FT BLISS, Texas–Army officials gathering at this week’s tactical network exercise here will evaluate the two possible options for the service’s future vehicle-mounted mission command system, with the goal of informing critical design choices ahead of a fiscal year 2019 production decision.
Soldiers participating at the Network Integration Evaluation will run through live and virtual operations for two options being considered for the Mounted Computing Environment (MCE) capability: the government-developed Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) and the Mounted Mission Command (MMC) solution that utilizes Systematic’s Frontline v2.0 software.
“What we’re here to do is help the system grow in the right direction. It’s got a lot of functionality that’s not all the way there yet. And we’re here to provide feedback to the developers, so that as it grows we help it grow in the right direction,” Capt. Mitchell Myers, 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, told reporters.
Myers said the 5/73 CAV will split their NIE experience between the MMC and the ATAK to compare the two solutions’ ability to provide improved battlefield situational awareness on a more intuitive system.
Lt. Col. Troy Crosby, project manager for mission command, told Defense Daily the MCE capability will operate on the Army’s Mounted Family of Computer Systems Hardware and the selected software will eventually replace the Joint Battle Command-Platform blue force tracker software.
“We want to do a software update to the system. We don’t want to lose the investment the Army’s made as we continue to rapidly field JBC-P across the force. So we make sure we use the mounted family of computer systems, same installation kit, same blue force tracker, and so we’re really focused on bringing in an updated software framework like we’ve done in command post to bring forward,” Crosby said.
Crosby said the focus of this customer test at NIE is about gathering the necessary data so Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher and Maj. Gen. David Bassett, leaders of the Army’s tactical network modernization, can make design decisions for the future of MMC and ATAK.
“What you’re looking at between the two is what are the different ways that we can design it. Like the [ATAK] is obviously the Android-based design. The Frontline is more of the Linux-based system. That way we lay out for Gen. Bassett and Gen. Gallagher, and say this is what we consider the objective design in the mounted space using ATAK or Frontline, then lay out the pluses and minuses between the designs,” Crosby told Defense Daily.
Officials are expected to provide a final assessment on MMC and ATAK to Bassett and Gallagher by the third quarter of fiscal year 2019, according to Crosby.
“In the end, it’s really about which objective design brings the greatest agility, flexibility and potential for innovation for the mounted,” Crosby said.
Myers told reporters ATAK is helping his unit coordinate planning more effectively, especially with the chat function, while noting that the system’s large information flow sometimes causes him to lose situational awareness of his own vehicle.
“I gain situational awareness of the brigade and what’s going on in our battlespace, but I lose the situational awareness immediately around my vehicle,”Myers said.
Crosby told Defense Daily that two functions not included in this exercise–voice control and graphic control measure dissemination–will be included in the MCE endstate.
Capt. Brian Martinez, from the 5/73 CAV, told reporters that soldiers have picked up the MMC with relatively minimal training and the decluttered graphics and blue force tracking functions.
“I’ve been using this system for the past three months since it’s been fielded to my unit, and there’s two things that I really like about it. One, is compared to the system that we currently have right now, JBC-P, is its simplicity. That system has a lot of buttons and things going on with it. This system has one bar on the right side with very few buttons, but a lot of functions within those buttons. It took me about an hour to get a handle of all the functions,” Martinez said. “Secondly, the other thing I really like about it is its overlay functions. If you’re entering a new battlespace, you can turn off the old graphics and only view what’s important to you now.”
Martinez noted that MMC’s chat function does begin to freeze when it’s used for an extended period of time or when too many people are trying to send messages at the same time.
“It’s something that they’ll definitely need to improve if they move forward this system. But that’s the biggest issue we see right now,” Martinez said.