The soldiers stood at the edge of a building, readying to push deeper into the city for the next phase of the fight. Some checked their ammunition, while others mapped out their moves on the smartphones on their chests.
The US Army refers to the systems Business Insider saw used in this urban training scenario as End User Devices, Samsung phones that have been stripped, ruggedized, and reprogrammed for soldiers. EUDs are home to new applications that Army leaders anticipate will improve battlefield awareness and speed up decision-making.
The devices reflect the Army’s shift toward commercially available technology. While they’ve been in use for years, they’re getting updated with new functions as the Army continues its major digital transformation.
During a desert exercise, Project Convergence Capstone, at Fort Irwin in California last month, roughly 10,000 soldiers gathered to engage in simulated large-scale combat and test new technologies, including drones, electronic warfare systems, and the Army’s prototype command-and-control system, known as Next Generation Command and Control.
Soldiers were using EUDs inside carriers attached to their chests and powered by large batteries in cases on their backs. The smart devices were loaded with the Android Team Awareness Kit, or ATAK, application, which allowed users to access a real-time geospatial map that showed where they and their friendly forces were in the field and also rough locations of potential enemy forces.
Soldiers were able to share map markers and photos with each other using these devices, which they said helped them communicate and make decisions more quickly.
“There’s a chat feature on there that they can talk to me and provide me information and give me more detail that I might not be able to over the radio,” Capt. Dominic Sparkling, a unit commander within the 4th Infantry Division, told Business Insider.
The EUDs, like elements of NGC2, can stay online via several means of connection, including satellite or cellular networks. Apps on the devices also have offline functions should soldiers lose connection or encounter jamming.
Troops ran into connectivity problems during the exercise, sometimes because of simulated electronic warfare, sometimes for other reasons. They said the problems could slow apps and information loading or leave maps short on detail. One platoon sergeant told Business Insider that because his EUD wasn’t connected to WiFi, “it wasn’t working properly.”
These issues highlighted one of the central tensions of the Army’s push for a more digital force. Soldiers can obtain valuable information through the network, which is designed to make them more effective in a high-intensity, high-tech fight. However, they still need to be prepared to fight when the network fails. During the exercise, troops used physical maps alongside their EUDs.
Soldiers said they see the EUD as an ideal way to stay connected and receive information, but they keep physical backups for redundancy.
“Digital enables me to get real-time, precise targeting feedback, which has been critical,” Capt. Mohamed Elmaola with the 4th Infantry Division told Business Insider. But the “analog copy is what I fight and live off because this gives me the totality of the story of what the enemy is doing, especially in a degraded environment,” he said.
The Army is figuring out who needs an EUD. The number of devices in Army divisions varies with the type of formation and how soldiers are dismounted and dispersed. The 25th Infantry Division, for example, has almost 2,200 devices, while other divisions like the 4th ID have fewer.
The Army used the recent exercise to assess the proper number of EUDs for different types of divisions and how far down the chain the devices should be distributed. Questions remain about who benefits the most from having one, with some Army officials noting that unit commanders should carry the devices to better facilitate movement and communication for their soldiers.
“I think it’s informing us a little bit about who needs them, how far down do they go,” Lt. Gen. Michael McCurry, head of Futures and Concept Command within the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, told reporters at the exercise. “In different formation types, that might be different.”
Army leaders see an advantage in technology that is already intuitive to soldiers who use smartphones and tablets in their daily lives. Most younger troops, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, said, are “very much digital natives, so if we can give them digital tools that make them better, that actually play to the strengths that they already have,” then it’s “super, super powerful.”
Going forward, EUDs could also incorporate other applications, such as tools for medical and logistics operations and expanded photo and video functions.
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