{"id":21420,"date":"2018-10-09T12:39:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T12:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/10\/09\/taking-infantry-to-the-next-level-this-task-force-is-working-to-make-it-happen\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T02:17:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T02:17:33","slug":"taking-infantry-to-the-next-level-this-task-force-is-working-to-make-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2018\/10\/09\/taking-infantry-to-the-next-level-this-task-force-is-working-to-make-it-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking infantry to the \u2018next level\u2019: This task force is working to make it happen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In less than a year, a new task force formed at the direction of the Pentagon\u2019s most senior leaders is pushing key equipment programs and putting personnel policies<\/a> under a microscope \u2014 all to take close combat units <\/a>to the \u201cnext level\u201d of war-fighting overmatch<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long pushed aside on the list of priorities, the infantry squads, scouts and combat engineers that do the close, dirty and violent work of war are now being considered on par with traditional attention hogs such as the newest tanks, missiles and jet fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the dollar amounts devoted to these ranks have risen \u2014 $2.5 billion has been shifted to pay out over the next five years to feed the Close Combat Lethality Task Force\u2019s overmatch mission \u2014 the lasting effects of the work will play out in the form of personnel policies ranging from how the services get the best people they can into these formations to ways to keep and train them better than they ever have before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis established the CCLTF with a memorandum at the start of this year, but the former infantry officer\u2019s interest in the squad as the linchpin of the fighting force goes back decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man that Mattis chose to direct the task force, Joe L\u2019 Etoile, himself a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and infantry unit commander, sat down with Army Times ahead of the Association of the United States Army\u2019s annual meeting to review some of the task force\u2019s early work and what\u2019s ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for all the work that\u2019s going on, L\u2019 Etoile emphasized a major point: this work isn\u2019t a critique of the existing formations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe infantry is not broken. It\u2019s the best in the world, lethal, effective, cohesive,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Close Combat Lethality Task Force is just taking it to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more coverage from the AUSA annual meeting, click here.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leap-ahead equipment<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning as it did during defense budget drafting, much of the work these first few months has put energy, funding and the momentum of the defense secretary\u2019s office behind key initiatives already in development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Namely, the task force is helping the Army get backing at high levels for its Next Generation Squad Weapon program and Integrated Visual Augmentation System.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If successful, the two programs will hit several goals at the top of the Army\u2019s lethality checklist by making individual soldier weapons more precise, shoot at farther ranges with more lethality and feed battlefield information to the warfighter at unprecedented tactical detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A soldier engages targets with an M249 machine gun during a combined arms live-fire exercise at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, Aug. 3, 2018. (1st Lt. Ryan DeBooy\/Army)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The NGSW is a program to first replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon through the Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle vein of the program. It will be followed closely by an identical caliber rifle or carbine meant to replace the M4 carbine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new caliber is likely to fall in the intermediate range, between the existing 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammunition the military uses now. It will offer better accuracy and lethality but with a lighter recoil than the heavier 7.62mm bullet and provide a similar configuration for carrying capacity and weight as the lighter 5.56mm bullet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the NGSW aims to do more than provide a better bullet and rifle, L\u2019 Etoile said. A crucial piece of improving the weapon system is the fire controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS, comes into the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IVAS puts the weapon sight, navigation and battlefield information \u2014 such as locations of friendly and enemy formations \u2014 all within the visual display of the user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think Blue Force Tracker shrunk down to the goggle level, paired with the addition of targeting data and more detailed communications functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, the information system comes within a smartphone device centered in the Army\u2019s Nett Warrior program, but the goal has nearly always been to move that heads-down device into the sight picture of the soldier in the form of a head-up display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what\u2019s more intriguing about the IVAS is its application both in training and in actual combat. The new system will not only be the digital device troops train on but also the one they deploy overseas with, L\u2019 Etoile said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A version of that is under development and testing at Army research sites. The task force is using its pull to work with Army leadership to speed up those efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\t