Latest news with #RandyGeorge
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
House lawmakers to unveil draft budget for vets programs this week
Congressional appropriators will unveil their first draft of the fiscal 2026 federal budget this week, with a House committee mark-up of planned funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction projects. The VA-Milcon measure is typically less contentious than other sections of the budget, but will likely still feature several points of conflict between Republican and Democratic lawmakers. VA leaders have proposed steep cuts in department staffing next fiscal year, but have not detailed the scope and costs of those plans. The House Appropriations Committee's initial work on next year's budget will come before White House officials have unveiled their full federal spending request for fiscal 2026. Last month, officials presented lawmakers with a 'skinny' budget roughly outlining funding request parameters for each department, but a more detailed budget plan is expected out in the coming weeks. But appropriators in recent weeks have expressed concerns about the long wait for those details and the approaching end of the current fiscal year. Lawmakers have until Oct. 1 to pass a budget plan for the new year, or pass a short-term extension to avoid a partial government shutdown. House Foreign Affairs — 10 a.m. — 2200 Rayburn NATO Outside experts will testify on challenges facing NATO. House Armed Services — 10 a.m. — 2118 Rayburn Army Posture Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George will testify on the fiscal 2026 budget request. Senate Foreign Relations — 10 a.m. — 419 Dirksen Transnational Criminal Organizations Outside experts will testify on transnational criminal organizations operating in the Americas. Senate Appropriations — 2:30 p.m. — 124 Dirksen National Nuclear Security Budget Teresa Robbins, acting administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, will testify on the fiscal 2026 budget request. Senate Foreign Relations — 2:30 p.m. — 419 Dirksen China's Influence in Africa Outside experts will testify on challenges posed by Chinese involvement in African affairs. Senate Veterans' Affairs — 4 p.m. — 418 Russell Pending Nominations The committee will consider several pending nominations. Senate Armed Services — 9:30 a.m. — Dirksen G-50 Army Posture Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George will testify on the fiscal 2026 budget request. House Appropriations — 10 a.m. — Location TBA FY2026 VA Appropriations The committee will mark up its draft of the fiscal 2026 appropriations bill for Veterans Affairs programs and military construction projects. House Armed Services — 10 a.m. — 2118 Rayburn Air Force Posture Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin and Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman will testify on the fiscal 2026 budget request. House Transportation — 10 a.m. — 2167 Rayburn Coast Guard Programs Service officials will testify on the fiscal 2026 budget request. House Foreign Affairs — 2 p.m. — 2200 Rayburn Syria Outside experts will testify on the security situation in Syria.
Fox News
4 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
SENS WARREN, SHEEHY: Pentagon wastes billions with devastating repair rules. We're working together to stop it
Our defense industrial base is stumbling. For years, the U.S. Department of Defense – under both Republicans and Democrats – failed to address one of the most fundamental issues within our military industrial complex, perverse incentives for contractors. But with the recently announced Army Transformation Initiative, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and General Randy George are taking a major step to stand up for soldiers and strengthen our military readiness. Driscoll's plan will help end one source of waste, fraud, and abuse. Every other military branch should follow their lead – and, if they do, they will have our bipartisan support. The Department of Defense is the largest federal agency, consuming half the discretionary budget the federal government spends every year. In 2023, for example, DoD spent almost $450 billion on contracts. But buried down deep in the fine print, many of those contracts included restrictions that prevent our troops from fixing their own weapons and equipment. That fine print means that every time something breaks, DoD must call the contractor, schedule a repair visit, and pay a hefty fee. For some contracts, the repairs are more profitable than the original sale – a dynamic that represents how years of broken bureaucracy has slowed our acquisition process and driven costs higher and higher. Our military buys a lot of gear – from tanks to helicopters to night vision goggles, and the process to buy that gear is longer and more complicated than ever. Even worse, because our service members often can't make any repairs, they can be stuck waiting weeks or months, even for simple problems they could fix themselves with a little know-how