Army Tests Network Capabilities at Joint Readiness Training Center.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

* Soldiers are testing new tactical gear in support of the Army's efforts to modernize its network capabilities.

The service has been embarking on a series of capability sets as it works to advance its connectivity through Army Futures Command's network cross-functional team. Technology developed under Capability Set 21 was recently put through its paces at the Joint Readiness Training Center, which is located at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

The training center offered the Army a "full force-on-force brigade exercise," said Col. Rob Ryan, chief of operations for the network team. Soldiers were able to train in realistic terrain using radios enabled with more powerful waveforms.

Commanders had more situational awareness and understanding during the exercise because of CAPSET 21 technologies, he said during remarks at the C4ISRNET Conference.

"Awareness means you think you know what's going on. Understanding means you can act on what's going on," he said. "That's a huge difference in the fog and friction of battle."

"The feedback we got from the ... brigade commander down to the company commanders was, 'I understood my course,'" he added. '"I understood where and when I didn't have connectivity and I could talk at range allowing me a better visibility of the battlefield so I could just detect, decide and execute operations at pace.'"

The center allowed Army Training and Evaluation Command to assess the effectiveness, sustainability and survivability of the equipment that was being brought in, said Lt. Col. Brandon Baer, product manager at the Army's program executive office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical. "We worked to actually get network CFT representation, ... talking with soldiers, actually seeing the mission, seeing how the unit moved and how they were communicating," he said.

Officials also visited a week ahead of the event--which took place in February--to meet with personnel in charge of after-action reviews at the facility to discuss the equipment that was being brought in, he added.

"[We gave] them an overview of the equipment and the capability provided by the CAPSET 21 equipment since a lot of it... they were not familiar with going into the rotation, [to] help them assess it better," he said.

One of the biggest gaps the Army has found so far is training, Baer said.

It's "not that the equipment is not working, it's how does all this stuff work together?" he said. "A...