel (Heavy) requirement, “which is currently in requirements and framing analysis,” Peterson said. “They are assessing what kind of capabilities a larger class vessel over the Maneuver Support Vessel (Light) may require.”

The Army is nearing completion of the draft abbreviated capabilities development, he added.

Watercraft has been integral for the service in the Pacific, Gen. Charles Flynn, U.S. Army Pacific Command commander, told Defense News in an interview at AUSA, and the new watercraft will provide greater capability.

The Army, a number of years ago, “rightfully” made an important decision to reposition watercraft out of the Middle East and into the Pacific, “so that has given us a little more capacity in the region to do it.”

Flynn said the Army has used watercraft in recent exercises like Operation Pathways to move equipment and has even delivered Patriot air and missile defense systems and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to ranges with it.

[James1978]

Why It’s Hard to Double GMLRS Production
Ukraine could use more of the devastating artillery rockets, but Lockheed says tooling, labor, and supply-chain problems prevent big leaps in production.
By Sam Skove
March 30, 2023



HUNTSVILLE, Alabama—Ukraine has eagerly used the heavy artillery rockets known as GMLRS, and it’s not alone in wanting the weapon stocked in national arsenals. But Lockheed Martin can’t make the long-range precision munitions any faster until it gets more machine tools, skilled labor, and parts, a company representative said this week.

Lockheed is currently at its full annual production capacity of 10,000 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, rockets, said Becky Withrow, Lockheed’s director of business development for tactical missiles in an interview Tuesday during the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium.

The company is adding tooling and testing machines so that it can make 14,000 of the rockets in 2024, Withrow said. But doubling annual production would likely take two or more years, she said.

She said the biggest stumbling block is the availability of machine tooling and testing equipment. It’s also hard to find workers for the production lines, many of which are located far from population centers, she said. The company is only running one shift producing the missiles, Withrow said, but it has the capacity to temporarily do a second shift.

Finally, there are supply-chain problems, Withrow said. Certain components for GMLRS rockets are also needed for other missiles; she noted that there are only two rocket-motor manufacturers in the United States. She also said that one GMLRS subcontractor also makes components for another in-demand missile—the anti-tank Javelin—and increasing production for one would mean taking workers away from the other.

The U.S. Army is buying 5,910 GMLRS munitions in 2023, and has requested authority from Congress to buy a further 5,016 rockets in 2024. The service is pursuing authorization for multi-year buys of the missiles, Director of Army Budget Maj. Gen. Mark Bennett told reporters on March 16, echoing comments by Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Such purchases save money and spur industry to boost production, Bill LaPlante, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, has said.

International interest is also high, Withrow said, particularly in countries near Russia who’ve seen the weapon’s effectiveness in Ukraine. In November, the State Department approved Finland’s request to buy $535 million worth of GMLRS and related equipment. In February, State approved Poland’s request to buy $10 billion worth of GMLRs, GMLRS launchers, and related equipment.

Ukraine has used the U.S-supplied missile to devastating effect against Russian forces. Fired by MLRS launchers and HIMARS self-propelled launchers, the missiles have been particularly useful against Russian ammunition dumps and supply lines, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in September. Without GMLRS, Ukraine’s casualties would be “significantly greater,” a report by the Royal United Services Institute think tank saidstated.

The missiles can fly 70 kilometers or more to put a 200-pound warhead within a few meters of their target.

[James1978]

Army NCO Schools Going Partly Online, Temporary Promotions Going Away
5 April 2023
By Steve Beynon

The Army is looking to shift some parts of its noncommissioned officer academies to virtual learning and scale back temporary promotions in one of its most dramatic overhauls of how NCO careers are managed.

The Army's Advanced Leader Course, or ALC, and Senior Leader Course, or SLC, will shift part of their coursework to online learning in the coming months, Military.com has learned. Army planners hope the move will make attendance more convenient for part-time troops in the National Guard and reserve, in addition to making it less likely students will drop the courses.

"That reduces no-shows," Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston told Military.com on Wednesday. "We can add a few more people to get some of the academics done. And that's what we're looking at. And it also gives you a little more time in your house, before we send you."

The length of the courses vary depending on a soldier's job but are typically one to two months long. Those schools are needed for promotion to staff sergeant and sergeant first class -- the linchpins of the rank-and-file leadership. Each NCO rank has a corresponding academy.

About one week of the courses covers academic work focusing on general Army knowledge about regulations, customs and history. Army planners are looking to move that part online but have soldiers attend in person the coursework that specifically pertains to their job. For example, infantry ALC has components related to tactics and weapons that would have to be in-person.

As Grinston said, one of the big issues senior leaders hope to fix is soldiers dropping courses before they begin, which can happen for numerous reasons. It can be difficult for the schools to quickly fill the empty seat with another soldier who needs the class.

Moving at least a chunk of the courses online could make it more likely students who signed up will show up for the course, according to the Army.

The newly virtual parts of ALC and SLC are not planned to be online training that soldiers can do at their own pace, such as the current training required before attending the schools, Grinston explained.

Students would be enrolled in a particular class, and the online portion would be live with an instructor lecturing in real time.

Attending those schools can be difficult, especially for Army Reserve and National Guard members, who also have to juggle full-time civilian jobs. While employers are required by law to let those soldiers off for the schooling, it can still be a hurdle for the troops to find time for military education.

That means their careers commonly move at a much slower pace than their active-duty counterparts. The Justice Department has a long history of suing employers for not abiding by laws protecting Guardsmen from being retaliated against for taking time off to serve.

