Army Running Largest Network Test Of Its Kind At White Sands Missile Range.

By Tony Bertuca, InsideDefense.com, July 1, 2011 -

EL PASO, TX -- The Army's first-ever Network Integration Evaluation is being conducted with 3,800 soldiers over 8,000 square kilometers of rugged terrain at White Sands Missile Range, NM, and Ft. Bliss, TX.

The new bi-annual evaluation began on June 6 and will end on July 15. Results will not be publicly available until August, according to Army integration spokesman Paul Mehney.

Mehney said the Army's new "buy less, more often" acquisition focus was the mantra for the NIE. "This is a new acquisition approach, a new test and evaluation approach and a new integration approach," he said here on June 29. "Our focus is on changing the culture of the Army. This could be used as a catalyst."

The Army last month released a request for information to industry regarding the second NIE, which has been scheduled for October.

Mehney said the cost of the large test was not yet known. But he stressed that the NIE's planned integration of technologies at WSMR and Ft. Bliss would save soldiers in the field a great deal of time and money because they would no longer have to integrate new technology themselves.

"The tests are not cheap," he said. "But the vast majority of the cost is in the integration. By doing integration down here, you're not sending equipment to be deployed that's not integrated."

Col. Dave Wellons, the director of the Army Integration test and evaluation directorate, said the NIE was the largest test event of its kind.

Last year, he said, smaller test sets were conducted for technologies in the Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team. "We had six sets of evaluators, six sets of [test] instruments, six sets of results," he said. "This year we have one set of each for [everything]."

The complex evaluation included five limited user tests and 29 "systems under evaluation." The LUTs covered the Joint Tactical Radio Systems' Ground Mobile and Handheld Manpack Small Form Fit radios, the Mounted Soldier System, the Joint Capabilities Release of Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below, the Network Integration Kit and remotely controlled Spider anti-personnel munition.

The 29 SUEs included the Company Command Post, the Counter-Rockets Artillery Mortars Indirect Fires Protection Capability, Medical Communication for Combat Casualty Care, the Puma Unmanned Aircraft System, the HMS Rifleman Radio, Company Intelligence Support Teams, Fires Threads, Joint Capability Release Logistical, Network Lethality, Command Post Platform, xpendable-Unattended Ground Sensors, Cerberus Lite, Dismount Blue Force Tracking, Current Force UGS, Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications, Nett Warrior, Trojan Swarm RITE 3G, Battle Command Collapse, Combat Outpost Surveillance Force Protection System, Intelligent Power, Long-Range Advance Scout Surveillance System Streaming Video, Real World Convoy Mission Rehearsal System, Transformative Applications, the Harris AN/PRC 117G, RF-700 High-Capacity Line-of-Sight Radio, the Secret Internet Protocol Router/Non-secure Internet Protocol Access Point, and the Air Ground Integration Blast Gauge.

Jerry Tyree, the director of Whites Sands operations for Army integration, told reporters June 29, "I'm amazed, myself, we even pulled it off."

Lt. Col. Bill Everage, an official with Army Brigade Combat Modernization, said many of the technologies would be invited back for the October NIE and, perhaps, to the next event in April 2012. But he noted that user feedback being provided by the soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division -- the primary testers in the NIE -- would be weighed heavily in deciding whether a system will be acquired.

"On the job testing is the best thing to do," he said. "We are the honest brokers of the equipment. I don't get paid any more if it passes or fails."