“So what this does is allow us now to move and be more mobile on the battlefield and get out of the way [of] adversaries capabilities to take out our command post," Brig. Gen. Jeth Rey said. "So this is really going to enhance what we’re doing, making this lighter, mobile, less detected.”
"It's very, very tempting to continue to spend money on technologies that are 10 years old because we've gotten comfortable with them," Army CIO Raj Iyer said. "That's not what's going to help us fight and win...for the Army of 2030."
The challenge for Western democratic institutions is not a lack of capability — it is a structural one.
"...[W]hen you have a living and breathing threat, you need to think about the things such as a contested and congested environment,” Maj. Gen. Rob Collins, the service’s program executive officer for command, control, communications-tactical (PEO C3T) said.
All the shelters in the new system come pre-wired for workstations, which helps eliminate much of the setup time. Anyone who has ever been to a command post for the last 15 years knows how much electrical cabling runs around the tents. And, the use of pop-up shelters instead of tents makes quite a difference as well.
More quickly, efficiently, and effectively getting soldiers the working tech they need is a big goal of the capability sets.
Some $2.7 billion goes to network upgrades, more than any other Army priority area, according to acting acquisition chief Doug Bush.
From emerging data networks to missile tracking and cyber resilience, Breaking Defense’s latest eBook brings together essential reporting on the evolving role of satellites in national security.
The upcoming upgrade to the Army’s tactical network, Capability Set ’23, will exploit the boom in commercial Low- and Medium-Earth Orbit satellites to boost communications for fast-moving Stryker units.
The Pentagon’s top tester, DOT&E, had urged the Army to take more time. But Army leaders said today they’ve got plenty of field tests scheduled with real soldiers.
How do you get targeting data from satellite to howitzer in less than 20 seconds, on a tactical network that was never designed to do that? You improvise, Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher told me.
The Army pushed hard to field-test new tech with real soldiers. Then came the coronavirus. Now the service will have to rely much more on lab testing.
Since World War II, every airdrop has been a well-armed leap of faith into the unknown. A new tactical wireless network could change that.
Gone are the days of a stately, deliberate, laborious acquisition process in which the Army would plan out the future in detail before going to industry. "We’d almost always guess wrong," said Maj. Gen. David Bassett. “Eventually we’d deliver yesterday’s technology tomorrow.”