The Army is undergoing a transformation of its entire network, with some of the most dramatic changes taking place at the tactical level where previous network capability would not pass muster in highly contested electromagnetic spectrums against potential near-peer adversaries’ capabilities.
Maj. Gen. David Bassett recently took over Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) after serving many years as the officer in charge of PEO Ground Combat Systems. He knows his way around acquisition and how to rapidly integrate capability onto platforms, most recently fielding Stryker combat vehicles with new 30mm cannons.
Bassett’s experience will transfer to PEO C3T as he looks to integrate effective network systems into tactical formations.
At the same time, Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher is tackling the network from a modernization perspective, having taken on a new job to find ways to rapidly bring better network capability into the force. He serves as one of the cross-functional team leaders working under the Army’s new Futures Command. Each CFT lead is tackling one of the service’s top six modernization priorities — the network is its fourth.
C4ISRNET’s Jen Judson caught up with both leaders in March at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss how they are working together to bring about a more robust, survivable and functional network to the force now and in the future.
C4ISRNET: I want to talk about the role of the cross-functional team, the network, as well as the role of PEO C3T in looking at the network. How do you work together to develop and acquire what the Army needs for the network?
GALLAGHER: The name of it is cross-functional, so we have elements of the acquisition community. Dave actually has core members on my team. I have members on the team from the requirements community, from the operational community. The team is relatively small. About 30 folks make up the core team and, really, it’s about focused integration and disciplined innovation. We’re not trying to do anything around the PEOs or the requirements community. We’re working by, with, and through.
BASSETT: Acquisition has always been kind of the ultimate team sport and now we’ve got some empowered teammates. PMs and PEOs are still going to execute programs. The CFT really defines the “what” of where we’re going to go modernize and really brings their stakeholders together. We bring the “how,” the acquisition experience about how to get it done both within the system and then bending that system to the collective will to make it go faster.
GALLAGHER: The network is big and there is a lot involved in modernizing the network. What we’re focused on is the war fighting aspect of the network. What can we do collectively — between what Gen. Bassett and his team are doing and what Gen. Potts and his team are doing at PEO-Soldier — to really integrate this tactical network and give our war fighters the best solutions they can to fight and win our nation’s wars.
C4ISRNET: What are some of your near-term modernization efforts?
GALLAGHER: We’re looking at leveraging solutions that are already out there, that maybe our joint and special operations teammates are using to integrate the advanced networking waveforms in our radio systems. We’re looking at redefining our security boundaries in our network to give our users at the tactical edge more options to get the message through. We’re looking at capitalizing on existing infrastructure and a host nation and then bringing scalable solutions that we need to give us maximum flexibility on the battlefield.
Working with Gen. Bassett and his team, we’re looking at what are our radio vendors going to provide us with our next-generation radios. How do we leverage radio gateways that will allow us to cross-connect different radios with mission partners? How do we leverage cross-domain solutions as we adjust the security boundaries through that upper tactical internet and our lower tactical internet to give us maximum flexibility?
We’re also looking at leveraging the tactical data links that enable our Air Force and access to close air support and things like that to give us better capability for joint fires. We’re trying to treat the network more as an ecosystem where everything’s interconnected and leveraging software translation tools and hardware gateways that give us maximum flexibility.
BASSETT: As the secretary and the undersecretary both pointed out, we have to be able to both fight tonight as well as modernize for the future. Some of the investments we’re making right now enhance our ability to fight tonight. Some of the new equipment that the CFT has helped us bring to bear in the security force assistance brigades. As we evolve some of these, they’re all really interconnected. And, so, the things that we do with the transport layer have to pass all the data that we do in our applications.
We’re looking at those same advanced radios as we look at those two things together to evolve them. We’re also looking at how we converge our mission command systems onto a common framework so that we can get rid of those mission command stovepipes and reduce the footprint that is necessary in our fielded headquarters so that the users don’t have that much to move, that we streamline that process, make training easier and make them operate better with a single common operational picture. Some of those things that are near-term we’re doing through the CFT. Some of those things are longer term we’re doing through the program of record.
C4ISRNET: What’s next for exercises in the coming year? What’s important to focus on right now?
GALLAGHER: We’ve got a combination of exercises and other sources of information. So, as Dave mentioned, the security force assistance brigades are being filled. Some of it’s nontraditional. We’re going to learn from their deployments and their feedback. And we’ve also got a couple excursions going on in Europe where the 173rd and 2nd [Cavalry Regiment] has been fielded some capabilities as part of an operational needs statement that’s similar to what we’ve been testing with one of the battalions out of the 82nd Airborne Division.
So, we just finished a two-week exercise down at Fort AP Hill in Virginia. It was a combination of PEO Soldier, PEO C3T, our partners from the 82nd, but we also had an assessment team combined from Army Test and Evaluation command. We had some members from the Joint Staff, from TRADOC Center for Army Lessons Learned to really determine capabilities limitations and, as we go forward, what we’re really focused on is how will this scale. How will this scale to an entire brigade and will it work in a variety of different types of formations?
Over the next 18 months we’re looking at an Infantry Brigade Combat Team scalability exercises. We’re looking at the installation and characterization of this type of equipment in both Stryker brigades and armor brigade combat teams.
What we’re really trying to define is whether this capability works in a multitude of formations. Is it scalable for a campaign army in the fight? And then we’re trying to leverage the experimentation and demonstration to make some recommendations to Army senior leaders about what it’s going to take to define the capabilities set. What’s the basis of issue? And we want to make sure it’s not this one-size-fits-all solution that carries us through the next 30 years. We want to make sure it’s open architecture and we can plug and play the solutions as we go forward. But they remain interoperable.
C4ISRNET: What role will experimentation play as you build the network?
BASSETT: I think it’s sometimes talked about like it’s a change. We know that we don’t start out with a perfect requirement. The cooperation that we’re getting now really shows that we can do some experimentation, refine what the requirement really ought to be to make sure that we’re hitting close to the mark. Having an empowered CFT in place, that’s really got the ear of the Army senior leaders and really, it’s connected back to the soldiers in the field who’s giving us the competence to move forward with those acquisition programs with a great deal of confidence so that what we know we’re fielding is going to be well-received. I don’t think that’s entirely new, but it’s something that we’re certainly doubling down on right now as we look at what’s next.
GALLAGHER: I do think what is new, though, is the focused leadership from the Army’s senior leadership to really get us working as a collective team with speed and precision on the most pressing modernization priorities. And, so, this team-of-team approach that we’re taking on. The partnership with C3T has been phenomenal from the start. You know they’ve offered up space at Aberdeen for a portion of our team to work. Members of Dave’s team are on my team and we are given way together to try to really accelerate capabilities, the best possible capabilities, in getting those in the hands of our soldiers as quickly as we can.
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