and a 3D printer. Driscoll has identified these problems in the Army, but right to repair restrictions have spread across the military. The Navy was forced to rely on flying contractors out to sea for maintenance. The Air Force is struggling to keep its planes ready for combat because of restrictions and companies that won't even negotiate. Every hour these servicemembers can't fix their own weapons undermines their readiness to meet their assignments. Instead of working to help the military be ready for battle, these contractors are focused on squeezing out more revenue. These restrictions lead to three critical problems: readiness, cost and lack of competition. First, when contractors stop soldiers from fixing their own equipment, it threatens military readiness. All around the country, maintainers were struggling to keep the F-35 flying because Lockheed Martin won't give them the data they need to fix damage to basic parts. When our military could fix a helicopter in Korea themselves, they saved 207 days and roughly $1.8 million. Our military can't afford to wait 207 days to get a helicopter back online. And, in the most extreme cases, our military can't afford to have soldiers unable to repair equipment in the heat of battle, either because the contract has tied their hands or because they haven't had the chance to learn how. Imagine how frustrating it would be to be in the field up against an enemy, suffer an equipment breakdown, and there would be nothing to do about it. We need to end these dangerous right-to-repair restrictions so that our military is always ready. Second, repair restrictions waste billions of dollars. If Boeing got the Pentagon to agree that only Boeing can repair equipment, what stops them from charging whatever they want for that fix? Suddenly a $0.16 clip costs $20, and the defense budget rises even higher. That is a terrible deal for the taxpayer. By some estimates, giving the military the right to repair would save us billions. But more importantly, it would reinvigorate the operational resilience of our forward-deployed elements and allow them to self-sustain. And third, letting a contractor monopolize repairs doesn't just hurt taxpayers, it hurts small businesses that otherwise could compete for the repair work, depressing competition and thinning out our industrial base. Why would a small business start manufacturing a safety clip when the military is forced to go to its larger competitor to buy it? And equally alarmingly, if that big contractor decided one day to stop producing the part, the military would be out of luck because the contractor had the only game in town. To be sure, the military created this monopolistic environment, incentivizing consolidation through decades of bureaucratic process. Now they are reaping the whirlwind. We need a more diverse array of contractors who can bring free market competition to our defense space, driving costs down and efficiencies up. Until now, the military has enabled a broken status quo, handing over billions of dollars and hoping that there is no emergency when the equipment they need is sidelined. Meanwhile, over 70% of voters support giving the military the right to repair their own equipment. But Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll showed real leadership. He stood up to a broken bureaucracy and announced that every new Army contract would explicitly guarantee the right of the Army to fix its own equipment. That's a big deal. Every hour these servicemembers can't fix their own weapons undermines their readiness to meet their assignments. Instead of working to help the military be ready for battle, these contractors are focused on squeezing out more revenue. The new Army policy is a breakthrough in our fight to empower soldiers, but unless every single military service follows his lead, taxpayers will keep getting ripped off. And, because this is a directive from the secretary, a subsequent secretary could go back to the way things were before. But we have a plan to solve that problem. In the coming weeks, we will be introducing a bipartisan bill that would make changes to right to repair permanent. With a single change in the law, we can boost military readiness and cut costs by allowing servicemembers to repair their own equipment. On both sides of the aisle, many of us agree that waste, fraud and abuse are real problems in our government – and it's worse when it threatens our military readiness. It's time to show servicemembers we've got their backs and restore their right to fix their own equipment. Republican Tim Sheehy represents Montana in the United States Senate. He is a father, husband, former Navy SEAL team leader, aerial firefighter and entrepreneur. Sheehy completed several deployments and hundreds of missions as a Navy SEAL officer and team leader, earning the Bronze Star with Valor for Heroism in Combat and the Purple Heart.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Yahoo
The Army wants more drones, electronic warfare tech. This unit is the guinea pig.
