Land Equipment - DEFENCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, Issue 43
Preparing for PECOC
Pressure is being placed on defence procurement teams now, arguably more than ever before. With two large operational commitments, namely operations Herrick and Telic, Britain's armed forces are encountering challenges that require specific equipment suited to the work being done. Consequently, procurement executives are finding themselves balancing the responsibilities of responding to the immediate needs of operations at the same time as engaging in long-term programmed activity.
Not without due cause, focus in this area is often given to areas like armoured vehicles, an area for which Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) have been plentiful. For instance, we have seen the acquisition of new protected patrol vehicles, like Mastiff and Ridgback, the procurement of the high mobility platforms like the Jackal MWMIK, as well as improvements and modification to vehicles like the FV430 Bulldog, and Viking.
However, what of the soldiers themselves? What about the equipment worn and carried by those on the ground? Equipment shortages will almost always lead to criticism, and any shortfalls for troops will in no way be excluded from such attention.
This is an area that is receiving significant attention, according to Lieutenant Colonel Mike Ross of the Defence Clothing Integrated Project Team (DC IPT). As part of their broad clothing remit, including both operational and ceremonial clothing, DC IPT is responsible for the Personal Equipment and Common Operational Clothing (PECOC) programme. PECOC is currently planned to provide a comprehensive range of clothing for the future soldier, from items including body armour through to garments like trousers, helmets, protective eyewear, and footwear. However, the programme's reach may go beyond this and will offer operational clothing to all of the armed services operating in rugged environments in the land domain.
Lt Col Ross explains that PECOC initially started off as part of the Future Integrated Soldier Technology (FIST) IPT. However, this wasn't to prove suitable: "The problem there was the infantry soldier was only ever going to be about 10% of the user. They were going down lines of looking at clothing lines that weren't vastly relevant to most of the forces."
Looking at the problem more comprehensively, DC IPT has now been working on the assessment phase with industry partners QinetiQ for over a year. "We have produced a number of concept demonstrators to look at systems we can use," says Lt Col Ross. "Having trialled those, we are now picking out the best in those three concept demonstrators to come up with one single prototype. We will then take this to more extensive trialling, and eventually the proposal is to go to Main Gate.
But unlike some procurement teams, where the work for operations is simply added onto the demands of core activity, the work for PECOC does not necessarily need to be dealt with completely separately to the work that satisfies UORs. While PECOC is not due to enter service for a number of years to come, current operations are giving the IPT an opportunity to gain insights for the future: "We want to see a situation where what we are learning on operations is being fed back into the PECOC programme," says Lt Col Ross.
Satisfying the here and now
A recent army event demonstrated how they are making use of UORs. While a significant portion of the day was given to demonstrating vehicles from Challenger 2 Main Battle Tanks through to Snatch Land Rovers, dismounted close combat equipment was also heralded as greatly improved and almost unrecognisable from its state back in 2003.
With improvements in other dismounted close combat areas as well, there has been a great deal of effort placed in improving protective gear and clothing worn by the soldier. The soldier on operations today has kit that has been designed to better equip them by far for the work they need to carry out. Materials being used are in many cases not only lighter, but are more durable, more effective and allow greater mobility and comfort, ultimately leading to increased lethality and survivability.
Examples of improvements:
Footwear
As previously explained in DMJ, higher standards of boots are now being delivered to service personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq. New Lowa and Meindl footwear is both durable and comfortable. Footwear has been selected to provide greater choice and to require less breaking in than previous options available. "They are just brilliant, soft, already broken in, there are no problems at all," one soldier told DMJ in July 2008, just a day after being issued with his new pair of boots. Variety also now allows for a boot designed specifically for the female foot, something that has never been available before.
Body armour
Five years ago, the soldier would have been provided with Enhanced Combat Body Armour, essentially, a fragmentation jacket with a ballistic plate covering the heart. Procurement of the Osprey Body Armour offers a fragmentation jacket with a ballistic plate that covers the entire torso and is designed to stop armour piercing rounds. In addition, this can now be supplemented with side ballistic plates to protect the kidneys and the soldier's side profile. Detachable collars and epaulettes are also available to protect the neck, the upper arms and armpit area.
Eyewear
Back in 2003, soldiers were issued with plastic goggles and plastic sunglasses, offering only minimal UV protection. Conversely, the goggles and glasses issued today are in no way to be confused with sunglasses and offer ballistic protection up to a shotgun blast at 10m. Eyewear is available in clear, dark and yellow tints. Trialling of a red tint has also commenced, which is due to provide better definition. The acquisition of new protective eyewear is particularly important as approximately 10-16% of battlefield injuries occur to the eyes, 90% of which are preventable. Commercial off-the-shelf solutions have provided the necessary equipment here and procurement of eyewear is still in progress with regular tests being carried out with different makes by different manufacturers. DMJ was told at the aforementioned Army UOR day that if new styles become available, and if they are thought to be potentially useful or advantageous, they will be trialled.
Other improvements
Other elements of protective equipment and clothing worn by the soldier have been improved. This includes the Mk 6 helmet, which has been replaced by the Mk 6a, offering better ballistic protection. Standard desert-pattern disruptive pattern material (DPM) clothing, standard issue socks, and cotton/polyester mix t-shirts, have also all been replaced. Instead, service personnel are now provided with lightweight material desert DPM clothing, microfibre fast-wicking t-shirts, microfibre fast-wicking socks, under body armour combat shirts with microfibre fast-wicking torsos and anti-bacterial underwear. The result is more content soldiers, who at the UOR day told DMJ that their clothing is "a lot lighter and better than the old version". They explain: "You can do more stuff with it. There's more room for everything. They're thinner, so they're dryer and cooler. Everything we've been getting is a lot better."
Commercial arrangements – a key challenge
While a significant amount of effort is being placed into getting the right equipment, Lt Col Ross emphasises that the challenge doesn't really lie within the technology of the garments. "We know a lot about what we want," he says. "The challenge is the commercial arrangements – how we roll it out and how we keep it maintained.
"Traditionally with body armour and clothing, we have gone through the process of buying in one big bang. Then 10 years later, we might look at doing some sort of technology insertion." However, achieving mass purchase and rapid subsequent technology insertion in the future might be more of a challenge.
"As an IPT, we have a reputation for being very agile and getting changes into our kit very quickly," says Ross. "However, as far as public policy is concerned we are spending public money, often a lot of it, and so we need to audit and make sure we are spending it wisely."
This represents a challenge: how to move quickly against compulsory commercial regulations. "There are ways of approaching that," says Lt Col Ross. "We have enabling contracts which allow us to turn things around quickly. We have the option to buy large quantities, and this is how uniforms are supplied. But if we want a new type of vest or jacket, we can, under the same enabling contract, get that as well. Commercial legislation is an overhead we would like to get rid of. However, it is a safeguard that is very important and so it will take some time."