News

2022 is a good year to be a handgun owner. Your choices for a new handgun are almost endless, from small pistols that are ideal for self-defense to the latest and greatest race guns designed for competition to large format handguns based on the AR-15 and other platforms. The guns are out there, now all you have to do is find them and take them to the range … (read more)

Maintaining space as a peaceful domain is a long-held objective going back to America’s earliest days on orbit. The administration’s goal to further define rules and norms in this regard is admirable. As Vice President Kamala Harris recently explained, it is important to drive toward an international consensus regarding “what is right, what is wrong, and what is acceptable” in space. Empowering this objective demands a full range of military tools. That includes holding adversary capabilities in space at risk to empower effective deterrence. While the U.S. would like to prevent conflict from escalating to space, many of our adversaries...

Persistent Elevated Communications Relay. Reliable communications is key to coordinating any critical mission—be they military, law enforcement, emergency response, firefighting, or disaster relief. But even radios must obey the laws of physics. So what happens when topography blocks line-of-sight communications? You need an airborne relay. Zenith Aerotech’s family of tethered aerial vehicles (TAVs) can provide that relay. Our TAVs can … (read more)

PENTAGON, Arlington, Virginia – For the first time in 65 years, the Army has changed its individual rifle, squad machine gun, optic and caliber of both weapons at the same time. The Army announced Tuesday that it selected Sig Sauer to manufacture and deliver a 6.8 mm Next Generation Squad Weapon to replace the M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, which both fire the 5.56 mm round. At a Wednesday media briefing, two Army brigadier generals and a colonel answered questions about the selection, the weapon, the ammunition and the fielding process. The first batch of NGSW rifles and...

Whether working round-the-clock at a construction site or safeguarding critical infrastructure, you always need a good source of light. Zenith AeroTech provides that overhead illumination with our family of tethered aerial vehicles (TAVs). Unlike standard rotary-wing drones, a TAV can hover over an area for days at a stretch while providing persistent, air-to-ground illumination from up to three high-intensity (16,000 lumens) light panels. As a result, critical activities—like police investigations, search-and-rescue parties … (read more)

Persistent surveillance used to be the sole province of large military formations. After all, they were the only ones capable of fielding fixed-wing, long-endurance drones like the MQ-1 Predator. Not anymore, though. Thanks to Zenith AeroTech, now even the smallest military, law enforcement, and humanitarian response unit can put eyes in the sky for … (read more)

Global spending on unmanned aerial vehicles is poised for a major expansion in the coming decade as militaries invest about $98 billion in new intelligence gathering and strike capabilities, experts say. The Teal Group, an aerospace and defense industry market analysis firm, expects worldwide research-and-development and procurement spending on drones to rise from a projected $11.1 billion in 2020 to $14.3 billion by 2029 — nearly a 30 percent increase. R&D spending is forecasted to grow from $3.2 billion in 2020 to $4 billion in 2029, and procurement funding is projected to ramp up from $7.9 billion in 2020 to...

The Navy will create tactical cyber teams in early 2020 as part of an order from the service’s top officer. In a new strategy document released Dec. 4, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said he wanted the service to develop a plan to field small tactical cyber teams by February 2020. He directed the Information Warfare Type Command and Fleet Cyber Command/10th Fleet to make it happen. “I want to give tactical cyber teams, small tactical cyber teams to fleet commanders so that we can confuse the enemy and put ourselves in a … (read more)

Technology improvements driven by the commercial sector are expected to yield virtual and augmented reality goggles that solve many of the problems associated with the headsets being used by the U.S. military today, experts say. Virtual reality, or VR, immerses users in a computer generated environment, such as video gaming. Augmented reality, or AR, transposes data or other digitally created images on top of a real-world field of view, such as the yellow first-down marker or the orange strike zone box that TV viewers see when watching football or baseball games. VR and AR headgear can improve the way troops...

Diversified manufacturer Textron showcased prototypes of the Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) in public for the first time during the 2019 Maneuver Warfighter Conference at the Maneuver Center of Excellence. The revolutionary weapon system was introduced in two high-performance versions, the 6.8mm Next Generation Squad Weapon – Automatic Rifle (NGSW-AR) and Next Generation Squad Weapon – Rifle (NGSW-R). The NGSW-AR will replace the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, in the Automatic Rifleman Role, and the NGSW-R will replace the M4/M41 Carbine in Brigade Combat Teams. The goal of NGSW is to improve lethality, mobility and situational awareness of …...

When Apple debuted its revolutionary iPad in 2010, the company made a decision that would have profound effects on technology development. Apple wisely chose to have an open-door policy for all kinds of apps, unleashing the creative brilliance of companies large and small to build everything from Google Earth to Skype. The genius of today’s tablet and smartphone technology is that they are portable newspapers, shopping carts, TVs and many other things. The engineering and business lessons are important for the military. For too many decades we have purchased weapons that could not be further removed from the iPad and...