Graduating NCO schools was traditionally required before moving onto the next rank. But in 2021, the service issued a policy to allow so-called temporary promotions. This granted units the ability to promote soldiers before attending school, with the caveat that they had to attend within a year or be demoted.

That gave units much more flexibility with promotions as schools faced a bottleneck of students trying to attend and long wait times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an administrative issue that allowed soldiers who weren't fully qualified to attend. But that bottleneck has started to clear with some Army jobs.

"We are going to rescind that very shortly," Grinston said, referring to the temporary promotion policy.

The service has been reexamining how it manages career development in the enlisted ranks. On Friday, it revealed a new counseling form -- effectively an employee review -- that could shift how soldiers and leaders are graded on their performance.

The Army is also eyeing major changes to its Basic Leader Course, or BLC, the school needed for promotion to sergeant. It has slowly reintroduced land navigation to the school after combat tasks were eliminated in favor of more lectures on policy and academics. That 22-day school could be extended several days in the near future to make room for more tactical training.

[James1978]

Army short-range air defense laser prototypes take down drones at Yuma
By Jen Judson
April 13, 2023

WASHINGTON — Downed drones littered the battlefield at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona during a live-fire test of the Stryker-based Short-Range Air Defense system prototypes with 50-kilowatt lasers, according to the director of Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office.

“When they got out on the range, they were knocking targets out of the sky, Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 [unmanned aircraft systems],” Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch said told Defense News in an interview. “Very, very effective.”

While the lasers made short work of drones, some challenges remain in taking out rockets, artillery and mortars, he said.

The Army is now receiving its first platoon-set of the systems, taking the first two of the Directed Energy Maneuver-SHORAD prototypes to Yuma earlier this year for training with soldiers. The third prototype is about to go into acceptance testing, according to Rasch, and the fourth will be delivered within the next couple of months.

Delivering the first platoon-set — four DE M-SHORAD prototypes — will complete RCCTO’s mission, but the office won’t stop there.

Developmental testing with soldiers will continue over the next quarter and in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, the Army will begin developing tactics, techniques and procedures for the systems, Rasch said.

“There’s a lot, when you look at fielding a capability, you don’t just field a technology, you have to figure out how to integrate that technology into a warfighting capability,” Rasch said.

The Army fielded its M-SHORAD system with a kinetic capability to Europe in response to an urgent operational need. “We’ve got kinetic M-SHORAD, we’ve got directed energy M-SHORAD, we’re just now getting short-range air defense back into our maneuver units. So they’re still figuring out the TTPs on how to fight that.”

And the Army also has to figure out the right mix of those systems and how it wants to use them in operations, he added.

Then RCCTO, in partnership with Army Test and Evaluation Command, will take the DE M-SHORAD into a user assessment beginning in the fourth quarter of FY23 through the first quarter of FY24.

Already the system has come a long way, Rasch said, compared to the prototypes the Army evaluated just a year ago.

The effort to put a laser on an M-SHORAD vehicle began in mid-2019, when the Army awarded KBR subsidiary Kord Technologies a contract to integrate a laser system onto the vehicle. Kord, as the program’s prime contractor, subsequently awarded subcontracts to Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies teams to develop the laser module.

The competition between Northrop and Raytheon to produce the laser module was intended to culminate in a shoot-off between the two teams. Kord and the Army then planned to agree on a winner and proceed with integration of the selected module onto three more Strykers to make a platoon’s worth of directed energy SHORAD systems.

Supplied to both teams was a General Dynamics Land Systems-built Stryker and a power and thermal management system from Rocky Research, a Nevada-based company focused on thermal management technology. Rocky Research was acquired by Honeywell in October 2020.

Early struggles

Northrop took itself out of the running ahead of the shoot-off in early 2021 after problems with the power and thermal management system resulted in a fire and smoke damage to the laser system and other components. Northrop continued to have issues with the system and decided it couldn’t continue after a January 2021 checkout.

Following the shoot-off in 2021, the Army awarded Raytheon a $123 million contract to supply the laser weapon.

While the Army expected to receive the first set of DE M-SHORAD systems last fall, the delivery has come slower than expected.

Defense News first reported that the DE M-SHORAD system would stay in development longer and not transfer to a program of record with Program Executive Office Missiles & Space until FY25. According to FY24 budget justification documents, the Army will begin the transfer process in the first quarter of FY25 and complete it by the fourth quarter.

The budget documents also show an Increment 2 award for the next platoon set of DE M-SHORAD won’t happen until the third quarter of FY23. The plan a year ago was to award a contract in the third quarter of FY22. Prototyping has subsequently been pushed back by a year beginning in FY23.

But despite the schedule slips for Increment 2 prototyping, the Army will still deliver its prototypes for the second platoon by the fourth quarter of FY24, indicated in budget plans a year ago, just ahead of the planned transfer to PEO Missiles & Space.

“We’re still learning a lot about directed energy from 10-kilowatt systems up to 300-kilowatt systems and we’re still trying to collect all of the data on lethality, the capabilities of these systems,” Rasch said. While the development is expensive on the front end, he added, the cost per shot from a laser is exponentially more affordable than a munition.

So the RCCTO is focused on, over the next year, on keeping the industrial base for laser weapons competitive in order to continue to drive affordability into the development process of these systems, Rasch noted.

The Army plans to open up a competition to produce the DE M-SHORAD capability, but that won’t happen until it is under the purview of PEO Missiles & Space, Rasch said.

The service is also working on what’s next for SHORAD including other capabilities that would roll into future systems. Those activities will begin in the first quarter of FY26 through the fourth quarter of FY30.

