THE OTHER SNOWBALL EFFECT
T
he “snowball
effect” is
some-
thing that military programs generally try to avoid; snow- balls usually end up costing the
government a great deal of money as they get bigger and bigger. But sometimes the effect can work in reverse.
When members of the Product Manager Meteorological and Target Identification Capabilities (PdM MaTIC) office reached out to their partners
associated with
the Profiler system, the collaboration resulted in the creation of a snowball that went right.
Te Profiler system provides the field artillery with modernized and enhanced data collection and automated analysis of current weather conditions, as well as prediction of conditions likely to occur in the near future along the trajectory and at a point or area where the weapon munitions are
expected to engage a target. Te
current configuration of Profiler consists of a laptop and requires a dedicated Soldier only on a part-time basis.
“Profiler models the atmosphere that the artillery round will pass through and tailors a meteorological [MET] message to the trajectory,” explained Gordon Wehri, deputy director, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Command Project Office – Sensors. “Tat MET message is digitally transmitted to a firing unit and is ingested into the firing solution, making corrections to the path of the round. Tis improvement/correction to the trajectory allows the artillery to engage the target with fewer rounds and with greater accuracy, which equates to greater lethality.”
Tat’s a major change from Profiler’s original configuration. Te system began fielding in 2008, replacing the AN/ TMQ-41 Meteorological Measuring Set
146 Army AL&T Magazine APO-TBD VM
Profiler VM AFATDS VM
V requires no vehicle and dedicated crew, and no external sensors, and uses TOC GBS
ACCELERATED EVOLUTION
The Profiler system has evolved, essentially skipping Block II, to allow for the removal of three ve- hicles, six Soldiers and a weather balloon. The next step, expected by 2015, is a program called Profiler Virtual Module that in many cases will remove the need for the standard Block III laptop. (SOURCE: PdM MaTIC)
Block I Original Configuration
Profiler and Crew SYSTEM CAPABILITY
Balloon Removal with MTOE completion removes 2 vehicles and 4 crew Block I (MMS-P)
HMMWV with Trailer and Crew
APO-108 Profiler and Crew Block III (CMD-P) Current Configuration
Block I requires vehicle and 2 crew, and TvSAT replaced with GBS
APO-124 TOC GBS
Block III CMD-P requires no vehicle and dedicated crew, and no external sensors, and uses TOC GBS
HMMWV with Trailer and Crew
SUPPORT VEHICLES
weather system, which relied completely on meteorological data collected from balloon sensors. At that time, the Profiler system consisted of three vehicles and a weather balloon, and required six Soldiers to operate, maintain and secure the system.
SKIPPING A BLOCK What started out as a look at the overall benefits of the weather balloon sensor
October–December 2013
ended up quite differently. Te weather balloon became obsolete once similar weather information became available via a satellite feed. Profiler began using Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System data
fed by Naval
Sea Systems Command via the Global Broadcast System satellite. Recently, Profiler migrated to Global Forecast System data provided by the Air Force Weather Agency.
SOFTWARE INTENSIVE
HARDWARE INTENSIVE
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