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Description
The Army is pursuing the most comprehensive transformation of its forces since World War II. This transformation process is shaping the military. Driving the transformation are new concepts, capabilities and organizations intended to ensure a strategically responsive, campaign-quality force to dominate in full-spectrum operations.
As part of this transformation, the Army will field selected future combat systems (FCS) capabilities to its operational forces through a concept called "spin outs." Spin outs accelerate the fielding of capabilities to today's modular forces before the first FCS brigade combat team (FBCT) is activated in 2015.
Spin Out 1 consists of two FCS technologies: unattended ground sensors (UGS) and the non-line-of-sight launch system (NLOS-LS). UGS is comprised of the urban UGS (U-UGS) and the tactical UGS (T-UGS). U-UGS is a hand-emplaced series of sensor nodes that allow Soldiers to monitor a variety of urban spaces, including cleared or closely clustered buildings. T-UGS, which is also hand-emplaced, is a series of sensor nodes that allow the commander to monitor a variety of different terrains.
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The second technology and the focus of this article is NLOS-LS. This article provides an overview of NLOS-LS' capabilities and briefly describes its employment and integration into the Army Evaluation Task Force (AETF), a uniquely modified heavy brigade combat team (HBCT) at Fort Bliss, Texas.
NLOS-LS will be part of the FBCT's fires battalion, and, for the first time, the BCT commander will have a precision-guided munition (PGM) organic to his brigade in the form of a missile that can kill moving and other targets at a range of 40 kilometers.
AETF Initial Spin Out 1 work in 2008 consists of fielding prototypes for testing and evaluation. Assuming successful testing and evaluation of Spin Out 1, the capabilities will be fielded to current force units beginning in 2010.
The AETF's overall interactive development, integration and verification of Spin Out 1 capabilities will demonstrate the readiness to progress through additional spin out phases, ultimately, leading to the fielding of the FBCT in 2015.
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The AETF. The creation of the AETF dates to December 2005... |
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