The Army plans to procure another kinetic interceptor to ultimately replace the Stinger missile currently used in the M-SHORAD.

According to FY24 budget documents, the service will award prototype contracts in the third quarter of FY23 and will design, develop and build prototypes by the third quarter of FY27.

A technology demonstration for the new missile will take place in the third quarter of FY24. Developmental testing will occur from the second quarter of FY26 through the third quarter of FY27, followed by an operational assessment in the third quarter of FY27.

The Army would then enter into low-rate initial production in the fourth quarter of FY27 through the fourth quarter of FY29, the documents show.

The RCCTO is also working on a smaller laser weapon for the Army’s Infantry Squad Vehicle as well. The Army selected SAIC to integrate the 20-kilowatt laser onto the GM Defense manufactured vehicle. Prototyping will take place from the second quarter of FY23 through the fourth quarter of FY24, according to the Army’s budget documents.

[James1978]

Army Picked Pricier Black Hawk Replacement Over ‘Unacceptable’ Losing Bid, GAO Says
The Army found Sikorsky-Boeing's offering too vague, a new GAO document says.

By Marcus Weisgerber
April 13, 2023

The Bell tiltrotor aircraft that will replace Army Black Hawks will cost at least $3.6 billion more than a Sikorsky-Boeing helicopter proposal rejected by service leaders as vague and “unacceptable,” according to a GAO document posted Thursday.

Bell’s “proposed approach to weapon system performance and design, architecture, and product supportability is more advantageous to the government than [Sikorsky], whose engineering design and development is unacceptable,” wrote an undisclosed Army official who chose the winner, according to the GAO document.

In December, the Army picked Bell’s V-280 over the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant X for its Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA, program, explaining tersely that Bell’s proposal was the “best value.” Last week, GAO announced that it had denied Sikorsky-Boeing’s protest, explaining in a short press release that the team “failed to provide the level of architectural detail required.” But the agency withheld its formal decision document until corporate secrets could be redacted.

On Thursday, GAO released a 38-page redacted version of its decision, which says the Sikorsky-Boeing bid was dismissed because the companies misinterpreted what the Army wanted.

“Sikorsky’s proposal provided something similar to a drawing of what the house looked like on the outside, a basic indication of the size and shape of the house,” the Army wrote, according to GAO. “Such a picture did not provide the functional detail that the Army required showing what the space would look like on the inside (i.e., how the system functions would be allocated to different areas of the system--for example, that food storage and preparation would be allocated to a space for the kitchen).”

The document does not appear to make a judgment about the radically different technology used on the two competing aircraft and which one would better benefit troops.

In an emailed statement, a Sikorsky spokesperson said, “We just received the GAO’s report and will take the time to review and determine our next steps. We remain confident the Lockheed Martin Sikorsky and Boeing team submitted the most capable, affordable and lowest-risk Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft solution.”

[James1978]

Future Army recon helicopter will still need pilots, study finds
By Colin Demarest
April 19, 2023

WASHINGTON — Future versions of U.S. Army reconnaissance helicopters will need trained aviators to operate them well into the next decade despite advances in artificial intelligence, according to a study conducted by Mitre Corp. for service leaders.

Full-fledged autonomy would fail to “faithfully” fulfill more than three-quarters of studied tasks associated with the Army’s in-development Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, or FARA, by 2030, according to the technical analysis, details of which were recently shared with C4ISRNET.

The odds aren’t much better in 2040, either. At least 10 “high-risk” and 18 “medium-risk” challenges hampering no-pilot deployment were identified, suggesting human input — in the actual advanced rotorcraft, or beamed in from afar — will continue to be relied upon for complex, high-stakes military endeavors.

Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, the director of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, said the findings will help determine how development money is spent.

“They’re very informative to a policy guy like me, that has to decide where our investments go,” Rugen said at a February event hosted by Mitre, which manages federally funded research and development centers.

The team Rugen leads is tasked with helping overhaul the Army’s aging airborne fleet, among other heavy lifts. The portfolio includes FARA, the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA, and future tactical unmanned aircraft systems and air-launched effects.

The Army in December selected Textron’s Bell unit to build FLRAA, a $1.3 billion deal that marked the service’s largest helicopter procurement in 40 years. The choice has since been protested by Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky. A ruling from the Government Accountability Office is expected no later than April 7.

A contractor has not yet been selected to formally build FARA, which has earned the “knife fighter” moniker and is planned to succeed the Kiowa scout helicopter, retired nearly a decade ago. AH-64 Apache attack helicopters paired with Shadow UAS are filling the gap now.

The deep-dive conducted by Mitre, which tapped into development documents, academic publications and Army metrics and relied on interviews with air cavalry, “really helps us define” what’s possible in the near- and mid-terms, Rugen said.

“What I’ve kind of seen is, in many respects, the soldier still is our best sensor,” he added. “The soldier at the tactical edge is going to be quicker through the mid-term, through that 2030 time, than the computer.”

While uncrewed drones are well-equipped for what Rugen called “dull, dirty or dangerous” work — circling and forever staring, or probing chemically contaminated spaces — something like FARA is meant for more sophisticated tasks, applications that demand finesse, expertise and in-the-moment judgement.

“As we look at our drones, we’re talking about an extension of our sensor. And we’re talking about, in this report, really the hardest thing we do on the battlefield, which is fight for information,” Rugen said. “Reconnaissance is our toughest thing that we’re doing. And it’s hard to outsource that, certainly in the mid-term, to some autonomous agent.”

