FEATURE ARTICLE

May 2005

Trial by COMBAT

Delivering Technology To Troops Requires Learning 'In Real Time'

By Sandra I. Erwin

Buyers and developers of military equipment readily admit that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have thrown into question many of the traditional assumptions about the way the Defense Department acquires new technology.

For the past two years, the defense research and development community has adjusted its focus on the fly, as events unfolded on the ground.

The wide-ranging nature of the conflict—requiring troops to fight guerillas, while they rebuild the infrastructure and train the local military forces—has resulted in a most eclectic mix of equipment requests coming from the front lines.

Among those who stay attuned to equipment calls from the battlefield is James B. Engle, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology and engineering.

The portfolio of technologies he is overseeing these days is more diverse than ever, he tells National Defense. He also candidly admits that the only procurement strategy in place has been the absence of one.

“There is no grand strategy over there that says: Here’s how we are going to fight this war, and this is how we’ll win the global war on terrorism,” Engle says. The assortment of technology needed to satisfy every need does not allow for those “dedicated science projects,” to which military labs are accustomed.

“In war, we learn in real time,” says Engle.

As long as the money flows, equipment needs can be fulfilled relatively quickly, he adds. “The key is to have an investment avenue that allows you to respond to those requests when they come in.”

The U.S. Army also learned that lesson the hard way. Funding decisions made years ago, in many ways, resulted in severe equipment shortages, including body armor and armored Humvees. Once money started flowing in, by the fall of 2003, the Army was able to ramp up production and meet the demand.

“Because of the shortage of investment dollars in the previous 10 years, the Army had to make some tough decisions,” says Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff. “We couldn’t afford to outfit all the divisions” with the latest technology, he says. The Army opted to take a risk, so it could allocate more funds for the next-generation technology, under the Future Combat Systems program.

“When this fight came, we had to buy back an awful lot of that risk,” Cody adds. Just two years ago, the Army found it lacked equipment that would prove to be essential for the war in Iraq.

“I think we are doing a lot better,” he says. “But we also are better resourced.”

As for what the future holds, Cody says he is confident that, as long as the money keeps coming, equipment shortages will be averted. The Army’s $69-billion six-year plan to reorganize its divisions into standardized “modular” brigades will cover hardware needs. Of that amount, $35 billion is expected to go into procurement accounts.

In the near term, the Army and the other services are pouring millions of dollars into technologies to detect and destroy bombs that insurgents in Iraq bury alongside roads or detonate in suicide attacks.

Cody also highlighted the so-called IED Task Force as a technology success story. The group, with a $60 million annual budget, was created in October 2003 to help counter improvised explosive devices.

“We are buying millions of dollars worth of jammers … The numbers would shock you,” he says. Because the IED group’s work mostly is classified, Cody declined to offer details. “We have a pretty good story, but we are not going to tell it.” Cody, however, does concede that the IED problem is far from solved. “There is no silver bullet at this time … Jammers aren’t the only answer.”

The Air Force labs have been working on improving the jammers the Army purchased, which, for the most part, were commercially available.

“They do work, but what you find is that they [enemies] are very quick to figure out we have those, so very quickly the jammers become obsolete,” Engle says. “There are electronic devices that can easily detect the jammers.”

Engle says the Air Force has employed electronic-warfare techniques to neutralize the IEDs. This technology also is classified, he adds.

Both the Army and the Air Force have developed small robots to detonate IEDs, although Engle says their contribution is limited. “You can’t win with this,” he says. The solution is to find the IED makers and stop them before they plant a bomb. “You can’t wait until it’s laying on the side of the road.”

The enemy’s heavy reliance on computers and cell phones to exchange information prompted the Army to acquire a new piece of “digital forensics” technology that can help soldiers retrieve possibly useful intelligence from captured laptops, PDAs and cell phones.

This technology so far only has been available to forensic experts with extensive training. The new system is user friendly, and intended for use by soldiers while on patrol, says Gary Kumetz, a computer science researcher working on the forensics project at Fort Monmouth, N.J. The Army will spend about $1.5 million to develop and test the product on an accelerated schedule, so it can be shipped to Iraq by the end of the year.

A new weapon that potentially could give U.S. forces an upper hand over insurgents is a guided bomb that only explodes once inside a building and, in theory, will not harm the occupants of nearby buildings.

The weapon, called “hardstop”—hardened surface target ordnance package—was developed in response to repeated calls from commanders in Iraq who complained that most munitions launched from aircraft are too large and powerful for urban combat, and put too many civilians at risk.

The “hardstop” has been tested at Eglin Air Force Base, in Florida, and is likely to get shipped to Iraq within a couple of months, Engle says. The weapon is a conventional GPS-guided bomb loaded with 54 mini-penetrators. A smart fuze allows the weapon to be programmed to explode only after it enters a building. It destroys whatever is inside the facility but not the outside, Engle says.

Another accomplishment cited by Engle was the deployment of new and improved gear for the Air Force tactical air controllers, who accompany ground troops to identify, locate and designate targets, using a combination laser designator, scope, thermal imager and rangefinder. The target’s exact location is determined by GPS receivers and shows up on the combat controller’s laptop superimposed over a map. Using specially designed software, the controller’s kit transmits the target data to the decision-makers who decide whether to destroy the target, and pass the order to the appropriate aircraft.

The new kit, Engle says, is designed to help prevent incidents of friendly fire. Shooters in the air, using the same software, have access to the target data. Because the data is sent machine-to-machine instead of human-to-human, there is less room for error, Engle adds.

A significant piece of the controller’s kit is a tiny drone equipped with a miniature camera that helps the operator see over the next hill. The drone, called the Batcam, for battlefield air targeting camera autonomous micro-air vehicle, is carried in a tube and is no larger than the average toy airplane. The other services also are considering buying this technology, Engle notes.

The IED threats, meanwhile, also prompted the Air Force to step up research work in polymers and ceramics, which could lead to lightweight replacements for armor.

The Army Soldier Center at Natick, Mass., is leading efforts to make body-armor lighter and to extend the protection beyond just the torso, to arms and legs.

The development of advanced textiles will make that possible, says Philip Cunniff, a ballistics technology engineer at Natick. The most advanced body armor available today is made of ceramic plates backed by textile composites.

“I don’t believe we’ll ever replace ceramic with textiles,” he says in an interview. But a new fiber now being tested, called M-5, has the potential to lower weight or increase protection at the same weight.

The Army likely will continue to produce the existing armor vest, called the Interceptor, Cunniff says, because there is no industrial capacity in the United States currently to mass-produce M-5.

For all the recent successes, however, military researchers have much more ground to be plowed, Engle notes.

There are several key areas where “we are struggling,” he says. Examples are biological and chemical detection, where the technology has yet to deliver on promised results. Another hurdle for researchers is the development of effective sensors that can pinpoint the location of explosives from a safe distance.

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