The 3rd Infantry Division is testing new formations where soldiers are part of specialized teams that focus on using a certain kind of drone technology or specific electronic warfare threat. The concept is being developed as the Army shifts its focus to fighting conventional wars in the 21st century. As the service changes the way it organizes its forces and prepares for the next big conflict, several units have been hand-selected as part of the service's Transforming in Contact initiative, including the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. Started by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George in 2024, the plan centers around quickly fielding new tech to soldiers so they can give feedback on how it's best used, before they're in a situation where they have to rely on it. After testing some of the concepts at home-based training centers, the 3rd Infantry Division is bringing new units to a field exercise where they will train alongside NATO allies at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, this month and next. The division's commander, Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, told reporters on a call Tuesday that drones, or unmanned aerial systems, UAS, are a threat to all of the Army's formations and weapons. 'What we believe is that the right lesson to learn as we look around the world is the importance of conducting combined arms operations altogether. It's not just tanks, it's not just infantry, it's not just aviation or artillery, but it's all of those things working together,' Norrie said. 'Being able to do that as a combined arms team at scale and at night, we believe in our souls that that's how we win.' The goal is to get drones and UAS 'down to every section within that brigade,' meaning that soldiers in all squads and platoons will have some knowledge of how to operate and use them in battle, Donovan Blatherwick, innovation chief for the 3rd Infantry Division, told Task & Purpose. Just how much drone expertise each soldier in a platoon will be expected to have is still being worked out, he added. As part of its emphasis on drones, the division is testing UAS-focused teams of soldiers within its cavalry squadron, like platoons who specialize in using anti-tank systems, first-person viewer attack, FPV, drones or sensing enemy drones. While cavalry squadrons historically had 'guys on the ground' going to a vantage point to do reconnaissance for their unit, now the Army is looking to drone operators to increase the distances they can see and collect intelligence on, said Capt. Gabriel Velazquez, a spokesperson for the division. Blatherwick said the idea is to improve reconnaissance at the unit level. 'They're not having to send up a request to collect intel or pictures on a certain site. Everybody really within the brigade can kind of just do it themselves on their own,' he said. For its UAS dismounted team, Armstrong said they've used them successfully in exercises in Germany with 'complex terrain' — a scenario that poses an issue for armored brigades that might struggle with 'limited lines of sight.' But with these dismounted UAS teams helping with reconnaissance, their electronic warfare platoons can get 'closer to the enemy and in a better position to use their UAS to help us make contact with unmanned systems first,' Armstrong added. In the same way that drones are becoming central to modern-day wars, the division is expanding its use of electronic warfare with a second electronic warfare platoon instead of one. At a recent National Training Center exercise at Fort Irwin, California, soldiers used a deception command post as a decoy. To do so, the soldiers thought about where they thought 'the enemy was gonna look for a command post,' Armstrong said. 'We put a physical signature there and then we played back our electronic signature there and put our actual command post somewhere else,' he said. 'That had them expose their weapon systems, which gave us an opportunity to attack them instead of us having to displace our command post.' The division is also testing a brand new formation of just over 100 soldiers called a multi-effects company 'to integrate what we deemed kind of the four most important technology categories,' Blatherwick said. Within this company, they're experimenting with platoons that are each focused on electronic warfare, UAS, counter-UAS, and loitering munitions. Blatherwick said this company is the armor team's version of the multi-functional reconnaissance team concept that was developed for mobile brigade combat teams in phase one of Transforming in Contact. The multi-functional reconnaissance teams are made up of three 'hunter-killer' platoons focused on drones, electronic warfare, and robotics and autonomous systems. 'Armor moves a lot faster than [mobile brigade combat teams] do and cover a lot more ground so the difference with our [multi-effects company] is that it's looking a lot deeper. It's got the ability to sense a lot deeper and then put fires a lot deeper than what we previously had before,' Blatherwick said. 