Among the factors that bar an empty FARA cockpit from reality are immature perception, decision-making and intent-determination capabilities, according to the assessment.

The trio are incredibly important to get right, and get right every time, according to John Wurts, a senior autonomous systems engineer at Mitre.

“The question becomes the importance of a reconnaissance mission,” he said at the same event where Rugen spoke. “We talked about information, and what’s most important to a reconnaissance mission is coming against the commander’s intent: understanding what are your reconnaissance objectives, what merits the threshold of reporting, what do you need report about either allied troops, enemy troops, terrain information, and at what points in the mission?”

Training reliable AI requires massive amounts of time, data and exposure. It’s difficult enough on the civilian side: this is a stop sign, this is a bus, this is the quickest route home. Things only get more complex in a military setting, when bullets are whizzing by, people are dying and the choices presented are not binary.

“A human can express their own tactical curiosity, understand second- and third-order effects, understand how to adapt to an adversary action,” said Wurts, who previously worked in the auto industry. “When we ask for a no-pilot configuration to operate the same set, that needs to all reside in the autonomy.”

Striking a balance may be the key.

Autonomy in the cockpit
As the Air Force increasingly hypes manned-unmanned teaming and seeks 1,000 so-called collaborative combat aircraft to swell its ranks, and the Navy envisions a future fleet teeming with uncrewed vessels, so too is the Army looking at ways of augmenting its troops with computer-powered might.

“If we’re going to posit that we do want inhabited cockpits, but we want more autonomy in those cockpits, I think that’s where we’re seeing some tremendous technology,” Rugen said. “Again, when we talk about some of the limits, we really see the machine not having the curiosity that humans do — what makes us human.”

The Defense Department considers AI a modernization priority and has invested in it, though the exact sum is unclear. AI is often a slice of a larger program, and classified activities can muddy the disclosure waters.

More than 685 AI projects, including some associated with major weapons systems, were underway at the Pentagon as of early 2021, the most up-to-date tally, the Government Accountability Office said.

The Army, the largest military service, is leading the pack. At least 232 efforts can be traced back to it, according to the federal watchdog. The Marine Corps, on the other hand, is dealing with at least 33.

AI is expected to aid target recognition aboard the Army’s Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, or OMFV, help sort and send information beamed to its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node, or TITAN, and underpin the navigation of robotic combat vehicles, or RCVs, designed for scouting and escorting.

The technology is also being used to streamline logistics and offload monotonous, time-consuming or finicky tasks. The Army in September selected BigBear.ai for a $14.8 million contract to roll out the service’s Global Force Information Management system, designed to give service leaders an automated and holistic view of manpower, equipment, training and readiness. In October, the service picked Palantir for a separate $85.1 million predictive modeling software contract to get ahead of maintenance needs.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville in late February told reporters conflicts would be waged increasingly by a combination of man and machine. And for FARA, that is more likely the case: a crew assisted by digital prowess, increasing performance and reducing the chance of sensory overload.

“When I look at manned-unmanned teaming, that’s going to even become more prevalent,” McConville said at a Defense Writers Group event. “It’s going to be unmanned-manned teaming on the ground, in the air and really a combination of both, and it’s going be ubiquitous throughout the battlefield.”

The Army’s fiscal 2024 budget request, totaling $185.5 billion, sets aside $283 million for AI.

The funding, budget documents state, would cover research and development “for enhanced autonomy experimentation” as well as AI-enabled activities tied to OMFV, TITAN, RCVs and info-processing.

Defense News reporter Jen Judson contributed to this article.

[James1978]

Burnout fears grow as overseas Army deployments match highs not seen since War on Terror: report
Michael Lee
April 17, 2023

Army personnel are facing an operational tempo similar or worse to what they faced during the height of the War on Terror, raising fears of burnout as the branch continues to battle recruiting woes.

"We're as high or higher with the [operations tempo]," Sgt. Major of the Army Michael Grinston told Military.com of the current operational tempo compared to the War on Terror in a report Monday.

Grinston’s comments come as the Army has about 120,000 soldiers deployed abroad, according to data compiled by Military.com, a number that is comparable to those seen during the peak of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to congressional data, the entire Department of Defense, which accounts for all branches of the military, had 187,900 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq during the peak year of 2008, a number that quickly began to fall as the war in Iraq started to draw to a close.

However, the Army was also about 70,000 soldiers larger during that peak than it is now, with the extra burden falling on a smaller force and straining military families.

"The average citizen doesn't know how stressful this is on our families. I think it has been an incredible strain on our soldiers and our families," Grinston said. "We have a 100% obligation to be ready for the worst-case scenario, so we have to go to the CTC [combat training center]. The American people would never forgive us if we sent soldiers to Europe that weren't as trained as the best we could get."

While there are no active large-scale conflicts for the Army to fight, the branch is still tasked to continue training for future wars and deter threats from potential aggressors. That deterrence mission became even more daunting following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, with thousands of U.S. soldiers deployed to Europe in a bid to prevent any further encroachment by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to one current soldier who spoke to Military.com anonymously, the strain of the current tempo has been hard on his family and forced him to consider leaving the Army altogether.

"It has been a huge struggle, especially as [we're] trying to start a family," said the soldier, who was identified as a non-commissioned officer. "I'm not sure what's going to happen with my marriage, but there is a huge chance I'm leaving the Army."

Any struggles with retention would come at an inconvenient time for the Army, which is struggling with its largest recruiting crisis in decades. During fiscal year 2022, the Army fell 15,000, or 25%, members short of meeting its recruiting target.

