The service has decided to move on from the current Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large (MFEW-AL) platform and approach. MFEW is the Army’s only airborne electronic warfare — with limited cyber — capability organic to combat aviation brigades to support maneuver commanders on the ground. The Lockheed Martin-made technology is a pod-mounted capability on a MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone, though officials have noted it was designed to be platform agnostic — provided the platform had the right power requirements.

The Army began developing the requirements and acquisition effort for MFEW over 10 years ago, awarding Lockheed the contract in 2019. The program has faced steep challenges for years with the department zeroing out procurement funding in its fiscal year 2022 budget. Following that decision, Army leaders sought to demonstrate that the service could make the system work in a variety of environments, especially considering the persistent need for aerial electronic attack.

Officials continued to maintain that following the zeroing out, the Army was making progress and the technology would be a critical enabler for multi-domain operations, even projecting it would equip the first unit with it in fiscal 2026 following initial operational test and evaluation.

The Army now wants to look at alternatives, either from the other services or the commercial sector, pivoting away from the MFEW platform as it exists currently, Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said in a series of interviews.

Barker and his team briefed the changes to Congress last week.

“We’re pivoting to a more incremental approach focused on some of the existing capabilities that are out there with either sister services or other entities … within the EW space and trying to baseline what’s out there — and then [examine] what would it take to grow to meet the requirements from an MFEW standpoint,” he said. “The challenge will always be, and the Army acknowledges, the fact that we’re going to have the demand for aerial EA. And it’s [a question of] how do we close that gap?”

The problem, according to Barker, was when MFEW began, the Army didn’t necessarily have all the acquisition authorities it does now such as other transaction and middle tier of acquisition.

Over a decade ago, when the capability development document was finalized, MFEW was locked in and the Army didn’t have the latitude to learn, according to Barker.

That old mentality of locking in strategies and capabilities meant that the system was based on technology and threats with uncertain futures.

“When something has a degree of uncertainty and you try and codify it and then you’re not allowed to iterate and make adjustments, if any of that uncertainty or the risk of the uncertainty is realized, then it really can impact you,” Barker said. “What happened was so much of the uncertainty from a technology standpoint and the threat was realized, and without the mechanisms from a contractual standpoint or a requirement standpoint to pivot based on those changes, it just was not in an optimal position to be successful.”

Electromagnetic spectrum technologies and concepts have rapidly evolved over the last 10 years, leading the Army to now desire a more rapid approach and agile funding to be able to adjust in near real-time to the environment that is primarily software-based.

The initial requirement and capability for MFEW was all-encompassing, which has proven to be problematic now. The Army has instead opted for a more iterative and needs-based approach to requirements, issuing what it dubs “characteristics of needs” documents that are just a couple of pages of broad-based wishes for capabilities that industry can respond to rather than hundreds of pages of prescribed requirements.

As it stands right now, the current capabilities aren’t meeting the needs for MFEW.

Part of the discussion is framed around how the Army itself if evolving. Just over a month ago, the service unveiled a sweeping transformation initiative to become leaner and more agile. As part of the plan, it will no longer be procuring Gray Eagle drones and it will be divesting of some combat aviation brigades, which were key to MFEW.

Sensors, to include electronic attack capabilities, can now be strapped onto small and attritable drones that are significantly cheaper and easier to operate than larger, more exquisite systems.

As such, Barker said the Army isn’t totally starting from scratch with MFEW, noting officials are going to “leverage other people’s work” and take a more iterative approach to grow into something on the electronic attack front that can meet the Army’s requirement that still remains for aerial EA.

The old MFEW approach is much different than how the Army sought to build its Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT) capability, which was devised roughly six years ago and awarded to Lockheed in 2021. It was an integrated electronic warfare, signals intelligence and cyber platform and had been described as a key enabler of Army priorities — considering the service has been without a program-of-record jammer for decades — that will support multi-domain operations.

The Army used middle tier of acquisition and other transaction authority for that program. About a year ago, it decided to alter its initial approach to TLS-BCT, which was envisioned to first to be mounted on Strykers and then Army Multi-Purpose Vehicle variant prototypes. The Army decided last year to split up those functions.

Outside experts had always voiced concern with such a setup given the highly classified nature and authorities that come with signals intelligence and the issues associated with putting that on the same platform as electronic warfare tools. Moreover, putting a highly classified platform so close on the battlefield posed challenges as well.

“Had MFEW gone down that path [of OTA and middle tier like TLS], it may have been a different story,” Barker said. “That’s why I’m grateful for the authorities we have from Congress when it comes to those capabilities. I mean, that’s what’s allowed us to be very successful in a lot of different ways.”

New approach for TLS

Since the Army decided to split up TLS, there had been questions regarding what its approach would be for platform-based ground EW. The service awarded Mastodon Design, a CACI subsidiary, last year, for the dismounted version of the program. The Manpack capability is a dismounted electronic attack system that soldiers can use for direction finding and limited jamming on-the-move.

Now, the Army has decided to use the Manpack version as its primary ground-based jamming platform, rather than having a dedicated, vehicular-specific variant.

The plan is to use what the Army is calling a Modular Adapter Kit to mount the Manpack to vehicles. The Manpack for BCTs is the optimal solution for EW, according to Barker.

“We’re going to look at opportunities, both from a dismounted and then we’re also looking at adapter kits … which aren’t integrated,” Barker said. “It’s like strapping [or] tying onto the bustle rack of a Bradley or a tank to [at] least allow it to have a platform but not fully be integrated to where we’re worried about the [tactics, techniques and procedures] … with the platforms, which will also allow it to derive power from the platforms for greater capability.”

Lessons from Ukraine demonstrated that the old approach of integrating signals intelligence and electronic warfare onto the same vehicle was not survivable, Barker said. Using other transaction authority allowed the Army to iterate and pivot away from that approach, he added.

Moreover, along with the Army’s transformation efforts, it is moving away from certain platforms. Using a Modular Adapter Kit allows the service to be more agile to incorporate technology into whatever the Army decides to field and cut down lead times for costly and timely integration with platforms.

“You’re not integrating onto a platform which, in itself, is costly and takes a long time. That’s the goal. We’re starting to experiment with those. And that’s what we’re going to tell folks. That will allow us to get at the mounted formations at the BCT level, to get them that EW capacity,” Barker said. “It was really just a combination of the threat, technology and then force structure changes within the Army with a lot of the intelligence portions being pushed up to division and then the platform focus changing away from the Strykers and some of the other armored vehicles at the brigade.”

The Manpack solution was the first program-of-record jammer fielded to the Army in over 20 years, providing much needed capability. Now, it believes, it can speed up that delivery for other formations to get them critical tools to fight and win on the modern battlefield.

The Army is slated to field 51 brigades by the end of 2027 with the Manpack solution, seeking to iterate and change it along the way based on experimentation and the threat.

