Land Warrior plans evolve
Lieutenant Colonel Brian Cummings, Product Manager Land Warrior discusses how the programme is taking
its experience from deployment in Iraq and feeding that into next and future generations of fielded systems
Land Warrior is at a turning point after the hiatus
caused by the programme’s cancellation in 2006 and
parallel decision to field a Land Warrior equipped
battalion in Iraq, where it continues to operate
successfully. The Army’s leadership is now seeking
over $100m to fund a Land Warrior equipped Brigade
Combat Team (BCT) in 2009 and is about to embark
on the Future Combat Systems (FCS) aligned Ground
Soldier System (GSS) programme later this year, with
testing for GSS being initially supported by sets from
the Manchu battalion as it returns from theatre.
MODERNISATION OVERVIEW

“Our main focus is focusing on cutting weight and real estate on the soldier’s body.” © DoD
The 4/9 Manchu Infantry battalion, part of the 4th Stryker
BCT, has been in Iraq for over a year. They will shortly be
returning home with their Land Warrior systems, the
design for which will be improved for the next generation
of users explained Lt. Col. Brian Cummings, Product
Manager Land Warrior at Program Executive Office (PEO)
Soldier. “They have been able to give us great insight and
the systems have given enormous benefit to the soldier
in battle. The Army has approved an Operational Needs
Statement (ONS) to field a brigade and it is still looking to
resource that in the near future to build up a next
generation of equipment for a complete BCT. Land
Warrior is already a winner with the soldiers, so the
capability is already good enough for what they need.
However, everyone wants the next great human factors
design and that will be the next big change we will make
to the system.”
The overall capability will essentially be the same
between the current and the new Land Warrior equipment
sets. Lt. Col Cummings commented, “You will still have the
same tactical awareness capability. Essentially, other than
software updates the biggest change that will take place is
in human factors engineering; cutting down the number of
boxes and the weight of the system from 10lbs (4.5Kg) to
about 7.2lb (3.2Kg).”
“Our main focus is focusing on cutting weight and
real estate of the soldier body,” Lt. Col. Cummings
explained. For the last two years, the PEO Soldier
engineering team has been undertaking reviews with the
Manchu’s leadership and the soldiers in the unit in four –
six month cycles. This has already prompted a series of
new software updates and integration with other
platforms, all the way from testing at Fort Lewis in 2006
and throughout the battalion’s deployment. Lt. Col.
Cummings said, “We have reduced weight and given back
real estate, in part by getting rid of some of the capability
that hasn’t been used as much as others.”
Much of this reduction was in eliminating capability
that wasn’t being used. Lt. Col Cummings explained that
soldiers hated additional cabling and weight on their
weapon if they didn’t use it, citing the Weapon Sub-System
as an example.
The need to equip a brigade rather than a battalion
has prompted other changes in the system, as have the
specifics of the Iraq mission sets, such as personnel from
field artillery units undertaking ‘infantry’ patrols. This has
already prompted the roll out of Land Warrior ensembles to
several non-infantry units working with the Manchus.
“One of the best success stories that we have in Iraq
is outfitting the 2/1 Cavalry Troop, who have done really
well with the system,” explained Lt. Col. Cummings. Other
recipients include the brigade personal security
attachment and in February this was extended to the 1-38
Infantry Time Sensitive Target team, tasked with air
assault missions. Ultimately however, the roll out had to
be limited, “We had to turn off getting any more systems
out because we had only built so many to bring over
there, to sustain it and that is where it had to stop, but
demand continues to grow.”
Numbers of Land Warrior in service will self evidently
rise in absolute and proportionate terms from the current
200 plus with the Manchus, when the BCT is equipped. “We
plan to give the system not only to infantry battalions across
the basis of issue but throughout the brigade to include the
anti-armour, engineers, field artillery and the cavalry –
anybody who could potentially in be the close fight with the
enemy. Individual soldier’s role within that unit will determine
what portions of the equipment they actually get.”
Lt. Col. Cummings said, “If you ask the Infantry
School what the perfect basis of issue is, across the
brigade spectrum for everyone who will be in the close
fight, you are up around the 900-980 range for the next
generation of Land Warrior.”

“We plan to give the system not only to infantry battalions across the basis of issue but
throughout
the brigade to include the anti-armour,
engineers, field artillery and the cavalry –
anybody who
could potentially in be the close fight with the enemy.” © DoD
Other systems will be more deeply integrated into
Land Warrior brigade, notably the Boomerang countersniper
detection system already deployed with Land
Warrior on a limited basis in Iraq from late last year. Lt.
Col. Cummings commented, “The lesson learned from that
is that we now need to move the sensor down to the
individual soldier so that he can pick up the direction and
distance of the sniper fire and the distance from his
display.” Other improvements to ISR will also be added,
“We want to be able to capture images from UAVs. All the
things we either weren’t able to do or could do but in a
limited capacity in Iraq, we plan to do on a larger scale
when we get back to Fort Lewis.”
GROUND SOLDIER SYSTEM
The GSS is the Army’s system of the future scheduled to
begin development work shortly. Lt. Col. Cummings said,
“We are looking to begin GSS this year and we are in the
final throes of the planning with the Army Staff about how
we go about doing that but everything looks pretty good
so far.”
The two main features of GSS will be increased
competition to supply modules, subsystems and equipment
via the introduction of open interfaces and secondly, to
ensure that the soldier becomes the centerpiece of FCS.
Addressing the latter, Lt. Col. Cummings said, “We are
trying to take different portions from the FCS life cycle and
we align ourselves to them, so that both programmes go
through the same things at the same time.”
Current equipment will provide immediate help in
reaching these goals according to Lt. Col. Cummings, “We
plan to reuse some of the current systems from the
current Manchu configuration which has a lot of the same
capabilities as GSS and learn how to apply it to how the
FCS and their suite of systems will fight at the Army
Experimental Task Force at Fort Bliss, Texas. There is no
sense in waiting for the first version of GSS to get down
there to begin that process.”
The Army, explained Lt. Col. Cumming is currently
mulling a broader decision on what do with the Manchu
configuration when it returns home. Fort Bliss won’t be the
only recipient. “We are going to put some others in another
capacity like with the Army Expeditionary Warrior
Experiment (formerly Air Assault Expeditionary Force),
going from Fort Monmouth down to Fort Benning, Georgia,
to focus a lot on light forces’ Tactics Techniques and
Procedures. We will also look at other potential reuses
which the Army still has to weigh off on and give me
direction on what they want to do.”
INTERNATIONAL LINKAGE
Start up of formal soldier modernization work on GSS
provides an opportunity to renew international connections
that have lapsed somewhat as a consequence of the
project being terminated in 2006. Links with international
such as NATO LCG/1 have continued throughout the
interregnum, as have bilateral meetings as Lt. Col.
Cummings recounts, “At the last AUSA, for example, we
made a lessons learned presentation to Italy’s Soldato
Futuro programme. General Brown [Program Executive
Officer Soldier] and myself will both be at Eurosatory and I
plan to brief a couple of vignettes on how Land Warrior
fought in Iraq and why and how it is changing the
battlefield in Iraq. We haven’t got any formal international
agreements or relationships with the programme right now,
but that’s because the formal programme of record which
will be GSS is only standing up now.” ■
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