While tanks and helicopters often dominate the public image of the Army, its vessels are proving essential for a number of jobs, new and old.
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The U.S. Navy is sick of spending millions of dollars to take down drones that cost thousands
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These cutting-edge hypervelocity projectiles could help. And they're calling it Golf Force One
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We take a look at what's likely the most heavily armored golf cart in history
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Hey everyone, and welcome to Weapons and Warfare, a show made for folks who want to know more about the U.S. national defense
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Our goal here is pretty simple. We want to help you have an informed conversation about what's happening with America's military
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So for Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson, and we're starting this week with the U.S. Army and a mission you might not know that it has
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Believe it or not, this is not a Navy vessel. It's an Army landing craft
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You see it says it right there, U.S. Army. And as army leadership continues to reshape their force with an eye on a potential conflict in the Pacific
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the importance of the army's fleet of watercraft just continues to grow
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Think of the U.S. Army in action, and it's likely tanks and helicopters are part of the picture
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Identify! Fire! And while they're not as connected with the country's oldest branch of the military
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Watercraft play a crucial role in the Army's power projection, especially in places like the Indo-Pacific
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It responsible for moving supplies equipment and troops in deep ocean water shallow coastal waters inland waterways even rivers I liken it to having a bunch of different tools in the toolbox that we can employ in that dynamic distribution network that I just described Sea lines of
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communication, airlines of communication, and ground lines of communication. And watercraft will be a connector of many of those different other modes and bringing that to bear. Colonel
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William Arnold is the chief of transportation for the U.S. Army's Transportation Corps
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At this year's AUSA Global Force Symposium in Alabama, he led a session focused on the future of Army watercraft, acknowledging while the Army's current fleet of vessels is aging, it's still capable of meeting mission demands and at some point integrating with emerging tech
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We're looking for help to understand how can we do littoral mapping without having to put mariners in the water to go figure out what beach gradients are
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for example, to see if we can beach one of our watercraft. We're looking for capabilities that are out there to do that rapidly
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be able to use AI to feed decisions back into the mariner populations
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before we decide we're going to bring any vessel or any capabilities to a beach, for example
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According to the Government Accountability Office, here's what the Army has at its disposal and what's on the horizon. Eight logistics support
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vessels that are capable of delivering vehicles and general cargo. 17 LCUs, that stands for
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Landing Craft Utility. Those are capable of delivering 350 short tons of cargo or 320 combat
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equipped personnel. Next up, nine LCMs, that's Landing Craft Mechanized. Those carry troops
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cargo and equipment There are six small tugs for repositioning other watercraft and 30 modular causeway systems for a total of 70 watercraft Plus the Army is expected to acquire 13 new maneuver support vessels by 2036
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So that capability right there is really a new capability that we're bringing in that can maneuver in the tactical zone
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and maneuver forces very rapidly in and around the littoral areas. Brigadier General Shane Upton of the Army Futures Command tells us Army leadership is also looking to industry partners and embracing the opportunities autonomous vessels offer a force with a growing list of responsibilities while experiencing potentially tighter budgets
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We're going to put autonomous boats in the water as the Army, and we're going to pair them with those mariners
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and have them learn the collaborative behaviors, how to command and control them
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give us an assessment and feedback from a soldier that does this
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for the United States Army in a forward theater. Chief Warrant Officer Nicholas LaFerrety
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with the Army's Combined Arms Support Command says it's about embracing the idea of doing a lot more with less
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We're open to tiers of autonomy on our current craft, how we can just take one step up the ladder to potentially reduce that load and make those warfighters lives a little bit more focused, right? Let their focused energy be on the threat at its hand
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For all that's different between the Army and Navy's fleets, there are parallels, especially in terms of maintenance
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According to that GAO report we talked about earlier, the Army's watercraft fleet experienced a significant drop
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in its fully mission-capable rate, falling from 75 in 2020 to less than 40 in 2024 Major General Michael Laylor of the Army Tank Automotive and Armaments Command is backing a push for 3D printing in the field to turn things
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around. The idea is fix forward, deliver forward, and this particular level of maintenance in
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watercraft is ripe for it because no two watercraft is all you know out there. Many of you
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who are near and dear to your heart, none of them are the same. They're snowflakes. And so there's all sorts of nonstandard parts that could be advanced manufactured
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And honestly, it's a great ground for expansion of technology and solving problems
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So what's next? How does the Army's fleet overcome its maintenance issues
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and stand ready for action in the Pacific should the call come
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First, General Laylor says, like the Navy, the Army is actively looking for allied partners to help bridge the gap
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We are, next year, going to expand our ability to contract maintenance to other countries that we haven't used before
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Predominantly, we've been west coast, east coast, Hawaii, Japan, Korea. Now we're going to see us expand to Guam, Singapore, Philippines, Australia, you name it
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I've been to most of them in the last six months, trying to drum up some business, and business will be good
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As for adding watercraft, in March, then Deputy Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army Pacific, Major General Jeffrey Vanantwerp, told Stars and Stripes in a conference call, quote, that leased vessels provide a pretty phenomenal capability and a pretty high level of readiness
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No word yet on how many, if any, vessels have been leased
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