PREDICTING THE ‘WHETHER’
force to truly, fundamentally change the Army as we move deeper into the future and the decade of the ’30s.
MG Hix: Let me just reinforce one thing: If you look at the U.S. Army, every time we’ve been in one of these periods of
resource reduction, that’s
where all the ideas have been generated. I think the only time we had a dearth of intellectual engagement was probably right after World War II, and the Army was consumed in load-shedding 9 mil- lion people.
Army AL&T: COL Cross, you mentioned that you’re building this for 2025 and the decade of the 2030s, and that will allow for fundamental change in the decade of the ’30s. What do you think that funda- mental change would be? What do you see in the future?
COL Cross: Let me talk just from a sci- ence and technology perspective, and then we’ll talk about how we’ll operate differ- ently. First of all, one of the constraints that we have is the weight of our vehi- cles. And if we still have a 74-ton tank in 2035, we’ll still have a very difficult time deploying a capability along with an oper- ationally significant force in order to turn the tide of events. And so one of the areas that we do need to focus on is developing a lighter tank. It’s going to require signifi- cant material sidestepping, as well as all the other components to get to a much lighter, deployable and agile tank.
Another aspect is what we call the big data or data management problem—get- ting information to the point of need at the speed of war. Right now in Afghani- stan, many of our Soldiers in contact are getting information through the same
type [of] handset that their grandfather fought with and received information from in World War II. We owe them bet- ter than that. And so the data’s out there, but we have to find a way to get the rele- vant information to the Soldier so they’re not surprised like they are in Afghanistan. Seventy to 80 percent of the time in con- tact in Afghanistan today, Soldiers are surprised. We owe them better, and that’s part of changing the way that the Army fights so that we’re not surprised.
We’re also looking at weapon systems that will not only apply the kinetic energy capability, but also directed energy— lasers, high-powered microwaves, other capabilities that extend the operational reach of the battlefield from a science and technology perspective.
Te final comment I’ll make is on human performance and optimizing the Soldiers that we have. As we become a smaller Army whose units are leaner and more capable, it puts a lot of burden on the leadership and the Soldiers to do more than we’ve ever asked them to do in the past. So we need to look for ways to maximize their training efficiency, the physical, cognitive and social develop- ment of the Soldiers, to enable them to make very difficult, very complicated decisions in a world that we can’t imag- ine even today, at the same rank structure in which we expect folks to make those decisions now.
A PROVEN SUCCESS
SGT Anthony James, a master trainer for the Raven UAV with the 3-2 Stryker BCT, 7th Infantry Division, prepares to launch a Raven during training March 27. Hix counts the Stryker brigade— an organization enabled by information, infantry-heavy, very mobile, and integrating UAVs in a tactical formation for the first time—among the most successful concepts the Army has developed in the past decade. (Photo by SPC Leon Cook, 20th Public Affairs Detachment)
In Afghanistan, we’ll be awoken at 1 in the morning to make decisions on whether or not certain types of assets could be used against targets, because we’ve not developed the Soldiers and the leaders at the lower levels to make those decisions. We have to get through that.
MG Hix: When you take into account the trends that Kevin Felix talked about
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Army AL&T Magazine
April–June 2014
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