"The OFW contract is very similar to the FCS contract," explained Jean-Louis (Dutch) DeGay, equipment specialist and OFW marketing coordinator at the U.S. Army Soldier Biological and Chemical Command (SBCCOM). "They have the lead systems integrator and we have the lead technology integrator. And they are interwoven, if you will, because we are developing the soldier system in conjunction with the development of the platform systems. So the government hopes to field a new vehicle as well as a new soldier with both systems being designed around each other at the same time."

The two OFW LTI phase I contracts were awarded to General Dynamics’ Eagle Enterprise and Exponent Inc. The August 29 awards were made by SBCCOM and will be managed through the Army’s Natick Soldier Center. Each phase I concept and technology development is valued at approximately $7.5 million and will run through April of next year.

According to Scott Myers, vice president for General Dynamics’ Eagle Enterprise, their approach was selected to bid for OFW LTI because it did not encumber any of General Dynamics’ other approaches within the Legacy Force elements of the U.S. Army.

"We could certainly start with a clean sheet of paper and look at this from a pure system engineering standpoint to meet users’ requirements and get the best solution. We have Eagle Enterprise running the program. We have a couple of players [in the areas of system engineering] and then we bring in, as needed, experts to provide technical support. Basically, we are free to pick any solution that we think is the right one for the Army."

Exponent, Inc. serves as prime contractor for the second LTI. According to a post-award company announcement, Exponent will lead an alliance of six companies designated as Wolfpack Enterprise.

Exponent is serving as lead company partner and prime contractor and is joined in the full partner category by The Wexford Group International and Booz Allen Hamilton. In addition, the enterprise is supported by three principal associates: Hamilton Sundstrand; Charles River Analytics; and Wyle Laboratories.

"During phase I the two lead technology integrators are going to become familiar with DoD programs that are funneled toward the Objective Force Warrior timeframe to find out what technologies the government is specifically pursuing that are fieldable.

"They will also conduct a market survey of what other technologies are commercially available or non-DoD-wide that could be incorporated into the OFW system to achieve the capabilities that we want to see. At the end of phase I we will see the result of that work as well as a prototype system from each contractor," DeGay said.

Exponent provided an early glimpse at some of the likely Wolfpack Enterprise technology investigations in their original award announcement, which quoted Michael R. Gaulke, President and CEO: "This rapid, 8-month phase I agreement allows the [Wolfpack Enterprise] team to use our experience in rapidly evaluating technology and integrating systems for the Army’s Land Warrior program, and our insights gained through our participation in related programs."

Likewise, Scott Myers revealed that "[Army representatives] have four or five main things they are trying to achieve under OFW, the first being about a 10 time increase in effectiveness for the platoon, including lethality and survivability over the present system. The way to achieve that kind of improvement is to use increased situational awareness and netted communications, which right now does not exist at this level. You give individual dismounted soldiers the ability to communicate with a network-centric approach. Another key issue to come out of this is to lighten the soldier’s load. Now he carries 100 pounds and we want to lower it to 45 pounds."

"They want increased survivability, increased lethality and lighter loads," he added.

"What we have come up with is a baseline solution--and it is just a baseline--which consists of netted communications that we are pulling from the DARPA SUO [small unit operations] situational awareness [SUOSAS] program. We have ITT involved in providing that."

Myers also explained that the Eagle Enterprise baseline approach includes three different robotic platforms: a small individual soldier support system to help clear inside buildings; a squad level support vehicle to help transport loads and handle sustainment requirements; and a larger vehicle with both direct and indirect fire capabilities that provides another tie between the OFW and FCS programs. The robotic systems are joined by two different size classes of unmanned aerial vehicles in the baseline concept.

Acknowledging that government and industry engineers "have been doing this soldier as a system work inside the Army for 20 years now," DeGay points to the pending fielding of both Land Warrior and Objective Force Warrior capabilities as concrete manifestations of those efforts. "You will have Land Warrior Ranger, which is going to be the first Land Warrior that is fielded, in 2004; you will see Land Warrior Stryker in 2006," he said. Although formerly called Land Warrior (LW) block I and block II respectively, DeGay says that the preferred designations are LW system capability upgrades I and II.

"Essentially what you have is that Land Warrior block I and block II are variations on a theme," he said. "Block I/capability upgrade I is going to go to the SOF [special operations forces] community and the Rangers and the conventional Army are going to learn tons from each other. Capability upgrade II is Land Warrior Stryker, our system of systems’ soldier [who will fight] in conjunction with the Stryker vehicle. Then you have the Objective Force Warrior, which is the same as either Land Warrior block mod III or Land Warrior system capability upgrade III. What we have is the ability to learn the lessons of Land Warrior Ranger and Land Warrior Stryker as we are developing a completely revolutionary soldier; introducing new technology while incorporating those lessons learned from Land Warrior capability upgrades I and II."

Under the current program structure, the Army will issue limited solicitations to the two LTI contractor teams. Those solicitations will likely lead to the down-selection for a single team to conduct phase II (preliminary and detailed design) and subsequent phase III (demonstration-build, training and demonstration) programs. Current long-range projections call for OFW to begin fielding in the 2008-2010 timeframe.