The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 72/No. 28      July 14, 2008

 
Army to move up deployment of
new weapons technology in battle
 
BY SAM MANUEL  
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Army announced June 26 that the delivery of new high-tech weapons components of its Future Combat Systems (FCS) will be accelerated for troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the latest piece in the Pentagon’s effort to transform the military to fight the kinds of wars it needs to fight in the “global war on terror.”

The changes in the FCS shift its overall focus from heavy armored units to more mobile infantry combat brigades. Army studies show it was infantry units that were highest in demand in Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said at a Pentagon news conference June 26.

The FCS has 14 components, including remotely controlled aerial and ground vehicles as well as sensors capable of detecting intruders. Missile strikes from aerial drones have become increasingly used by the U.S. military against al-Qaeda-backed militias in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

New communications technology will be integrated into new manned vehicles, artillery, and missile launchers that can hit targets not in the line of sight.

The army will work to get large numbers of robots and miniature aerial drones—both of which are designed for use in crowded urban areas—to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by late 2010, instead of 2015 as initially planned, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes, the army’s deputy chief of staff for programs, said the shift in the FCS deployment plans “is based on seven years of sustained combat” and has “relevance to the current war fight.”

The changes in the FCS are latest piece in the process of transforming the U.S. military—one that was accelerated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since the 1990s the U.S. military has been driving through an historic reorganization in its global deployment, military strategy, and order of battle away from the large tank-reliant armored divisions used in the first invasion of Iraq to lightly armored and more mobile combat brigades.  
 
 
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