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The first phase of the U.S. Army’s ambitious modernization program is preparing to enter service. The multi-billion dollar effort seeks to transform the Army into a network-centric force with advanced vehicles and precision weapons. Initial low-rate production and operational testing of selected equipment and software are underway after years of development and cost issues.

The U.S. Army has networked the battlefield, providing troops with the first digital systems they actually wear. Capabilities formerly reserved exclusively for use on vehicles are now available at the individual level, altering how warfighters manage combat operations. This cutting-edge technology improves situational awareness and interoperability as well as command and control.

The U.S. Air Force is preparing to release a new version of a system designed to improve the service’s interoperability with joint, allied and coalition command and control systems. For the Air Force to accomplish its mission and support joint and coalition operations, it needs to include the capabilities of the new version in a network-centric, information-sharing environment. The system will provide a consolidated environment for planners at all command levels to access and influence force projection data.

The U.S. military is revolutionizing the way it fights in urban environments. A tactical transformational concept that shifts the emphasis from the adversary to the local population has been fast-tracked to commanders operating in Afghanistan, and it is being supported by technology that originally was designed to help market toothpaste to China. The technology, along with some very innovative thinking, reveals both intended and unintended consequences of actions so decision-makers can anticipate the impact each will have in a particular situation.

The U.S. Army's ambitious program to create a lighter, more mobile, networked and lethal force is facing budget cuts and concerns that the complex initiative may not be fully deployed. A recently released Congressional Budget Office report examines Future Combat Systems within the context of the Army's transformation efforts. It highlights the challenges facing the program and provides alternative approaches to modernizing the service's combat brigades.

U.S. troops in Iraq are performing investigative fieldings of instant speech-to-speech translators as a result of efforts by several government organizations and private companies. The language barriers faced by U.S. forces and Iraqis inhibit training and routine operations. As operation Iraqi Freedom continues, the need for better communication between U.S. troops and Iraqi soldiers and civilians is becoming increasingly important.

The U.S. Marine Corps is assessing a technology that will allow troops to assemble aviation command and control centers anywhere they can take a high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle (HMMWV). The new system is more agile, mobile and dynamic than the systems it replaces, and it gives Marines the ability to engage the enemy more quickly and effectively.

The U.S. Central Command faces an array of technological and procedural problems in the area of command, control, communications and computers. From a need to include interagency and coalition partners on networks that do not support their access to information to a requirement to update communications infrastructures that are primitive, nonexistent or targeted by the enemy, creating network centricity that fully supports the troops is a constant challenge for the command.

The combination of a low-tech platform and a high-tech radio is extending beyond-line-of-sight communications from 10 miles to more than 400 miles. The approach employs small hydrogen balloons that are sent into the near-space realm-defined as from 65,000 feet to 325,000 feet above Earth-toting two AN/PRC-148 radios that relay ground-to-ground, air-to-ground and ground-to-air voice and data communications. Although the capability was developed to address a combat-mission need statement and is scheduled to be deployed to theaters of operation in December, the benefits of this technique also could extend to homeland security as well as emergency relief efforts such as assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

If actions speak louder than words, then current military operations are shouting volumes about the benefits of network centricity in warfare. Case studies sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department's Office of Force Transformation present an abundance of hard evidence that networked forces can be up to 10 times more effective than non-networked troops in high-intensity conflict missions. In comparison to voice-only communications, what experts call the "information position" is between 10 and 100 times better not only for commanders but also for the individual warfighter. The studies also point out that even less-than-perfect networks can be valuable.