By Ann Roosevelt
Through mid-September in the west Texas desert, the Army Test & Evaluation Command’s Operational Test Command has begun examining the developmental status of equipment for Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCT) in a limited user test (LUT) ahead of a planned production decision at the end of the year.
“They will tell us, if our opinion, which will be through empirical data in most cases, with subject matter experts and some technical system instrumentation they put on the systems…all of that goes into their calculation of operational effectiveness,” Col. Patrick (Lee) Fetterman, Army Training and Doctrine Command Capability Manager, told Defense Daily in a recent Interview.
The equipment in test is being developed to improve soldier effectiveness by letting them understand their environment more clearly and improve the sensor-to-shooter chain at the pointed end of the spear: company, platoon and battalion level. At the same time it will provide higher-level commanders with more understanding of what’s going on as it happens.
With a green light for limited production, the equipment would be fielded as a set to IBCTs starting in 2011 and to all brigades by 2025.
The tests involve the Honeywell [HON] Class 1 unmanned aerial vehicle; Textron‘s [TXT]’s Tactical- and Urban-unattended ground sensors (T-UGS and U-UGS), iRobot‘s [IRBT] small unmanned ground vehicle (SUGV), the early network integration kit, and the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System (NLOS LS) developed by the Raytheon [RTN] and Lockheed Martin [LMT] joint venture, Netfires LLC.
Jerry Tyree, FFID deputy director for Materiel and AETF integration director, said operational testers are looking at three things: “measures of effectiveness, suitability and survivability.”
From a technical and operational perspective testers are looking at how systems perform, did they help the soldiers perform a particular mission, “even loss-exchange ratio kinds of things that they’d be looking at,” he said. Suitability includes the durability of the systems and logistics, and survivability in the environment of the west Texas desert, and in the operational environment, how it’s handled, how it’s transported and used when soldiers are driving and running, he said.
“They have measures of performance and measures of effectiveness that drive that, getting data for LUT exit criteria,” Tyree said. “The criteria were developed by the community to help inform the decision about going to a limited rate initial production of these systems, so we can go through another iteration of this next year based on incorporating these lessons learned.”
For several years, the Army has been testing and evaluating the equipment under the aegis of the Training and Doctrine Command’s Future Force Integration Directorate (FFID) and the Army Evaluation Task Force (AETF).
“What we do with these tests leading up to the Limited User Test is to develop organizational, training and leader development insights for us,” Fetterman said.
For example, perhaps another soldier is needed in the formation if a Class 1 UAV is added. The service doesn’t know until it does the tests.
A series of tests culminated in the Force Development Test and evaluation (FDT&E) test completed last month.
“When it goes to the Limited User Test, they’re looking to see if it performs as required in the requirements document and therefore it’s an external evaluation and that is different from us looking at ourselves,” he said.
Col. Randall Lane, commander 5th BCT 1st Armored Div. (AETF), said the LUT features scenarios that cover the full spectrum: offensive, defensive and stability operations. They will be similar to those done under the FDT&E.
“The LUT builds on FDT&E scenarios as soldiers get better and better with the equipment to challenge them and put the capabilities through the best test we can,” he said.
The same AETF soldiers will be conducting the LUT, though a smaller number of them will be involved. There will be a scout platoon and a weapons company configured with infantry and soldiers mounted in Humvees.
“It’s down to one company to focus the effort, he said.
The soldiers have been through a series of training events, to include the FDT&E so they are certified and trained on these new systems in addition to current force systems, so they can provide a valid test.
“When they’re tested, if the thing fails, it’s not because the soldier didn’t know how to use it,” Fetterman said.