"In the Army's most challenging recruiting year since the start of the all-volunteer force, we will only achieve 75% of our fiscal year [2022] recruiting goal," Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said in a statement in last October.

According to one Army lieutenant who is currently deployed to Poland, those serving in the Army today could use a bit of a breather.

"Just one less thing, just a little more breathing room would be extremely helpful," the lieutenant told Military.com.

[James1978]

Army to Suspend Operations at Embattled Horse Unit but Promises No Impact to Arlington Funerals
21 April 2023
Military.com | By Drew F. Lawrence

The Army's Caisson platoon -- a ceremonial horse unit that has transported fallen troops to their final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery for decades -- plans to shut down starting May 1 for 45 days to prioritize the health of the herd, an Army spokesperson told Military.com Friday.

The Army said the "suspension" will not impact military honors at the cemetery.

The suspension follows four equine deaths in the platoon over the last year-plus and comes amid efforts from the unit and millions in funding from Congress to rectify poor living conditions for the horses.

Two sources familiar with the unit's operations had told Military.com this week that the Army was planning on suspending operations as early as next week.

Military.com asked Military District of Washington public affairs officials about the decision on Thursday, and following Army deliberations that stretched into Friday, the service said plans had been finalized to begin the closure in May.

"In coordination with the Military District of Washington and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment [The Old Guard], the Army's Caisson Platoon -- which employs military working horses as escorts during funeral honors at Arlington National Cemetery -- will implement a 45-day suspension of caisson horses to prioritize the health of the herd," ​​Lt. Col. Terence M. Kelley, a spokesperson for the Army, told Military.com via email Friday.

"As a result of this difficult decision, [Arlington National Cemetery] is contacting families with funeral services that include the support of the Caisson Platoon or the caparison horse to inform them that this element will temporarily be unavailable starting May 1," he added. "The Army is working on interim solutions, including alternative horse-drawn conveyances and contracting caisson services from outside organizations."

CNN reported that two horses died in February 2022 and that the herd was living in small, unsanitary lots covered in more than a dozen inches of excrement. They were also eating low-quality hay.

The two horses that died, Mickey and Tony, appeared to have suffered from intestinal issues that may have caused their deaths; Tony had nearly 44 pounds of sediment in his colon.

Over the last year, the 3rd Infantry Regiment or "the Old Guard," the Army's premier ceremonial unit to which the Caisson unit belongs, has attempted to make improvements to lots and pastures that the horses live and train in.

Last year, the unit said it spent nearly $2.5 million on improvements; the unit received $15 million more in funding after Congress became involved in the effort, passing improvement provisions in this year's National Defense Authorization Act, according to Senate Appropriations documents.

Some of those changes, the unit has told Military.com, included testing the hay for quality and placing feeding mats so that horses do not accidentally ingest gravel off the ground.

In the midst of these efforts, two other horses died, totalling four in nine months.

The third horse, Rio, an older horse, died of surgical complications after he suffered a left limb fracture last March. He underwent three surgeries to attempt to fix the injury, but passed seven months later in October after veterinarians determined he would be euthanized for quality-of-life purposes.

The fourth horse, 14-year-old Rambler, died a month later of "acute abdominal distress;" it is unclear if it was caused by sediment in his gut as the unit was waiting for necropsy results at the time. Horses can die from an ailment called "colic," a general term for abdominal pain that can vary in severity and pain for the animal.

The Old Guard said that Rio's and Rambler's passings were unrelated to the previous deaths.

One of the larger hurdles for the unit has been finding adequate space for the herd. Last year, Army veterinarians assessed that they were living in less than 20% of the recommended space for a herd that size, though the herd was slightly larger then than it is now.

Since last year, the size of the herd has decreased by roughly 15%. Some of the herd has been adopted out of the unit, which helps with available land, but also means fewer horses are responsible for carrying out funeral duties.

This closure is not the first disruption this year. In January, the unit closed its stable to the public for a month to "minimize spreading a contagious [to other horses] upper respiratory bacterial infection that was found in" one of the horses; final military honors still continued, according to the unit's Facebook.

Military.com reported in December that the Army would begin rotating up to 12 of the roughly 50-herd horses to Bureau of Land Management-owned land near Lorton, Virginia, as part of a short-term solution for finding the equids more space.

"This temporary pause will be conditions-based, and will not impact military honors, dependent honors services or any other military funeral honors elements," Kelley, the Army spokesperson, said. "We look forward to the return of U.S. Army caisson horses performing their sacred duty of escorting our nation's heroes to their final resting place. As information becomes available on the health of the horses, updates on the availability of caisson funeral support will be shared on the ANC website."

[James1978]

Something I found interesting in this article - General George graduated from West Point in 1988, as the Cold War was winding down.
We're about as far from the end of the Cold War today as we were from the end of the Korean War when this man started his career.

Biden taps Army vice chief to be service’s top officer
By Jen Judson and Davis Winkie
April 24, 2023

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has nominated the U.S. Army’s vice chief of staff to be the service’s next chief, according to the congressional register.

Gen. Randy George, if confirmed by the Senate, would succeed Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville, who will retire this summer.

George “is a combat proven leader who is the right person at the right time and will guide the Army into the future,” McConville said in a statement to Defense News today.

George was traveling and not immediately available for comment, according to an Army spokesperson.

The Senate received George’s nomination late last week; it was referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The four-star general began his career as an infantry officer, graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1988. He served in Desert Storm as a lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division.

George deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as deputy commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Italy, and deployed again to Iraq as the commander of the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment.

George deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as the commander of the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team.

