This next go around, the Army wants to bump that up to 1,100 UAS, 2,000 mobility systems, 1,200 counter-UAS systems and 250 electronic warfare systems, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The program will also expand beyond the three infantry brigade combat teams the Army started with, to different types of units<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there was probably some perception that there was risk, the way we were doing it up front\u2014maybe it seemed a little haphazard\u2026as we reallocated fieldings to prioritize certain units over others,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n A Stryker brigade and two armored combat brigades will participate over the next few years. And by fall, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said at October\u2019s AUSA annual symposium, \u201cprotection and sustainment\u201d units will also be included.<\/p>\n At the same time, the Army is trying to break out of its acquisitions comfort zone, to varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n \u201cI would articulate it the best I could that, and this might be a little provocative: I’m not sure we need acquisition reform as much as we need behavior reform,\u201d Neil Thurgood, a senior vice president at venture capital-backed\u00a0Anduril<\/a>, and a retired lieutenant general, said during another panel. \u201cI think we have lots of authorities from Congress. I think we tend not to use all those authorities have been given to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is to say, the Army can use its funding to buy equipment in several ways, but it tends to favor a comprehensive program of record with requests for proposals, a competitive awards process and its own line item in the annual budget\u2014a process that takes years, during which the Army\u2019s needs tend to evolve and render the program irrelevant.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to do fast prototyping, but they want all the metrics of a full program of record,\u201d Thurgood said. \u201cThat behavior is inconsistent with the outcome that we want.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n