The U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) awarded a $31.9 million contract to Victor, New York-based REDCOM Laboratories, Inc.* REDCOM is a woman-owned small business that specializes in the design and manufacture of advanced tactical and strategic communications solutions in a small form factor that provide interoperability, flexibility, and ease of use. Under the five-year contract, the company will deliver tactical communications software for multiple Army programs as part of the PEO C3T’s network modernization effort.
PEO C3T
Brig. Gen. Robert M. Collins, USA, has been assigned as program executive officer, Command, Control, and Communications (Tactical), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
With key knowledge of the Army’s necessary sensors, intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities, Brig. Gen. Robert Collins, USA, today steps into the role of Program Executive Office Command Control Communications-Tactical, or PEO C3T. Gen. Collins replaces newly promoted Lt. Gen. David Bassett, USA, who becomes the director of the Defense Contract Management Agency.
The U.S. Army’s work on advancing its tactical network through its “capability package construct” will pull in significant capacity, added resiliency and interoperability, leaders say. The Army is leveraging more commercial solutions than ever, as well as its own Science and Technology Directorate research and development, to bring a competitive edge.
As part of its latest pursuit of solutions for the Integrated Tactical Network concept, or ITN, the Army is going after high capacity commercial satellite communications, protected waveforms, mid-earth-orbit constellations, and space-based Internet.
DRS Network & Imaging Systems LLC, Melbourne, Florida, was awarded a sole-source, firm-fixed-price delivery order (HC1084-19-F-0145) with a face value and approximate total contract value of $28,600,000, under contract NNG15SC08B on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement contract vehicle for additional Army installation kits and spares in support of the Army Program Executive Office Command, Control, and Communications-Tactical Project Manager, Mission Command. This action is funded by fiscal year 2019 procurement funds. Performance is throughout the continental U.S. The contract period of performance is 12 months.
Confronting adversaries on a more complicated battlefield requires advanced tools for a U.S. Army more comfortable operating in the traditional domains of land, sea, air and space. The new Cyber Situational Understanding program of record, however, will give the U.S. Army an increased understanding with actionable information of the cyber domain, explained Portia Crowe, chief, Cyber Engineering at the Army’s Program Executive Office Command Control Communications – Tactical (PEO C3T).
Crowe headed up the AFCEA Aberdeen Chapter’s 4th Annual C4ISR Cyber Panel on March 6 and spoke to SIGNAL Magazine in an interview.
Army leaders are tackling the integration of modern network capabilities to push out broadly across the Army force structure over the next decade.
Maj. Gen. David Bassett, USA, program executive officer for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO-C3T) and Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, USA, director, Network Cross-Functional Team (Network CFT) are overseeing the effort and have developed an iterative plan to bring together network transport, mission command applications and services, all easily deployed to soldiers.
The U.S. Army’s current tactical network environment is not optimized to provide expeditionary, mobile, hardened or simple intuitive network capability under all conditions. Its full range of communication capabilities provides the communications backbone across all echelons, but if commanders face a disconnected intermittent limited situation such as during an electronic warfare attack, they must have the ability to turn to alternate communication methods or pathways.
This multipath diversity is especially critical during expeditionary, early entry, early phase operations when soldiers rely heavily on effective communications to initiate their missions before vehicles and other high-capability systems join the fight.
Future U.S. Army regionally aligned forces will benefit from experiences—and solutions—discovered during last year’s integration with the U.S. Army Europe communications network. Although their communicators expected to hit the ground running when they arrived in theater, integrating tactical communications systems was more difficult than expected. Fortunately, new technology and soldiers’ know-how not only solved the immediate problems but also set the stage for easier communications integration in the future.
The U.S. Army is introducing a highly expeditionary communication solution to soldiers that will enable very large data file transmission, among other features, according to the Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), which leads the program of record for the technology.
The Transportable Tactical Command Communications satellite terminal capability, or the T2C2, will provide a vital link to the Army's tactical network for early entry forces. It will offer situational awareness and mission command capabilities to commanders conducting operations as well as for those setting the stage for follow-on forces, a PEO C3T spokesman states.
U.S. Army leaders are sloughing off some of the old ways of fielding technology and embracing commercial and government advances in tactical communications. Facing a technology revolution, dangerous adversaries and budgetary constraints, leaders are working to get capabilities into the hands of warfighters faster.
Taking the network into battle can be challenging for Army soldiers operating on the tactical edge. The Army’s Command Post Computing Environment, known as CP CE, is an integrated mission command system that supports warfighters across intelligence, fires, logistics, maneuvers and airspace management capabilities. The need for this system to include open system architecture and be interoperable, cost effective and cyber secure are key goals of the Product Manager Mission Command (PM MC) of the Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T).
Maj. Gen. David G. Bassett, USA, has been assigned as program executive officer, Command, Control and Communications (Tactical), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
The U.S. Army has partnered with NATO and other coalition nations to enhance operational readiness in a series of multinational exercises this year focused on interoperability. The drills enable national militaries to assess and adjust the interoperability of their capabilities long before meeting adversaries in the battlespace.
Secure Wi-Fi for classified operations is now available to the U.S. military, thanks to recent policy, hardware and software improvements.
This is of great importance, especially to the Army, which faces challenges with command-post networks. Given size, weight and power constraints, these networks lack mobility, explained Paul Mehney, director of public communications for the Army's Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T). The Army needs more rapid network initialization and faster command-post setup and teardown.