Can the army make objective force warrior work? General Dynamics-led contractor team faces huge technological hurdles.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The Army's vision for its future soldiers could begin to materialize this decade, under the Objective Force Warrior program. The technical challenges ahead, however, are formidable.

The Objective Force Warrior, managed by the Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., aims to convert the foot soldier into an independent lethal weapon, by integrating the various components of a soldier's uniform and battlefield equipment.

The U.S. Army already has been developing advanced soldier technologies under the much-criticized Land Warrior program. In recent months, however, the Army has restructured Land Warrior and intends to merge successful technologies into Objective Force Warrior.

The Land Warrior Initial Capability--which was supposed to be fielded for the Army Rangers in 2004--was changed to Land Warrior Stryker Interoperable, to be fielded with the Stryker light armored vehicle brigades.

"I hope we either field this thing, or wish we had killed it," said Col. James Moran, the program executive officer for soldier systems. "Unfortunately, last year we had a consortium of contractors, five contractors, but no one was in charge. They weren't under contract with each other. They were all doing their own thing." The Army re-competed the program and awarded General Dynamics to integrate all the pieces, said Moran.

Now, the Army has selected another General Dynamics team, "Eagle Enterprise," as the lead technology integrator for Objective Force Warrior.

By 2006, the Army hopes it will have an OFW equipment set that weighs no more than 40 pounds and can last for a 24-hour mission.

The plan is for the Soldier Systems Center to transfer the OFW to the PEO Soldier, for the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase. The program will then be called Land Warrior Advanced Capability.

The first Land Warrior Advanced Capability unit will be fielded with the first increment of the Future Combat System, in 2010, according to Carol Fitzgerald, the technology program manager for the Objective Force Warrior advanced concept demonstration.

The FCS often is described as the Army's network of manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles. The OFW will be networked into the FCS systems, John Munroe, the OFW chief engineer told National Defense.

The failures of the Land Warrior program will help the team avoid certain problem areas in the OFW design.

"Our office has been involved in Land Warrior and tracked it throughout its life," Munroe said in an interview. "We understand the critical risk areas."

For example, he said that power is one of the critical areas, "trying to make sure that any technology that we bring has to earn its way into the system. We have to...