“It would be a crime on our part for the first eight [Manpacks] that we’ve done so far to be exactly like the way we do it for the last eight,” Barker said. “If we’re not learning and doing those things from each one of those [training and experimentation] events and having reps forward as those organizations either taking it forward in a theater or going to their rotations. There’s just so much experimentation going on out there right now and learning.”

For example, the Army has learned through ongoing experimentation that certain units in certain environments require slightly different capabilities. The 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii and operating primarily in the Pacific region, is operating under thick foliage and is more reliant on data systems with smaller pipes. The 101st Airborne Division, by contrast, will be a little less constrained, meaning the program community must adjust the kit accordingly based on how each unit fights.

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Those initial areas include drones, counter-unmanned aerial systems and electronic warfare. The commercial drone sector is pretty well established, however, what is less clear is how such flexible funding would look for electronic warfare, where to date, most systems have been exquisitely designed and purpose-built for the military.

The thinking is that this agile pot of money, which is really budget line item consolidation, will help the Army be more adaptive on the battlefield in an era where changes are happening in days to weeks as opposed to months and years. In the Ukraine-Russia war, which has spurred the need for a new approach, combatants are discovering that technology, capabilities and tactics are being countered almost as soon as they’re deployed, requiring quick changes and creating an exponentially shorter innovation cycle.

For the U.S. military, programs are set up as specific line items with specific pots of money as opposed to a broad capability portfolio. Currently, the Army can’t take money from one electronic warfare program line item and use those funds for another EW program to adjust to real-world needs if, for example, a certain technology has matured that could be surged to forces on the battlefield to support an urgent requirement.

However, flexible funding, or line item consolidation where all EW programs are housed under the same budget line, could allow the service to move money that traditionally would’ve been allocated to one system to another for forces that may need it sooner — or if a new technology comes along that is ready for primetime and addresses a need.

“Working with the committees on record over on the Hill, how do we consolidate so that we have some flexibility to respond to that operational environment through our budget construct and we are not limited to the bureaucracy inside the building of reprogramming action in order to respond to something?” Lt. Gen. Karl Gingrich, deputy chief of staff, G-8, said in March at the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference. “We learned some tough lessons over the last two years as we were watching our soldiers in contact and our inability within our budget to actually move some money to address their needs. We lost a couple of months in there. We can no longer afford to do that. And that’s why we’re doing [a push for] agile funding.”

Moreover, that consolidation not only provides greater flexibility, but innovation as well, according to officials.

“The Army’s agile funding proposal will provide increased flexibility. The streamlined budget structure enables rapid innovation, response and fielding of EW capabilities, and enhances the Army’s flexibility and ability to swiftly address relevant threats in real-time by taking advantage of the latest technological advancements,” said a spokesperson from program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors.

The Army’s Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team capability provides an apt example for what the Army would like such flexible funding to achieve. That program, as initially outlined, would be the service’s first ground-based jammer in decades providing integrated cyber, signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities mounted on Strykers and heavy platforms as well as a manpackable dismounted version.

The Army eventually hit pause on the platform-based component of the program as it sought to disaggreigate the signals intelligence and EW aspects. The service ended up awarding the TLS Manpack using a system that had been proven and used by special operations forces.

Despite the engineering challenges the platform side faced, there was an urgent operational need by the Army that General Dynamics responded to with its Tactical Electronic Warfare System-Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or TEWS-I technology, that provides a smaller system designed for infantry vehicles.

However, under the current way Army budgeting works, there was no ability to pivot funding from the TLS-BCT effort to acquire TEWS-I and get that to the field to a wide swath of units.

Moreover, if new software is all of a sudden developed that can improve a system, like the TLS Manpack, against a threat, but there aren’t any funds left in that line, the Army can’t move funds from a less mature program to upgrade the Manpack. A single consolidated electronic warfare budget line would allow the service to do that.

“I do think that the idea here is to give them more flexibility to move money around between different EW programs, because they’ve got … a variety of EW programs in various states of development,” Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, said. “I think the Army wants to be able to accelerate the ones that have the most promise, like you saw with the TLS Manpack … that’s an example of the Army realizing that their initial [concept of operations] for the BCT version maybe didn’t make sense, and they needed to pivot to a different design. Whereas the Manpack seems like they’ve got a more straightforward way forward and they’ve got a CONOP that they believe works.”

Traditionally, the military electronic warfare market has required purpose-built, exquisite systems. However, today, technology has advanced to the degree that several commercial companies now have capabilities that are ready to go, a reality the Army is trying to capitalize on.

The way military budgeting works presently, is it hamstrings programs and makes it harder to look at commercial-off-the-shelf solutions. That is still driven by the way the Army and the program office aim to outfit the entire Army with a system, according to a former official.

“If we bought one TLS Manpack, then the entire Army had to get that exact same TLS Manpack and we didn’t revisit upgrades until that was done,” the former official said. “What the flexibility would give us is the ability to pivot in stride.”

When a new program is coming into play, the program office will conduct a bake-off of sorts where different vendors will bring in their technologies for evaluation. Rather than doing the bake-off with a bunch of vendors and going through a longer, drawn out process, flexibility would allow officials to say a COTS solution is ready now, purchase a set of it, get it to the 101st Airborne Division, let them play with it, then buy the second set and give it to 82nd Airborne Division, and then buy the third set and deliver it to the 25th Infantry Division, as an example, according to the former official.

For its part, the Army has noted it wants to get out of the business of so-called pure fleeting where every unit is outfitted with the same equipment. Service officials have talked about tranching capabilities to select units that are deploying or that require it in the background, using those deployments and other exercises to make tweaks and advancements that can be incorporated and outfitted to other units later.

“You can continue to modernize the force and get capability in the hands of soldiers, instead of waiting three to five years from when the real time of need is,” the former official added.

This could lead to the fielding of different capabilities made by different vendors in different theaters, but the key is ensuring they’re all riding on common open, interoperable software architectures.

Such an approach could raise questions of fair and open competition. According to the former official, the iterative process of continuing to build on capability and force vendors into bake-offs means they will constantly be competing to stay ahead.

Clark noted those concerns with a constant rapid prototyping approach.

“By accelerating movement from prototyping into procurement at some kind of scale you naturally forego opportunities for competition,” he said. “I think that’s the tradeoff that DOD is making right now that they’re saying, because of this need for speed, I’m going to give up probably some deliberation that it would otherwise have.”

However, he acknowledged a COTS approach incentivizes companies to constantly be innovating.

For the larger, platform-based, exquisite programs, agile funding affords flexibility to not necessarily be wedded towards dollars that have been allocated across the five-year budget cycle if the prototype matures or doesn’t work well.

Critics in the past have said this type of arrangement means less congressional oversight and a risk of money falling into a type of slush fund. The reason for line item funding based on programs instead of portfolios is so lawmakers have a better understanding for accounting and overseeing exactly how and where the Army and the other services are spending money to avoid potential or perceived malfeasance.

