Army juggling hundreds of soldier-focused programs.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The Army's program executive officer for soldier systems--known as PEO Soldier-today manages 326 projects.

Each program has an ORD (operational requirements document), each of which involves "tens or hundreds of contracts if you add them all together," said Col. James Moran, PEG Soldier, headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va.

"We inherited all the programs from the other PEOs in the Army," said Moran at a National Defense Industrial Association's Armaments Division conference. Among the most complex programs under Moran's oversight are the Land Warrior, Air Warrior and Mountain Warrior. The next-generation Objective Force Warrior will transition to PEO Soldier in 2006, under the name Land Warrior Advanced Capability.

PEO Soldier will have to synchronize multiple technologies that will make up the OFW "We have weapons and ammo. We have command and control, laser designators and illuminators, night vision devices for the weapon sights," said Moran. PEG Soldier will work with other Army program offices for the integration of robotic vehicles into OFW.

Programs such as the Future Combat System and the Stryker only have one ORD, said Moran. "They have one funding line, and we have 41 funding lines."

The Army is currently in the process of fielding its Air Warrior program, which equips aviators with advanced equipment. "PEO Soldier is responsible for everything that goes on that aviator, including night-vision devices and body armor, inflatable rafts, communications systems and wireless communications in and around the helicopter," said Moran. "We also put cockpit airbags in the helicopter. We also do the cooling systems for the aviators."

The Land Warrior program, after years of development problems and delays, recently was turned over to General Dynamics, which received a contract to integrate the technologies for Land Warrior Stryker Interoperable. "This is the latest name for this program, it has gone through five name changes in the last 10 years," said Moran. "Hopefully, we will field this thing."

"The individual soldier is really our most deployed weapon system," he told the conference. Moran's office accelerated the fielding of a number of systems that the Army needed for recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Among them is a lightweight laser designator range-finder, or LLDR. "Those laser designators and illuminators allow a guy on the ground to talk to a B-52 to drop a JDAM from 30,000 feet," said Moran.

PEO Soldier also sent a...