Ashley Roque covers land warfare for Breaking Defense. Over the past two decades, she’s reported on defense, US politics, and foreign policy for publications inside and outside of the United States including Janes, Roll Call, Inside Defense and Shephard Media. Ashley holds a BA in English with a minor in journalism from Florida State University, and a master's degree in conflict transformation from the University of Basel.
The contracts are going to France’s Nexter Munitions and Germany’s Junghans Microtec for 155mm rounds, a desperately needed ammo type in Ukraine and one NATO nations are looking to fill their own stocks.
“Think about Ukraine as an island… we are not allowed to cross the border,” Army Materiel Command’s deputy Lt. Gen. Christopher Mohan told Breaking Defense.
While the service is still hunting for hard-kill APS solutions for the fleet, it is also looking more broadly at different formation protection options.
A trio of Army generals recently described the service’s plans for two-part Project Convergence event that will include new sensor-to-shooter integration, two formations with added robots, and a USMC autonomous watercraft.
“Every time it’s like, go watch one [robotic tactical vehicle] follow another one around the parking lot and it runs over the curb and I’m like, ‘Come on, we got to do better than this,” Gen. James Rainey said today.
The Pentagon announced that Mara Karlin, performing the duties of deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, is departing her job next week for a return to academia.
“The delivery of Precision Strike Missile Increment 1 early operational capability missiles follows successful production qualification testing in November,” the service wrote in a short statement.
The service has sent hundreds of ground combat vehicles to Ukraine since February 2022, and Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean warned that “sustainment challenges” abound without additional dollars.
“There’s no new science, it’s just a mechanical engineering problem to make sure…that missile works with that launcher … because both were new and normally you don’t do it that way,” Army acquisition chief Doug Bush told Breaking Defense.
