Nett Warrior was the Army’s latest, in a long line of digitization efforts designed to increase the situational awareness of the Soldiers. But, earlier today we received reports that Nett Warrior, the culmination of over 20 years of development and testing, has been cancelled in favor of a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) based handheld device combined with a Soldier radio. Numerous reports have recently mentioned experiments using the Android operating system on board the Joint Battle Command-Platform, developed by MITRE Corp. Apparently, they’ve paid off. Look for an RFQ on this piece soon.
This decision will come as a blow to three major defense contractors who have not traditionally participated in the Soldier Systems industry: Rockwell Collins, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. All three were contenders for the production version of Nett Warrior and all three invested a great deal of capital in preparing for this program. What’s just as bad are the countless small business vendors who had partnered with these companies who will have to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks.
One question comes to mind. Is this the first casualty of the new defense budget environment or a preemptive move by new PEO Soldier BG Camille M. Nichols to cut some chaff and protect the rest of her portfolio of programs from the budget axe?
While it’s not really all that surprising from an operational standpoint that Nett Warrior was cancelled, there has been a great deal of Congressional interest in the concept as it has transitioned from one program to the next over the past 20 years beginning with Land Warrior. You can go back a few more if you include SIPE (Soldier Integrated Protective Ensemble). It will be interesting to see if Congress once again breathes life into this program considering the number of jobs it represents.
Tags: Mitre, Nett Warrior
This report is incorrect. The program has not been cancelled. Some requirements have changed to make the system lighter and less expensive, and these changes do significantly change what the system will look like.
Would a better headline be, “Army Pulls Plug on Nett Warrior” or maybe, “Army Abandons 20 Years of Work with Industry”?
Is it the “cancelled” word that bothers you, or the rest of the article that mentions that the Army is going to go with a handheld Android-based device?
When you are in industry and have worked with the Government for decades to develop a capability, that they asked for, and then, out of the blue, they say they don’t want any of the stuff you developed for them, do you consider that capability cancelled? Because, no matter what you call it, the Army isn’t going to buy the stuff you built for them, that they asked for.
So how would you characterize this situation since you say the story is incorrect?
They may be using android phones to test in the field but.. the android phone does not even come close to the capabilities of the Nett Warrior gear.. I would agree with the first reply that this article is false….this would have also hit the news wires by now.
Egad, the spin begins. To paraphrase, “It’s not cancelled, we just aren’t buying it.”
I disagree with the statement about the Android device. I believe it far exceeds the legacy Nett Warrior capability. For one thing, it’s newer technology. For another, increased functionality is but an app away. Additionally, it’s cheaper, lighter, and more compact. Operationally, it’s the right move.
Nett Warrior-Lite?
[…] did, however, push back hard against a recent report in the plugged-in blog Soldier Systems thatNett Warrior is done, dead, finito. Nett Warrior’s just on hold, Dawson says; the board is not considering the broader question of […]
[…] did, however, push back hard against a recent report in the plugged-in blog Soldier Systems that Nett Warrior is done, dead, finito. Nett Warrior’s just on hold, Dawson says; the board is not considering the broader question of […]
[…] did, however, push back hard against a recent report in the plugged-in blog Soldier Systems that Nett Warrior is done, dead, finito. Nett Warrior’s just on hold, Dawson says; the board is not considering the broader question of […]
[…] did, however, push back hard against a recent report in the plugged-in blog Soldier Systems that Nett Warrior is done, dead, finito. Nett Warrior’s just on hold, Dawson says; the board is not considering the broader question of […]