Iyer joins ServiceNow in the newly created position weeks after leaving the Army, where he sat atop the service’s IT sprawl and oversaw a $16 billion budget, which included hundreds of millions of dollars for cloud in fiscal 2023. The company announced the hire March 13.

“Raj is the best of the best,” ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott said in a statement. “He’s the perfect leader to accelerate the mission critical nature of the work we do with governments around the world, to transform experiences for employees, service members, and citizens.”

Iyer in January said he would depart his military role after two and a half years, and return to industry. He previously worked at Deloitte, an international consulting firm.

In his new gig, Iyer will focus on digital transformation — a buzzy phrase often used to describe the embrace of new tech and the ditching of dated practices — across international markets, including in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.

“We have a huge opportunity to truly transform the public sector through cloud-based digital technologies,” Iyer said in a statement. “ServiceNow has the biggest vision for digital transformation at the scale of government, and I’m thrilled to join a company that is equally as passionate and excited about the potential for change as ServiceNow.”

Iyer’s jump to industry precedes departures by two other Department of Defense IT czars.

The Navy’s Aaron Weis will leave his CIO post this month, and the Air Force’s Lauren Knausenberger will do the same in June. The timing of the respective exits, Knausenberger said at an event earlier this month, was not planned.

The two have not said where they are headed next.

Thanks to one officer, the service is working to make that a reality.

The light-bulb moment of inspiration came to Lt. Cmdr. Jonathan Calhoun, a reservist assigned to U.S. Fleet Forces Command’s Maritime Operations Center in Norfolk, Virginia, as he completed a mobilization exercise earlier this year and was inundated with the required paperwork.

Calhoun said his new idea to this old problem involves sailors completing documents and requirements through an app that pre-populates information through their mobile phones so that they aren’t spending time filling out repetitive information like name, rank, and address by hand.

Pre-populating that information also reduces the likelihood of errors, Calhoun noted.

“It would save a significant amount of time, and what could take up to a full week to get done could be completed within just a few hours,” Calhoun told Navy Times.

“As soon as they show up to their Navy Reserve Center for mobilization, all of the information is already completed, verified and validated, as opposed to having to complete multiple different forms from scratch,” he added.

Calhoun’s idea, called “Leveraging Mobile Technology to Streamline Mobilization,” won the i3 Waypoints program last month, a new competition that Chief of Navy Reserve Vice Adm. John Mustin established so sailors could share ideas with top Navy leaders.

“We are already moving out on the design for Lt. Cdr. Calhoun’s mobile application,” Mustin said in a Navy news release last week. “His idea to add mobile technology to our distributed activation process helps us achieve our goal of mobilizing the entire Selected Reserve force of 50,000 in 30 days, if required.”

The i3 Waypoints program —a name based on innovating something new, improving an existing program, or integrating several concepts — received a total of 107 submissions over the course of a five-week period, and the competition will proceed as an annual event.

“With such an enthusiastic response from the force, and so many great ideas to modernize the way we do business, we saw enough in this inaugural event to commit to making i3 Waypoints an annual program,” Mustin said. “Very little is more important to us than keeping the direct pipeline open for creative ideas to flow to top leadership without filter or disruption.”

Calhoun, who served five years active-duty and eight years in the Reserves, said he would encourage others who’ve thought of concepts to improve the Navy to make their voices heard because leadership was receptive to the presentations exhibited at the i3 Waypoints competition.

“I think coming out of this process, I’ll definitely encourage others — if you have an idea, speak up, because leadership is willing and eager to listen,” Calhoun said.

During a July 6 seminar led by President Yoon Suk Yeol, the ministry discussed key defense policies meant to counter the threat of North Korean nuclear missiles, including the Kill Chain strategy and well as more efficient efforts to develop defense capabilities.

The ministry said the strategic command, which would fall under the purview of the country’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, is to integrate and efficiently operate all South Korean armed forces’ strategic weapons systems, currently controlled by each military branch individually. The command would also give the orders to subordinate military assets to strike enemy targets or intercept hostile missiles as part of the Kill Chain strategy and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation plan.

Kill Chain is a preemptive strike strategy that the South Korean military would implement against key North Korean military facilities, such as missile silos, when intelligence organizations confirm an imminent attack. KMPR involves the use of ballistic missiles and highly explosive weapons against an offensive nuclear attack. Its purpose is essentially the total destruction of North Korea’s capital Pyongyang.

The units and capabilities that would fall under the forthcoming strategic include:

• The Army’s Missile and Strategic Command, which operates Hyunmoo ballistic missiles.
• The Air Force’s Missile Defense Command, which operates PAC-3 anti-air missiles, F-35A fighter jets and Global Hawk surveillance aircraft.
• The Navy’s 3000-ton submarines that feature sub-launched ballistic missiles.
• Military surveillance satellites.
• Cyberwarfare- and space-focused forces.

