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home > February, 2007 issue > article
Army takes up digital arms
By Peter Buxbaum
Special to Defense Systems
Land Warrior bolsters warfighters’ weapons with high-tech communications gear
Imagine soldiers as digital warriors, their high-tech helmets embedded with sensors that communicate with their enhanced M-4 rifles to track both enemy and friendly forces.
It’s no pipe dream. The Army’s Land Warrior program to extend network centricity to the dismounted soldier is set for deployment to Iraq this summer.
But severe budgetary cuts threaten the program with extinction even before it makes its debut. A budget plan that the Army recently submitted to the Pentagon calls for the elimination of Land Warrior, along with the related Mounted Warrior program.
The Army Program Executive Office Soldier (PEO Soldier) manages nearly 400 discreet programs that handle everything from boots, helmets and uniforms to rifles, radios and lasers—but Land Warrior is the office’s signature project.
“Our mission is three fold: to increase the soldier’s combat effectiveness, to save soldiers’ lives, and to increase soldiers’ quality of life,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, PEO Soldier program executive officer.
The program’s demise would be both ironic and paradoxical. Ironic, because the program is envisioned as a way to extend the Defense Department’s netcentric vision of connectivity to the edge.
Paradoxical, because the system recently completed extensive testing and awaits deployment.
But it’s too early to write Land Warrior’s epitaph, officials say. The Army doesn’t have the last word on what goes into the fiscal 2008 budget. The Pentagon, the White House and Congress will each get their shot at shaping and funding Army programs.
SOLDIER AS SYSTEM
In contrast to other program offices that deal with weapons platforms and information architectures, PEO Soldier considers the soldier as a system. The human frame is its architecture and human factors engineering is its challenge.
“Since the components of Land Warrior are carried by the individual solider, the problem is always to make them lighter, smaller, and more efficient,” Brown said.
Land Warrior’s components, developed by a team of contractors led by General Dynamics Corp.’s C4 Systems division in Scottsdale, Ariz., include an advanced combat helmet with an attached optical display, a modified M-4 rifle, digital imaging equipment, a voice and data radio, a Global Positioning System transmitter, a multifunction laser and a control card for identity management. The soldier manipulates a cursor inside the helmet-mounted optical viewer with a device that’s attached to his vest. The set-up lets him send and receive e-mail and text messages, call for air support, electronically mark targets, and take and transmit pictures.
Soldiers also can use the optical viewer to track friendly and enemy forces, represented on the viewer by blue and red icons. “This allows commanders and leaders to see where their soldiers are and to tell them what they want them to do,” explained Col. Richard Hansen, Land Warrior’s program manager. “The soldier knows where he is, where his buddies are and where the enemy is.”
The Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team-the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division-recently completed field training exercises on 440 Land Warrior systems at Fort Lewis, Wash. Of those systems, 230 will make their way to Iraq.
BLUE FORCE TRACKING
“This capability brings to ground soldiers what Blue Force Tracking brought to vehicles,” said Maj. Keith Markham, the brigade’s executive officer. Blue Force Tracking (BFT) is the Army’s satellite-based system for identifying friendly and enemy forces.
In one exercise, Land Warrior helped a pair of four-soldier fire teams find, engage and defeat an enemy in less than an hour, a task that would have taken three to four hours without the system. “The result was greatly reduced time to objective,” Markham said. “If done manually, the company would have had to stop and look at maps. Leaders would have to walk down the line to make sure everyone was in place.”
With Land Warrior, “navigation was not an issue, getting lost was not an issue,” Markham said.
Some battle experiences haven’t changed, however. “It’s still the same when we kick down a door with full force,” he said. “During a firefight, you push the eyepiece out of the way, and it’s back to old school.”
Soldier feedback from the recent Land Warrior tests will be incorporated in the system before its deployment to Iraq, said Hansen, Land Warrior’s program manager.
“Some components were redesigned for ergonomics,” he said. “Some of the changes made it easier for soldiers to get in and out of vehicles.” Other changes include providing a choice of headsets or ear buds, more advanced keyboards for text communications, and a larger radio antenna that will ensure connectivity on difficult terrain.
The key network-centric aspect of Land Warrior is its interoperability with Army command and control networks. “There has to be interoperability to keep the soldier plugged into the network,” Hansen said.
Land Warrior’s communications system is built to interoperate with the Army Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) command and control system. A future version of Land Warrior, known as Ground Soldier System, will integrate with the Army’s Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program. WIN-T will be the backbone of the Army’s Future Combat Systems initiative to connect weapons and transport systems via a single network.
READY, SET, GO?
Continuing development of these systems hangs on upcoming policy decisions. Ground Soldier System is scheduled for a decision on initial low-rate production within the next few months. But GSS’ prospects are related to Land Warrior’s fortunes as well as to those of Future Combat Systems’, which also is scheduled for deep cuts in the Army’s latest budget plan.
Regardless of the outcome of budget deliberations, PEO Soldier officials say they will continue to execute the organization’s mission of providing soldiers with the latest gear. “We’ve got program managers for sensors, lasers and night vision devices,” PEO chief Brown pointed out.
Because PEO Soldier is committed to supplying many of the individual components that comprise Land Warrior, Hansen, Land Warrior’s program manager, said he is not yet willing to write off the program and the critical need it will fill. Land Warrior is fully funded for fiscal 2007, Hansen said, and “funding is assured through fiscal year 2008 by virtue of its being deployed in theater.”
Deployment in Iraq might be Land Warrior’s saving grace. Hansen’s hope is that success in Iraq will ensure Land Warrior’s future.
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