ARMY AL&T
“It worked; it really did,” said the retired Army colonel. “Like everything else, it was something that almost all of the units did on the fly.”
Almost 50 years later, at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), NM, engineers conducted multiple launches of the Shadow unmanned aircraft system with a Rifleman Radio attached to each of its wingtips. During this Brigade Combat Team (BCT) Integration Exercise from July 12 to 16, 2010, Soldiers could pass information to the radios on the Shadow. That information was relayed to a Soldier in a separate company posi- tioned beyond line-of-sight. In addition to the Shadow, AH-64D Apache and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters maneu- vered across the WSMR skies, serving as aerial communications nodes.
“We took a hard look at how we could get physics to work for us by getting an aerial layer in place,” said LTC James McNulty, an exercise trail boss.
The exercise brought together engineers from the Army acquisition community, Soldiers from the Army Evaluation Task Force (AETF), and Army senior leaders, who experienced firsthand the Army’s future tactical network from their van- tage points at WSMR and Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), MD.
During raids as an infantry company commander in Iraq, MAJ Bill Venable experienced frequent 45-minute drives to receive detailed mission orders from battalion headquarters.
Through the unprecedented combi- nation of three separate waveforms, Soldiers at WSMR received similar information instantaneously with the click of a button.
A Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle is launched from Condron Field, WSMR, NM. The Shadow is equipped with various camera systems to provide tactical intelligence and a set of radios to help extend the wireless network’s range in rough terrain. (U.S. Army photo.)
“Within a minute, we were already talking about the mission,” said Venable, Assistant Project Manager Infantry BCT, Program Executive Office (PEO) Integration.
Laying the Groundwork The exercise was designed to help the Army continue to formulate its tac- tical network strategy by seeking to prove the concept of an integrated tactical network available to Soldiers at all echelons of the BCT. Three separate waveforms were integrated to provide connectivity from the lowest to highest echelons.
Lessons learned during the exercise will yield decisions in the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2 program, said Pat DeGroodt, its Deputy Product Manager.
“The exercise was very powerful,” he said. “I think it has a lot of poten- tial to change the warfighter’s tactics and techniques.”
We took a hard look at how we could get physics to work for us by getting an aerial layer in place.
7 OCTOBER –DECEMBER 2010
The AETF maneuvered through WSMR along improvised explosive device (IED) routes, performed air assault missions, conducted raids of explosive-making facilities, and used PEO Integration’s Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle robot to identify and remove simulated IEDs from a cave. The mountainous terrain of White Sands closely mirrors that of Afghanistan, where Soldiers perform similar missions.
Many radios used in this exercise, such as the Rifleman Radio, were surrogates for radios that will be used in the final, deployable waveform solution starting in 2017. In future months, the Army will examine each of the capabilities demonstrated and determine which will be included in the 2017 network.
The exercise was a “team sport,” involv- ing PEO Integration; PEO Command, Control, and Communications Tactical (C3T); PEO Aviation; PEO Soldier; Joint PEO Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS); PEO Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors; U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command; U.S. Army Operational Test Command; U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC); AETF, head- quartered at Fort Bliss, TX; the Central
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