Reflective of that emphasis on honing the Army’s combat edge through an affordable modernization strategy, during the previous month the chief of staff had directed that the Army’s Future Force Integration Directorate (FFID) at Fort Bliss, Texas, initially organized as a directorate of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, a subordinate unit of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), be re-designated as Brigade Modernization Command (BMC). FFID was originally established in December 2005 to provide on-site integration organization to facilitate development, testing, and evaluation of the Future Combat Systems (FCS).

However, with the demise of the formal FCS program, BMC was provided with the mission “to conduct physical integration and evaluations of the network – capability packages and other capabilities in order to provide doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, education, personnel, and facility recommendations to the Army.”

In parallel with the re-designation, the Army was also transitioning its modernization focus on the ground. Over the previous two years, the Early Infantry Brigade Combat Team (E-IBCT) Limited User Test (LUT) (fall of 2009 and September 2010) had focused on a half-dozen surviving remnants of the FCS program, dubbed “Increment 1” systems.

In early February 2011, the Department of the Army announced that it had decided to continue low-rate initial production (LRIP) of two elements of the E-IBCT program – the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (SUGV) and tactical network system Network Integration Kit – but would no longer pursue the Unattended Ground Sensors and the Class 1 unmanned air system elements of that program. Activities for the remaining E-IBCT elements – like the SUGV and tactical network – were transitioned to program executive office responsibility.

Activities on the ground at Fort Bliss and nearby White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), N.M., transitioned from the old E-IBCT LUTs to a semiannual event process called Network Integration Evaluations (NIEs). NIEs are a key aspect of a larger Agile Process that the Army is using to transform acquisition processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness and reduce the amount of time and resources necessary to respond to the rapid changes in soldier requirements associated with current operations, emergent information technology, and modifications to the Army Force Structure.

Outlining the net effect of the process transition in May, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli offered, “The network, and the business processes that support it, must be flexible and adaptive enough to permit easy integration of new capabilities and innovative and emerging technologies. Our old processes do not keep up with the rapid pace of changing technologies and do not support our soldiers in harm’s way.”

The Army conducted its first NIE in June and July of 2011. As the first of the semiannual evaluations designed to integrate and mature the Army’s tactical network and as a key element of the Army’s emerging Network Strategy, NIE 11.2 was a six-week effort at WSMR by elements of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division (2/1 AD). The primary purpose was to conduct formal tests of six Army programs of record (Systems Under Test [SUT]), with a secondary purpose to less formally evaluate 29 developmental and emerging networked and non-networked capabilities (Systems Under Evaluation [SUE]).

According to BMC overviews, “The 2011 exercise was the first of this type of combined test and evaluation – a new process that demonstrated the Army’s holistic focus to integrate network components simultaneously in one operational venue. In the first NIE, the Army successfully brought the test, acquisition and doctrine communities together to synchronize and streamline the evaluation and feedback approach – allowing for more usable test data and direct user feedback to the acquisition community. The Army combined and synchronized formal testing using one Brigade Combat Team (BCT) – a unit dedicated to performing operationally relevant tests and evaluations. The Army no longer has to tap into many different units for the tests – it has a single brigade dedicated to the effort. Consolidating the network evaluation at Fort Bliss/WSMR allowed the network to be tested & evaluated as a whole, vice individual programs and systems. This is an effective and essential way of doing business.”