The military is also expected to adjust the duties of the Army’s Missile and Strategic Command and the Air Force’s Missile Defense Command.

“The key assets of Kill Chain and KMPR are individually managed by the Army, Navy and Air Force. I can assure that the STRATCOM [strategic command] would be highly efficient if those divided strategic assets of each military branch are combined as one single unit,” Uk Yang, the associate research fellow of Asan Institute for policy studies, told Defense News.

The former commander of the Air Force’s Air Defense Command, Myung-guk Kwon, agreed. “This means that one commander at a combined command center could execute offensive and defensive operations based on analyses of coherent information. I believe this will be an efficient command system.”

For the chain of command, a three-star general or admiral is expected to take the lead of the planned command, with the military branches taking turns to lead.

The Defense Ministry also said it plans to strengthen intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities; preemptive strike capabilities; and the country’s missile defense architecture.

But it’s because CECOM’s work, when done well, is primarily behind the scenes. With six months as commander under his belt, Taylor told C4ISRNET Editor Amber Corrin about how he sees his experience so far, his command’s mission and why battlefield proximity isn’t necessarily a measure of consequence.

What would you say you’ve learned so far in the job?

Foremost, I am learning just how much the American soldier, to fight and win, depends on CECOM to sustain expeditionary [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] readiness. Soldiers must trust and rely on CECOM now more than ever.

The Army’s dependence on C4ISR has never been greater, and the stakes have never been higher. Winning on today’s hyper-compressed battlefield requires soldiers to fight across multiple domains — land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace — and across the electromagnetic spectrum, seamlessly reaching from home station to extraordinarily remote and austere engagement areas. It is becoming easier for potential adversaries to threaten U.S. military dominance with the proliferation of advanced C4ISR capabilities at a lower cost, including robotics, artificial intelligence, and autonomous and remotely operated systems.

We must modernize and sustain C4ISR faster and better, if we are to stay ahead of potential adversaries. The Army spends about 30 percent of a C4ISR capability’s cost on acquiring a system and the other 70 percent on sustaining a system, both hardware and software, over the rest of its life cycle.

That is mostly because the Army upgrades, modernizes and continues to use capabilities long after they are fielded. When it comes to supporting soldiers’ post-deployment reset of C4ISR capabilities under the Army’s Sustainable Readiness Model, which is the successor to the decade-old Army Force Generation model, CECOM now has to reset in about half the time. We still have a lot to improve in that regard; it’s very important to me, and we will get it right.

How does CECOM impact soldiers on the ground?

There’s not a member of the CECOM team whose work doesn’t impact the soldier on the ground. From my C4ISR supply item managers to my depot-level workforce, I expect every one of them to show up every day and make a difference for our nation’s sons and daughters in harm’s way.

CECOM’s scope of work ranges from protecting and updating 70 percent of the Army’s software in sustainment, to maintaining the soldier’s communications and electronics equipment, to conducting interoperability and certification testing with coalition partners, to upgrading the White House’s network infrastructure. The most common statement I have heard from soldiers who visit CECOM is that they wish they’d known earlier what CECOM does. Part of my job is informing the Army about how to best utilize CECOM’s vast capabilities to modernize and sustain expeditionary C4ISR readiness.

Currently, our soldiers expect their communications officer or noncommissioned officer-in-charge to take care of their communication needs. Unit leadership, and possibly the soldier, views their assigned CECOM logistics assistance representative as the sole integrator to take care of C4ISR requirements. However, CECOM’s field interface goes well beyond the LAR and includes supporting field service representatives and field software engineers under the management of CECOM senior command representatives.

Think of it as a NASCAR driver and the pit crew. The soldier is the driver, and the LAR is the pit boss with members of the entire CECOM team providing fuel, tire replacement, body repair, and cleaning the windshield to get the driver back on the road.

Understanding this, we have the opportunity for our CECOM LARs to create conditions that facilitate self-sufficiency within the unit; I consider this our first indicator of success. If the LAR is my direct C4ISR link to the customer, then I expect them to be the most technically proficient

experts in what they are doing, I expect them to facilitate and anticipate supply and demand needs, and I expect them to give the time and attention necessary for mission success.

Can you offer a brief overview of some of the organizations that comprise CECOM, and what they provide?

Beyond the scope of the soldier’s visibility, CECOM is a large team-of-teams, and our LARs are able to leverage this vast reach. We have five critical subordinate organizations that are often well-known in their own right, but unknown as belonging to CECOM.

