MAKING INNOVATION HAPPEN
to get ahead of the technological curve and provide Soldiers with the capabilities needed for overmatch. Te opportunities for industry to innovate are increasingly diverse—but where’s the payoff? Te question is central to building the “cul- ture of innovation” that DOD wants, a culture of ideas, agility and open doors between government and the private sec- tor that is as nimble as a mouse compared with the mammoth that is DOD now.
Army AL&T looked for answers to this and many other questions, from leaders in government, industry and academia. All had ideas on what happen.
still needs to
THE ROOTS OF INNOVATION Tat question, “Where’s the payoff?” is not an insignificant one. Historically, American ingenuity has often been
characterized by a garage, a great deal of passion, countless hours or years of un- or underpaid work, a prototype and hopes—sometimes
realized, often
not—of a massive payoff down the road. So, while founders of startups that now stand as Fortune 500 or 100 companies could only have dreamed of the riches they might make, they still dreamed. But dreams without passion, work and invest- ment are just dreams.
Innovation is hardly a new concept to DOD, of course, but DOD is not a startup with grand dreams and an open horizon. Te obstacles that innovators face within DOD are as real as the urge to make innovation happen: resistance to change, lack of leadership interest and limits on funding. (See Figure 3, Page 69.)
A prime example from Army history is the tank prototyping and experimenta- tion from World War I to the beginning of World War II, which led to the integra- tion of tanks into the Army’s mechanized combat arms formation. “Tank prototyp- ing was driven by the imperative to find an alternative to embedded trench war- fare tactics used in World War I,” wrote Dr. Edie Williams, a consultant to the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering (ASD(R&E)), and Alan R. Shaffer, then principal deputy to the ASD(R&E), in their article “Te Defense Innovation Initiative: Te Importance of Capability Prototyping” (Joint Force Quarterly, 2nd Quarter 2015).
“Tese efforts emerged from midgrade military officers driven by ideas for new tactics and employment techniques who challenged industry to develop technol- ogy that would facilitate their ideas,” the authors wrote. Te midgrade officers who led the effort were George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had no way of knowing that their work ultimately would enable allied tank warfare to dominate World War II.
“Early on, though, Patton and Eisenhower argued against conventional TTP [tactics, techniques and procedures] wisdom and for using tanks as a separate arm of the fighting force not merely in support of the infantry.” Te officers received scant sup- port for their views, Williams and Shaffer wrote. “After World War I, Army leader- ship, supported by Congress, disbanded the small tank units being used for experi- mentation and subordinated the few tanks that were left to the infantry.”
NEW ARMORED TACTICS
Soldiers of the 55th Armored Infantry Battalion and a tank of the 22nd Tank Battalion move through a smoke-filled street on April 22, 1945, in Wernberg, Germany. Between World War I and World War II, tank warfare evolved from merely supporting infantry to separate armored units. (Photo by Pvt. Joseph Scrippens courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration)
Eisenhower and Patton continued experi- menting and developing doctrine and TTPs, but the R&D funding all but evaporated. “Both officers were reassigned and the development of tanks stagnated.”
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Army AL&T Magazine
July-September 2016
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