However, Army officials have noted they’ve received positive responses from lawmakers in their engagements about the idea of having more flexibility. Some top congressional members have also voiced support.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and chairman of the panel’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, has previously expressed his backing for the Army’s flexible funding efforts for drones, counter-drone systems and electronic warfare.

“This effort will allow the Army rapidly adopt critical technologies that are shaping the modern battlefield without needlessly wasting time with misaligned dollars. I look forward to working with the administration and our new Secretary of Defense to ensure our warfighters have all the tools they need to keep Americans safe,” he said.

According to Clark, others across the DOD have consolidated lines, such as the Defense Innovation Unit and DARPA. The key is constant feedback and transparency with Congress on how funds are being used to ensure success.

He noted, however, that such a flexible approach could risk having too much focus on prototyping new technologies without fielding systems at scale to soldiers.

“Unlike the Air Force or the Navy, where if you field 10 or 20 of something, that could make a difference, because it could be on 10 or 20 ships or aircraft that are the ones that are forward deployed. Whereas the Army, it operates at such a larger scale that you have to have systems be distributed to many, you have to have hundreds of systems for them to be relevant numbers,” he said. “They need to think about making sure that they don’t make these innovation cycles so short that they’re never fielding a system in a relevant quantity. I think that’s the one challenge they’re riding up against right now.”

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A venue for the Army to test emerging concepts along with other services, Project Convergence Capstone 5 served as a “critical test bed” for the service’s in-development electronic warfare capabilities, according to a spokesperson from Army Cyber Command. During the event, the Army sought to not only focus on rapid generation and deployment of effects in contested environments, but also streamline the process of target identification, develop countermeasures to adversary capabilities and deliver them across multiple electronic warfare systems at speeds required for large-scale combat operations.

The advanced modern state of electronic warfare involves a constant cat-and-mouse game between friendly forces and adversaries. Each side aims to jam or deny the other’s access to spectrum for communications or other systems, while also seeking to geolocate forces based on electronic emissions and enable freedom of maneuver for themselves.

The Army, along with the other services, has been preparing for large-scale combat operations of the future that take place over greater distances with sophisticated adversaries, a departure from the war on terrorism that was more regionally focused and fought against technologically inferior enemies.

As such, the Army and its counterparts have sought to rebuild much of their electronic warfare prowess they divested after the Cold War. The Army has been on a decade-plus journey to reinvigorate electronic warfare and build out an arsenal of capabilities.

While that effort has seen fits and starts, the Army is currently prioritizing a new EW architecture to allow for the rapid collection, dissemination and reprogramming of signals in the field at the speed of war.  

ARCYBER’s participation in Project Convergence consisted of several partner and subordinate organizations, such as the Army Cyber Technology Innovation Center Lab, where ARCYBER tests new technologies; the 11th Cyber Battalion, which conducts tactical, on-the-ground cyber operations (mostly through radio-frequency effects), electronic warfare and information operations; the Army Cyber Center of Excellence; the Army Reprogramming Analysis Team; Project Manager Electronic Warfare and Cyber; Project Manager Cyber and Space; the Army Cyber Institute; the C5ISR Center’s Research and Technology Integration Directorate; and the All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team.

The experiment primarily focused on electromagnetic support activities, like sensing the environment to detect and intercept signals, specifically by refining data flows, processes and standards for EW systems. It sought to improve electromagnetic support characterization through detector modifications.

Forces used the Terrestrial Layer System Manpack, the first official program in decades to provide a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct direction finding with limited jamming on-the-move, as well as a commercial system and modified commercial software-defined radios.

While the primary focus was on electromagnetic support, Project Convergence aimed to refine processes and standards that support the other main EW domains: electronic attack, primarily through jamming, and electronic protection efforts aimed at safeguarding against jamming. Units also tested the process of requesting, developing, and deploying electronic attack payloads, achieving a turnaround time of less than 24 hours.

Central to the experimentation and continued building out of EW capabilities is the development and implementation of what the Army calls modular mission payloads and a responsive EW reprogramming ecosystem. These modular mission payloads are a different approach to capabilities, moving from platform-centric to payload-centric, meaning effects can be employed over multiple platforms with little to no integration by operators.

The ecosystem will provide rapid generation and deployment of modular mission payloads across several platforms for precise and timely non-kinetic effects, according to the ARCYBER spokesperson.

Enhancing the responsiveness of electromagnetic spectrum systems and using modular mission payloads, the Army seeks to achieve rapid effects generation and delivery at scale, which will significantly improve its ability to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum and achieve operational objectives in dynamic environments, they added.

ARCYBER also sought to demonstrate the end-to-end process of developing and deploying electronic warfare effects from a central repository to units at the frontlines using a common framework to interface with multiple EW systems to deliver targeted electronic fires.

The Army also sought to further test out processes within its Radio Frequency Data Pilot, an effort to determine what it needs to be able to rapidly reprogram systems on the battlefield.

The RF Data Pilot team successfully demonstrated the ability to rapidly sense EW targets on the battlefield, share the data with the Army Warfighting Mission Area System, and pass the information to the Rapid Effects Generation Enterprise.

The Rapid Effects Generation Enterprise developed a new modular technique in a few days that was loaded on multiple EW systems, equipping them with a new capability to automatically characterize and classify an anomalous signal they didn’t possess previously.

When a signal is discovered that isn’t in a unit’s library of known capabilities, it previously could take several months to process and classify it to develop a countermeasure. The U.S. military is seeking a reprogramming enterprise that can do that work in hours and, some cases, at the tip of the spear on the battlefield as opposed to sending the signal back to a static, remote location.

“The RF Data Pilot program has provided valuable insights and data, further solidifying the direction of our non-kinetic effects development. We’ve gained a clearer understanding of the necessary data standards and identified potential policy recommendations to enhance these capabilities,” Lt. Gen. Maria Barrett, commander of Army Cyber Command, said in a statement. “This progress allows us to move forward with confidence and refine our approach to achieving the speed and scale required for [large scale combat operations]. The pilot program’s findings affirm our trajectory and provide a strong foundation for continued development and implementation.”

The experimentation at Project Convergence demonstrating the speed of integration and technique generation is a significant milestone in the Army’s ability to build greater situational awareness in the electromagnetic spectrum, according to the spokesperson.

Following the event over the next several months, the pilot team will continue to build on the successes demonstrated.

The Army will also continue refining the electronic warfare reprogramming ecosystem and integrating the modular mission payload framework.

Cyber Quest 25 will be the next big opportunity for industry to demonstrate capabilities to rapidly assess, develop, and deliver EW effects to multiple systems in a realistic operational environment.

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A series of events will help officials determine what the concept of employment for EW will be at the division level and what programs of record will look like.

