By Geoff Fein
Reducing the gear, including communications equipment, an individual Marine has to carry is a significant challenge due to the complexity of bridging advanced technologies into form factors conducive to the harsh battlefield environments Marines operate in, according to a Marine Corps official.
As a result of lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps has embarked on reducing the size and weight of the individual ground communication equipment and expanding dramatically the density of such systems, Brig. Gen. George Allen, director command, control, communications, computers/Chief Information Officer of the Marine Corps, told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
“In the course of the last five years, the Marine Corps has introduced communication devices down to almost every Marine in those areas of operations. Additionally, Tables of Equipment (T/E) have been adjusted to reflect the operational necessity of reduced form-factor radio assets,” he said. “Most of this equipment recently procured is multi- functional and significantly lighter in weight and size, which has dramatically improved battlefield efficiency.”
Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway has stressed the need for the Marine Corps to grow lighter. But lightening the load while requiring hardened systems presents a challenge all of its own. Still the Corps has been able to develop systems to tackle both weight and toughness.
Considerable attention has been given to this, Allen said.
“One of the most significant technologies is the Expeditionary Command and Control Systems (ECCS), which allows for rapid setup and first-in capability of tactical network services to MAGTF forces,” he added. “We have fielded a limited number of these kits to our MEUs under a Limited User Evaluation (LUE) with great success. Additionally many of these type systems are used for small training teams in both OIF/OEF. Many of these systems have held up well considering the operating environments they are in.”
Those operating environments run the gamut of high temperature, high altitude and mountains, Allen added.
“I think the lessons we learned in Iraq in small unit COIN (counterinsurgency) operations has held pretty good for Afghanistan. It is a harsher, more elevated environment. Whenever you introduce mountains and larger line of sight issues you end up with different issues like more use of satellite communications than you would otherwise,” Allen said.
And Allen pointed out that Iraq was not all about operating in an urban environment. “It is country as well.”
There is a wide expanse of desert with long-range communications requirements, Allen said. Satellite and high frequency radio communications that was used extensively in Iraq can be ported over to Afghanistan. “It’s a little different, but we learn those lessons time and time again,” he added.
Exercises like Mojave Viper at Twentynine Palms, Calif., make sure Marines understand how to operate in those harsh environments, Allen noted.
“Twentynine Palms has a lot of iron ore content, too. That stops a lot of your line of sight. You can see someone but not talk to them–it makes it even more challenging,” he added.
The harsh environment also makes it tough to look for commercial-off-the-shelf solutions for communications equipment, Allen added.
“The radios go through a brutal regime with Marines going out on patrol. That requirement is pretty obvious. The environmental factors–heat, dust, dirt–and the physical wear and tear that you see requires something that is really hardened,” Allen said. “But when you get into a command post…we use normal laptops that you would buy in the store and they work well quite frankly.”
The Marine Corps does, however, buy hardened laptops for special forces, Allen noted.
“From a tactical radio perspective, the Army is doing work in this area that we are not doing at this point. We are following that very closely to see what they come up with,” he said. “[The Army is working with] 3G and 4G type technologies that perhaps hold some future, but they are not there yet from what we understand. But that initial work is being done.”
But the new software programmable radios Marines are using bring a lot of benefits, including lighter weight and increased capability, Allen said.
“The fact they are software programmable radios means I can use them in different bands and different frequency sets. It allows much greater flexibility,” he said.
“So a Marine with a hand-held has a satellite radio and SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) radio and has a air-to-ground radio, which is far better than having three different 60-pound radios with all the crypto because the crypto is embedded right now,” Allen said. “The new radios now are much like computers, they are all modular, you [can] pull a module out and replace the module.”
One effort underway is looking at making Marines authorized warranty maintainers, he added.
That would mean Marines in theater would no longer have to send broken radios back to the states, Allen said.
“We actually are working that out now, to [becoming warranty] maintainers for the company. We are working with industry on that right now. That’s a positive from my perspective,” he said.
“So now, to replace a module in a radio, a Marine in the field can replace that part and send it back to the manufacturer. It all makes for a much higher maintenance availability than we have seen in the older type of sets where we had to pull the diodes out or pull a technical piece…the mother board,” Allen said.