Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy says the service’s new five-year budget plan will be finished within weeks.

The US could develop more than a dozen different land-based weapons for $7 to $12 billion, thinktank CSBA estimates.

“You want to kill a swarm of things — whatever that thing is — lasers are not really a swarm-killing tool. They can kill things fast, but they can’t kill a swarm of things fast enough.”

The Army can cope with regional dangers like Iran even as it refocuses on Russia and China, the secretary said. In fact, he said, the Army’s controversial modernization program will help with both sets of threats.

The Army must take risks to modernize, the Futures Command chief said, and the modernization effort will survive the inevitable failures along the way.

While Congress wrestles with CH-47 cuts, Army leaders are already looking ahead to hard decisions on high tech.

After years of tests, setbacks, and painstaking fixes, the Army has its first fire-control center for a radically new kind of missile defense.

If the Army wants to get its Big Six right, it must talk, and talk and talk with Congress and the press and industry. And be ready to drop failures.

A light scout and a mid-size transport remain Army aviation’s top two priorities, Secretary Mark Esper said, but industry needs to start thinking about the next heavy-lift aircraft and stop fighting against cuts to the venerable CH-47.

Awards for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft designs went to Bell, Boeing, Karem, Sikorsky, and a partnership of AVX and L-3.