By Ann Roosevelt
The Coalition Combat Identification Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (CCI ACTD) (Bold Quest Plus) is assessing technology to make warfighters safer on the battlefield and to aid service leaders and allies as they make future investments, according to a defense official.
“Typically we’ve seen 90-120 days for coalition analysts (to assess data on technologies)…to reach conclusions they can turn over to decision makers,” John Miller, U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) operations manager, said in a recent teleconference.
The ACTD works with the advanced technologies early enough “to allow us and allies to invest in material that not only works but works together,” he said.
For example, Battlefield Target ID (BTID), as developed by Raytheon [RTN], is one technology moving forward, Miller said. BTID is a secure millimeter wave combat ID system for real time positive ID and blue force tracking applications. Minimizing false targeting errors, BTID can reduce friendly fire incidents. The system conforms to NATO standards for allied interoperability.
The BTID assessment wrapped up in 2006, Miller said. It is already on an acquisition path collaboratively worked by the Army and Marines.
Another system moving forward is the Radio Based Combat ID (RBCI), which has been assessed a couple of times, Miller said. It is an upgrade to ITT‘s [ITT] existing Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS). RBCI interrogates and receives responses from military radios. Thus, a pilot about to strike a target can broadcast to an area to see if friendly forces are around, and, if so, where. The Army has contracted with ITT to move forward on RBCI.
While many advanced technologies are evaluated, not all are ready to move on through service acquisition programs.
Last September, a Bold Quest operational demonstration was held in Nevada and California. Bold Quest Plus, which runs July 11-25, builds on that by doing more system testing and refining of TTPs, “really isolating and zeroing in on items that show great promise coming out of Bold Quest,” Miller said.
Bold Quest Plus is hosted by JFCOM and the Eglin, AFB-based 46th Test Wing, and focuses on system testing and refining tactics, techniques and procedures using air-to-ground combat identification technologies to improve U.S. and coalition combat effectiveness and reduce the possibility of firing on friendly forces.
More than 15 aircraft, 600 military and civilian personnel from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Special Operations Command, are taking part in the event.
The end result is to come up with combat ID systems that satisfy requirements and that can achieve NATO standards that allow allied interoperability.
The work is not at the strategic level but focused “at the shooter level guys who pull triggers and drop bombs,” Miller said. The point is to “make shooters faster at sorting out what’s in front of them, quicker to pull the trigger on the right target.” Entwined with that is the ability to minimize the possibility of firing on one’s own or friendly forces.
The ACTD began in 2001 with operational demonstrations in the United States in 2003 and 2004. In September 2005, JFCOM conducted Exercise Urgent Quest, a demonstration of cooperative ground combat identification technologies in the United Kingdom. Analysis of the 2005 demonstration resulted in investment recommendations to the Army-Marine Corps Board and the Joint Requirements Oversight Council as well as an Army-Marine-U.K. ground forces agreement to pursue selective ground combat identification technologies.
Over the past few years, 10 nations have actively participated in the work. Similar events are planned for the latter half of 2009, with Bold Quest likely to become a recurring event every 18-24 months or so, Miller said.
For Canadian Forces Lt. Cmdr. Randy Mifflin, representing the Chief of Force Development, the goal is to improve combat effectiveness and reduce the risk of collateral damage. This is of particular interest due to the nature of the areas where Canadian Forces are deployed today.