Posted on Dec 28, 2024
Army halted weapon development and pushed tech to soldiers faster: 2024 in review - Breaking...
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In what has turned out as Army Secretary Christine Wormuth’s fourth and final year as the service’s top civilian leader and Gen. Randy George’s first full year as chief of staff, the duo shed high-profile modernization programs, revamped others and pushed tech down to soldiers at a faster clip.
Wormuth, slated to wave goodbye to her post as the 25th secretary of the Army in January 2025, largely spent her tenure keeping the service’s high-profile modernization portfolio intact. This year, though, the axe fell on several initiatives starting with the early February aviation shakeup that ended development on the next generation Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), kept General Electric’s Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) in the development phase longer, and shelved legacy Shadow and Raven unmanned aerial systems.
“We are learning from the battlefield — especially Ukraine — that aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed,” Army Chief Gen. Randy George said in a press release at the time. “Sensors and weapons mounted on a variety of unmanned systems and in space are more ubiquitous, further reaching and more inexpensive than ever before.”
Wormuth, slated to wave goodbye to her post as the 25th secretary of the Army in January 2025, largely spent her tenure keeping the service’s high-profile modernization portfolio intact. This year, though, the axe fell on several initiatives starting with the early February aviation shakeup that ended development on the next generation Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), kept General Electric’s Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) in the development phase longer, and shelved legacy Shadow and Raven unmanned aerial systems.
“We are learning from the battlefield — especially Ukraine — that aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed,” Army Chief Gen. Randy George said in a press release at the time. “Sensors and weapons mounted on a variety of unmanned systems and in space are more ubiquitous, further reaching and more inexpensive than ever before.”
Army halted weapon development and pushed tech to soldiers faster: 2024 in review - Breaking...
Posted from breakingdefense.com
Technology
Weapons
Defense
Edited 10 d ago
Posted 10 d ago
Responses: 7
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When you go Tech, you never come back...LOL And to her last statement, Tech is always more expensive, but the abilities outweigh the cost in my opinion.
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MSG Thomas Currie
The problem is that wringing the bugs out of the tech requires using it in large numbers in realistic conditions, which basically means that the warfighters are the beta testers (which is why it is so handy to have a few proxy wars where the tech can get tested by somebody else so we are only risking money instead of lives.)
I've seen too many sales pitch videos of the wonderful things tech might be able to do for us if we give the contractor just a few billion dollars over the next several years to complete development, followed by a sole-source contract.
We absolutely do need tech -- but that tech is always a gamble.
I've seen too many sales pitch videos of the wonderful things tech might be able to do for us if we give the contractor just a few billion dollars over the next several years to complete development, followed by a sole-source contract.
We absolutely do need tech -- but that tech is always a gamble.
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Lets pray the weapons programs that were canceled won't be needed down the road. The Secretary's legacy is her DIE inclusion at all costs to Army personnel.
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PO3 Edward Riddle
Maybe they need to throw more money at it Brother Marc, which is their way of dealing with most problems. Just wait for President Trump to get in there and quit all this trans crap and the other crap they have been experimenting with. I imagine the recruitment will start to rise after that.
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