http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/army_landwarrior_110909w/
Special Forces units will soon receive the Army’s latest version of Land Warrior gear.
Beginning next fall, equipment officials plan to outfit a Special Forces battalion with the service’s wearable command-and-control kit designed to help small units see through the fog of war.
Equipment officials do not know yet which SF battalion will get the high-tech equipment.
Land Warrior, which allows combat leaders to track the locations of their men and view maps and other tactical information through a tiny, helmet-mounted computer screen, is currently in Afghanistan with 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.
The latest version of Land Warrior will feature satellite communications to supplement the system’s current digital radio network, officials said.
“Probably the biggest change we are going to have for the Special Forces variant is going to be an over-the-horizon capability, so we are not restricted to line-of-sight” communications, Col. Will Riggins, who runs Project Manager Soldier Warrior, told reporters at the Pentagon on Oct. 27.
The controversial program made history in the spring of 2007, when 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, decided to take it to combat in Iraq after Army budget officials earlier that year cut $300 million from Land Warrior earlier that year, essentially killing the program.
Land Warrior’s performance in Iraq was a “tremendous success,” Riggins said. But it still has its challenges, and adding satellite communications to the system won’t be easy, he said.
“When you go away from line-of-sight communications to over-the-horizon communications ... you don’t have the same amount of bandwidth,” Riggins said. “One of the things we will be working with the [Special Forces] unit on is to see how we can smartly choose what goes over the line and how often it goes over.”
Reliability will also have to improve.
The Land Warrior systems in Stryker units are never too far away from support technicians who can fix any problems that arise, he said.
“It needs to function for long periods of time when soldiers are out on multiple-day missions away from having any technical support,” Riggins said.
The Army approved an additional $102 million to buy the 1,000 sets of Land Warrior needed for 5-2. The Stryker unit deployed with those systems this summer to Afghanistan.
The Army recently awarded General Dynamics, the company that makes Land Warrior, a contract with a potential price of $50 million to continue the technical support it is providing for 5-2’s systems. However, the Army did not restart the Land Warrior program but chose to continue to refine the complex system as it develops the next generation of digital soldier kit known as the Ground Soldier System.
“Land Warrior is being used right now as a bridging strategy until we get Ground Soldier System,” Riggins said.
GSS is scheduled to be ready for fielding to an infantry brigade combat team by 2012. The next step will be a limited-user test late next summer when infantry units will evaluate three separate prototypes made by General Dynamics, Raytheon and Rockwell, Riggins said.
The plan is to have infantry units evaluate each prototype on its own merits and select one or two prototypes that will enter operational testing, Riggins said.
“We think we are going to have a big increase in capability” with GSS, he said. “The three vendors we are working with have the opportunity to bring in the latest technology, the latest processors. It’s not just about computing speed; it’s also about power efficiency because batteries add weight to the overall load.”
Weight is a key concern and equipment officials hope to improve that, Riggins said.
Now, Land Warrior gear weighs about half as much as the system 4-9 first began working with in 2006.
“The current configuration of Land Warrior is about eight and a half pounds,” he said. “I will tell you that that is still too heavy, and we need to do better.”
The Land Warrior variants that will be issued to SF will be basically the same version 5-2 currently uses, aside from satellite capability, Riggins said.
In addition to the helmet-mounted display, which resembles a tiny computer screen, Land Warrior features a microcomputer processor for storing maps, mission-specific imagery and graphics. The navigation system allows a leader to track his subordinate leaders’ positions, which appear as icons on a digital map.
The digital, voice and text radio lets leaders send e-mails and talk to anyone wearing Land Warrior.
So far, Stryker units have chosen to issue Land Warrior down to the team leader level in the squad.
Special Forces teams will use it differently, Riggins said.
“This will be a new use for Land Warrior,” Riggins said. “We have fielded it to team leader and above [in infantry units]. With Special Forces, because of the unique way they operate, we will be fielding it to each member” of the 12-man teams.
