U.S. Army Weapons Handbook Detailed

　　Kudos to Secrecy News, the Federation of American Scientists newsletter by Steven Aftergood, for getting its hands on the U.S. Army's 2011 Weapon Systems handbook, a catalog of current programs in various phases of acquisition.
As Aftergood notes, many of the programs are mature and familiar; others are less so. Each description strives to entail the program's purpose and status, the contractors involved in production, and allies that have acquired the weapon system through foreign military sales programs, if any.
As Aviation Week's top-notch group of land and sea experts covering the recent AUSA conference in Washington reported, the Army is somewhat surprisingly in a major revamp of numerous acquisition efforts for various reasons. Many of them come down to budget pressures, the Obama administration's goals and Defense Secretary Robert Gates' dramatic modernization of the defense bureaucracy, but the historic U.S. land service also is finding itself made-over by the prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be interesting to see what the 2012 slate of weapons systems looks like.