The U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force—which was created to meet
soldiers’ urgent technology needs—still is an experiment that keeps
growing, according to service officials.
Led by Col. Bruce Jette, the REF has expanded from 14 to 40 employees, most
of whom are soldiers, according to Paul Stoskus, REF deputy director.
“Approximately half of those are forward, most of them in Iraq,”
he said at the National Defense Industrial Association international armaments
symposium. The REF has dispatched one officer and two non-commissioned officers
to every division that is in Iraq, in addition to a contingent in Afghanistan.
“We have been getting some additional missions,” said Stoskus.
Although the chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, has pushed
to make the REF a permanent organization, a lot of politics is involved in the
process, said Stoskus. “For the moment, I still do not have a charter
and table of organization,” he added.
The REF has been ordered to assess and insert technologies for both the current
force and the future force. Among the most urgent tasks is to support the Army
improvised explosive devices (IED) task force, said Stoskus.
The top priority for the task force is to train soldiers on how to detect or
avoid IEDs, said Stoskus. “In 60 percent of the problems with IEDs, the
casualties can be dealt with most effectively by TTP-related [tactics, techniques
and procedures] efforts, and not technology,” he said. “Technology
is only about 30 percent.”
To help with the training, REF has sent to the field so-called explosive hazards
awareness training kits, said Stoskus.
One of the anti-IED solutions the REF proposed is a jammer called the S-system,
which would be employed to neutralize the signals that trigger explosions. The
system soon will go into full-rate production, Stoskus added.
To overcome another deadly problem in Iraq—snipers—the REF sent
over the Pilar acoustic sensor system, which detects incoming bullets. Pilar
has been developed by the French government. Another technology, called Boomerang,
came from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is a small low-cost
acoustic detector that was installed on some 1st Cavalry Division vehicles.
“I keep getting mixed feedback on Boomerang; let’s just say that
it has been alleged to have burnt some vehicles,” he said.
To help protect soldiers from mortar attacks, the REF is evaluating unattended
acoustic sensors, as well as a lightweight counter-mortar radar. The latter
system, however, is “much more expensive and its production lead-time
takes much longer,” said Stoskus.
Other force-protection solutions that the REF has deployed include walk-through
detectors and sensors to check vehicle gas tanks. “Sometimes commercial
off the shelf solutions can not only be life savers, but also save a lot of
money,” he said.
In Iraq, the REF also is involved in a national identification card effort,
to make sure that every citizen gets finger-printed, Stoskus said. “That
will help to identify some folks, because according to reports, we have had
some high-value targets that we released.”