As an example, CECOM’s organic industrial base, Tobyhanna Army Depot, or TYAD, maintains more than half of all communications and electronics equipment for the Department of Defense. TYAD’s full-spectrum logistics support to the soldier include fabrication, integration and field support to C4ISR systems.

With 51 forward depot-level locations worldwide, approximately 20 percent of our TYAD professionals are in the field actively supporting our units. For instance, a unit was having issues operating their Blue Force Tracker sets in theater. Prior to deploying, the unit had difficulty identifying the parts and software needed to ensure correct BFT operations. TYAD personnel were able to coordinate with the unit’s field location to identify the issues and troubleshoot and operationalize mission-essential equipment.

CECOM’s Central Technical Support Facility team performs Army Interoperability Certification testing and configuration management for all operational through tactical-level C4I systems, applications and hardware prior to release to the field. By using Training and Doctrine Command-approved mission threads and executing them from end-to-end, CTSF demonstrates that the network will operate together as intended in the field.

As an example, a unit conducting training operations had an issue conducting a digital call-for-fire mission from an Apache. Because CTSF demonstrates that mission during AIC testing, they were asked by the aviation community to provide instructions regarding network settings. Together with our partners, we documented the communication path for a digital call-for-fire and identified that the issue was due to recent changes in equipment and methodology. The team was able to provide TRADOC information to update future aviation training products.

You may have heard about CECOM’s Software Engineering Center for their work in hardware and software sustainment. Most soldiers don’t think about software on a day-to-day basis, but the systems our SEC provides touch them daily.

When they go to the dining facility and scan their badge to eat, SEC sustains the food management system; when they need supplies, SEC sustains the logistics systems that make it happen; and when our soldiers are in the command post or platforms, SEC is sustaining the C4ISR systems.

One of the most critical items SEC provides the soldier is force protection — they write and field the software that protects our aircraft from enemy radar and missiles, as well as the software updates used to protect ground troops from remote-controlled improvised explosive devices. The threats change very rapidly, and SEC continuously works with TRADOC to optimize software development and testing processes to ensure rapid delivery to the field.

Additionally, last year, CECOM’s higher headquarters, Army Materiel Command, assigned Operational Control of the Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center and the Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Ground to CECOM. These partnerships allow us to align technology efforts within the C4ISR portfolio and ensure the Army maintains its competitive advantage.

Any final thoughts?

To quote Gen. Douglas MacArthur, ‘The history of failure in war can almost be summed up in two words: Too late.’ As a global organization, I believe that our proximity to the battlefield is not a direct correlation to our contribution. We have a tremendous responsibility, wherever we are, to make sure our soldiers have everything they need to execute mission command effectively when they face an adversary. This responsibility belongs to all of us, and there is absolutely no room in our workplace for complacency. Every position on the CECOM team impacts our soldiers and their readiness. Understanding this is what motivates us and is at the core of our success.

In a future operating environment where the decision cycle will have to be much quicker, the Army now recognizes it has to get away from large forward-operating bases and tactical operations centers, sometimes pejoratively termed “TOC Mahals.” This also means consolidating communications and mission command programs and systems to provide commanders with a seamless look and feel of the battle space.

This is what is behind a major Army effort called the common operating environment, a set of computing technologies and standards to enable a variety of communications capabilities with common baselines.

One specific effort within this larger push is called the Command Post Computing Environment, or CP CE.

This will consolidate current mission systems and programs into a single user interface, breaking down stovepipes within a command post allowing commanders at various points – even from a mounted system in a vehicle in the field – to see the same map, features and uploads.

Currently, a commander will have several different maps paired side by side, each running their own individual systems or tasks. These include programs such as Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR), Global Command and Control System-Army (GCCS-A), Command Web and Command Post of the Future (CPOF), to name a few. There are different screens and different user interfaces for each of these systems that each require their own separate training. This can potentially lead to command confusion as commanders must bounce between each screen in order to gain situational awareness of their battle space.

CP CE will consolidate these systems into a single user interface overlaid on a single map, establishing each as a widget or icon on the side.

TIGR, GCCS-A, Command Web and CPOF will be part of the first build effort within the CP CE interface and tested at the Network Integration Evaluation 18.2 in September 2018.

“What you’ll see is that these become layers [on the map]. If the guys were operating this, they could show you plans, current ops [movement on the battlefield],” Lt. Col. Shermoan Daiyaan, product manager for tactical mission command within Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, told C4ISRNET during a recent demonstration. “Somebody sees an IED, they report it, they put it on the map for the next guy not to hit it and it shows up on every screen.”