After stints as an executive officer for both the 33rd Army vice chief and the U.S. Central Command commander, he took command of the 4th Infantry Division in charge of maneuver.

George’s Pentagon experience includes serving as the director of force management for the Army G-3/5/7 and deputy director for regional operations and force management on the Joint Staff.

“While George’s combat experience over the course of his career are assets for leading the Army, it’s the depth of his experience in Force Management — both on the Army Staff and on the Joint Staff — that sets him apart for the job [of chief of staff],” said Kate Kuzminski, director of the Military, Veterans & Society program at the Center For a New American Security.

The expert said such experience “is often overlooked…but effective force management is the integration of every system, process, and mechanism that makes the Army function,” adding that “George’s history of Army institutional management will serve it well.

The head of the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation’s national defense program, Thomas Spoehr, also pointed at George’s force management experience as part of his “great mix of operational and institutional knowledge.”

Spoehr, a retired Army three-star who served alongside George in multiple roles, said the general “has built an excellent reputation and will do well as the 41st CSA.”

Before becoming the Army’s vice chief of staff on August 5, 2022, George was commander of I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and then served as the senior military assistant to the secretary of defense.

If confirmed, George will take command of a challenged Army. The service has struggled in recent years to meet recruiting goals and, as a result, has dropped its end-strength numbers at a time when Army officials want to see the force grow.

War still rages on in Ukraine as Russian continues its invasion into a second year. The Army continues to send weapons and equipment to the Ukrainians in large numbers and is fighting to rapidly replenish stock.

And the Army is pushing hard to successfully modernize the force, investing billions in over 35 new programs meant to help the service be able to fight near peer adversaries around the globe across all domains. This modernization initiative follows years of struggle to develop and procure new weapon systems and could face headwinds due to projected flat budgets and rising inflation costs in the future.

[James1978]

US Army preps mission tech for future helicopter, despite engine delay
By Jen Judson
April 24, 2023

WASHINGTON — Despite a delay in new engine technology, the U.S. Army is continuing to develop systems for its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft that go beyond the airframe, according to the two-star general in charge of the service’s vertical lift modernization.

As part of the Improved Turbine Engine Program, a General Electric Aerospace-developed engine will replace those in the UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters, and power the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. But the FARA effort is delayed since prototype flights reliant on the new engine won’t take place until the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, according to the latest Army budget documents.

The plan was to execute a first flight for each aircraft in late 2023. That flight schedule had already been postponed by roughly a year, according to a comparison of FY22 and FY23 budget documents.

Both competitors — Textron’s Bell and Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky — have said their FARA prototypes are built and just awaiting the new engine.

The Army has collected “a ton of data” within the FARA program already, Maj. Gen. Wally Rugen, the service’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team director, told Defense News in an interview.

“I know everyone’s wanted to fire off the engines and fly, and I do too,” he said ahead of the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference, taking place April 26-28 in Nashville, Tennessee. “But [the Army] is tying a developmental engine to a developmental aircraft. We didn’t do that with [the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft].”

The Army selected Bell to build FLRAA in December after building competitive technology demonstrators and flying them for several years. A Sikorsky and Boeing team lost that competition.

FARA is a “much higher bar,” Rugen said. “I would argue that a scout aircraft is probably technically a bit more advanced than maybe an assault aircraft.”

“So the engine is slowing us down,” he added, “but we’re willing to take that to get the transformational capabilities that ITEP is going to bring, which is the specific fuel consumption and higher shaft horsepower.”

Rugen said an engine was in the test cell two weeks ago, demonstrating 3,100 shaft horsepower.

‘Double whammy’
General Electric’s problems with the ITEP engine began as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We got our butt kicked in COVID,” Rugen said. GE not only ran into problems with sub-suppliers, but also “had a brain drain” with the exit of experienced quality-control managers, engineers and other technical employees during that time, he added.

“That’s a double whammy of a talent deficit and a supply chain problem,” Rugen explained. “I think they’re done with any excuses on that and they’re moving out. Am I thrilled? No. But it just becomes triage and a very clinical process of how do we keep our momentum … and we’re committed to it.”

During a hearing last week before the House Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said recent ITEP delays are specifically related to quality control of subtier vendors.

GE “had trouble making some new components including some new methods like 3D printing to the level of quality required for engines that we can actually put in test aircraft,” he said.

The company, he added, believes the program is “under control. My team of experts believes their current estimates are reasonable, but it is a delay.”

The Army has also begun an analysis of alternatives for the FARA program, which is also slowing down the effort, Bush said, adding that the Army won’t reach the technology maturation phase of the program until the first quarter of FY26.

The Army plans to complete engineering and manufacturing development for ITEP in the third quarter of FY26, according to FY24 budget documents, and won’t reach initial operational capability until the third quarter of FY29, an almost two-year delay from the timeline based on FY23 budget documents.

In the meantime
While the Army waits for the engine, it is developing the weapons systems and a critical modular open-system architecture for the aircraft, Rugen said. “This is our effort to claw back schedule and claw back scope.”

The Army continues to release draft design requirements to industry for the FARA weapon system, and the service continues to take steps to mitigate risk to the development effort, he added.

The eventual modular open-system architecture is meant to host mission systems such as survivability equipment and the Army’s internally developed Modular Effects Launcher. The open system allows the Army to bring in new technology when it is ready and relevant, Rugen said.

The Modular Effects Launcher is already gaining traction with other services; in particular U.S. Special Operations Command and the Marine Corps are adopting the technology, Rugen noted.