Special Forces units will soon receive the Army’s latest version of Land Warrior gear.
Beginning next fall, equipment officials plan to outfit a Special Forces battalion with the service’s wearable command-and-control kit designed to help small units see through the fog of war.
Equipment officials do not know yet which SF battalion will get the high-tech equipment.
Land Warrior, which allows combat leaders to track the locations of their men and view maps and other tactical information through a tiny, helmet-mounted computer screen, is currently in Afghanistan with 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.
The latest version of Land Warrior will feature satellite communications to supplement the system’s current digital radio network, officials said.
“Probably the biggest change we are going to have for the Special Forces variant is going to be an over-the-horizon capability, so we are not restricted to line-of-sight” communications, Col. Will Riggins, who runs Project Manager Soldier Warrior, told reporters at the Pentagon on Oct. 27.
The controversial program made history in the spring of 2007, when 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, decided to take it to combat in Iraq after Army budget officials earlier that year cut $300 million from Land Warrior earlier that year, essentially killing the program.
Land Warrior’s performance in Iraq was a “tremendous success,” Riggins said. But it still has its challenges, and adding satellite communications to the system won’t be easy, he said.
“When you go away from line-of-sight communications to over-the-horizon communications ... you don’t have the same amount of bandwidth,” Riggins said. “One of the things we will be working with the [Special Forces] unit on is to see how we can smartly choose what goes over the line and how often it goes over.”
Reliability will also have to improve.
The Land Warrior systems in Stryker units are never too far away from support technicians who can fix any problems that arise, he said.
“It needs to function for long periods of time when soldiers are out on multiple-day missions away from having any technical support,” Riggins said.
The Army approved an additional $102 million to buy the 1,000 sets of Land Warrior needed for 5-2. The Stryker unit deployed with those systems this summer to Afghanistan.
The Army recently awarded General Dynamics, the company that makes Land Warrior, a contract with a potential price of $50 million to continue the technical support it is providing for 5-2’s systems. However, the Army did not restart the Land Warrior program but chose to continue to refine the complex system as it develops the next generation of digital soldier kit known as the Ground Soldier System.
“Land Warrior is being used right now as a bridging strategy until we get Ground Soldier System,” Riggins said.
GSS is scheduled to be ready for fielding to an infantry brigade combat team by 2012. The next step will be a limited-user test late next summer when infantry units will evaluate three separate prototypes made by General Dynamics, Raytheon and Rockwell, Riggins said.
The plan is to have infantry units evaluate each prototype on its own merits and select one or two prototypes that will enter operational testing, Riggins said.
“We think we are going to have a big increase in capability” with GSS, he said. “The three vendors we are working with have the opportunity to bring in the latest technology, the latest processors. It’s not just about computing speed; it’s also about power efficiency because batteries add weight to the overall load.”
Weight is a key concern and equipment officials hope to improve that, Riggins said.
Now, Land Warrior gear weighs about half as much as the system 4-9 first began working with in 2006.
“The current configuration of Land Warrior is about eight and a half pounds,” he said. “I will tell you that that is still too heavy, and we need to do better.”
The Land Warrior variants that will be issued to SF will be basically the same version 5-2 currently uses, aside from satellite capability, Riggins said.
In addition to the helmet-mounted display, which resembles a tiny computer screen, Land Warrior features a microcomputer processor for storing maps, mission-specific imagery and graphics. The navigation system allows a leader to track his subordinate leaders’ positions, which appear as icons on a digital map.
The digital, voice and text radio lets leaders send e-mails and talk to anyone wearing Land Warrior.
So far, Stryker units have chosen to issue Land Warrior down to the team leader level in the squad.
Special Forces teams will use it differently, Riggins said.
“This will be a new use for Land Warrior,” Riggins said. “We have fielded it to team leader and above [in infantry units]. With Special Forces, because of the unique way they operate, we will be fielding it to each member” of the 12-man teams.