The converging of these systems will render everything to a common look and feel. So, if a commander is in the command post and wants to get in a vehicle and move on, he will have instant familiarity, Gary Martin, program executive officer for C3T, said during a panel discussion in August. Maps will look the same, buttons will look the same and this will significantly reduce training, he added.

Daiyaan said they are going to cut training time in half as each soldier will get their common baseline training for how to use the program. Then they’ll go on to their job-specific training after that, be it intelligence or fires.

The consolidation of all these systems also means less equipment, easier sustainment and greater mobility.

Daiyaan said this project will lead to a reduction in the weight of servers in the command post from 1,200 pounds to 300 pounds. With the reduction of 900 pounds, this will allow forces to be able to pick up and move more easily. Army leaders believe that in future operating environments against a peer threat, forces will have to move on an hourly basis as opposed to the stationary bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The goal with this is to be network-ready – meaning powering up and receiving live feeds – in five minutes.

Systematic Inc. is providing the backbone to allow CP CE to function through the company’s SitaWare product. SitaWare is an open architecture command and control system 15 years in the making that provides the customer the ability to customize their tactics, techniques and procedures and fighting within mission command. At the same time the system also is bringing in capabilities for the war fighter, whether that’s sensors or other battlefield-operated systems, Systematic President Rafael Torres told C4ISRNET.

Torres equated the system to a Mr. Potato Head: the government decides what arm they want to use today. If they want to have a red hat and change it to blue, that’s something they do within their organizations because Systematic provides them with the software development kit. Given that it’s radio-, network- and hardware-agnostic, Torres said, it reduces size and footprint, giving the ability for commanders to customize how they want to see their fight.

How did we get here?

The common operating environment and CP CE, in some ways, is a corrective effort following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Diayaan said the Army wants to get back to some older roots where these types of command posts and units get to collapse, move, shoot, drop, shoot, move and communicate. “In order to do so we’ve got to get lighter, faster, better. We’ve got to build smarter and more agile boxes and computing environments,” he said.

In the initial breakout moments of the Iraq War, Diayaan said leaders were outrunning comms because comms were static. “I used to have what’s called mobile subscriber equipment … that thing dug in, you pound stakes into the ground and you don’t touch it,” he said. “The operators sit in the back of the shelter and make sure the light stays green. They don’t touch it until it goes red.”

During the Iraq War, the Army began to be more responsive to the war fighter – as it should, Diayaan said – giving the soldier the tools they required in the heat of battle. However, in giving the soldier everything they wanted, this precluded process and the Army ended up with all these tools that couldn’t talk to each other. “Now we’ve got all these individual systems, all [with] their own develop path, all with their different experiences,” he said.

“The individual systems work fine. They do 98 to 99 percent of their requirements that they’re supposed to do very, very well,” Jack Bratcher, action officer with Training and Doctrine Command’s Capability Manager mission command and command post at the Mission Command Center of Excellence, told C4ISRNET in an interview. “The part that they don’t do well is exchange information across those systems in a manner that’s easy for the soldiers to use and for the leaders to make sense of quickly and in a common method. That’s the part we’re trying to get to.”

How this manifests itself: If a mission is being planned using CPOF, the orders, graphics and information cannot be transmitted to those who have to execute, given interoperability challenges.

While the service had the “ah-ha” moment to fix these interoperability challenges prior to the draw down in Afghanistan in the 2013-2014 time frame, Bratcher said they couldn’t stop the engine to make all these changes without affecting ongoing operations. Following the draw down, TRADOC has been working to update the requirements and get them in shape, and now they’re in the approval process for the Army, he added.

Then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno asked TRADOC for a unified vision of the whole Army network and the mission command network, which resulted in a 2015 document that has served as the vision and narrative for the mission command network. That’s been driving the service forward in the last two to three years, Jeff Witsken, director of mission command network integration at the MC CoE, told C4ISRNET.

This effort is a high priority for the Army, Witsken said. Diayaan noted that it is one of the line items of current Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley’s high-profile network review. That review is taking a top-down look at all networks for efficiencies and optimization, evaluating whether the Army is headed in the right direction.

In fact, Witsken said that this past November they held a tabletop exercise in which the Army asked themselves what are the fundamental requirements needed from a mission command network perspective for future operations. They identified five critical operational requirements for guiding modernization of the network, and one of those was the common operating environment, he added.

He noted that it’s not just about a common user experience, but also about integration and collaboration across echelons and formations. Army leaders believe they’ll need that to fight effectively in the future. It can’t be that those at the platoon level have a different solution than the command post, he said.

“We go before the chief and our Army Requirements Oversight Council on the 29^th of September for his decision to approve our final requirements,” Diayaan said.

Next steps

In terms of next steps for CP CE, the Army will create a report after operational tests in the fourth quarter of 2019 in which leaders will determine if it’s ready to field or if it has to go back for more testing and development.

If they get a fielding decision, they’ll start fielding to units based on the Army’s priorities. However, it is much too early to determine what units those might be. Eventually, CP CE will be fielded to the entire Army.

The Army will be looking to add two additional programs to the aforementioned four in fiscal 2021: Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System and Distributed Common Ground System-Army. These program offices have committed to integrating by 2021.

Given the open architecture of CP CE, the Army wants to add many other systems eventually, such as the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management tool, which allows commanders to plan out and visualize effects of electronic warfare and cyber on the battlefield.

The Army is coming to grips with how it will fight — and communicate — in complex future operating environments against both near-peer and insurgent organizations in a variety of geographic regions and terrains. But to do that, the service needs a flexible, agile network.

Over the years, Army leaders realized that the service needed to think about its network differently. Many components of the “tactical” network that fell under WIN-T’s portfolio didn’t necessary have to do with WIN-T, prompting the Army to adopt a “one network” approach, even renaming the WIN-T project office to “tactical networks.”

The Army has had several large programs come under WIN-T, included protected satellite communications and command post, which created confusion within the portfolio versus the WIN-T program of record, Col. Gregory Coile, project manager tactical networks, told C4ISRNET. Now WIN-T is a tool in the bag — albeit a very big tool given that it is the backbone for the network that enables connectivity for the command post. But it doesn’t mean things aren’t hanging off that backbone, Coile said.

“The way we approached it was we took a step back and really evaluated what our capability was, because at the end of the day, regardless of what the program of record is, we’re trying to answer a capability gap and deliver a capability,” Coile added. “We focused on our job to deliver the tactical network. That led us to what we’re really after — even though it’s not solely our mission, we all have to be a part of one network, so we developed our ‘one network’ vison.”

Despite organizationally changing the name, Coile noted that there is still a program called WIN-T increment 1, which offers communications capability at the halt, and increment 2, which allows communications on the move. “None of that goes away,” he said.

Portfolio Review

The Army right now is undergoing a major review of all IT and network systems, as directed by the chief of staff.

“The Army’s network is a critical enabler of readiness and lethality. The Army regularly conducts assessments and reviews network procedures to ensure that we are prepared to meet the current and future force requirements,” Army spokesman Wayne Hall told C4ISRNET via email. “This review will assist the Army in proactively integrating, aligning and reforming our IT portfolios to ensure infrastructure, programs, weapons and other systems are prepared to adapt. This assessment and review ensures our manpower, budget planning, and acquisition and sustainment strategies can support the Army’s IT requirements.”

The outline of this “one network” approach, based on how the Army fights, comprises five parts.

First is home station operations or training, which encompasses pre-deployment training to ensure soldiers can operate the equipment. As operating environments become more complex, requiring a more expeditionary force that will have to move on an hourly basis, the force cannot afford to have field service representatives or contractors accompany units to help operate comms gear.

“We’ve become very reliant on the capability that industry provides. In many cases we had systems that came to us that were way too complex for soldiers to understand and for leaders to manage,” said Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of networks, services and strategy, Office of the Army CIO. “We cannot afford the luxury to have field service reps with us on every deployment. We’ve got to figure out … [how to make] the systems more intuitive and simple to use.”

Second, the Army must have communications capability en route to conflict zones aboard aircraft such as C-17s. Whether a commander going to jump out of the airplane for an airborne operation or he’s going to land and do a peacekeeping operation, he can still maintain situational awareness using the same mission command applications at home station that he’ll continue to use when he hits the ground, Coile said.

Next is early entry operations, which allow units, typically smaller in size, to be able to connect and pass information — classified or unclassified — within a half-hour.

Fourth, once on the ground troops need to build up the network with greater communications capability with a larger pipe to carry more information.

This involves key components of WIN-T’s Increment 2, including:

· Tactical Communications Node (TCN), which provides the backbone element and command post operations;

· Point of Presence (PoP), which, while installed on select combat platforms at division, brigade and battalion, enables mobile mission command with on the move connectivity through line of sight and beyond line of sight, and;

· Soldier Network Extension (SNE), which provides on-the-move communications to extend the network from brigade down to company.

Finally, when getting into what’s called mature operations in theater, the force transitions to sustainment and stability operations in which a lot of communications gear brought in might stay for an indeterminate period of time. Coile said the Army has kits that have been in the Persian Gulf for two decades that must be operated and maintained. Despite this duration, they are still temporary, as these are not permanent sites.

