Washington: The Association of the United States Army held its annual three-day conference from October 9 here with defence officials, military personnel and industry representatives gathering to discuss the future force — and what threats it may face from advanced adversaries.

The service is in the midst of a modernisation effort that has focused on long-range precision fires; next-generation combat vehicles; future vertical lift aircraft; the network; air and missile defence; and soldier lethality. It is now expanding that focus to positioning, navigation and timing, as well as advanced training technology. But the war in Ukraine has impacted much of the Army’s decisions.

Gen. James Rainey, who leads Army Futures Command, the service’s organisation in charge of modernising the force, said the service needs to adapt its artillery strategy based on both “what’s happening in Ukraine” as well as what US Army Pacific requires from conventional fires.

“Everything we’re seeing in Ukraine [is] about the relevance of precision fires, all the emerging technology, but the big killer on the battlefield is conventional artillery, high-explosive artillery,” he said.

The US Army plans to issue a new conventional fires strategy by the end of the year, he added.