Building the weapons systems architecture includes efforts to focus on FARA as a “deep sensing” capability, something that can see farther and use missiles, rockets or nonlethal effects like electronic warfare to attack threats at greater distances.

And the mission systems architecture is meant to connect soldiers and sensors on the battlefield through a robust aerial tier network. The Army Requirements Oversight Council will decide whether to continue to advance the aerial tier network before the end of this calendar year, Rugen said.

The service previously evaluated technologies within the architecture through experimentation exercises like Project Convergence and the aerial tier-focused event Edge, heading into its third year in May, Rugen noted.

[James1978]

Unprepared for Long War, U.S. Army Under Gun To Make More Ammo
By Marc Levy
April 24, 2023

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — One of the most important munitions of the Ukraine war comes from a historic factory in this city built by coal barons, where tons of steel rods are brought in by train to be forged into the artillery shells Kyiv can’t get enough of — and that the U.S. can’t produce fast enough.

The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is at the vanguard of a multibillion-dollar Pentagon plan to modernize and accelerate its production of ammunition and equipment not only to support Ukraine, but to be ready for a potential conflict with China.

But it is one of just two sites in the U.S. that make the steel bodies for the critical 155 mm howitzer rounds that the U.S. is rushing to Ukraine to help in its grinding fight to repel the Russian invasion in the largest-scale war in Europe since World War II.

The invasion of Ukraine revealed that the U.S. stockpile of 155 mm shells and those of European allies were unprepared to support a major and ongoing conventional land war, sending them scrambling to bolster production. The dwindling supply has alarmed U.S. military planners, and the Army now plans to spend billions on munitions plants around the country in what it calls its most significant transformation in 40 years.

It may not be easy to adapt: practically every square foot of the Scranton plant’s red brick factory buildings — first constructed more than a century ago as a locomotive repair depot — is in use as the Army clears space, expands production to private factories and assembles new supply chains.

There are some things that Army and plant officials in Scranton won’t reveal, including where they get the steel for the shells and exactly how many more rounds this factory can produce.

“That’s what Russia wants to know,” said Justine Barati of the U.S. Army’s Joint Munitions Command.

So far, the U.S. has provided more than $35 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine.

The 155 mm shell is one of the most often-requested and supplied items, which also include air defense systems, long-range missiles and tanks.

The rounds, used in howitzer systems, are critical to Ukraine’s fight because they allow the Ukrainians to hit Russian targets up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) away with a highly explosive munition.

“Unfortunately, we understand that the production is very limited and it’s been more than a year of war,” Ukraine parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova said at a German Marshall Fund media roundtable in Washington on Monday. “But unfortunately we are very dependent on 155.”

The Army is spending about $1.5 billion to ramp up production of 155 mm rounds from 14,000 a month before Russia invaded Ukraine to over 85,000 a month by 2028, U.S. Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo told a symposium last month.

Already, the U.S. military has given Ukraine more than 1.5 million rounds of 155 mm ammunition, according to Army figures.

But even with higher near-term production rates, the U.S. cannot replenish its stockpile or catch up to the usage pace in Ukraine, where officials estimate that the Ukrainian military is firing 6,000 to 8,000 shells per day. In other words, two days’ worth of shells fired by Ukraine equates to the United States’ monthly pre-war production figure.

“This could become a crisis. With the front line now mostly stationary, artillery has become the most important combat arm,” said a January report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Currently, the metal bodies for the 155 mm shells are made at the Army’s Scranton plant, operated by General Dynamics, and at a General Dynamics-owned plant in nearby Wilkes-Barre, officials say.

Together, the plants are under contract for 24,000 shells per month, with an additional $217 million Army task order to further boost production, although officials won’t say how many more 155 mm shells are sought by the task order.

The Russians are firing 40,000 shells per day, said Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee.

“So we’re doing five times less than they do and trying to keep it up. But if we don’t start the production lines, if you don’t warm it up, it is going to be a huge problem,” Ustinova said.

The obstacles the U.S. faces in ramping up production can be seen at the Scranton plant.

The factory — built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad just after 1900, when the city was a rising coal and railroad powerhouse — has produced large-caliber ammunition for the military going back to the Korean War.

But the buildings are on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places, limiting how the Army can alter the structures.

Inside, the floor is crowded with piles of shells, defunct equipment and production lines where robotic arms, saws, presses and other machines cut, heat, forge, temper, pressure test, wash and paint the shells.

The plant is in the midst of $120 million in modernization plans and the Army hopes to open a new production line there by 2025.

Still, clearing space for it has been a complicated task while the military adds newer machinery to make existing lines more efficient.

“There’s a lot going on,” said Richard Hansen, the Army commander’s representative at the plant.

Meanwhile, the Army is expanding supply chains for parts — metal shells, explosive fill, charges that shoot the shell and fuses — and buying the massive machines that do the work.

The Army has new contracts with plants in Texas and Canada to make 155 mm shells, said Douglas Bush, an assistant Army secretary and its chief weapons buyer. The U.S. is also looking overseas to allies to expand production, Bush said.

Once the shells are finished in Scranton, they are shipped to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, where they are packed with explosives, fitted with fuses and packaged for final delivery.

The Scranton plant is ill-suited for that task: an accident with an explosive could be devastating.

“If we had a mishap here,” Hansen said, “we take half of the city with us.”

[Lordroel]

The Department of Defense has announced that 3 Pilots were Killed and 1 Injured from the Crash of 2 AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopters in Alaska today; the Helicopters were a part of the U.S. Army’s 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment at Fort Wainwright.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

Army is facing difficulty in manpower. They have found some 'errors' and are 'fixing the problem'. Interesting....