Those events included a tabletop exercise at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, focused on how electronic warfare will be done at division and higher; an October Fires Symposium at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, examining how network, intelligence, cyber and EW will integrate into fires; a capabilities-based assessment for electromagnetic warfare conducted by the Cyber Capability Integration Directorate at the Cyber Center of Excellence in Augusta, Georgia, that will be completed over the next year; and a sensor-to-shooter event focused on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and long-range precision fires at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

“We’re doing a deep dive on that now,” Col. Leslie Gorman, Army capability manager for electronic warfare, said in a recent interview regarding how the service is thinking about fighting electronic warfare at echelon and with what platforms. “I had a sit-down with some folks at the Pentagon yesterday. One of the things that came back was truly, what does that concept of employment look like at the division?”

She explained that the Cyber CDID event helped determine what exactly the forthcoming Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) system will be.

TLS-EAB was initially designed as an integrated EW and signals intelligence system primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater ranges. Like its smaller, brigade counterpart, TLS-Brigade Combat Team, following experimentation and lessons from Europe, the Army has decided to split up the SIGINT and electronic warfare functions.

Given the EAB effort was less mature than the BCT variant at the time the decision to split the functions was made, officials have stated EAB will be the main component for defining and demonstrating an initial EW architecture and publishing the requests for information concerning the architecture, that will eventually deliver it back to the BCT version for integration.

“There’s been some interesting information that came out of that [tabletop event]. We also have another CONEMP we’re taking a look at from [the] C5ISR [Center] to help shape some discussions with the maneuvers at an upcoming tabletop exercise with them because I think that’s going to be very important,” Gorman said, using an acronym to refer to command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “As we’re flushing out the requirements at echelon that we’re not only talking to fires, we’re also talking maneuvers. Because it’s ensuring that we’re incorporating our capabilities in a light infantry fight. Since we are an enabler, what does it look like to implement an EW sensor on a” robotic combat vehicle?

Officials are also looking at other capabilities that have been prototyped and used primarily at the brigade level to see if there’s applicability at division, namely, the Tactical Electronic Warfare System-Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or TEWS-I, which was initially a quick-reaction capability built by General Dynamics, providing a smaller system designed for infantry vehicles. It was a prototype activity to serve as a risk reduction and requirements pathfinder for the Army’s program of record, the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT) and has been used by units within the XVIII Airborne Corps.

Gorman noted that the service is looking at experimentation efforts next year to not only gain improvements for TEWS-I, but how that capability could potentially be a division asset.

The Army is still essentially in the requirements phase when it comes to the electronic warfare portion of TLS-BCT again, trying to figure out what makes the most sense going forward.

Gorman noted it could evolve to include more robust communications systems, deception capabilities or situational awareness tools. Moreover, while the Army is currently fielding the TLS Manpack — the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct direction finding with limited jamming on-the-move as well — for mobility, the service is looking at possibly bringing that into a vehicle mount with an amplifier for extended range, something that was conceived of initially within the original TLS family.

Constant feedback from units is also helping to inform future generations of the Manpack capability, Gorman said.

As the Army is continuing to work on the platform and capability side of the issue, fleshing out how they’ll be employed, the other critical parallel effort is moving out on EW-enabling capabilities to be able to plan and manage within the spectrum.

“It’s also ensuring that we address it as a system-of-systems approach … It’s going to be important to be able to ensure that these capabilities that we’re fielding, we’re able to communicate and C2 those systems, be able to also incorporate where the systems are on the battlefield and incorporate that into not only our EW plan of action via [the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool], but then also think leveraging [the Spectrum Situational Awareness System] for the spectrum management, the [electromagnetic emission control], the [electronic protection] capabilities, to be able to also bring that information into fires for a more comprehensive, holistic, synchronized, non-lethal effect support to fires planning capability,” Gorman said.

EWPMT serves as a command-and-control planning capability that allows service members to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations. The Army is embarking on the EWPMT “Next” effort, which involves shifting to the Tactical Assault Kit framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created for better joint and coalition integration.

The Spectrum Situational Awareness System (S2AS) is a new start in fiscal 2025 and is envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signatures, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and threat emissions.

Officials have described EWPMT as the glue that holds the electronic warfare architecture together, because if forces can’t see, understand and plan within the spectrum, jamming and sensing capabilities won’t be effective.

“We’re talking about this too, is like we have a lot of Manpacks coming out. We’re going to have to be able to ensure that those systems can be effectively C2’d and that missions can be planned at the optimal level at echelon, so that way everyone understands what’s going on their battlespace. I think that helps reduce potential adjacent unit RF interference or jamming,” Gorman said. “It’s also ensuring that our signatures that we’re emitting, that is also a part of our planning efforts and you have to do that with each and every EW emitter or an effector.”

The Army will begin embedding its requirements personnel with experimental units to create a direct feedback loop to inform the software developers for EWPMT in the program office. This will help the program office prioritize as the service is planning likely tranches of 12 improvements per quarter going forward in line with a holistic software modernization strategy for EWPMT Next.

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Officials are finding from Ukraine’s conflict with Russia that the technology landscape can change in days, not months. As a result, the Army is pitching the need for fiscal nimbleness to be able to make changes to systems on the battlefield or procurement efforts to get soldiers the capabilities they require.

“Recognizing that we’ve made the shift from primarily what used to be a counter-IED focus to now one where we’re dealing with near-peer threats and a very, very contested battlespace. Flexible funding is one of the three areas we’ve talked about. Recognizing that even as we’ve seen in Ukraine, the EW changes in software that both sides are employing, often are done in a matter of days or hours,” Gabe Camarillo, undersecretary of the Army, told reporters on the sidelines of the annual AUSA conference. “We are looking at making sure that we can rapidly iterate our EW capabilities in a similar fashion. I think having the program and funding flexibility to do it will help us.”

At the end of the Cold War, the Army divested much of its electronic warfare inventory. During counterinsurgency fights of the last 20 years, soldiers used blunt jamming tools to thwart improvised explosive devices, which, in turn, inadvertently jammed friendly systems. Now, the service is trying to develop more sophisticated systems to directly compete with advanced adversaries, their tactics and capabilities.

“A direct result of what we’re seeing in Ukraine is causing us to — our budget [request] that will come up next spring, you’ll see a significant increase in investment in unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and electronic warfare capabilities as well,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at an event in September. “There’s a very tight cycle between the Ukrainians and the Russians in terms of developing a capability and then developing a counter to that capability. But one of the things the Russians have really been cycling quickly on is their EW capabilities, and that’s made it harder for the Ukrainians.”

As part of the flexible funding request — which also includes uncrewed systems and counter-unmanned systems technologies — the Army will be plussing up its electronic warfare budget, though top officials have been vague on exactly where those investments will be made.

According to the Army’s program office responsible for electronic warfare, the service embarked on a comprehensive review of its EW enterprise that spanned the scope of electronic attack, electronic protect and electronic support capabilities, also examining their relationship with signals intelligence as a means of ensuring it’s postured to address the current and emerging threats associated with large-scale combat operations.

