Army Will Rent Base Networks, But Never Battlefield

Army Will Rent Base Networks, But Never Battlefield
Army Will Rent Base Networks, But Never Battlefield

The Army will effectively rent back-office IT “as a service” from contractors, allowing it to focus on modernizing the front-line network.

Army Patches Its Network For Near Term

Army Patches Its Network For Near Term
Army Patches Its Network For Near Term

The long-term solution may take “big, leap-ahead technology,” said Maj. Gen. Pete Gallagher, head of the Cross Functional Team leading the network overhaul. But short-term solutions can be as simple as replacing bulky metal antennas with inflatable ones or loading new software on an off-the-shelf Android phone.

Army Needs 2 Years To Reboot Network, Seeks COTS Stopgaps

Army Needs 2 Years To Reboot Network, Seeks COTS Stopgaps
Army Needs 2 Years To Reboot Network, Seeks COTS Stopgaps

WASHINGTON: The Army needs at least two years to figure out a new, war-ready communications network to replace its current, fragile systems, the acting secretary said this week. There’s no a quick fix: The service is effectively starting over on what it’s long described as its No. 1 priority for modernization. A recently created task…

Army Plans To Halt WIN-T Buy; Shuffle Network $$

Army Plans To Halt WIN-T Buy; Shuffle Network $$
Army Plans To Halt WIN-T Buy; Shuffle Network $$

WASHINGTON: After almost a decade of reporting on the Army’s crucial networks, I’d thought they’d started to get things right. Boy, was I wrong. At a hearing this afternoon of the House Armed Services air and land subcommittee, the Army left lawmakers shaking their heads when they announced they plan to shut down the controversial…

Army Must Sell Network Strategy To Congress: Speer

Army Must Sell Network Strategy To Congress: Speer
Army Must Sell Network Strategy To Congress: Speer

ARLINGTON: The Army’s no-holds-barred study of its network shortfalls should produce a comprehensive strategy to solve them — a strategy that can withstand the scrutiny of a skeptical Congress. That’s the goal Acting Army Secretary Robert Speer laid out for me and a fellow reporter after an Association of the US Army event this week.…

Army Chief Milley Turns To Industry For Network Overhaul

Army Chief Milley Turns To Industry For Network Overhaul
Army Chief Milley Turns To Industry For Network Overhaul

ARLINGTON: Want to sell information technology to the US Army? Then you need to write this down: Paul.A.Ostrowski.mil@mail.mil. That’s the email of the general seeking industry’s input — historically something of a struggle for the service — as the Army reviews and overhauls its networks. The Army’s long-term goal: a single unified network connecting everything from the…

Army Reviews ALL Networks — Way Beyond WIN-T: Milley & Speer

Army Reviews ALL Networks — Way Beyond WIN-T: Milley & Speer
Army Reviews ALL Networks — Way Beyond WIN-T: Milley & Speer

CAPITOL HILL: The Army is conducting a wide-ranging review of “a whole series of vulnerabilities” in its communications systems that extends far beyond the troubled WIN-T program, the Chief of Staff and acting secretary told reporters today. The review will make recommendations on streamlining IT acquisition in general, not just on specific technologies, Gen. Mark…

Shyu Sings The Army Electric: 2015 Budget Sacrifices Weapons For Electronics

Shyu Sings The Army Electric: 2015 Budget Sacrifices Weapons For Electronics
Shyu Sings The Army Electric: 2015 Budget Sacrifices Weapons For Electronics

UPDATED 2:00 pm Tuesday with detailed 2015 budget figures WASHINGTON: The 2015 budget effectively kills the Army’s top priority weapons program, the 60-plus-ton Ground Combat Vehicle — as we’ve been predicting since November — but GCV did not die in vain, the Army’s acquisition chief insists. “We sacrificed the GCV” to save programs upgrading electronics…

Army Radios Get Low Marks From DOTE

Army Radios Get Low Marks From DOTE
Army Radios Get Low Marks From DOTE

From handheld radios to high-tech headquarters, the Army’s top priority is what it calls the network. That’s not one project but a whole array of programs, each complex on its own. They all are supposed to interconnect so it’s no surprise that the Pentagon’s top tester has found plenty of problems. What is surprising in…

Wi-Fi Goes To War: 10th Mountain Cuts Electronic Umbilical As Commanders Leave TOC

RANGE 24, FORT DRUM, NEW YORK: “That’s awesome,” said Maj. Edward Sedlock, watching another soldier call up data on his militarized Android smartphone. It was such small, unguarded moments — neither officer had noticed a reporter standing nearby — which suggest that, after more than a decade in development, the Army’s struggle to bring wireless…

You Gonna Buy That Or What? Industry, Army Fight To Fix NIE

FORT LAUDERDALE: It’s unnerving when you learn your program’s fate from the small print in a presenter’s PowerPoint slides. But that’s how difficult government-industry communications can get in the Army’s ambitious attempt to inject innovative technology into its cumbersome procurement process, the twice-yearly Network Integration Evaluations. “A question we’ve been asked many times over: ‘Have…

Senate Approps Keeps Global Hawks Flying; Army WIN-T Loses

WASHINGTON: The defense spending bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee today keeps Block 30 Global Hawk drones flying, instead of letting them be warehoused as the Air Force had planned, a congressional source confirmed to Breaking Defense. That is arguably the final flourish on Congress’s utter rejection of the Air Force’s proposed cuts in…

Army Strips Down Expectations — And Battle Network — For Faster Fielding

PENTAGON: The Army showed off an impressive array of battlefield wi-fi gadgetry today in the Pentagon courtyard, exhibiting new-found realism about what gadgets it might not need. Consider the hardware to connect the individual foot soldier to the brigade-wide command network, which has been stripped down from a 14-pound prototype to a militarized smartphone plugged…

Army Seeks New Network Tech For New Brigades’ Post-Afghanistan Missions

A mobile Army command-and-control system called “WIN-T Increment 2” set up for testing at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Army Seeks New Network Tech For New Brigades’ Post-Afghanistan Missions The U.S. Army is shrinking, but its appetite for new network technology is only going to grow. Though the military has invested massively in digital infrastructure over its…