The impressive Defense budget increase for 2018 and 2019 will benefit namely to the replacement programme of the M4 carbine and acquisition of new night vision goggles, two of the top priorities.
The M4 carbine should be replaced. New competition to be managed under Futures Command (Picture source: US DoD)
“We’ve started conversations with the Congress,” Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy told Army Times. “If we were to move out this spring, we could even start by the end of this calendar year.” The US Army is about a month out from a big announcement about its nascent Futures Command (the Army’s modernization Command) the service’s undersecretary said Thursday. The new command will implement cross-functional teams, or CFT, that align with the Army’s six modernization priorities: Long-Range Precision Fires, next-generation combat vehicle, Future Vertical Lift, the network, air and missile defense, and soldier lethality.
The CFTs will compress the timeline to modernize and procure new equipment by involving the end users, defining the requirements, integrating, prototyping and validating a concept prior to initial production. The new command includes six cross-functional teams, one each to cover soldier systems, networks, long-range fires, air and missile defense, aircraft, and combat vehicles.
So far, the Army already made several attempts to replace the M4 carbine. A competition was cancelled in 2013, after none of the manufacturers who submitted suggestions were able to meet the minimum requirements to justify a new rifle. In 2016 another attempt aiming at upgrading the M4 failed. The Army estimated the costs of proposed new technology were not worth in view of the improvement.
“How do we get better, and how do we get faster?” Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy said. “We’re trying to reduce the number of layers.” Thanks to the Futures Command management, developing any soldier equipment like a new rifle or night vision goggles would follow a more streamlined process, with tight development timelines and no room to change requirements mid-process.