“We considered major capability gaps, investments opportunities, trades, architecture considerations, and policy change requirements. Prioritization is on increasing EW capabilities at all echelons and formations from the company level all the way up to theater,” the program office said in a statement.

Some specific efforts mentioned by name include:

• The Electronic Planning and Management Tool, a command-and-control planning capability that allows service members to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations. The Army is embarking on the EWPMT “Next” effort, which involves shifting to the Tactical Assault Kit framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created for better joint and coalition integration.
• The Spectrum Situational Awareness System, a new start in fiscal 2025 envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and what threat emissions look like.
•  The Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum System, which is related to command post survivability and could employ techniques to confuse and deceive adversaries born out of a prior science-and-technology effort called Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum Deception Suite (MEDS). That will be a new start in fiscal 2026.

Other capabilities in the Army’s current pipeline not mentioned include:

• The Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large, a pod-mounted capability on a MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone serving as the Army’s only airborne electronic warfare (with limited cyber) capability organic to combat aviation brigades to support maneuver commanders on the ground.  
• The Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team Manpack system, the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct direction and signal finding with limited jamming on-the-move as well.
• The TLS-Echelon Above Brigade system, designed primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater ranges than its brigade counterpart.
• The TLS-Brigade Combat Team system, which was designed as the first integrated signals intelligence, cyber and electronic warfare platform and as initially conceived, was to be mounted on Strykers and then Army Multi-Purpose Vehicle variant prototypes. The Army has now decided to split up the platform, separating the signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities, and it will be pursuing a new architecture for its EW suite.

Army officials have also noted they want to move away from major programs that take years to develop through lengthy requirements, in favor of more commercial-based systems that have demonstrated maturity.

The program office added that the Army is considering several ways to be more agile in the electronic warfare space to include the potential consolidation of funding lines to allow for increased flexibility while maintaining acquisition discipline and oversight, and establishing contracting mechanisms to acquire and integrate software solutions faster.

As it currently exists, programs are set up as specific line items with specific pots of money. The Army can’t take money from one electronic warfare program line item and move it to another to adjust to real-world needs, if, for example, a certain technology has matured that could be surged to forces on the battlefield.

Flexible funding could allow the service to move those pots of money to where forces need them, or if a new technology comes along that is ready for primetime.

“You talk to a lot of these companies out there, with tech companies … they will tell you that six months from now, things are going to be completely different. We want to buy a modular, open system architecture systems that we can put any different kind of sensor on. I think that’s going to help with the money problem as well, and that we can continue to adapt,” Gen. Randy George, chief of staff of the Army, told reporters at the AUSA conference.

“Agile funding enables us to buy technology in tranches that work together in open architectures, with interchangeable parts, and software-defined components that can be changed quickly to meet our needs. This is how we move from named systems to capabilities. We have to be willing to make smaller bets within budget cycles and we have to pick winners with more frequency. We cannot buy programs for 10 years at a time anymore. Technology changes too fast,” George said during remarks at the conference.

Officials noted that Congress has been receptive to this need but also wary.

“In my experience, appropriators in particular, are leery of what they see as slush funds. But I think, given the dangerous environment we’re in and the recognition by everyone that technology is evolving as rapidly as it is, there’s more openness to this,” Wormuth told reporters. “We’ve been talking to both members, but also clerks and PSMSs on the Appropriations Committee about how we can perhaps consolidate budget line items into fewer pools and have the ability, as a result, to be able to move money around … We’re not trying to eat the whole elephant all at once. We’re trying to start with more of a pilot approach, see if that works, and if members and their staffs feel like they can have the oversight and transparency that they need to have to do their jobs, we may, in the future, be able to expand it.”

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The electronic warfare kit is part of the Tactical Electronic Warfare System-Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or TEWS-I, which was initially a quick-reaction capability built by General Dynamics, providing a smaller system designed for infantry vehicles. It was a prototype activity to serve as a risk reduction and requirements pathfinder for the Army’s program of record, the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT).

That system was designed as the first integrated signals intelligence, cyber and electronic warfare platform and as initially conceived, was to be mounted on Strykers and then Army Multi-Purpose Vehicle variant prototypes.

The service has now decided to split up the platform, separating the signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities and pursuing a new architecture for its EW suite. That leaves a gap in vehicle-borne systems given there is now a man-packable capability for direction finding and limited electronic attack, and a larger system in development for higher echelons.

The ISV integration, awarded in 2021, is the fourth generation of the TEWS-I program. The initiative creates a much more mobile platform-based electronic warfare capability.

The TEWS-I ISV technology is “a middleweight fighter in the electronic warfare space because it has the capability at distance to have an effect and be able to sense at a distance. It has a wide frequency range that it covers. It has an extensive peer-relevant set of signals that it handles,” Derek Merrill, chief engineer for tactical signals intelligence, electronic warfare and NetC2 at General Dynamics Mission Systems, said in an interview at the annual AUSA conference. “It has the capability to detect, identify, locate, report and attack targets … It also handles software-based signals integration from the government, so they can give us a signal [and] we integrate it very quickly onto the platform.”

The ISV can be sling-loaded or carried internally in a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, meaning it can move much faster on the battlefield and even island-hop in the Pacific — a key tenet to operating in that region where Stryker systems aren’t well-suited.

While the Army has stated that there won’t be any future production on TEWS-I given it was a quick-reaction capability, the system has been used to generate discussion on requirements for light and airborne forces for mobility.

It has primarily been used by units within XVIII Airborne Corps, with General Dynamics delivering them six systems. Officials have previously noted that the 82nd Airborne Division and the 101st Airborne Division said they wanted to take their ISVs and mount EW equipment on them given the island-hopping capacity it provides.  

The system was also used by 2nd Brigade, 101st at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, this past summer as part of the first real test for the Army chief of staff’s keystone vision dubbed transforming-in-contact, that uses deployments and troop rotations to test new equipment that could allow units to be more responsive on a dynamic battlefield.

“Some of the soldiers were part of the design process. It wasn’t a surprise that it was highly, highly desired. They want more of the systems,” Merrill said.

Merrill noted that their electronic warfare kit — which is platform agnostic, meaning it can be mounted on several different infantry-type vehicles — has been able to coordinate and pass data to other Army staff functions such as fires. Specifically, he said XVIII Airborne Corps integrated it with its Project Maven system.

It was also able to coordinate fires.

“The vehicle itself has the ability to conduct electronic attack, but in many cases you’ll want to just coordinate with other fires functions. It can both inform the local units [that] ‘I’ve detected something that’s a threat to us,’ but it can also coordinate fires, for example, for a target,” he said, noting the importance of not always wanting to use jamming to affect a target. “The risk in a peer fight is that jamming also gives away your location. That’s the beauty of being on the vehicle, is because you can emit even long moving or emit and scoot. But that’s also a reason why you might not want to. You might choose to use other fires mechanisms.”

