The Army’s program executive officer for soldier systems—known
as PEO Soldier—today manages 326 projects.
Each program has an ORD (operational requirements document), each of which
involves “tens or hundreds of contracts if you add them all together,”
said Col. James Moran, PEO Soldier, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va.
“We inherited all the programs from the other PEOs in the Army,”
said Moran at a National Defense Industrial Association’s Armaments Division
conference. Among the most complex programs under Moran’s oversight are
the Land Warrior, Air Warrior and Mountain Warrior. The next-generation Objective
Force Warrior will transition to PEO Soldier in 2006, under the name Land Warrior
Advanced Capability.
PEO Soldier will have to synchronize multiple technologies that will make up
the OFW. “We have weapons and ammo. We have command and control, laser
designators and illuminators, night vision devices for the weapon sights,”
said Moran. PEO Soldier will work with other Army program offices for the integration
of robotic vehicles into OFW.
Programs such as the Future Combat System and the Stryker only have one ORD,
said Moran. “They have one funding line, and we have 41 funding lines.”
The Army is currently in the process of fielding its Air Warrior program, which
equips aviators with advanced equipment. “PEO Soldier is responsible for
everything that goes on that aviator, including night-vision devices and body
armor, inflatable rafts, communications systems and wireless communications
in and around the helicopter,” said Moran. “We also put cockpit
airbags in the helicopter. We also do the cooling systems for the aviators.”
The Land Warrior program, after years of development problems and delays, recently
was turned over to General Dynamics, which received a contract to integrate
the technologies for Land Warrior Stryker Interoperable. “This is the
latest name for this program, it has gone through five name changes in the last
10 years,” said Moran. “Hopefully, we will field this thing.”
“The individual soldier is really our most deployed weapon system,”
he told the conference.
Moran’s office accelerated the fielding of a number of systems that the
Army needed for recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Among them is a lightweight laser designator range-finder, or LLDR. “Those
laser designators and illuminators allow a guy on the ground to talk to a B-52
to drop a JDAM from 30,000 feet,” said Moran.
PEO Soldier also sent a lightweight video reconnaissance system to Afghanistan.
The program manager for clothing and equipment is working on about 200 items—from
boots to parachutes and handcuffs for the military police, to the individual
body armor, which lately has received stellar reports from the soldiers. The
Interceptor body armor, said Moran, is “a success story that saved a lot
of Army lives.”
PEO Soldier also provided new ammunition and weapons, said Moran. Thermobaric
ammo, for example, went from an idea to actual shipping into combat zone in
three to four months, said Moran. “We have 11,000 of a low-velocity 40
mm round in Afghanistan,” he said. “We get great feedback on them.”
Another successful development is a crew-served weapon often known as the XM
307 or XM 312, depending on the kit.
“We have one weapon that does two things: it fires the 25 mm family of
ammo and the same weapon, with changing fire parts will fire a .50 cal,”
said Moran. “So, we are going to have a weapon that is going to replace
the M2 and the Mk 19.” The 25 mm version “shoots and handles like
a machine gun,” he added.
The XM 307 does not need any sandbags when it is fired. It can also fire out
of the snow without requiring any sandbags.
PEO Soldier is also fielding a new sniper rifle—a semi-automatic, .50
cal weapon, said Moran. “The recoil on these things are 100 foot pounds,
compared to a .50 cal with 1,000 foot pounds,” Moran said. “It fires
out of battery and that is how you get the recoil down.”
A new rifle, called the objective individual combat weapons (or XM-29), also
is in development, explained Moran. The XM-29 is technically a spiral development
that is made out of the XM-25, which is the 25 mm air bursting portion; the
XM-8, the kinetic energy portion, and the XM-320 the 40mm grenade launcher developed
by the Special Operations Command. “Put all those together and you have
the XM-29,” Moran explained. The XM-29 will fire 20 mm, said Moran. It
also will be able to fire 5.56 ammunition, according to Army documents.
The Army is going to have a prototype of the XM-25 by Christmas and another
one by spring, he said. Moran said he hopes to have a family of ammo for the
XM-25. “We made a decision that the XM 307 crew- served and the XM-25
individual weapons use the same caliber,” said Moran. The project will
cost $125 million.
The XM-307 also will receive new thermal weapon sight, which is called the
“one mil mini pixel,” which weighs one and a half pounds, said Moran.
Both the XM-8 and the XM-25 will be outfitted with the weapon sight.
The XM-8 is based on the Future Combat Rifle ORD. “There is also an ORD
in SOCOM, which we hope can be fielded with this weapon,” said Moran.
“It is a revolutionary design—we have a weapon that can fire 6.4,
7.62 and has interchangeable barrels. It has a magazine made out of hardened
plastic that is translucent.”
The XM-8 also has an accessory shotgun, which has been fielded to the 101st
Airborne Division, the 10th Mountain Division and the 82nd Airborne Division
paratroopers. “We have to see how we can improve them,” said Moran.
The shotgun has a C-magazine, but with design changes on it. Moran said that
the Army is going to have 280 of them ready for testing before Christmas.