It happens all the time. Despite years of research and development and millions in expenditures, U.S. Army procurement programs are unceremoniously dumped. A recent turnaround by the Army, however, shows that “no” doesn’t always mean “no,” and that a lot of good can come out of rethinking a program that’s been thrown aside.

It happened to General Dynamics’ Land Warrior program, a suite of wearable communications, tracking and intelligence gear, in February 2007. The program had been underway for 10 years and represented an investment of $500 million. The reasons for scrapping the program were that the gear was too heavy (it was), too complicated (check) and too bulky for soldiers in combat (again, mostly true). The chorus of Cassandras was loud and shrill.

At the time of the funding cut, the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Div. had just finished training with the system and was about to deploy with it on a 15-month tour in Iraq. But two things happened of critical importance: A decision was made to supply and support the 4/9 during its deployment with Land Warrior gear, and the prime contractor, General Dynamics, loath to scrap the program, continued to tweak the system throughout the deployment, a process that included weekly feedback sessions with the unit’s leadership in Iraq.

Information from infantry soldiers in Iraq helped General Dynamics improve the design and performance of Land Warrior gear.Credit: U.S. ARMY PHOTOS

The sessions resulted in valuable information, both positive and negative, program managers with the Army and General Dynamics tell DTI. Land Warrior was deemed such a success in combat and in counterinsurgency operations that Congress agreed to fund another deployment, this time with the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Div., which is going to Iraq in 2009.

The program assessment continued after the 4/9 redeployed to Ft. Lewis, Wash., in July. The Army plans to send about 1,000 Land Warrior systems along with the 5/2, as opposed to the 440 that the 4/9 took. Lt. Col. Brian Cummings, Land Warrior product manager, tells DTI that the 5/2’s brigade commander “really wants to be the model for the Army as far as being able to conduct operations in a new fashion.” The 5/2’s effort will be funded by a main supplemental provided by Congress that will pay for one brigade’s worth of equipment. Some time during the next few months, the 5/2 will begin training with the Land Warrior system.

One of the things that soldiers in the field didn’t like about Land Warrior was the weapon subsystem, a gun-mounted camera device that allows soldiers to peer around corners or over walls without exposing themselves. Cummings says that the grunts didn’t take to the subsystem for two reasons: the weight it added to their weapons, and a cable that attaches the soldier to the weapon, which can cause problems.

Another complaint was that the system wasn’t designed for the quick, unpredictable strikes that define a counterinsurgency campaign. “Our guys never had a lot of major sustained fires where they took cover, so they were actually able to engage the target using the common optics they have on the weapons,” Cummings says.

Ditching the weapon subsystem eliminated the weight complaint. Originally 17 lb., Land Warrior was reduced to 10 lb. without the subsystem, and then tweaked to slightly more than 7 lb., where it remains. “One thing that’s always been our nemesis is reducing weight,” Cummings says. “We want to reduce the number of boxes a soldier carries. That’s one thing they harped on: ‘Cut down our load and the real estate on our bodies.’” According to Mark Showah, director of General Dynamics’ Integrated Systems Group, another way the company brought down weight was by allowing soldiers to play with the system. He says they “essentially took all the equipment, laid it on a counter, disconnected it all, said ‘here’s some IBA (Interceptor Body Armor), go ahead and put the equipment where you want it and we’ll figure out how to make it a more permanent solution.’” The result was that the soldiers “came back with a design that was much better than we could have produced.”

Originally, Land Warrior was to be distributed to every infantry soldier but in practice, it was decided that only team leaders need to be equipped with items such as the helmet-mounted drop-down monocle screen, which displays maps, text messages and the “virtual chem light,” for which a soldier places a small icon on his display, viewable by everyone on the network, that puts blue or red markers on buildings found to be friendly or hostile, giving every squad a full view of the battlespace.

Helmet-mounted, drop-down monocle displays maps, text messages and identifies buildings as friendly or hostile.

If Land Warrior sounds bandwidth-hungry, it is. Or at least it would be if used to full potential. In Iraq, the 4/9 only pushed the gear so far. Bandwidth wasn’t an issue, Cummings says, because the unit didn’t shoot “any major video or large imagery.” He says the unit would have eaten up bandwidth if it tried to send maps or other big files and images over the net, but typically soldiers kept only the maps they needed for a mission loaded on the system, and preloaded specific maps for each operation. Most of the messages sent over the net were relatively simple, like position location, text messages and tactical icons.