Last November, the Army held a tabletop exercise in which they asked themselves what are the fundamental requirements needed from a mission command-network perspective for future operations, said Jeff Witsken, director of mission command network integration, Mission Command Center of Excellence.

They identified five critical operational requirements for guiding modernization of the network. One key element was the need for a unified or converged mission command network; the Army doesn’t have a unified network, but rather multiple networks. These include networks for operations, intelligence, logistics and medical information. This, Witsken noted, gets back to the push for one network — these disparate networks are not what the Army will need going forward.

When soldiers land, wherever the crisis may be, they have to be able to fight upon arrival and the network must enable that. “In an environment where we’ve been fairly static over the last 16 years, based out of forward operating bases and combat outposts,” the current network isn’t what they’re going to need in a highly mobile, lethal environment more heavily contested than today, Gallagher said.

“One of the things we have not really optimized ourselves for is that peer adversary that really has the capability to contest us in the air, contest us in space,” he said. “So, the network we deliver for the future really has to be as simple and intuitive as possible for that solider on the edge.”

Tailorability

Part of having an agile network is being able to tailor it to a commander’s need based on threats and regions they might be inserting to.

What underpins this, Coile said, is the notion that the network is IP-based: It begins with applications just like a Mac uses Safari as the application to surf the web.

For the Army these applications include things like Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System or Command Post of the Future. These user applications are fed through platforms such as an unclassified device, a device for secret communications or a device for top-secret communications. They then run through a commercial router and server to an encryption device, but upon hitting the transport layer the data becomes what Coile described as “colorless core.” Regardless of where the data came from, it is now encrypted ones and zeros and can go to any transport segment. These transport segments are the tactical systems in the field, including PoPs, SNEs and Transportable Tactical Command Communications, or T2C2.

“We want to give the [combatant commands] the ability to work in different environments,” Coile said. The service was very focused on a counterinsurgency environment that required heavy equipment and trucks to protect soldiers from roadside improvised explosive devices. However, in Europe or the Pacific, Coile said they have to allow forces the ability to insert very quickly and move quickly. Large platforms such as Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles are too heavy to air transport.

“When we talk about making things more expeditionary, sometimes it’s a choice of platform,” he said. While these heavy vehicles were the right choice in Iraq, potential operating environments of the future could require something that can be loaded into a C-130 or sling-loaded to a Chinook.

Depending on the mission, the commander might only need a T2C2 to handle the initial command post requirements until something larger comes in.

If a commander is going to be in a situation where it’s probable they could be jammed, they’ll want to make sure they have either a Secure, Mobile, Anti-Jam, Reliable, Tactical–Terminal (SMART-T) in the network, which allows for protected satellite communications, or a Troposcatter Transmission (Tropo) capability that doesn’t rely on satellites introducing redundancy into the network.

If going into an Eastern European-type scenario, where commanders will want to move, they’ll want to make sure they have POPs and SNEs, SMART-T, Tropo, or high-speed line of sight to offload that data so their network isn’t dependent on satellite that could be interdicted, Coile said.

However, if going into a humanitarian effort, maybe something like T2C2, or a couple of TCNs is all they’ll need; they don’t necessary have a mobile requirement, but this will allow for a command post, he added.

Given that the Pacific area of responsibility is different from Europe both in threats and terrain that could affect signal transmission, Coile noted that at the end of the day, the Army is an IP-based network that allows all of this to work.

While a similar-type capability for early entry existed prior to the formal standing up of T2C2 as a program of record, both the technological capability and formation into a program of record was a whole new way of doing business given the flexibility of the platform.

The chief is also enabling commanders to take certain risks and trades based on their mission and needs. Forces Command is playing a role in taking feedback from operational units, seeing where they’ve assumed risk in the past, where commanders are saying they’re willing to do that now, and tailoring it accordingly.

The other part for the Army and the direction they are moving in terms of IT and networking includes recognizing that the service as a whole had to move to a standard, common baseline. The formation of T2C2 as a program of record gets toward this by establishing it as the baseline for early entry across the entire force. This makes training and sustainment much easier, officials said.

The standard for WIN-T across the force is Increment 1B, which just received an Army-wide tech refresh. Increment 2 — the on-the-move capability — was never meant to go to everyone, Coile said, just on-the-move units the Army decided needed it.

The Army, after 16 years of war and fielding disparate systems that didn’t talk to each other, still grapples with compatibility issues.

“One of the things the Army is going to have to wrap its head around is, does everybody need the same capability?” said Gary Martin, program executive officer for C3T.

