Douglas Bush, assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said he is focused on efforts to modernize the Army for 2030 through the advancement of new capabilities and technologies in support of warfighters.
Bush, a 2023 Wash100 awardee, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies in an interview published Friday about some of the initiatives that have begun to transition to the production phase.
“So these efforts have been going on for a while now but a lot of them are finally starting to hit production – long-range fires, dramatically increasing the range of Army systems from long-range hypersonic weapons, to ground-launched cruise missiles, to longer-range artillery and artillery munitions, to just get at a range gap that was identified by lots of smart folks in the Army, that we’re working on,” he said.
Bush noted that the Army is focused on rebuilding its air and missile defense and that some initiatives are moving into actual prototypes and production phase.
When it comes to next-generation combat vehicles, he said mobile protected fire power is currently in low reproduction stage. He offered updates on Armored Multipurpose Vehicle and Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle programs.
OMFV is “coming up on a major decision point, where we’re going to down select to three vendors to produce real prototypes on our way to production,” he noted.
Bush said the Russia-Ukraine war has provided two major lessons for the service when it comes to industrial mobilization for future conflicts, the first being the importance of ensuring that “requirements for pre-war war reserves are at the right level” and the other stresses the need to plan for mobilizations.
