By Jen DiMascio
The Army vice chief of staff next week has planned a battle command summit to discuss how it will transition from the networks of the present to the networks of the future, according to senior service officials.
The service currently uses the Army Battle Command System, a loose collection of individual computer applications for activities like intelligence analysis, fire support and maneuvering troops. It is moving toward a Future Combat System version that unlike the old system will be integrated from the ground up, said Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army’s chief information officer (G-6), during a press briefing this week at the Association of the United States Army conference.
The summit will help the Army begin to look how those systems will work together because, in the future, brigades using FCS battle command will operate next to those using the former Army Battle Command System.
The transition will change the Army’s doctrine as well as how it trains and operates, and the summit will move the service in that direction.
“It’s a discussion amongst the senior leaders of the Army to define and begin to work that particular convergence as well as to make sure that we do it in a manner that’s prioritized to meet the needs of the field,” Sorenson said.
In addition to discussing the way ahead for battle command, service officials will also look at initial recommendations from an Army Science Board summer study of the Army’s future network plan.
That report recommended, among other things, that the Army stop buying Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems (SINCGARS) and instead focus on radios that could better align with the future Joint Tactical Radio System (Defense Daily, Oct. 9).
The service has requested $1.3 billion for SINCGARS in the fiscal year 2008 supplemental.
Beyond that, the service is assessing its total SINCGARS requirement. A planned supplemental in FY ’09 would support the service’s plan to field the radio through FY ’10 and would include an assessment of even more SINCGARS radios that would support the service’s plan to increase the size of the Army through FY ’13, according to the Army statement.
Though lawmakers questioned a cost increase in the radios over time in their authorization bill, officials from ITT Corp. [ITT] said the cost of the radio components actually decreased, but added that the Army ordered a more expensive configuration.
During the press briefing, Sorenson added that the Army is considering another recommendation by the science board–whether to purchase radios for individual soldiers that cost less than $1,000 apiece.
Those radios would be less secure than current radios, which are not in use by every solider, but the idea would be to limit the types of information transmitted. The two issues facing the service are about security as well as the cost of outfitting such a large organization.