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HE COLD WAR HAS BEEN OVER FOR 30 YEARS, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the world’s tanks today. The armored fighting vehicles of the 1970s and 1980s are still around: America’s M1 Abrams, Russia’s T-72 and T-80, Germany’s Leopard 2, Britain’s Challenger, and Israel’s Merkava. These machines may have been upgraded over the years, but today’s tanks would still look and feel familiar to a Cold War-era tanker. But time catches up with all things—even 70-ton steel beasts built to withstand the blast of shells and rockets. By 2050, a new generation of tanks will replace the vehicles from the days of Ronald Reagan’s administration. The new tanks won’t be totally unfamiliar. They will probably look like today’s vehicles, with rotating turrets and caterpillar tracks. There may also be a family resemblance: instead of incurring the huge expense of developing and manufacturing a brand-new design, nations such as the U.S. and Germany are building from existing models. Nonetheless, tanks in the mid-21st century will have plenty of new features. They will be smaller and lighter, and thus more mobile and easier to transport by air or sea. They will have hybrid or electric engines, launch their own drones, and have defensive systems to stop enemy drones. They will also be highly digital and automated, including extensive reliance on artificial intelligence. “This means incorporating advances in energy systems, armor, camouflage and other protection technologies, onboard sensors, digital battle management systems, and improved firepower,” says James Black, assistant director for defense at the RAND Europe think tank. “It also means AI and autonomy, both in terms of automating more of the tasks of a tank crew, and in terms of pairing crewed vehicles with uncrewed ground or air systems to fight as a system of systems.”

THE U.S. AIR FORCE IS CALLING A MULLIGAN on one of its most important future weapons, which was intended to replace the legendary F-22A Raptor. Originally conceived of in the late 1980s, the F-22A is still highly capable, but the service believes a new plane with new tech is necessary to dominate current and future Russian and Chinese fighters.   As a result, the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, meant to create the world’s first sixth-generation fighter, is heading back to the drawing board. That’s because the service needs to figure out exactly what it wants from an air superiority combat aircraft in the 2030s and beyond—and how it can make such a weapon reality.   The NGAD program reboot is an example of how the slow, complicated development of modern warplanes is at odds with the breakneck pace of technological progress, which in turn threatens to lock out even the newest aircraft from state-of-the-art features.   Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of staff for the Air Force, said the service is pondering what it’s really trying to do with the NGAD program in the first place, which begets two more questions: how does the service achieve air superiority in a contested environment, and how does the service build a manned, sixth-generation fighter?   “I mean, those are not necessarily the same question,” Slife said earlier this month at the Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia.   Slife’s comments followed a July announcement in which Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall announced that the service would be putting the NGAD program on pause to review its data. Now, after years of development, the Air Force is embarking on a total revamp and change of focus to exploit new technologies that have cropped up since the aircraft was first conceived of in the mid-2010s.  

Northrop Grumman has unveiled its prototype unmanned underwater vehicle—the Manta Ray. The drone, which looks like a real manta ray, is an example of biomimicry. The drone will spend a lot of time operating autonomously, while carrying payloads such as sensors and weapons. A new underwater drone that resembles one of the most graceful and majestic creatures in the ocean was unveiled today. The Manta Ray, built by Northrop Grumman, was built to perform long range, long endurance military missions. The underwater craft—built for the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) and capable of harvesting energy from the seas—has been four years in the making. Manta Ray began life in 2020, and the project’s goal was to develop a “new class of long duration, long range, payload-capable unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).” Manta Ray is supposed to be capable of carrying out underwater missions with as little human oversight as possible. This is not as easy as it sounds. Seawater is corrosive, sea life (such as barnacles, jellyfish, and seaweed) can foul moving parts, and various types of electromagnetic radiation (particularly sunlight) don’t propagate well in seawater. It’s a complex set of technical challenges that DARPA saw the opportunity to solve with a single program, advancing the state of the art in UUV technology.

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What goes into a blog post? Helpful, industry-specific content that: 1) gives readers a useful takeaway, and 2) shows you’re an industry expert. Use your company’s blog posts to opine on current industry topics, humanize your company, and show how your products and services can help people.