The Afghanistan withdrawal and the consolidation of all in-country military networks to one base at Hamid Karzai International Airport illustrated unique challenges with direct applicability to Joint All Domain Command and Control and future Project Convergences.
By
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on June 02, 2021 at 3:27 PM
A paratrooper puts together a radio.
WASHINGTON: Despite cuts to Army modernization writ large, funding to upgrade battlefield networks is up 25 percent in the service’s 2022 budget request, rising $537 million to a total of $2.7 billion. That’s more money than requested for any of the Army’s other modernization priorities, said the Army’s acting assistant secretary for acquisition, Doug Bush, in remarks to industry this morning.
The Army has six broad priority areas, and the network is, nominally, number four. It comes in after long-range missiles & artillery, ground combat vehicles, and high-speed aircraft. But the ability to share tactical data securely over long distances is essential to all types of forces, especially long-range artillery, which must engage distant targets spotted not by their own sensors but by drones, satellites and forward observers.