General Dynamics wants to start working to integrate the current manpack system program of record — made by Mastodon and leveraging systems deployed by U.S. Special Operations Command — so they can receive that data and help distribute it.

The goal for the TLS family was always for the vehicle-mounted and dismounted systems to work together in an integrated fashion.

“They bought the TLS-BCT backpack. That backpack is … more of a squad-level capability, shorter range, but effective. Our goal is to be fully interactive with that so that we can receive it, sensing, distribute that, correlate with it. Somebody with that backpack can jump on our vehicle and operate,” Merrill said.

He used a golf analogy to described the Manpack and the TEWS.

“The backpack is more like a putter. It’s a shorter-range capability. And we’re more like a driver. In your golf clubs you don’t want to go golfing with just one,” Merrill said.

General Dynamics is still having discussions with the Army to inform future requirements for capabilities. Merrill said TEWS is a production-ready system, but ultimately it’s up to the Army to decide the mix of systems and what they want to procure.

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Those units are part of Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s so-called transforming-in-contact concept, where the service plans to use deployments and troop rotations to test new equipment — mainly commercial off-the-shelf gear — that could allow units to be more responsive on a dynamic battlefield.

According to George, there are three areas where the Army needs to be faster and more adaptable when it comes to delivering equipment to forces, due to how challenging the threat environment is and the cat-and-mouse aspect of countering opponents’ moves: unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and electronic warfare.

Those transforming-in-contact units include: 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division — the first mobile brigade combat team — 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division and 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

Given the rate of change in the electromagnetic spectrum, enabled by software-defined systems that can be altered as fast as a patch is able to be developed and delivered, the Army wants to prioritize tools that can be fielded rapidly.

“My number one talking point in terms of our equipping for the future is our focus on doing limited prototyping and rapid fielding of mature [commercial-off-the-shelf/government-off-the-shelf] products,” Kenneth Strayer, project manager for electronic warfare and cyber at program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said in an interview previewing his remarks that he’s slated to deliver Wednesday alongside the Army capability manager for EW at the TechNet Augusta conference.

“The pendulum consistently swings and we’re going back towards the need and the desire to get equipment, limited prototypes, in the hands of units very quickly so that they can learn, they can iterate, and we can get early, good enough capability out to the field,” he added. “We’re looking at off the shelf. We don’t want to do all the development in house. I don’t think we need to because there’s now a competitive marketplace out there to be able to buy ready products or things that need minor modification and integration. Long, long list of vendors who are offering some very effective capability for remote sensors and [software-defined radios] and digitization.”

Part of that change is necessitated by observations from Ukraine in which the cat-and-mouse game of systems being countered and counters being countered, are occurring in hours or days as opposed to the Cold War paradigm of weeks, months or years.

The Army is now trying to get out of the business of major programs that take years to develop through lengthy requirements, tweaks and user tests, shifting the way it talks about strategies and prioritization, but Strayer declined to quantify the ratio or percentage of commercial versus major government-run programs in the future. In some cases, though, these exquisite systems are necessary to build for specific needs.

One such system is the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large (MFEW) that serves as the Army’s only airborne electronic warfare (with limited cyber) capability organic to combat aviation brigades to support maneuver commanders on the ground. The Lockheed Martin-made technology is a pod-mounted capability on a MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone. It has been under development for roughly seven years.

“It’s not like I can go out and just go buy a pod that does this. It required a lot of detailed engineering and testing and packaging. That’s part of the reason why MFEW is taking perhaps longer than some people hope it would because there are problems out there that requires that level of engineering and acquisition,” Strayer said. “We would prefer, whenever possible, to not go down that pathway.”

Strayer said he’d like to get MFEW in the hands of a transforming-in-contact unit following the system’s limited user test next year, but that might be a ways off. Currently the program is getting ready to perform airworthiness certification on the Gray Eagle. Once that’s completed, officials will perform a developmental test at the beginning of next year with a limited user test at the end of the year. Pending the results of that, Strayer said he’d like to get the initial pods in the hands of a unit in 2026.

MFEW has done some support at Fort Drum, New York, with the 10th Mountain Division to demonstrate the payoff of having that high-capability airborne, long-range platform. There were favorable comments from the unit during their recent exercises, Strayer said.

One of the best examples of the new approach is the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team Manpack system, the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct jamming on-the-move as well as direction and signal finding with limited signals intelligence capabilities.

The system, made by Mastodon Design, a CACI subsidiary, was previously used by U.S. Special Operations Command, allowing the Army to shrink down the timeline for much of the necessary vetting and testing of a new program. The Army awarded Mastodon a nearly $100 million procurement and fielding contract earlier this year.

“It was a huge win for us. I mean, we went from good idea to a fielded product in about 24 months, which is unheard of in acquisition cycles. A lot of that’s because it was a mature baseline. We had a lot of tests and performance data, not only with Socom, but other services and units who had been buying this product over the last couple of years,” Strayer said. “Another good example of how [in] industry there’s now a very robust industry community who’s developing what I call off-the-shelf products that we view more as a catalog buy than a developmental program.”

Strayer said 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division received some of these systems — albeit on loan — during its rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center this month, to test the system and provide feedback.

Overall, the Manpack system received enough funding in the fiscal 2024 appropriation to purchase enough for two brigades. Pending the fiscal 2025 appropriation, the service will have enough for another eight brigades, with the eventual goal of total Army fielding.

In addition to the Manpack, 2nd Brigade, 101st is also experimenting with the Tactical Electronic Warfare System-Infantry (TEWS-I) at JRTC, a quick-reaction capability built a few years ago by General Dynamics, serving as a smaller system designed for infantry vehicles. While there won’t be any future production on that system given it was a quick-reaction capability, Strayer said it has generated discussion on requirements for light and airborne forces for mobility.

“Because it’s more tightly integrated into a platform, you get some of the advantages of the tactical mobility and the power that comes with that. We’re really interested in getting the feedback and seeing where we go,” he said. “If there is a requirement for this lightweight mobile kit, then we have to look at the payoff as to whether you need some of the more higher-end capability that comes on TEWS-I or if it’s really a Manpack, which is maybe up-gunned and more fully integrated into a vehicle platform. I think those are two different approaches you could take to the problem.”

Strayer noted that other transforming-in-contact units have begun to experiment with other capabilities, although he declined to specifically identify those units. One includes pre-prototypes of a Spectrum Situational Awareness System (S2AS), a new start in fiscal 2025 envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and what threat emissions look like.

The program office also hopes to get emerging systems into the hands of the these units. Those include the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) Next, a command-and-control planning capability that allows service members to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations. The “Next” effort involves shifting to the Tactical Assault Kit framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created for better joint and coalition integration.

The emerging systems also include representative products associated with a new electronic warfare architecture the Army is developing, once established.

