{"id":15144,"date":"2018-05-17T21:05:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T21:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2018\/05\/17\/the-army-is-learning-by-doing-to-keep-pace-in-electronic-warfare\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:54:10","slug":"the-army-is-learning-by-doing-to-keep-pace-in-electronic-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/electronic-warfare\/2018\/05\/17\/the-army-is-learning-by-doing-to-keep-pace-in-electronic-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"The Army is learning by doing to keep pace in electronic warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is part two of a two-part series on how the Army is looking to acquire and field capabilities faster.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army has been looking to reduce its requirements process timeline for identifying and delivering needed capabilities to keep pace with increasingly software-centric 21st century warfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adversaries are introducing new capability faster than Army bureaucracy can counter, even with existing commercial technology, so the service is operationalizing new contract vehicles to drastically shrink down these timelines<\/a>. In response, the Army is learning by doing: gauging the urgent needs of soldiers engaged in electronic warfare and fielding modular tools that can address immediate concerns, inform existing programs and shrink prototyping timelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA fundamental shift that is happening inside the Army is, instead of writing a requirement document and then having it sit on the table for 10 years wondering if it\u2019s right while you throw it over the fence to your acquisition teammates to build something, is to do experimentation and demonstration in an operational environment that informs our requirements,\u201d Maj. Gen. John Morrison, commander of the Army\u2019s Cyber Center of Excellence said during a keynote presentation May 16 at the AFCEA Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gathering operational needs statements from soldiers on the front lines of Europe, the Army is doing capability development \u201cso that we can go ahead and assess capabilities and get a sense of whether we have our requirements right or not,\u201d Morrison said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One example lies in the Army\u2019s Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool, a software interface overlaid onto a physical map allowing soldiers to visually manage their signal output in the electromagnetic spectrum and plan effects in this non-physical domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pace that we were working from the requirements perspective was not meeting what the war fighter needed downrange,\u201d Col. Mark Dotson, Army Training and Doctrine Command capability manager for EW and spectrum management operations, said at the C4ISRNET Conference, held in Arlington, Virginia, May 10. \u201cAs they elevated those concerns, we were able to take a look at what else was out there that could help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Army then delivered a more advanced version of the current capability ahead of the next expected capability drop cycle in 2020, nicknamed Raven Claw<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The so-called Raven Claw capability enables soldiers to conduct electronic warfare planning and management on the move and without network connection, getting at a critical need for troops in Europe, who are rarely tethered to a static command post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe primary thing was making it portable and able to operate in a mobile environment.\u201d Karen Steinfeld, director of capture management excellence tactical electronic warfare at Raytheon (the contractor for EWPMT), told C4ISRNET in a March interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\t