Pairing Military and Civil Works Research
In addition to force protection, ERDC is also involved in force projection activities in operational settings that may be dramatically different from Afghanistan.
“As an Army, we have to have a very good understanding of things like near coastal environments all around the world, particularly in the areas that we are most concerned about for the future,” Holland said. “As the emphasis pivots for the U.S. military from the Central Command region to the Pacific Command region, the issues of breaching and crossing beaches, then quickly getting into the fight, become extraordinarily important again.
“ERDC conducts that research for the military,” he said, “and we leverage heavily off our civil works capabilities in things like flood and storm risk management. The same group of people who work coastal issues, waves, surge, sediment transport, bathymetry [measurement of water depth], and those types of issues on the civil side also work those same issues on the military side.”
“But one of the things that has come out of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the recognized importance of engineers in combat environments. And, as the organization that does the vast majority of engineer-related research and development for the Army, I suspect that our research work in those areas will remain firm over the next several years.”
One representative capability developed through this process has been the Lightweight Modular Causeway System. The system can be rolled directly off the stern of a U.S. Navy vessel, deployed in just a few hours, and “rides the waves” while providing the ability to drive an M1-series Abrams tank over the top of it. Holland said that the design has “been fully demonstrated and is available to the military whenever they are ready.”
Other areas associated with ERDC military engineering efforts range from geospatial research, to environmental quality issues on military installations to extensive capabilities such as modeling the effectiveness of new sensor systems against certain threats in selected environments.
“Things like modeling tactical sensor effectiveness is not something most people would think of as being a Corps of Engineer activity,” Holland said. “But it’s a very impressive capability and we are very proud of it.
“Most people think of the Corps of Engineers as being locks, dams, waterways, and water resources,” he said. “And that’s true for most of the approximately 36,500 civilian and 700 military employees of the Corps of Engineers. But for the laboratories, 80 percent of the work we do is for the military.”
The ERDC-developed Modular Protective System (MPS) is man portable, can be easily assembled in theater, and provides the ballistic protection, roughly, of an Abrams tank. The MPS has been tested extensively and deployed in theater by the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. ERDC photo
Summarizing ERDC’s military support efforts, Holland offered a simple and direct message to U.S. warfighters: “We are right there with you, working on solutions that can save your life and can make you safer in an unsafe place.”
Along with warfighter support, ERDC’s civil works projects range from performing research for USACE in flood and coastal storm damage reduction to fielding resulting technologies. In addition, ERDC can apply its impressive research capabilities to “site-specific problems” upon request from USACE division and district offices.
Asked about any potential shift in project emphasis with the drawdown of combat operations in theater, Holland offered, “I see that the country has extraordinary infrastructure issues that must be dealt with. The question of how we might finance that is a policy decision that is beyond my capacity to comment on. I can simply tell you that the Corps of Engineers has already made the decision to do more research and development in the area of aging infrastructure, so that we can extend the life cycle and improve the vitality of our current infrastructure, given that we simply can’t afford to rebuild everything we have from scratch.”
“It might sound a little bit like a bumper sticker to some, but the fact remains that this organization is truly involved in making a safer and better world through very tangible applications of science and technology for solutions to support our warfighters and to support our nation’s water resources. We get to do it every day and we are happy to be doing it.”
He continued, “In terms of the military operational support work that we currently perform, I believe that there will be certain areas of science and technology support for operators that will go down. Some of the work we have done in transitioning science and technology to systems available for fielding will also go down. But one of the things that has come out of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the recognized importance of engineers in combat environments. And, as the organization that does the vast majority of engineer-related research and development for the Army, I suspect that our research work in those areas will remain firm over the next several years.”
Summarizing the activities and contributions of ERDC, Holland concluded, “It might sound a little bit like a bumper sticker to some, but the fact remains that this organization is truly involved in making a safer and better world through very tangible applications of science and technology for solutions to support our warfighters and to support our nation’s water resources. We get to do it every day and we are happy to be doing it.”
This article first appeared in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Building Strong®, Serving the Nation and the Armed Forces 2013-2014 Edition.