Soldiers assigned to the “Spartan Brigade,” 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, completed new equipment training for the Army’s Armored Formation On-The-Move Network pilot on January 21 and then commenced on Jan. 24 at Fort Stewart. The unit will assess three different equipment sets composed of a wide range of commercial technologies at varying maturity levels from over 20 industry partners. The Army will use Soldier feedback from the field training pilot to inform design and fielding decisions to deliver a modernized mobile tactical network to armored formations as part of Capability Set 25 – the third installment in the Army’s iterative two-year network modernization capability set acquisition and fielding process. The Army Test and Evaluation Command will operate as an independent evaluator during the pilot and will use direct Soldier feedback to develop a report to inform Army design decisions.
“The new equipment training conducted prior to the event is critical to the success of the pilot. Soldiers received in-depth training on the diverse commercial technologies that they will be operating for each of the equipment sets and will be afforded the opportunity to provide feedback on the systems and how they interact,” said John Gillette, product manager for Mission Network, Project Manager Tactical Network, the PEO C3T office leading the pilot.
“The Spartan Brigade looks forward to providing feedback on the Army’s latest communications pilot for armored formations. Now that the new equipment training is complete, we’re excited to get the pilot underway,” said Col. Terry R. Tillis, commander of the 2nd ABCT, 3rd ID.
“There are obvious challenges integrating new and existing technologies into armored formations, but the effort is needed and necessary if we are to determine which technologies could best support the tactical commander’s ability to make accurate and timely decisions. Even with these challenges, the development team has done an incredible assimilating a diverse showcase of industry technology prototypes so we can find out how these technologies could potentially improve warfighter survivability and lethality,” said Maj. Todd Klinzing-Donaldson, the top communications and network officer for the 2nd ABCT, 3rd ID.
The Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical is one of the U.S. Army offices that delivers the Army’s network modernization strategy. Fielders from the PEO C3T’s tactical network project office arrived at Fort Stewart in mid-November 2021 to receive the equipment by rail, inventory it and sign it over to the in the Spartan Brigade units executing the pilot. Engineers from General Dynamics, the industry lead integrator for the pilot, arrived in early December to begin internal network testing and network terminal and vehicle-server initialization in preparation for new equipment training. The Soldier new equipment training ran from Jan. 6 to Jan. 21 and consisted of seven different classes. The training included formal classroom instructions in the mornings leading to practical exercises with hands-on training in the afternoons.