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The CACI subsidiary will provide systems for the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team Manpack, the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct jamming on-the-move as well as direction and signal finding with limited signals intelligence capabilities.

It is associated with the TLS family of systems, which include:

• TLS-BCT: As initially conceived, this was to be the first brigade-organic integrated cyber, signals intelligence and EW system designed for Stryker platforms, however, acquisition priorities shifted and the effort will now likely be split into two distinct signals intelligence and electronic warfare variants. The Lockheed Martin-made capability will be a key enabler of Army priorities — considering the service has been without a program-of-record jammer for decades — and support multi-domain operations.
• TLS-EAB: Designed primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater ranges than its brigade-level counterpart, the tool is also being built by Lockheed Martin.

Mastodon was awarded a $1.5 million prototype other transaction authority agreement for the system in September, based upon its Beast+ and Kraken technologies that have been used by special operations forces.

“The efforts to demonstrate, test, and rapidly procure a COTS-based product significantly accelerated the procurement timeline and will result in early capability to the field starting this year. The TLS BCT Manpack is a mature, well-adopted system that will make a significant contribution to winning the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) fight,” Ken Strayer, project manager for electronic warfare and cyber within program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and Sensors, said in a statement.

CACI officials have maintained that given their system has been in use by special operations forces, the Army’s approach to use a mature system shortens the timeline for fielding the equipment to conventional soldiers.

“We are making the transition to production after successfully completing prototyping and conducting demonstrations with multiple soldier touchpoints. Through TLS BCT Manpack program, CACI will deliver to the Army a tailorable, modular, low [size, weight and power] solution that integrates and delivers significantly improved SIGINT and EW capabilities to soldiers at the tactical edge,” Todd Probert, president of national security and innovative solutions at the company, told DefenseScoop in a statement.

“Our fully configurable system can conduct radio frequency survey, collection and direction-finding operations, electromagnetic attack and force protection operations, and EMS visualization and scanning/surveying operations. CACI’s Manpack solution leverages hardware that is qualified for use by the Joint Force with a software defined radio architecture specifically designed to meet the Army’s mission requirements. This contract further reinforces our leading position within the tactical EW & SIGINT market,” he added.

The Army program office noted that the Manpack system received approval to transition to Middle Tier Acquisition and rapid fielding with a first unit issued is slated for 2024.

Over the past two budget cycles, the Army has shifted its spending approach for TLS-BCT in funding and quantities to prioritize the Manpack capability. The program office has sought to accelerate the procurement and fielding of the Manpack to include 52 systems in fiscal 2024 and 51 in fiscal 2025, an increase from last year.

The Army has moved to rebuild its electronic warfare arsenal after divesting much of its capabilities following the end of the Cold War.

To date, such dismounted systems were quick-reaction capabilities in response to urgent operational needs. The technology is essential, as the only other EW systems in development are either designed to be airborne or mounted on large platforms such as Stryker vehicles. Dismounted capabilities will be needed to allow soldiers to be more mobile and agile, especially in theaters such as the Pacific with dense terrain and many islands.

The Army has also added a counter-drone requirement to the Manpack program given how pressing that challenge is, as evidenced in Ukraine.

The Manpack system participated in the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 4 event earlier this year, an Army and joint effort to prototype concepts and capabilities in a real-world combat scenario to test the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) concept for how systems across the entire battlespace from all the services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders for better and faster decision-making.

Officials at the exercise noted the Beast+ system in particular successfully relayed electronic signals from soldiers on the ground at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, to the command center at Camp Pendleton, California, for them to take action against. This was a big milestone for those teams to be able to find signals of interest and transmit them to higher headquarters to better understand the electromagnetic spectrum environment and, if needed, allow more advance time for reprogrammers to make adjustments to those signals of interest.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the contract value for the deal that was awarded to Mastodon Design LLC for a dismounted electronic warfare system. This story was updated on July 1, 2024, at 12:50 PM, to reflect the correct value.

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PHILADELPHIA — Following years of development, the Army intends to break up its integrated signals intelligence and electronic warfare platform into two distinct variants.

The Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team was designed as the first integrated signals intelligence, cyber and EW platform devised roughly six years ago. It has been described as a key enabler of Army priorities — considering the service has been without a program-of-record jammer for decades — that will support multi-domain operations. As initially conceived, it was to be mounted on Stykers and then Army Multi-Purpose Vehicle variant prototypes.

Outside experts had always voiced concern with such a setup given the highly classified nature and authorities that come with signals intelligence and the issues associated with putting that on the same platform as electronic warfare tools.

The Army awarded a middle tier acquisition contract to Lockheed Martin for the platform five years ago. Officials explained that the breakup of the TLS-BCT demonstrates the benefit of this MTA approach — which at the conclusion could lead to rapid fielding, transitioning to a major capability acquisition, continue prototyping through other means, or termination — and the authorities Congress has granted the Army.

“It’s the beauty of the MTA process. It allows you to learn what’s not going to work or what’s not going to be successful in the fight. That kind of aggregation of SIGINT and EW physically located presented a multitude of challenges. The reality was that the best path was to have them separated, not on a single platform,” Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said in an interview at the Army’s Technical Exchange Meeting in Philadelphia this week.

That existing MTA will conclude next year, meaning there will not be a rapid fielding decision on TLS at that time. The Army will continue prototyping on both an electronic warfare and signals intelligence variant over the course of a 12 to 18-month period outside that MTA period to refine what those capabilities look like.

At the end of that time frame, depending on how far the Army has progressed from a prototype for each variant, a decision will be made determining if one or both of those platforms is mature enough to go into a rapid fielding or transitions into a major capability acquisition.

The changing nature of the EW environment

Currently, the more stable of the two systems is the signals intelligence system from a requirements and platform standpoint, which would simply require the removal of the electronic warfare payload from the platform.

The Army has been undergoing a years-long rejuvenation of EW following significant divestments at the end of the Cold War. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 spurred a hastening of those efforts after it was determined their systems and concepts were in many cases more mature than those of the Army.

Conversely, for decades, the Army has had a series of platform-based signals intelligence systems, such as Prophet, a ground-based tactical SIGINT system.

One of the critical and ongoing lessons coming from Ukraine is that the EW environment is changing rapidly. The Army’s chief of staff is directing the service to prioritize electronic warfare equipment to soldiers to experiment with via a concept called “transforming in contact,” where the Army plans to use deployments and troop rotations to test new equipment — mainly commercial off-the-shelf gear — to allow units to be more responsive on a dynamic battlefield.

“We’re learning that the EW landscape is changing everywhere between three weeks and three months, and so that we need to be more flexible in our approach … The battlefield is changing really, really rapidly,” George said during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in April.

While the European theater had been the priority for a long time, the Army is now beginning to turn its focus to the Pacific as well, where the Department of Defense refers to China as the pacing threat.

