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Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll Talks Military Test Ranges
Brief
Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll framed a bottleneck in soldier readiness around long delays for industry use of test ranges—typically 12–18 months—and announced a new concierge “front door” to compress that to roughly 30 days. He said the Army reallocated about $750 million into a venture‑style contracting model to move some buys from months or years down to under 30 days. Driscoll tied urgency to lessons from Ukraine, planning a September EW exercise at “Camp Gradling” to emulate that threat environment and accelerate innovation. He also described “Operation Jail Break,” a push to break sensor/data silos with open APIs/SDKs, and argued for a layered interceptor mix from very cheap munitions to $3–4.4M interceptors with human‑in‑the‑loop control. He warned that annual continuing resolutions hamper new starts and stressed the need for the $67B supplemental and timely budgets; faster testing, he said, could cut R&D time by about a third.
Why it matters
Speaker 1 (Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll) said industry has been waiting 12–18 months to access Army test ranges and the Army will create a single “front door” concierge to try to get companies onto ranges within 30 days.
Key details
- Speaker 1 said the Army reallocated roughly $750 million into a venture‑like model that has enabled some industry contracts in under 30 days (compared to historical averages of nine months to two years).
- Speaker 1 described a planned September event at “Camp Gradling” to recreate an electronic‑warfare (EW) environment similar to what Ukraine faces, inviting small, medium and large firms and soldiers to test systems.
- Speaker 1 outlined “Operation Jail Break” to break data silos—forcing sensors/radars to share via APIs/SDKs—and argued for a layered effects approach from cheap options (a .50 cal round he estimated at about $1) up to very expensive interceptors (he cited $3–4.4 million per shot), saying variability and human‑in‑the‑loop decisioning are essential.
- Speaker 1 emphasized budget risks from annual continuing resolutions, called for the $67 billion supplemental plus timely budgets and reconciliation, and estimated faster range access could cut at least one‑third off R&D timelines.