'Really it's the ability to touch the enemy a lot sooner.' The first phase of the Army's Transforming in Contact plan fielded new equipment to soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, the 10th Mountain Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and the 25th Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team. After training with the new tech in exercises at home and abroad, 101st Airborne soldiers now fly drones with 3D printed parts and 10th Mountain soldiers use commercially available UAS like Skydio X2D that they can carry in their rucksack and use for reconnaissance in the field. In the same way that the first phase taught a mobile brigade combat team to assemble on the battlefield with lighter and smaller formations, the armored brigade combat team is learning that they might also have to slim down their presence. For instance, the 101st Mobile Brigade Combat Team created smaller command posts made up of four Humvees and a tent. For armored brigades, those command posts might look like four Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles, AMPVs, and a tent, officials said. The second phase of Transforming in Contact includes the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team and 2nd Cavalry Regiment from Rose Barracks, Vilseck, Germany. Officials then plan to expand the concept to two divisions, two Stryker brigade combat teams, members of the National Guard and two armored brigade combat teams. For the 3rd Infantry Division, that includes its 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, a unit made up of 1,250 vehicles, 87 tanks, 125 Bradleys, 18 Paladins, and consumes more than 31,000 tons of ammunition in one day of combat, according to stats provided by officials with the division. 'It's the equivalent of having in the National Football League an offensive lineman who's 6'9, weighs 435 pounds, and can run a 40-yard dash in 3.5 seconds. These are big athletes that get up the field to break the will of an adversary determined to beat us here,' Norrie said. While the threat of drones is very real to soldiers, Col. Jim Armstrong, commander of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, described a recent exercise at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where drones were used to give them the upper hand. As the unit's lead battalion began closing in on a town that they planned to seize, soldiers flew a drone overhead to get a better idea of what they were walking into. 'Before that assault force company commander went into that town, he knew where every single enemy element was in the town before going in and making contact, trying to develop the situation while soldiers were in harm's way,' Armstrong said. 'We were committing our crude assets only at a time and place of our choosing and when it was to our advantage.' Army to eliminate 2 Security Force Assistance Brigades, reassign experienced soldiers Why the Army's new XM7 rifle reignited a debate over volume of fire Air Force delay on separation and retirement orders isn't 'stop loss,' defense official says F-35's close call over Yemen raises questions about how it's used An Army unit's 'extreme use of profanity' was so bad, they made a rule about it
Fox News
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Army ditches helicopters for new radical air assault planes
It's a plane. It's a helicopter. It's both. Meet "FLRAA," the Army's new tiltrotor for Future Long-Range Air Assault. This is how the Army will island hop in the Pacific to fend off China. And by the way, Chinese President Xi Jinping has nothing like it. With a stunning announcement, the Army did more than ax 40 generals and open the door to AI. The Army bet its future on this radical aircraft, whose engines swivel to take off and land like a helicopter, or fly high and fast like an airplane. This aircraft was on pace to enter the Army inventory in the early 2030s. Then came the Army shake-up. On May 1, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the Army to focus more on the Indo-Pacific. In that region, sheer distance and Chinese missile threat rings are locking out current helicopters. For the mission of air assault – when troops move into hostile and contested areas by rotary-wing aircraft – the hard truth is that the Army has a looming capability gap. "We can't actually do the large-scale, long-range air assault today" with the speed and distance required in modern warfare, Maj. Gen. Brett Sylvia, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said last year. That's unacceptable, given Xi's growing appetite for military confrontation. So now the Army wants its revolutionary plane ASAP. On Wednesday, May 7, Army Chief of Staff General Randy George told Congress he wants to move it up several years, "into the 2028 timeframe." Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll said he met with prime contractor Bell Textron to talk about a rush order. It's easy to see why. The acronym-happy Army says "FLRAA" will fly 1,700 nautical miles without refueling and carry 12 passengers at a speed near 300 mph. Compare that to the 183 mph for the Black Hawk helicopter it is replacing. For pilots, the extra range, speed and survivability of a tiltrotor is a huge improvement on a helicopter. With a tiltrotor, they can zoom all over the battlespace with impunity and land any time, any place, in any conditions. You may be familiar with the V-22 Osprey, which first flew in 1989 and is now flown by the Marine Corps, Navy and U.S. Air Force special operations forces. As the first operational tiltrotor, the V-22 has had ups and downs, but beyond question, the V-22 proved itself in combat in Afghanistan. In another vivid example, in 2013, three battle-damaged Air Force MV-22s flew 500 miles from South Sudan to Entebbe, Uganda, spewing fuel, to save the lives of wounded Navy SEALs aboard. No wonder the Army pounced on the tiltrotor concept. However, the Army FLRAA is an all-new design based on the prototype V-280 Valor, which first flew in 2017. It is slightly smaller than the V-22, with a 47-foot fuselage consisting of an aluminum structure and carbon fiber composite skin. The big advance for "FLRAA" is in the tilt mechanism. On the older V-22, the whole engine nacelle housing pivoted. For the Army's aircraft, that headache is gone. The two engine nacelles stay put on the wing. Only the propellors rotate, to switch between helicopter and airplane mode. This is much safer, and the improved rotor design also increases agility and maneuverability in low-speed flight while in helicopter mode. The other major difference is that the Army's tiltrotor is designed as a multi-mission aircraft. Door guns on each side mark it as a dedicated air assault platform. Contrast that with the V-22 which only has a tail gun. The new Army tiltrotor also carries so-called "launched effects," which is military lingo for a variety of drones, such as self-protection decoys released to divert enemy fire, sensor drones to hunt targets, drones that do electronic warfare jamming and of course weapons drones for the kill. With its range capability, the Army tiltrotor can drive these drones deep into the battlespace. With drone operations in mind, software matters, so the plane has an open systems digital backbone ready to plug in new systems anytime. Even more intriguing, the FLRAA has the potential to fly by itself. At 240 knots it can deploy from Hawaii to the Philippines in 20 hours. In the future, "FLRAA" may also be able to self-deploy, moving to the theater by flying autonomously as an unmanned aircraft and rejoining with crews at a forward location. It's easy to see why. The acronym-happy Army says "FLRAA" will fly 1,700 nautical miles without refueling and carry 12 passengers at a speed near 300 mph. Compare that to the 183 mph for the Black Hawk helicopter it is replacing. The Army sees the Pacific islands like a chessboard. If China threatens, the tiltrotor "FLRAA" can move soldiers rapidly to land in contested areas and block Chinese forces from taking over. Now the Army just needs to give its radical new plane a proper name.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Army slashes mandatory training requirements with regulation update
Shortly after taking his post as Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Randy George issued a directive to commanders — if it doesn't add to war fighting, ditch it. This week, changes to a cumbersome Army regulation on training have reinforced the chief's guidance in writing. A list of 27 mandatory training items has been cut to 16 under the updated Army Regulation 350-1. The regulation was last updated in 2017, according to the Army Publishing Directorate. Commanders now have the discretion to shed training in various areas, such as chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear, or CBRN; combat lifesaver, safety and occupational health; law of war; code of conduct; and online training courses in survival evasion resistance and escape, or SERE, and personnel recovery. Those training modules will remain available when needed, but commanders can choose whether to include them in unit readiness, depending on their mission set, Command Sgt. Maj. Chris Mullinax told reporters in a Tuesday phone interview. 'What our Army senior leaders are trying to do is make sure that they have as much time available so that they can focus on those things,' Mullinax said. 'There's no distractions, there's no burdens and our war fighters are focused on war fighting and that is absolutely tough, realistic training in the field.' Additionally, resiliency training has been removed entirely from the list of training tasks necessary for readiness. The training instructed troops on stress-coping measures for everything from individual challenges to dealing with family stress during deployments. Soldiers still must complete required training for mission-specific tasks, such as soldiers holding CBRN billets within formations. The move, senior leaders hope, will buy back time for commanders to focus on more relevant tasks and training. It should also free up time for soldiers. While soldiers were not expected to complete online training on their own time, many often did spend hours during evenings and weekends completing lengthy online courses, Mullinax said. The service cut nearly 350 hours of online training last year, which were part of promotion requirements prior to the change. The training, 'Distributed Learning Courses I-VI' were discontinued in May 2024. At the time, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer said the redundancies in the learning plans put an excessive burden on soldiers that was unnecessary. '…there is only so much time during the day to do your job, for your personal development, and for your family,' Weimer said in a statement at the time.
