Nett Warrior (NW) provides unprecedented situational awareness and battle command to the dismounted Soldier. Using commercial-off-the-shelf technology, Soldiers can access detailed geo-referenced maps and digitally communicate through their End User Devices. The Army is fielding NW now, giving Soldiers maximum awareness on the battlefield.
Tags: Nett Warrior
Sounds helpful and it may very well be a great tool to enhance situational awareness. But it still won’t have a “red force tracker” function anytime soon.
Therefore it will not relieve troopers from the necessity of keeping their heads on the proverbial swivel and engaging all of their own senses. That is still how one is most likely to gain and maintain the tactical initiative at the pointy end.
To paraphrase Heinlein: if you spend too much time focused on a small screen (or even a heads up display type system) someone less sophisticated and unencumbered will have the opportunity to come up behind you and bash your head in with a rock.
Hardware solution. Software problem. As always.
Anyone remember Land Warrior?
Does it interface with the mounted element (e.g. FBCB2)?
Fine and dandy for the Infantry on the ground, heads and tails above land warrior but still only half the solution.
Looks like another way for the head shed to add static to on-the-ground-decision making. Of course because it offers more control and ability to armchair quarterback, the Army will move forward with it.
If you really want to improve the effectiveness of the modern day warfighter, put the money into NCO-tailored combat courses. Pay for a combat leadership continuum program so those lessons learned on the battlefields can get handed down to those going into them. Pay for more soldiers to go to Ranger school. Improve the experience and ability of boots on the ground to make decisions based on lessons learned an quality, real-world training.
DON’T put the money into another electronic leash for commanders to yank on. It’s only going to add weight to a loadout and keep officers in a TOC instead of on a patrol.
Don’t disagree that technology has increased micromanagement from above but just like you mention courses for NCOs we can incorporate more emphasis on the schoolhouse and doctrine to combat the tendency of superiors to act like company and below leaders.
We shouldn’t keep technology from our team leaders and above that allows them to know were friendly troops are on the ground or to finally widely equip leaders below platoon with radios. The ability to share information across the company will be MUCH easier with this technology. It’d be silly not to field it.
I agree wholeheartedly, the tech is a good idea, we just need to teach our commanders how to use it properly. What we can’t afford to have is platoon leaders acting squad leaders and company commanders acting like platoon leaders and so on; no micromanaging or constant requests for sitreps and the like. What would be great is if the software shows you on an increasingly bigger picture as you go up in the chain of command, platoon level shows you only squads, company only shows platoons, and so forth.
Absolutely agree with you. Commanders should allow subordinate leaders to lead their units. Give them a mission/task and don’t tell them how to accomplish it (not throwing out briefbacks or .
FWIW, we largely haven’t been doing it because of the type of fight we’ve been in (COIN is largely a small unit fight) but doctrinally commanders fight two levels down (e.g. BN CDR’s place platoons in the defense on a map draw a circle around three and give the larger circle to a Co CO to fight – that rarity is a BN CDR positioning platoons). So there is a level of appropriate senior involvement that some subordinates sense as micromanagement when it’s not.