Army

A top Pentagon acquisition official says he is "proud" of the Army for heading back to the drawing board after canceling its initial plans to replace the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, but urged the service to be more flexible with the requirements it sets for defense contractors.

The Army today canceled the current Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program and plans to restart the competition later, at a time yet to be determined, following an analysis and revision of the requirements.

The Government Accountability Office has noticed the Defense Department's increased emphasis on accelerating its notoriously slow acquisition system, but the watchdog agency is concerned weapon system reliability might be sacrificed at the expense of speed.

Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord provided new details today on the U.S. effort to field counter-drone technology, saying the military is working with foreign allies to test and evaluate a variety of potential systems.

The Defense Department's No. 2 official has issued new guidance to clarify "acquisition roles and responsibilities" after recent congressional reforms led to Pentagon infighting regarding the oversight and management of DOD weapons programs.

The Army last week delivered to Ft. Sill, OK, the first three of 30 Leader Follower vehicles to be sent over this month. The 5th Transportation Company, 100th Brigade Support Battalion will now begin training with and evaluating the systems.

The Pentagon has finalized guidance outlining how the military services should run fast-track "middle-tier" acquisition programs, with the Defense Department acquisition chief asserting the power to determine when a program is not appropriate for the streamlined process.

Defense industry advocates say they expect a busy year as the Pentagon takes up new measures, such as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification. However, the coming election could add some uncertainty.

The Army has hired artificial intelligence company C3.ai to apply "predictive maintenance" to the service's Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, as the Defense Innovation Unit recently struck a production deal with the Silicon Valley firm to potentially scale the technology across the Defense Department’s aircraft fleets to reduce unscheduled maintenance.