breakingdefense.com

TIL that the USA only has one plant that produces gun barrels for the M1 Abrams tank, M777 howitzers, and Paladin self propelled howitzers. The Watervliet Arsenal in Troy, NY is the nation’s oldest arsenal dating back to 1813. The manufacturing plant has tripled its production over the last 3 years.

According to Pretolani, Leonardo has been experimenting with crewed-uncrewed teaming since 2015. Last year, Rome awarded a $46.6 million contract to US-based company AeroVironment for the procurement of an undisclosed number of Jump 20 drones — a medium-class, fixed-wing platform with an advertised range of 185 kilometers (115 miles).

A category of UAV to watch as it will become very important very quickly.

The partnership also coincides with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle’s plans to develop a “containerized capability campaign” that seeks to deploy modularized payloads like drones or missiles quickly.

“One of the things that we’ve noticed over the last couple years is our accident trends are moving in the wrong direction. When Army senior leaders go out and talk to experienced aviators, they say, ‘What’s going on out here?’ They say, ‘We have a very talented population that’s coming out. They’re inexperienced. They’re very good at systems operations. They’re not very good at flying fundamentals,’’’ Gill said. “So some of that we attribute back to the fact that we have a very advanced trainer.”

“Current repair arrangements are through a series of clubs, essentially geographic clubs, of private operators who band together and then hire a repair vessel to be on standby to repair cables. Now the prioritization of repairs is a matter for private operators, not for countries. So we don’t have a say,” Brewster said.