Given that the threat — both in Europe and the Pacific — is changing, combined with the terrain in each theater, a relook at capabilities is necessary, officials have said.

Moreover, larger platforms such as Strykers and AMPVs don’t island-hop as easily in the Pacific, which includes thousands of islands spread across thousands of miles in maritime and jungle environments.

“This is one area where the technology just isn’t necessarily there. The prototyping actually creates a demand signal back to industry to go, ‘Hey, our challenge is a couple of things,’” Alex Miller, chief technology officer for the chief of staff, said in an interview at the Technical Exchange Meeting. “One, we have some older kit that has really proprietary interfaces and control mechanisms, and we don’t want that. We want something that’s more open. Two, when you’re on a vehicle you have access to a lot more power [and] we want you to be able to use that power to create either the effect of protecting or the effect of attacking.”

He noted that at experiments such as Project Convergence, the Army saw a lot of newer capabilities such as robotically mounted or small drone-mounted electronic warfare, that were promising.  

“That’s the real truth is we need help on that technology on that mounted, high power, mobile type of EW kit versus the Manpack, which is a little bit more low power,” Miller said, adding they can throw an electronic warfare kit onto a pickup truck or an Infantry Squad Vehicle that is more mobile and transportable through C-130 or C-17 lift.

The Manpack version he mentioned was envisioned as a complement to the TLS-BCT system encompassing a series of two systems dismounted soldiers can use for jamming, signal direction finding and signals intelligence. The Army awarded a $1.5 million contract to Mastodon Design, a CACI subsidiary, last year.

There has been a rapid fielding decision made on the Manpack with first unit equipped scheduled for later this year, Barker said, adding: “When you think of it in terms of that transforming in contact, this is the real first piece of kit that we’re getting in the hands of folks.”

Miller also explained that the Army is trying to get out of the business of “gold-plating” requirements where “perfect” becomes the enemy of “good enough.”

“Part of the reason that the IEW&S team were forced to make the decision is because the alternative was try to get it perfect and never revealed anything. And that’s wrong. Soldiers deserve better than that,” he said. “Being able to say the operational environment has changed, we need to stop gold-plating requirements, we need to get the smallest requirement out the door so [Barker] can prototype — that’s another part of it. And that goes back to the transform in contact and how do we iterate on requirements and how do we give a piece of kit to soldiers and formations so they can give feedback more rapidly?”

On the acquisition side, Barker noted that Doug Bush – assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology — has been clear that he would rather have these types of conversations now during the MTA and realize this is something the Army doesn’t want, instead of going through a major capability acquisition and trying to deliver something to the field years later that doesn’t meet the need.

“One of the key criteria they enter into an MTA is the ability to demonstrate a successful prototype. That’s what the vendors are held accountable to. If it appears that we won’t have a successful prototype, then then the Army has the right to recompete if we want [or] if we need to,” Barker said.

Moreover, the service is rethinking what it means to field something, which historically had very specific acquisition and programmatic connotations.

“We’re getting so much new and useful kit to soldiers so often that it’s no longer a pickup game on a soldier touch point once a year. It is now, ‘Here’s this kit, you keep it if it’s useful to you,’ and they use it and they provide feedback until the next piece of kit comes and they’re using that. That’s the continuous transformation,” Miller said. “The notion that, hey, you only see the output five years at the very end of the MTA — that’s no longer the case. As soon as there’s something useful, we want feedback.”

Additionally, the Army Force Structure Transformation plan that was released in February also made changes to electronic warfare forces regarding the placement of EW companies and platoons at certain echelons, which will inform changes to the platform.

Part two of this series will focus on how the Army is evaluating electronic warfare technology, who is in charge and how to get kit into the hands of soldiers faster.

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The Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT), being developed by Lockheed Martin, is the first integrated electronic warfare, signals intelligence and cyber platform. The program will be a key enabler of Army priorities — considering the service has been without a program-of-record jammer for decades — and support multi-domain operations.

As initially conceived, the technology was to be designed for Stryker platforms. However, acquisition priorities shifted.

Budget documents released last year projected the Army would spend $196.1 million to procure 26 systems in fiscal 2025. Now, the Army is requesting $95.4 million for 54 systems, according to newly released fiscal 2025 budget justification documents.

The Army attributes the change in funding and quantities to prioritizing the TLS Manpack version — a series of two systems dismounted soldiers can use for jamming, signal direction finding and signals intelligence. The Army awarded a $1.5 million contract to Mastodon Design LLC, a CACI subsidiary, last year.

“The change in procurement quantities is reflective of our plan to accelerate the procurement and fielding of the TLS BCT Manpack, which is scheduled to begin this year. The Justification materials include 52 manpacks in FY24 and 51 in FY25, an increase from last year to accelerate the delivery of this critical capability to the field,” a spokesperson from program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, which runs the program, said in a statement to DefenseScoop.

Budget documents also note that procurement funding will go to Stryker variant systems as well.

This is the second year in a row that funding was altered in favor of the manpack solution.

Officials requested $14.7 million for research, development, test and evaluation funding for TLS-BCT in fiscal 2025. Budget documents released last year did not provide any RDT&E funding projections for the effort beyond fiscal 2024. New budget documents note the increase is to complete Army Multi-Purpose Vehicle variant prototypes and execute operational testing.

“The additional RDT&E in FY25 fully funds the 5-year MTA Rapid Prototyping program and completes required testing,” the spokesperson said.

The new documents also project a $7.1 million RDT&E request for fiscal 2026 but no funds beyond that. The spokesperson said that money is for ongoing efforts to maintain the relevancy of the system and keep pace with changes in the threat environment, noting this is expected to be an enduring requirement.

Movin’ on up (echelons)

For TLS-Echelon Above Brigade, the TLS-BCT’s larger cousin, the Army asked for $1.4 million in procurement funding for fiscal 2025.

A new start last year, the program is designed primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater ranges than its brigade counterpart. Lockheed Martin is also the lead contractor for that effort.

The Army altered its approach to the system, opting to tailor it to theaters rather than building a one-size-fits-all capability.

There was no procurement ask in last year’s budget documents, and funds this year will go toward pre-production planning and support for future contracting activities.

For R&D, the Army previously projected it would spend $42.8 million on the capability in fiscal 2025, but it requested $116.3 million in its latest budget proposal. Total cost to complete the program, according to last year’s documents, was $175.8 million — but this year’s documents project a $296.5 million price tag.

“The additional RDTE has been requested in FY25-FY26 to fully fund the 5-year Middle Tier Rapid Prototyping program. We are in year 2 of the 5-year prototyping effort, transitioning from concept design into the prototype build phase,” the Army spokesperson said. “Lessons learned from observation of ongoing operations have informed requirements. The program is maximizing the flexibilities that come with Middle Tier acquisition to update prototype designs to address the refined requirements for Multidomain operations.”

Budget documents note the first unit issued for the EAB system is slated for the third quarter of fiscal 2026.

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