To extend a new capability to the entire Army takes a long time, whether it’s mission command applications or a network technology, he said. The real question they’re going to have to deal with is does everyone have to be equipped the same, balancing how long it takes to get the next capability to the entire Army verses trying to spin out more quickly and get portions of the Army, which leads to variations of capability and perhaps compatibility issues.

As it sits right now, the Army wants common standards and baselines. This will be critical for the future, allowing the Army to plug in modernization efforts as soon as commanders’ architectures and capabilities have been identified.

WASHINGTON — Delivery of the Army’s controversial Warfighter Information Network-Tactical system will come to a halt in order to reboot the service’s entire tactical network so that it can operate against threats emerging on the battlefield.

The Army took to the Hill both on the House and Senate side in recent weeks to make a case to shuffle roughly half a billion in funds from the WIN-T program, as well as a few other key network components, and funnel the money into capabilities that will deliver a more survivable, mobile and hardened tactical network.

[White House supports US Army battlefield network in looming NDAA fight]

The House Armed Services Committee’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday to question Army officials over its new plans for the network, with Chairman Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, expressing deep skepticism the Army was going to get it right this time.

He added he was perplexed as to what changed so dramatically between May — when the budget request was released making the case for nearly a half billion for WIN-T — and now with the Army wanting to curb WIN-T and spend its money elsewhere.

Ranking Member Rep. Niki Tsongas added she believed the Army plan was “half-baked” and “overly optimistic” and said she needed to see a much clearer way forward before she could support funding the proposed changes to the network strategy.

The service is in a race to adapt its weapons systems and operational equipment to go up against peer adversaries after spending 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan where it didn’t have to worry about having its network and communications systems detected and jammed and where the repercussions of being seen on the electromagnetic spectrum weren’t assured destruction.

As the Army looks to the possibility of having to fight against peer adversaries, particularly as Russia continues to behave aggressively and unpredictably on the Eastern European flank, it is having to rethink how it fights and the tactical network, as it is today, doesn’t make the cut.

So Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley ordered a complete review of the tactical network, which determined, to no surprise, that the network had vulnerabilities and that there was a gap between the rate at which the service was able to modernize the network and the pace of threats emerging from peer adversaries, according to a summary of the network review obtained by Defense News.

The Army’s strategy now is to rapidly fix the network by taking funds from the portions of the network that are not working and realigning money to address capability gaps. Also moving forward, the service will establish a new way to quickly procure new technology, breaking free of the normal acquisition process that is so slow, by the time technology makes it into warfighters’ hands in the field, it’s considered old.

The service identified, in its review, that it needs a new path for command post capability to ensure they are survivable and mobile. The Army also recognizes it needs to take steps to integrate the tactical internet into a unified layer at upper and lower echelons, which will increase survivability against electronic warfare attacks.

Additionally, the Army will deliver a common operating environment through a unified mission command suite of systems and applications and will improve joint interoperability through solutions starting in fiscal year 2018.

Programs taking an immediate hit in order to free up the cash in FY-18 — a total of $544.9M — to meet the Army’s network goals are the Mid-Tier Network Vehicular Radio (MNVR) and the legacy Command Post of the Future (CPOF).

Some industry sources believe the HMS Manpack radio, which has a vehicular-configured version, could be used to fill the MNVR requirement.

[Army Green Lights Mid-Tier Network Capability, Airborne Radio RFP Due Out Soon]

The Army also plans to halt WIN-T Increment 2 at the end of FY-18, but certain elements and capabilities of the overall WIN-T program will be used and fielded to some formations through FY-21.

[Congress divided on Army’s battlefield comms future]

Over the past year, WIN-T — the backbone of the Army’s tactical network — has been under fire by some lawmakers and praised by others. The House Armed Services Committee proposed faster fielding of WIN-T Inc. 2 while the Senate Armed Services Committee, this year in its policy bill, annihilated WIN-T Inc. 2 funding, cutting $448 million from the program. The move has been seen by some as a mechanism to provoke the Army to make dramatic changes to that aspect of its network.

[Senate zeros out funding for Army’s battlefield network]

The Army, however, wants to ensure it gets that $448 million, but not for WIN-T.

The service provides little detail on how it will reinvest $545 million in FY-18 taken from tactical network programs not aligned with its new modernization approach, but states it will reinvest $413.8 million in programs that meet operational needs to “fight tonight,” according to the document, and $131.1 million toward an “adapt-and-buy” modernization approach.

Continuing across the FY-19 through -23 time frame, the Army will put a stop to another $2.3 billion in investments in tactical network programs that don’t meet the new approach, reinvesting in future capabilities to improve systems and its adapt-and-buy modernization approach.

