Future Warfare - the Economist

[Heathrow Harry]

Special look-ahead (well 20 years) of trends and options..... usual coverage of A2/AD, Russia & Chinese "grey warfare" etc, PLA fleet renewal, nuclear warfare etc etc

For me a couple of observations stood out - one is that most fighting will take place in cities - that's where everyone is - and it will be Stalingrad or Mosul type fighting - room to room stuff. Use drones, unmanned vehicles, precision munitions to try and cut casualties........

The other was that the Pentagon model of developing and testing weapons needs scrapping - it takes far too long, it's very expensive and is totally left behind by modern industries current "fail fast" model

[Evalu8ter]

"Failing Fast" is the Acquisition community's biggest issue. Too often, reports and careers are made on "success"- not understanding that "failing" is sometimes "success". It's why we must also accelerate the maturation of low TRL technologies - and, for aviation at least, break the grip that QQ's "one size fits all" LTPA-sponsored monopoly has. There is a time and a place for rigour; trials in support of RTS submissions for front-line aircraft is very much what they should be focussing on. Where they are grotesquely inefficient is in "quick look" trials and technology demonstrators - stuff that 657 D&T used to do for Defence, but now torpedoed both by the demise of the Lynx and the ever-increasing regulatory burden. I can name half a dozen companies in the UK that could perform trials to support "failing fast" - MoD just needs to accept that failing is sometimes "good" and that the QQ LTPA approach is often the wrong way to find out. Now if only someone had written a paper on this about 4 years ago.......oh.....

[unmanned_droid]

Too risky. Not enough paperwork to make it seem like it's legit, and if you don't use massive corporations, who can you sue when you don't like the result?

[Heathrow Harry]

Yeah and who will provide the desks and the expense accounts when you leave the military???