HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Consider this scenario in a theoretical future U.S. clash with China in the Pacific: A critical component of an Army artillery system breaks or malfunctions in the middle of the conflict.
That weapon — for example, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS — is then offline for days, perhaps even longer, as replacement parts are shipped in, potentially from all the way back in the continental U.S.
But there’s an alternate future, one that Army officials say is on the immediate horizon, in which a combination of drones, 3D printing and even virtual reality headsets help get the HIMARS back into the fight quickly. Army leaders say rapid technological advances are poised to eliminate some of the massive logistical hurdles confronting a U.S. military operating thousands of miles from American shores.
“In today’s environment, that weapons system is off the battlefield until we can get that part to the crew. And as a result, the unit won’t fire, another asset has to get tasked. But in the world we envision, that HIMARS crew, they jump onto a telemaintenance chat and they talk not only to their higher headquarters, but they potentially talk all the way back to the engineer that helped design that system” back in the U.S, said Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, deputy commanding general and acting commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command.
“Not only do we print the part using advanced manufacturing capabilities, but then we go pick up that part up with a sustainment [drone] capable of carrying cargo,” he said Wednesday. “And once the drone drops off the part … the crew reconnects with the telemaintenance on their telemaintenance channel, and maybe they use virtual reality headsets, and they install that part and bring that weapon system back online and then they complete their prior mission.
“Let me assure you that we’re much closer to this future state than we’ve ever been,” Lt. Gen. Mohan told an audience at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force Symposium & Exposition here in Huntsville, one of the country’s technological hotbeds and an epicenter for military, space and other capabilities critical to American national security.
That concept of telemaintenance has been crucial for Ukraine in its war with Russia. U.S. personnel have been virtually assisting Ukrainian personnel as they repair U.S.-provided artillery and vehicles. By all accounts, the approach has been a success.
Virtual reality headsets and other cutting-edge communications tools make it far easier to connect in real time with the engineers who can walk military personnel through every step of a repair process.
At the same time, rapid leaps forward in 3D printing, which produces physical objects from digital models, are helping to transform the production, repair and upgrades to vehicles and artillery systems that the Army and other services rely on. And fast, relatively cheap drones can increasingly shoulder the load of transport, reducing the need for manned aircraft in some scenarios.
The possibilities are top of mind for military personnel and lawmakers. Last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, for example, included a provision that “requires DoD to assess the capacity of DoD to evaluate and use 3D printing technologies to supplement the supply of maintenance parts used to support weapons systems and associated support equipment, including obsolete parts and tools.”
“DoD must also report to Congress a strategy to fund and coordinate a network of domestic and community-based fabrication facilities for fabricating such parts,” the provision states.
And it’s not just vehicles or artillery. Earlier this year, the Army’s Fort Bliss opened the Defense Department’s first 3D-printed barracks for soldiers. The 5,700-square-foot buildings, officials said, were the largest planned 3D-printed structures in the Western Hemisphere when construction began last year.
“We’re here today because many people dreamed of new ideas and said ’why not,’ and that’s why we’re delivering this state-of-the-art facility to the Army today,” Lt. Gen. David Wilson, deputy Army chief of staff, G-9 (Installations), said last month when the Fort Bliss facilities opened.
There are applications beyond construction and even repairs. Lt. Gen. Mohan recounted a story about how Army personnel, when confronted with an impeller on a coolant pump that experienced “critical failures,” went a step further to fix the underlying problem.
“It’s not just designing a replacement part. They designed a better part,” he said.