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ar ... -rcna81796

Army aviators, ready to leave the military, are told they owe 3 more years instead
The Army reinterpreted part of their contracts after a legal review, derailing the futures of hundreds of officers who thought their contracts were up.

Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.

The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed.

“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring.

That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty.

For years, the Army allowed some aviation officers to serve those three years concurrently, and not consecutively, along with their roughly contracted seven or eight years of service.

In a phone call with reporters Thursday, Army officials admitted "errors" in the system, which they noticed a few months ago, led to the discrepancy.

"We are fixing those errors, and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers," said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, deputy chief of staff of G-1, which is in charge of policy and personnel.

"Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force," Stitt added.

In letters the Army sent this month to the affected aviators as well as to members of Congress, which were obtained by NBC News, it said it “realized” after conducting a “legal review of this policy” that the three-year BRADSO requirement has to be served separately.

“This is not a new policy, but we are correcting oversights in recordkeeping that led some officers with an applied BRADSO to separate from the U.S. Army before they were eligible,” the letter said.

[James1978]

Something positive

Early data shows 37% suicide decrease in units with holistic health
By Todd South
April 26, 2023

FORT EUSTIS, Va. – Early data gathered from the Army’s new health and fitness program has shown more than a one-third reduction in suicides among soldiers in units that have incorporated the program.

Other detrimental behaviors or outcomes such as substance abuse and physical injuries also saw lower reported rates among those brigades with the Holistic Health and Fitness program in place, also called H2F, than units without the program, which saw increases during the COVID-19 pandemic in every negative outcome category.

Also, health-program resourced units have seen some rates drop below pre-pandemic figures for increased improvement, according to Army data presented by Dr. Andrew Thompson, a research physiologist with the initial training center on April 26 at the annual Holistic Health and Fitness Symposium.

The more than one-third decrease in suicides among H2F-enabled brigades was coupled with a more than one-third increase in suicides among brigades in the sample that did not have the program.

Researchers used 2019 figures in all categories as a baseline for both groups of brigades and measured rates over a three-year period, which ran from 2019 to 2022.

Units with H2F also saw levels of those incidents drop below pre-COVID-19 levels while non-H2F units have experienced rates that continue to increase past pre-pandemic levels, according to Army data.

Army Times previously reported that active duty Army suicide numbers have hovered between 108 to 175 annually between 2016 and 2021, when the most complete data was available. Officials reported the lowest figure in 2017 and the highest in 2021 for that period.

Positive indicators also increased, including marksmanship and fitness test scores and a propensity among soldiers to seek assistance for health changes.

If similar improvement rates in injuries, behavioral health and other medical conditions were applied across the Army, the readiness and cost savings would be significant.

“It would give (U.S. Army Forces Command) a 90% deployable force,” Thompson told the audience.

If the service could replicate the Army Combat Fitness Test pass rates shown in the H2F brigades across all 110 brigades that are expected to have H2F by 2030 that would translate into an entire division, or 15,000 soldiers, passing the test on the first try, he said.

That also means a $1.4-1.6 billion cost savings on retraining, Thompson said.

Those outcomes could mean an increase in the rollout of health program staffing and equipment over the currently planned 10 brigades per year to 15 brigades annually.

The data still requires review and further study, but appears promising, Army experts said.

“This is preliminary, emerging, cautiously optimistic data that needs peer review,” Col. Jason Faulkenberry, health program director, told Army Times on April 26.

Data comparing soldiers in Holistic Health and Fitness-resourced units compared with non-participating units over a three-year period:

* 37% fewer suicides compared to a 37% increase in suicides in non-H2F units.
* 49% lower incidence of behavioral health referrals; 492 fewer profiles.
* 21% more likely to believe that the Army cares about promoting health and wellness.
* Twice as likely to recommend Army service.
* 15% more likely to plan to serve until retirement.
* 107% reduction in substance abuse profile reports; 470 fewer profiles.
* 40% reduction in medical boards year-over-year.
* 52% fewer musculoskeletal injuries; 1,178 fewer external referrals for such injuries.
* 50% more likely to seek Army physical therapy treatment.
* 63% more likely to seek Army occupational therapy treatment.
* 88% more likely to seek Army dietician treatment.
* 10% lower incidence of body composition failures; 418 fewer profiles.
* 5,214 more soldiers among 28 brigades passing the Army Combat Fitness Test.
* 4,479 more soldiers qualified as rifle experts across the 28 resourced brigades.

Source: Center for Initial Military Training; Army Training and Doctrine Command

Thompson and staff at the Center for Initial Military Training at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command compared performance and reports of negative outcomes such as suicide, musculoskeletal injuries and substance abuse among the 28 brigades with the health program staffing and equipment with 28 similar brigades without the program, Faulkenberry said.

The fitness program combines five health domains — physical, sleep, nutrition, spiritual and mental — for an all-encompassing approach to soldier health and performance. Each domain is covered by an expert in the field from strength and conditioning coaches to behavioral health professionals, registered dieticians and chaplains.

The program emerged with a pilot study in 2018 following years of Army research on ways to reduce injuries among soldiers.

While the current rollout features. A dozen more brigades are scheduled for staffing this year with 10 each year until the 110-brigade goal concludes in 2030.

However, Maj. Gen. John Kline, Center for Initial Military Training commanding general, said on April 26 that he had met recently with the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George recently and he soon will recommend a 15-brigade per year rollout to speed up delivery of the program to units in need.

A full, reviewed report on the past three years of the health program is planned for release by October, Thompson said.