By Ann Roosevelt
Equipment deemed ready for early fielding to Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCT) successfully completed force development test and evaluation (FDT&E) this month and is ready for operational testing in September, officials said.
“The systems we are testing this year are in fact, systems we feel are both reasonably close to be ready–and that’s why we test to verify that they are–and that they will have value-added for soldiers,” Col. Patrick (Lee) Fetterman, Training and Doctrine Command Capability Manager, said in a recent roundtable.
With a green light for production, a decision likely to be made by the end of the year, the equipment would begin to be fielded to IBCTs in 2011, fielding to all brigades by 2025.
The FDT&E took place over a three-week period in July and August. Involving the Honeywell [HON] Class 1 small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAS), the Textron [TXT] tactical and urban unattended ground sensors (T- and U-UGS), the iRobot small unmanned ground vehicle (SUGV), the early network integration kit, and the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System (NLOS LS), developed by NetFires LLC, a joint venture between Raytheon [RTN] Missile Systems and Lockheed Martin [LMT] Missiles and Fire Control.
The Army Training and Doctrine Command’s (TRADOC) Future Force Integration Directorate (FFID) at Ft. Bliss, Texas, has been testing the equipment since the group was formed in 2006.
Soldiers are working with Boeing [BA] and SAIC [SAI], who manage this part of the program, which derived from the former Future Combat System.
This year alone, FFID and the Army Evaluation Task Force, the 5th BCT 1st Armored Div., have done three technical field tests and the FDT&E.
“We are moving forward into the operational tests to make an informed decision with regard to purchase of early production items,” Fetterman said.
Jerry Tyree, FFID deputy director for Materiel and AETF integration director, said a lot of work has been done on the equipment at the system and system of system level to ensure they are interoperable with the network and looking technically at the performance envelope of each system.
Soldiers have been involved, developed as subject matter experts and trained on the systems. Training was done at the company and platoon level so they could “flush out the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and refine how these systems would be employed,” he said.
The FFID and AETF are involved in the total package that will potentially be delivered to the IBCTs as a set. Thus the FDT&E’s “purpose was to validate those tactics, techniques and procedures and the doctrine, the expected performance and how those systems would be used across that total package and to certify the unit as trained in the employment of those systems as we move forward toward the Limed User Test,” Tyree said.
The Army chose the Ft. Bliss environment initially because it met the operational requirements for a high-hot environment, Tyree said. The area has mountains, woods, caves and tunnels, and desert and temperature fluctuations that stress the systems and sensors’ abilities. Also, White Sands Missile Range and Holloman AFB, and the Navy have testing groups in the area and highly instrumented ranges that offer opportunities to work in the joint world. There are also capabilities to introduce electronic warfare, such as GPS jamming.
Col. Randall Lane, commander 5th BCT 1st Armored Div. (AETF), said the FDT&E used full spectrum scenarios based on Army doctrine. Close to 60 percent of his soldiers have been in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are trying to take these capabilities to the level they wish they had had while deployed.
“We took a balanced look at offensive, defensive and stability operations as we were out there,” he said.
The point was to look at the capabilities and limitations of the equipment, Lane said. After action reviews were conducted. “We tried to dissect what we were doing out there and how we could continue to make these capabilities better for the Army.”
AETF and TRADOC analysts are poring over the volumes of information produced by the FDT&E.Many lessons have been learned.
For example, frequency management, not usually done at the battalion and even company level, must be addressed, he said. Everything in test and evaluation has its own frequency with the potential to cause interference if not properly managed.
“The Class 1 UAS really proved its worth out on this battlefield for us, we flew over 78 hours worth of missions out here from several stations,” Lane said. Used in conjunction with NLOS LS in a sensor-to-shooter combination. “It was probably our best capability at defeating the conventional armor forces that were put on the field by the opposing forces.”
The Class 1 also introduced a new TTP, linking to the network integration kit mounted in a Humvee. A visual screen with streaming video from the UAS allowed leaders to “quickly assess and make decisions and affect maneuver almost instantaneously,” Lane said.
SUGV, similar to the iRobot PackBot now fielded in theater, is “another great piece of equipment we’ve come to rely upon, definitely in the urban environment,” he said. “We found it very effective going up and down stairs, moving into buildings before we have to put soldier’s lives in danger. It basically absorbs risk.”
Lane, who served in downtown Baghdad, said he would have benefited greatly from them.
The T-UGS suite of sensors pick up seismic vibrations and classify them as a person or vehicle, then an optic sensor takes a picture and passes it through a remote station to the NIK, which ties into the command and control structure, where images and information move into the Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) and Blue Force Tracker. Then it can be sent back out as part of the common operating picture.
The U-UGS is used in an urban environment, with a motion detector and camera, can be used in different rooms, and are left behind, “It’s another capability that works quite well, the refresh rates, or how fast the images were captured or at times even how fast they picked up motion, we found some issues with, and soldiers are making recommendations, such as slowing the refresh rate and speeding up the camera for a clearer image.
Several capabilities were used together, for example, the SUGV and U-UGS were used at entry control points, Lane said. These systems can make initial contact, have someone get out of a vehicle, and talk to them through the SUGV, keeping the distance between the soldier and a “potentially violent situation.” The U-UGS can take a picture of the individual and pass it through the system to see if it’s an adversary.
Out in the field, the primary maneuver force testing the equipment was the 2 Combined Arms Battalion (CAB), consisting of one infantry company, one weapons company and a scout platoon, Lane said. A NLOS LS platoon was in the battle space, providing precision missile fire in support of 2 CAB maneuvers.
The battalion headquarters provided command and control, with Lane’s brigade headquarters as the higher echelon command. It also controlled the exercise and both friendly and opposing forces.
The FDT&E forces were also connected in a virtual training environment back at Ft. Bliss providing feedback on the operations to the battalion headquarters in the field. Two light infantry companies were inside the simulation environment.
The 1 CAB operated as the opposing force. They consisted of about 115 soldiers, in technical trucks, SUVs, vans, BMPs and tanks to replicate a similar force mix that might be encountered in Iraq or Afghanistan, from insurgents to a conventional force.
“This was actually a critical piece of the test, to try and take a look at exactly how we could employ these capabilities in such a complex environment that also consisted of civilians on the battlefield,” Lane said.