WASHNGTON: After years of lower-power field tests and more than one thousand hours of soldier feedback, the Army is on track to field-test two different types of high-energy lasers in 2022: a 50-kilowatt weapon to destroy enemy drones and incoming artillery rockets, and a 300-kW weapon that could potentially shoot down cruise missiles.

Key components are now under construction for both systems, the directed energy chief at the Rapid Capabilities & Critical Technologies Office said. And, Craig Robin told me ahead of today’s Space & Missile Symposium, the service plans many more “soldier touch points” to come on both programs, especially once the prototypes are built and available for field tests.

Furthest along is the 50-kilowatt laser, to be mounted on an 8×8 Stryker armored vehicle. It’s known in Army jargon as DE-MSHORAD (Directed Energy – Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense). Four prototype laser Strykers – a full platoon – will be fielded to an actual combat unit in 2022.

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The lieutenant general overseeing the Army’s hypersonic weapons program said the service will soon accelerate testing of the ultra-fast missile effort to compete with Russia and China in the race to field the deadly new technology.

In a joint effort with the Navy, the Army has been designing the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body, which will be used by all U.S. services, and is preparing to transition it to the defense industry, which will mass produce the technology.

The Army will soon begin ramping up the testing schedule so it can field the first operational hypersonic missile battery by fiscal 2023, Lt. Gen. Neil Thurgood, director of Hypersonics, Directed Energy, Space, and Rapid Acquisition, said Wednesday during a Defense News space and missile defense webinar.

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The Army’s security force assistance brigades are preparing for more global missions in the coming months, the outgoing commander of the SFAB enterprise, and his successor, said in interviews last week.

Some new missions will dispatch SFAB advisers to more austere and far-flung locations where the U.S. military footprint is less developed. That presents opportunities to work with new foreign militaries, but it can also complicate how advisers are protected and sustained.

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Traditionally, when a new class of cadets arrives at West Point, more than 1,200 individuals come through the gates on a Monday during Reception Day and begin the process of their 47-month journey. This year, as seen a month ago with the graduation of the U.S. Military Academy Class of 2020, traditions have taken a backseat to a new practice due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic running rampant through the United States.

Consequently, as the initial 1,238 new cadets’ streamed into the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School to begin their in-processing as the USMA Class of 2024, it also included R-Day being stretched out over three days instead of one. More than 400 new cadets arrived each day Sunday through Tuesday (July 12-14) with the Oath Ceremony taking place on The Plain Wednesday (July 15).

Generally, new cadets would arrive at Eisenhower Hall, however, USMAPS was used this year as an initial entry point. This allowed for screening each new cadet for COVID-19 and also kept a buffer zone from Central Area, the new cadets’ living area, to make sure they were COVID-19 negative before they began receiving their initial equipment issue, getting sized for their uniforms, receiving haircuts and assimilating into their Cadet Basic Training company under the cadet cadre’s guidance.

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