Immediately, the Army plans to take $114 million in FY-17 funding and procure approximately six Brigade Combat Teams worth of Tactical Communications Node-Lite (TCN-Lite) — essentially WIN-T on a Humvee — and the Network Operations and Security Center-Lite (NOSC-L) — both tested at the Network Integration Evaluation this summer with good feedback from the unit conducting the evaluation.

[Rethinking the battlefield: Army drives toward lighter, smaller, mobile systems at NIE]

WIN-T’s fielding began nearly 16 years ago and is currently fielded to nearly 97 percent of the Army and the reserves, therefore, critical WIN-T capability will still be used, according to the document.

For instance, the WIN-T systems that work at-the-halt provide an IP-based network that the Army sees a need for into the future.

WIN-T Inc 2. fielding to active Infantry Brigade Combat Teams and Stryker BCTs will be finished in FY-21 and will enter sustainment and Armored BCTs and Army National Guard units will keep WIN-T Inc. 1 and transition to sustainment once fielding is complete.

The WIN-T elements that are here to stay will be improved through efforts to reduce system complexity, hardening it against cyber threats and redesigning it to increase mobility.

Rep. Tom O’Halleran said he felt the network strategy was more of a concept than a plan and asked Army representatives at the hearing when Congress could expect to see a real plan showing a clear way forward.

Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, the Army’s chief information officer, said, “What we owe back to you … is the details of an execution plan. What we have laid out for you to date is the recognition is that we’ve got a real problem in our formations in our army today.

He added the reason the Army is moving so rapidly to fix the network’s problems is because it needs to be able to “fight tonight” and the current capability doesn’t get the job done.

The rollout, set to begin later this year, should impact some 400 units by the time it’s completed in 2019.

The past decade has seen units saddled with a heterogenous assortment of system profiles.

“While some units have the latest software upgrades, others do not,” said Paul Mehney, spokesman at Army Program Executive Office – Command, Control, Communications-Tactical. The result: interoperability issues, security concerns and sustainment inefficiencies. “This fielding effort is really about getting software and hardware standard across formations, which will lead to training, logistics and modernization efficiency.”

The Army’s strategy is to pare down over a dozen mission command network software and hardware versions to conform to a single baseline — a common hardware and software set that all units will receive. This should make for a simpler command post operating environment, streamlined network setup and improved sustainment.

Some of the systems covered under the unification plan include the Battle Command Common Services (BCCS) servers, Command Post of the Future (CPOF) software and client laptops, Global Command and Control System – Army (GCCS-A), Joint Battle Command – Platform (JBC-P), Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) and other systems.

Today these systems are used primarily in the command post or operations center environments to manage missions and operations. They control the common operational map, fires missions, logistical tracking and awareness, and situational awareness data.

The push to better coordinate these diverse systems aligns with the Army’s ongoing efforts to rethink the computer-systems profile of its command posts.

“Lessons from ongoing conflicts around the world tell us it’s imperative that we increase the mobility and streamline the footprint of our command posts,” Gen. Robert ‘Abe’ Abrams, commanding general, U.S. Forces Command, said in an Army news release. “We have to make our command posts more effective, mobile and survivable.”

The Army has set an aggressive timeline for itself, with plans to upgrade more than 200 units in 2018. A normal year would see only a third as many units receiving upgrades. One way to meet the mark will be to establish “hub” sites across the country that will serve as central locations for equipment fielding and training. Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Fort Hood, Texas, have been identified as initial regional locations.

The Army also has increased the number of training instructors from 28 to 94 in support of this effort, and planners also are looking to customize training in order to speed deployment.

“Units that have had newer software will naturally receive less comprehensive training than others on older versions,” Mehney said. “Tailored training will save time and resources and enable a better end product for the soldier.”

By setting a common baseline, planners hope to simplify systems maintenance, for example, by making it easier to push out security patches in a unified and automated fashion. Soldiers moreover should have an easier time managing systems operations as they shift between different units.

“Soldiers will have the same mission command application experience with the same versions and look and feel of software applications across all tactical units,” Mehney said. “This means soldiers will have to train less when they move from to a new duty station or between echelons in their unit, because they will already be acclimated to the mission command applications.”

The Army also anticipates needing less hardware, as previously stovepiped servers and laptops are empowered to serve multiple systems. “This should lead to a decrease in logistics and sustainment costs and also make command post set-up and tear-down easier, aiding in unit mobility,” Mehney said.

The software and hardware upgrades come in response to a directive issued this spring by the Army’s G3/5/7’s organization, which called for tactical units to consolidate to a single software baseline. Units stationed in the Pacific are slated to receive fielding in fiscal year 2018, while those in Europe and Southwest Asia will get upgrades in 2019. Units in the United States will see upgrades in both years.