REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — Senior leaders from around the Army met both virtually and in-person for the Army Modernization Equipping Conference, Dec. 4-7 at Army Materiel Command headquarters.

The AMEC, held semiannually, brought together leadership from the four major Army commands and Headquarters Department of the Army staff sections to synchronize equipment distributions and displacements in line with Army priorities and Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model phases to achieve cohesion throughout the Army.

“We’ve been busy supporting allies and partners in multiple theaters, and that’s impacting the Army’s equipping decisions and enterprise,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, AMC deputy commanding general.

He hailed the AMEC as a key Army synchronization conference and for being an important forum that provides the chance to review equipment fielding and modernization while resolving friction points.

In addition to equipping and modernization discussions, the AMEC also addressed special topics, including Second Destination Transportation, the Decision Support Tool and an update on the Rapid Removal of Excess pilot program, which wraps up Dec. 15 at Fort Liberty, North Carolina and Fort Stewart, Georgia.

“We’re here to support the Chief of Staff of the Army’s emphasis on continuing transformation and building the Army of 2030,” said Bryan Shone, Army G-8 deputy director of program analysis and evaluation.

Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George charged Army Materiel Command to pilot a new program aimed at increasing equipment on hand readiness through focused fielding, lateral transfers and divestiture. Since October, active units at both installations have been turning in items ranging from small electronics and general supplies to military vehicles at their respective Modernization, Displacement and Repair Sites.

“Lessons learned from the R2E pilot program are being captured by AMC, Army Sustainment Command, 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command and U.S. Army Forces Command, all of which have a stake in unburdening our Soldiers,” said Eric Cowan, AMC divestiture team lead.

Cowan discussed the potential expansion of the pilot program and the transfer options for collected equipment, including the potential transfer of equipment to U.S. Army Security Assistance Command for partner nation opportunities for foreign military sales.

Both Mohan and Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert, FORSCOM deputy commanding general, praised the pilot program as well as 3rd ESC and the Army Field Support Battalions at Fort Liberty and Fort Stewart for rapidly identifying and collecting thousands of pieces of equipment.

“We’re going to take a pause to capture what we learned and apply it to the next iteration of the pilot program,” Calvert said. “But ultimately, we’re seeing that we’ve met the intent of unburdening the Soldier.”

The Army is using data and analytics to not only capture the amount of excess equipment in the field, but also to extend the predictability of logistics into the future for combatant commands in the European and Indo-Pacific theaters. By having better visibility of equipment and the condition it is in, AMC can predict MDRS and Organic Industrial Base operations one to two years ahead of time.

As the AMEC concluded, the resounding sentiment from participants was one of commitment to modernization and strategic alignment, underscoring the Army’s dedication to staying at the forefront of military sustainment.

“As we continue to synchronize with other big Army-wide conferences, the AMEC is only going to get better,” Mohan said. “It will continue to be the driving force behind senior leader decisions.”

Story and one photo by Lindsay Grant

With one photo by SGT Vincent Levelev

JOINT BASE McGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. — The Army completed its annual capstone Network Modernization Experiment, or NetModX, after 10 weeks of experimentation spanning 62 technologies.

Across three locations in New Jersey and Maryland, the Army’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center and partner organizations experimented with a broad spectrum of network-related capabilities in an operationally realistic, threat-informed environment. The C5ISR Center is an element of the Combat Capabilities Development Command.

Because of the Army network’s vast reach, NetModX 23 encompassed 17 focus areas and five modernization priorities: Future Vertical Lift, Long-Range Precision Fires, Network, Next Generation Combat Vehicle and Soldier Lethality.

“As an enabler for multiple Army technologies, the network and its performance in multiple dimensions becomes critical to overall mission success,” said Joe Saldiveri, NetModX 23 lead strategic planner.

NetModX 23 featured projects leveraging a live, virtual and constructive environment that enables experimentation in a distributed manner. LVC assists the NetModX project management team to provide an all-inclusive service by combining real and simulated capabilities to simulate technologies under experimentation. The LVC environment fills in gaps where real systems are too expensive or too scarce to include.

“The C5ISR Center offers a critical service to the C5ISR community by providing the environments and engineering expertise to experiment and inform complex C5ISR integration decisions. LVC is a tool that enables us to answer more complex questions with greater fidelity and more efficiency. We continue to invest and work with our partners in building out our LVC capabilities — to ensure we are pushing the state-of-the-art boundaries,” said Seth Spoenlein, assistant director for system integration.

As part of NetModX, the C5ISR Center routinely partners with a fellow Army R&D organization, DEVCOM Analysis Center, to create an operationally relevant experimentation environment. This environment is vital to experimentation as it exposes emerging technologies to realistic threats for greater learning.

In addition to the work of Army scientists and engineers, the event included Soldier participation from the 75th Innovation Command, 101st Airborne Division and Fires Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate. This allows real-time Soldier feedback on how emergent technologies affect mission threads and performance within those threads.

“Soldier participation in NetModX allows technology developers to gain insights into how Soldiers would interact with the technology in an operational setting, providing valuable lessons across a broad range of technology readiness levels,” said Noah Weston, chief of C5ISR Center’s Strategic Experimentation Office.

New this year was Innovation Week, a two-week extension of NetModX with a focus on sensor-to-shooter experimentation, augmented by LVC capabilities to enhance realism. The intent was to explore high-risk, high-reward experimentation, to push the boundaries of learning by exercising a common sensor-to-shooter mission thread using uncommon technologies and network architectures.

Innovation Week resulted in a series of firsts for the Army network enterprise, providing a basis of knowledge for further exploration, Weston said.

“Leveraging initiatives such as Innovation Week, the Army can discover potential leap-ahead technologies or architectures that are distinct advantages over currently deployed systems. Innovation Week is focused on reducing risk for both our internal science and technology programs and, more importantly, our transition partners. It provided an operationally relevant “safe to fail” environment to conduct systems of systems experimentation,” he said.

By Dan Lafontaine, DEVCOM C5ISR Center Public Affairs

Some photos by James Lee, RJ Regars, and John Tang, DEVCOM C5ISR Center