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nastyleg
03-29-2010, 06:17 PM
Some rapid-fielded items to be formal programs

By Kate Brannen - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 29, 2010 16:25:40 EDT

Every quarter, the Army looks at items that were rapidly fielded to Iraq and Afghanistan and asks whether they could play a larger and more permanent role in the force.

The service completed its eighth round of the Capabilities Development for Rapid Transition (CDRT) process March 16 when the CDRT team briefed Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli on its recommendations.

The Self-Protection Adaptive Roller Kit (SPARK), a giant roller that can be mounted on vehicles to detect roadside bombs, received approval to become a formal acquisition program, allowing it to compete for funding in the next program objective memorandum, according to an Army briefing. More than 800 SPARK systems have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and there are requests for more.

According to the briefing, the Army plans to develop a requirements document that combines improvised explosive device and countermine capabilities into one roller system for route clearance and also for other Army vehicles.

A data management system called the Combined Information Data Network Exchange was recognized as an “enduring capability” but will not become an official acquisition program until further analysis is completed.

Battlefield Forensics Training was also recognized as an important future tool and will be incorporated into Army training.

The CDRT process has considered 453 capabilities since beginning in 2004. Of these, 49 have been selected as “enduring capabilities,” meaning they have applicability beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. CDRT also uses two other categories: sustain and terminate.

Sustain applies to items that are providing value to a specific mission or in a certain area but might not be applicable in the future or to the entire force. These items are sustained through Overseas Contingency Operations funding.

In the last round, 14 items were selected for this category, including the SIPR/NIPR Access Point (SNAP) and the RF 7800W (Harris) radio. Both of these items were recommended to become acquisition programs by the field, but were not approved later on in the process.

SNAP will be included in the vice chief of staff’s radio portfolio review, according to the briefing. Some of the capabilities provided by SNAP overlap those in Increment 2 of the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) program.
Harris radio

The Harris radio, which delivers high-speed Ethernet over wireless links, was not selected, partially because the waveform it uses has not been approved yet by the Pentagon’s Office for Networks and Information Integration, according to the briefing.

U.S. Central Command has purchased 141 of the radios and another 323 were requested through urgent operational needs statements in 2009. While $7.5 million has been spent on the radios to date, $72.2 million was requested in 2010 funds, according to the briefing.

The Army plans to continue to fund the radio’s use in Iraq and Afghanistan and include it in Chiarelli’s radio portfolio review. According to the briefing, the Army also wants to incorporate the radio’s capabilities into WIN-T Increment 2.

The Army needs to determine what is in WIN-T increment 2 and what actually will be available down to company level to meet what is being solved by SNAP and Harris radio, according to the meeting minutes. Chiarelli requested more information on cost, schedule and performance for WIN-T Increment 2.

The Base Expeditionary Targeting Surveillance System-Combined (BETSS-C) was also suggested by the field for consideration, but according to the briefing, the Army intends to support it through war funding until it has determined an overall base protection strategy.

The briefing says BETSS-C is one of multiple joint candidates for base protection, including the RAID and C-RAM systems. The Army is holistically reviewing base defense items to determine its long-term strategy for them, according to the briefing.

It was recommended that BETSS-C be included in the ISR portfolio review to ensure it is not being looked at just from a protection perspective, according to the meeting’s minutes.

In this round, no items were recommended for termination.

According to the briefing, since the process began, 11 percent of the items considered have been deemed “enduring capabilities,” 64 percent were selected for “sustain,” and 24.7 percent have been terminated.

According to the meeting’s minutes, there was some concern about how the “sustain” items would fare when supplemental war funding is reduced. Chiarelli said the service should start prioritizing these items in preparation for budget reductions.


http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/03/army_032610_Army_items_web/