Army News, news from Iraq, - Army Times

Army drops Land Warrior program

After more than 10 years of testing, the Army is pulling the plug on Land Warrior, a high-tech, digital ensemble designed to be worn by soldiers to help them see through the fog of war.

Army budget officials announced the service’s intention to cut funding to the program Monday as part of the Army’s fiscal 2008 budget request.

Since its inception in 1996, the Army has invested about $500 million in Land Warrior, a wearable system that includes a miniaturized radio for voice communications and text messages; a helmet-mounted display with a miniature computer screen for viewing digital maps, reading text messages and target identification; a Global Positioning System for precise navigation; and weapons optics for engaging the enemy day and night. All of Land Warrior’s components are wired to a small computer processor through a series of cables. When used together, Army officials say, these systems will give soldiers an unmatchable edge in battle.

Despite these capabilities, Army budget officials say the system has taken too long to perfect.

“We have pretty much removed most of the funding for the Land Warrior program,” said Lt. Gen. David Melcher, deputy chief of staff for Army G-8, said during a Pentagon briefing. “Land Warrior, along the way, really had some problems,” such as the weight of the system, which is currently 17 pounds.

The announcement comes as soldiers of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team are preparing to deploy to Iraq with Land Warrior this spring.

The 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, recently completed a successful test of the ensemble of digital communications and navigation equipment at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Army budget officials said the Army will continue to support 4-9’s deployment with Land Warrior since the unit has devoted most of its predeployment training to becoming proficient with Land Warrior, Melcher said.

The system has made a significant leap in reliability since the program’s third contract award in 2003 to General Dynamics for about $250 million, Army officials maintain.

Army officials had hoped to go into low-rate production in March and begin operational tests in January 2008. In the short term, the Army was planning to field Land Warrior to all seven Stryker brigades — a $399 million effort, program officials said. The Army had set aside $170 million to equip three Stryker brigades.

Despite these plans, the service is “taking a look at other alternatives to try and bring that capability in but without really all the superstructure that the Land Warrior program has,” Melcher said Monday, without going into more detail. “We think we have some other alternatives that, economically, are more feasible.”

The Army has also cut more than $3 billion from Future Combat Systems as part of the $130 billion fiscal 2008 budget request. The cut leaves about $3 billion for FCS development next year. The changes to FCS include cutting the Class I and Class IV unmanned aerial vehicles and one variation of an FCS UAV.