 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2013) |
Land Warrior was a United States Army program, launched in 1989. It officially got its name in 1994,[1] cancelled in 2007[2][3] but restarted in 2008.[4] It has used a combination of commercial, off-the-shelf technology (COTS) and current-issue military gear and equipment designed to:
- integrate small arms with high-tech equipment;
- provide communications and command and control at the infantry soldier level;
- look at the individual infantry soldier as a complete unit rather than as a segment of a larger force.
While technology had long been a primary focus of the U.S. Armed Forces, very little of it had actually been adopted by the U.S. Army infantry soldier. With growing concerns of urban warfare and dismounted infantry actions, the U.S. Army recognized the need to upgrade an individual infantryman. The Land Warrior program drew upon many wearable computer concepts, and maximized existing technologies to correct most infantry soldier limitations in the short term.
The SI (Stryker Interoperable) version of the system completed U.S. Army testing as of November 2004. Due to limited resources, and issues with the overall weight of the system, Land Warrior was cancelled by the Army in February 2007, but restarted in July 2007. Despite the initial system's cancellation the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) was deployed to Iraq as part of the spring 2007 "surge" of U.S. forces, and used the Land Warrior, on which they had trained for the previous few years.[5]
The systems and technology of the Land Warrior program were to be rolled into the Future Force Warrior program, and the Army has developed the Nett Warrior system to supersede Land Warrior as its next soldier network program.
Internationally, there are several similar development programs, these include IdZ (Germany), FIST (UK), Félin (France), Land 125 (Australia), MARKUS (Sweden), Soldato Futuro (Italy), IMESS (Switzerland), Projekt TYTAN (Poland), FINSAS (India) and ACMS (Singapore), Ratnik (Russia), SARV (Iran).
- ^ Clay, Buck (12 January 2016). "The F-35 of Ground Warfare: The Army's Land Warrior Program". SOFREP. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 June 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2007.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) U.S. Army Budget Request Documents FY2008 (page 4) - ^ "Stryker Brigade News – Land Warrior funds cut". Archived from the original on 11 June 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2007.
- ^ Shachtman, Noah. "High-Tech Soldier Suit, Crawling Back From the Dead". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2 April 2024.
- ^ "FCW.com News – Army budget would kill Land Warrior". Archived from the original on 11 January 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2007.