The U.S. Army’s research and development arm is reorganizing to better
juggle immediate and far-term technology needs. On the short list are demands
to reduce the weight of a soldier’s combat load and to develop armor that
protects exposed arms and legs from enemy fire.
Requirements for new battlefield equipment to meet combat conditions in Iraq
and Afghanistan have created a considerable workload for the Army Research Development
and Engineering Command, led by Maj. Gen. John Doesburg.
“People have started asking us for more and more,” he told a National
Defense Industrial Association international armaments symposium. The command,
meanwhile, is struggling to balance immediate war needs against the Army’s
long-range plan to field an ultramodern force.
“I need to be able to reorganize to have a group that looks specifically
at solving our current problems and do it expeditiously; someone who looks at
the near to mid-term future, and then someone who looks at the far-term future,”
Doesburg said.
For that purpose, Doesburg split the duties among three brigadier generals
under his command.
Brig. Gen. Jamie Moran, the program executive officer for soldier systems,
also serves as Doesburg’s deputy commanding general for operations.
“He brought in a plan on how he will do this job, how he will combine
the capabilities, and efforts that he has in PEO Soldier,” said Doesburg.
Part of Moran’s plan is to combine the rapid fielding initiative—the
Army’s fast-paced program to equip deploying soldiers—with the command’s
agile development center, which supports both current operations and emerging
requirements. Also under Moran’s oversight is the Army’s field assistance
in science and technology activity teams, who work with soldiers in the field.
He will “pull all those together so that we can truly have a focus on
the current war fighter with a bunch of dedicated folks to us, not folks who
work part time on today and part time on tomorrow,” Doesburg said.
Under the rapid fielding initiative, each soldier is getting approximately
$4,000 worth of new equipment—everything from uniforms and boots to rifle
optics and night vision goggles.
Without specifying, Doesburg said that the agile development center has just
received some significant funding that now not only allows internal research
and development, but also permits industry to offer a “good idea that
is somewhat mature.” Industry input is aimed at gaining solutions as soon
as possible over an 18-month span.
The rapid equipping force, or REF, is another Army effort to address specific
needs on the battlefield. “The REF is trying to put things in the hands
of soldiers in about 90 days,” he said.
By comparison, the agile development center should be looking at technologies
that still need six months to a year and a half to be matured, Doesburg said.
For that purpose, Doesburg’s new deputy commanding general, Brig. Gen.
Roger Nadeau, who has oversight of the agile development center, will be focusing
on science and technology objectives in the near– and mid–term.
Based on feedback from the Iraq war, a series of critical technologies need
to be developed in the next six months to a year, but the answers have not been
found yet, Doesburg told National Defense.
One of the most daunting challenges is how to lower the weight of the soldier’s
combat load, he added. Soldiers in Iraq are carrying unprecedented amounts of
ammunition. They must do so, in case they get caught in urban firefights, where
they cannot easily get reinforcements or resupply.
“Small arms ammunition, by and large, is heavy, especially with the amount
that soldiers are carrying now,” Doesburg said. “They are sacrificing
even water for ammunition.”
More advanced weapons could help reduce the amount of ammunition currently
demanded, Doesburg said. The introduction of the XM8 individual assault rifle,
which the Army claims is more accurate than the M-16, may reduce the consumption
of bullets.
RDECOM officials also are focusing on individual soldier protection. Although
the Interceptor body armor vest has proved to be a lifesaver in many cases,
insurgents ascertained the vulnerability points, and began shooting at soldiers’
arms and legs.
“I have to figure out a way to provide protection to other than vital
organs,” Doesburg said. “I can provide ballistic protection and
can allow a soldier to fight and protect critical organs, what I can’t
do now is protect his limbs. … I thought we had done really well with
Interceptor body armor, [but] we only got half of it right.”
The long-term research and development work will be the responsibility of Brig.
Gen. Paul Izzo, who already is sporting two hats—as PEO for ammunition
and commander of Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. He will pursue areas such as nanotechnology,
robotics, advanced computing and powered energy.
“Most specifically, [he’ll] try to see where things may develop
in the future,” he said. “That is what industry does. It looks at
the far future to see how to make investments. I want to be part of that process,
to be able to say, ‘This is what we see. This is where we think we need
to go.’”
Power sources are a key priority, said Doesburg. “Is hybrid the way to
go, or is it an alternative energy source that is neither one of those that
we need to pursue,” he said. “That is not something we are going
to pursue in three or five years.”
Doesburg urged his staff to not get “fixated on things like fuel cells,
or methanol systems, but to look at all the alternative energies that are out
there.”
Advanced energy options are needed to power mobile ad hoc networks on the battlefield,
he said. “You no longer would need large radio systems to move data.”
According to Doesburg, nanotechnology and biotechnology will play significant
roles. Nanotechnology can lead to such developments that will create impermeable
uniforms. Those uniforms could become the sensors for the soldiers.
“Biotechnology will perhaps revolutionize what we think of as propulsion
systems to move items,” he said. “Bio fuel cells are happening today.
If you can make a bio fuel cell, why can’t you make a system that would
now allow it to be a propelled system?”
Meanwhile, biopolymers would preclude the need for ammunition casings and their
weight. Biopolymers may also change the way ceramic plates are built, Doesburg
said, and can be used for high performance ballistics computing.
Doesburg said he foresees these technologies to have an impact in the next
five to 10 years, some as early as two years.
To help these developments along, RDECOM has struck relationships with the
Energy Department’s national laboratories, the Air Force and the Navy.
“We all need to partner in this process. There are a lot of federal dollars
that are out there that are being spent, and we need to make sure that they
are being spent wisely,” he said.