Tactical Technologies Too Complex for Soldiers

Many Army soldiers are receiving new vehicles and new tactical communications systems, but often those systems are so complex soldiers have difficulties setting up and taking down their tactical networks. The issue limits mobility on the battlefield because units hesitate to move knowing it can take hours to re-establish network communications, said Lt. Gen. Patrick Donahue, USA, the new deputy commanding general, U.S. Army Forces Command.

Gen. Donahue made the comments during the AFCEA TechNet Augusta 2014 conference in Augusta, Georgia. He questioned whether current forces have the ability to displace tactical operations centers (TOCs) or to execute mission command on the move. “The answer, from my observation, is no. In the combat training centers brigades hunker down because they’ve got so much junk, and it takes so long to put in those fibers and cables, they don’t want to move,” he revealed. “Even artillery doesn’t want to move.”

When a brigade is forced to move, it will take an average of 48 hours to get the digital systems back online. A battalion takes about 24 hours. “One brigade was able to get their systems back up in about 10 hours, and they were pretty happy about that,” he reported. “We need to do better than that.”

The general cited inadequate training at the home bases as one issue. “Getting the network up seems to be a real struggle for most of our tactical units. There are definitely some training issues involved. We’re having problems training at home station to get the TOCs set up or to displace. We can fix that.”

In some cases, difficulties arise when units are fielded a host of new vehicles and technologies and then sent to a training center without enough time to learn about the systems. “The systems we’re trying to deploy are just too complex to set up in a hot, dusty environment. They don’t seamlessly interoperate, and there are too many workarounds,” Gen. Donahue said.