Sikorsky says their Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft design will fly faster, with bigger weapons, than archrival Bell’s. Bell says theirs will be cheaper and more reliable.

More collective defense cooperation will be on display at the massive AUSA 2019 conference, attended by 92 different nations, including the chief generals of 13 armies.

Industry’s prototype Robotic Combat Vehicles are proving more capable than the Army expected, Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman told me: “It is really exciting.”

The Army wants its Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) program to provide a transformational leap in battlefield capability.

But building a global 3D terrain database will require wrangling huge amounts of data, Maj. Gen. Maria Gervais told us.

The American Soldier is evolving from low-tech grunt to high-tech warrior. For decades, the infantry have gotten the least investment in new equipment. Now that’s changing.

“This is not going to be helpful over on the Hill,” one former congressional staffer said of SDA’s $11 billion, five-year draft budget. “In fact, it could put the final nails in SDA’s coffin.”

“The last few years have been quite good for the association’s annual meeting and for the Army,” the AUSA president told us, but “I’m very, very worried” about the 2020 budget.

Norway suspended new applications for military export licenses to Turkey today. Norway is also reviewing all current licenses for Turkey for military and multi-use military export licenses.

The services are collaborating as never before, officials said, as they outsource non-combat networks through new “IT as a service” contracts.