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Army testing new "land warrior" system
By Charlie
In what will be considered the cornerstone of the "network-centric warfare" doctrine, the Land Warrior system is being tested for eventual fielding in the War on Terror. Networking a vehicle, like a Styker or a tank, is fairly easy -networking a person is much more difficult. In order to network a soldier, the equipment must be wireless, secure, durable, light, and reliable.
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, June 22, 2006) – The Land Warrior and Mounted Warrior Soldier Systems are under operational assessment at Fort Lewis, Wash., by the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.The U.S. Army Infantry Center conducted a side-by-side comparison between Land Warrior-equipped Soldiers and currently equipped Soldiers at Fort Benning, Ga., in late 2004
“This squad-level operational assessment demonstrated that Land Warrior capabilities do improve the combat effectiveness of Soldiers and small units engaged in dismounted operations. As a result, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army directed us to conduct a battalion-level Land Warrior assessment,” said Col. Richard Hansen, Soldier Warrior project manager.
Land Warrior combines computers, lasers, navigation modules, radios and other technologically advanced equipment to improve Soldiers’ ability to communicate on the battlefield, their situational awareness, and, ultimately, their ability to fight effectively and survive. It was developed by Program Executive Office Soldier.
No word in the article on the weight of the thing...
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Newer equipment is always larger and more expensive at first. Gradually the weight, size, and price tag will decrease.
Having formerly worked at one of the COTS companies developing this sort of thing, I'm convinced that there is way too much paradigm going on with these projects and not enough thinking outside the box.
The concept has merit, the implementations I've personally seen and worked on do not.
The use of older, slower processors is an excuse that only merits the budgets of the developers IMO. And that is only one point out of many.
Consider that the average iPAQ style Pocket PC now can be bought COTS with higher speed processors than many of the dedicated manpack offerings, which, truth be told are simply repackaged commercially available kit computers shoehorned into special purpose housings and you can easily get the picture.
85 lbs added to the fighting man's curb weight is ridiculous.
COTS is a great idea for some things, not so great for others. What we need is some moderation as to what should be COTS and revive the old school paradigm of intense dedicated research and design for selected projects.
Utilizing cutting edge technology and bottom up propietary circuit designing can develop a networked special-purpose device concept that would be extremely light in weight and size yet quite powerful at the same time.
Take a look at your ever shrinking and ever more powerful digital cellphone for an example of what can be done when the design protocol is mandated.
We'd still be waiting for someone to develop radar, or even possibly nukes if COTS was the primary way of doing it in WWII. There are still dedicated research projects going on, DARPA is alive and well, but many of these involve only the "big" projects. I think those in the military top brass of the thing should be looking to be able to selectively appoint design teams for certain items, the manpack networked system should be one of them.
All things in moderation,
.
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Superb! (I wrote something else and then I read below that I aint supposed ter. So I deleted it.)
Superb! (I wrote something else and then I read below that I aint supposed ter. So I deleted it.)
All the electronics in the world will never replace instinct and training. We don't need lasers and fancy gizmos, we need reliable, and dependable weapons, commo that won't fail us, and the best training our superiors can provide.
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The weight is supposed to be between 80 and 85 lbs. But I don't know if thats with or without batteries. They have been having problems finding batteries that last long enough and fit the weight/size requirments.
It has been in development for over ten years, uses all off the shelf items and has/is going to cost mega-millions.
The software has had problems and they are using an old processor style, (slow) because its more bullet proof.
It's a big to-do about not very much in many professional Soldiers opinion. The radios don't work any better than the hand helds they carry now ( about one mile, line of sight) and are going to have only about 10 channels.
Of course, if we can get it fielded, the upgrades should keep coming and the development should be better and faster.
But, then again, it might wind up being a bad decision like the adoption of the 5.56 has been.
And it will have cost us taxpayers lots of money and may (I pray not) cost our troops more.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA