Army weighs changes to Futures Command modernization teams

WASHINGTON — U.S. Army Futures Command will spend the next three months reviewing whether its signature Cross-Functional Teams should remain in place, Gen. James Rainey, the command’s new chief, said Friday. The Cross-Functional Teams, each tasked with advancing one of the Army’s six modernization priorities, is “one of the things [Futures Command] indisputably got right,” Rainey said. In considering what to change and what to keep or expand, Rainey asked, “how do we reload the Fires CFT? “We do robots, we do sensing, we do [artificial intelligence], is there an opportunity to do a little better by having some cross-functional teams,” Rainey asked. Among the Army’s other priorities are improving the lethality and survivability of its light formations and decreasing the weight and logistics tail of its heavier formations, Rainey added.