Managing data is the biggest challenge to developing a new space-based sensor layer that would help detect hypersonic weapons, the director of the Missile Defense Agency said Oct. 7. The agency is working toward building the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor, a layer of sensors on orbit that would be capable of detecting and tracking hypersonic weapons that the nation’s current missile defense architecture was not designed to handle. The new system will be built into the Space Development Agency’s constellation of … (read more)

WASHINGTON — After evaluating two active protection systems in a demonstration late last fall and determining neither were the right fit for the Stryker, the U.S. Army is now evaluating how to protect one of its critical combat vehicles. “Unfortunately for Stryker, we have not found a system that is suitable for the platform,” Col. Glenn Dean, Stryker project manager told Defense News, said in a June 7 interview. The Army has found interim APS for both its Abrams tank and Bradley infantry fighting vehicle but has struggled to find one for the Stryker. The service moved quickly to …...

To counter new and evolving weapons on the battlefield, the Army has created a new roadmap aimed at beefing up its air-and-missile defense force. The document — released in March — outlines the service’s vision for its systems and soldiers from now through 2028 to help prepare it for multi-domain operations. The last time the Army released such a blueprint was about four years ago, Lt. Gen. James H. Dickinson, commanding general of Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, told reporters. “The operational environment has definitely changed and become more complex,” he said. Additionally, there is “more...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army will field a hypersonic weapon and a directed-energy weapon in less than four years, with the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office leading the charge, according to the RCCTO director. The office will deliver a battery of combat-capable long-range hypersonic weapons to soldiers by 2023, and it will field a battery of Stryker combat vehicles with 50-kilowatt lasers by late FY22, Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood told reporters during a media roundtable at the Pentagon on June 4. Thurgood is the director of hypersonics, directed energy, space and rapid acquisition at the Office of the...

Marines and soldiers will no longer need to use “Kentucky windage” to put 40 mm grenades on target if the two branches field Raytheon’s laser guided Pike munition. The new 40 mm round is guided by semi-active laser designators, meaning the munition will home in on a target that has been lased and destroy it with precision, according to Townsend Blanchard, a senior manager with Raytheon’s land warfare systems. The Pike is an anti-personnel and anti-light skinned vehicle precision munition that boasts an extended range of nearly 2 km — far surpassing the roughly 300–400 meter range of … (read...

The U.S. Army Futures Command is developing new mission command concepts that will enable Soldiers and robots to operate as effective teams in the future, according to Daniel Lafontaine. Mission command is the Army’s philosophy of command and a warfighting function that promotes freedom and speed of action. It combines the centralized intent from the commander with the decentralized execution of subordinate commanders, who then decide how best to achieve the commander’s objectives. In executing mission command, commanders must have a broad perspective, understanding and knowledge of activities throughout the operational area. Commanders, while clearly relaying their intent, must also...

Mission command is the Army’s philosophy of command and a warfighting function that promotes freedom and speed of action. It combines the centralized intent from the commander with the decentralized execution of subordinate commanders, who then decide how best to achieve the commander’s objectives. In executing mission command, commanders must have a broad perspective, understanding and knowledge of activities throughout the operational area. Commanders, while clearly relaying their intent, must also trust their teams to execute. Similarly, trust and understanding of commander’s intent … (read more)

WASHINGTON — Rolls-Royce has been quietly developing an integral system required to operate laser weapons on the battlefield for about a decade in its LibertyWorks division, which is the company’s internal advanced technology unit based in Indianapolis. But the company is ready to go public on the technology it has internally funded, having taken it through extensive testing, Mark Wilson, LibertyWorks’ chief operating officer, told Defense News in a May 9 interview. That technology is an integrated power and thermal management system capable of … (read more)

The Army’s push to upgrade its ground robotics fleet is coming to fruition, according to the service. Over the next 18 months, the Army plans to field four major platforms, Bryan McVeigh, project manager for force projection at the program executive office for combat support and combat service support, noted in an interview with National Defense. The common robotic system-individual (CRS(I)), man transportable robotic system increment 2 and the common robotic system-heavy, will make up a new family of explosive ordnance disposal robots with the same interoperability profile. Another system, the squad multipurpose … (read more)

In 2014, having withdrawn from Iraq and looking to end its official combat mission in Afghanistan, the U.S. Army started to assess the impact of more than a decade of almost exclusively fighting insurgents and terrorists. In that time, it had trained its troops primarily for that mission and bought gear specifically for those nebulous conflicts. But the world seemed to be getting more complicated and troops would need new weapons and gear to help deal with these threats. So, the ground combat branch went … (read more)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army released its new air and missile defense framework March 27 that aims to pursue multimission units and counter emerging threats like drones and hypersonic missiles, the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command chief told Defense News in an interview just ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium. Lt. Gen. James Dickinson said the strategy will chart the course for future air and missile defense forces by using capabilities already fielded and … (read more)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The Army’s $2.3 billion unfunded requirements list — or wish list — sent to Capitol Hill includes money to speed up the service’s plan to buy a future long-range assault helicopter earlier and would boost lethality efforts such as outfitting more Stryker combat vehicles with a 30mm gun. The unfunded requirements list is something the military services send to Congress each year shortly following the release of the defense budget request to inform lawmakers on where money would be spent if there was more of it. The lists are usually provided at the request of congressional defense...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is embarking on several new missile development programs while ramping up and accelerating other ongoing programs to deliver more fire power to the force at greater ranges, according to the service’s justification books for its fiscal 2020 budget request. The service’s No. 1 modernization priority is Long-Range Precision Fires, or LRPF, because the Army believes it is central to future operations in environments where access to terrain may be difficult or entirely denied, or where soldiers lack the territorial advantage to counter threats. And the LRPF capability plays an important role the service’s emerging doctrine...