ADF Force Protection: 'Diggerworks' - out-thinking the enemy | ADM September 2011

Australian soldiers deploying to Afghanistan in May 2011 as part of Mentoring Task Force 3 were equipped with the latest generation of Soldier Combat Ensemble (SCE) – a suite of body armour that is integrated with load carriage components, developed by Defence’s new ‘Diggerworks’.

The SCE includes the all-new Tiered Body Armour System (TBAS) which enables a soldier with greater levels of mobility and commensurate levels of protection than the Modular Combat Body Armour System (MCBAS) which the Army has been issuing to its troops for the past few years, according to Diggerworks Director Colonel Jason Blain. MCBAS had attracted some criticism for  being overly heavy, unwieldy and unsuitable in certain applications – particularly when worn on patrols by dismounted soldiers.

Blain told ADM the TBAS ensemble is styled to balance weight with the protection level required for different jobs and threats the troops face in Afghanistan.

The TBAS has been paired with the new high-tech Crye Precision Combat Uniform in the ‘Multi-Cam’ pattern unveiled late last year by Defence Materiel minister Jason Clare. This uniform has advanced functionality and has an enhanced camouflage pattern which is extremely effective. Variants of the Multi-Cam pattern are also used extensively by UK and US in Afghanistan.

Multi-cam is seen as providing an enhanced camouflage pattern to support operations in both the desert areas and green zones within Afghanistan. Troops wearing more traditional camouflage combat uniforms are more susceptible to detection if they are required to operate in both areas during a patrol. The form, fit and function of the uniform was also seen as providing superior utility and comfort for soldiers involved in prolonged dismounted operations.  This has implications for Coalition and even single-service operations and is one of the reasons why Army has invested significantly in acquiring several thousand sets of ‘Multi-Cam’ uniforms from Crye Precision. This operational use of the Crye Precision uniform will also aid the Army in designing its future range of combat uniforms.

The new TBAS ensemble, developed in Australia, has won early praise for its suitability for dismounted combatants and is a first success for Diggerworks. Diggerworks is a virtual organisation that was set up last year by the DMO, Capability Development Group, Army Headquarters and DSTO to provide both a rapid response to the battlefield threats facing the troops and a long-term approach to shaping the development of soldier equipment under Project Land 125 Ph.4 and beyond.

One of its key challenges, Col. Blain told ADM, is to make sure the SCE remains properly integrated so that protection isn’t achieved at the cost of lightness, comfort and useability – that essential balance must be maintained.

Diggerworks has a physical presence in DMO’s Land Systems Division in Melbourne but is based around the Integrated Soldier Systems Development Directorate (ISSDD) of the LSD’s Integrated Soldier Systems Branch. It embraces several agencies intimately involved with soldier combat systems:

•           Modernisation and Strategic Planning – Army (MSP-A)

•           DMO’s Land Systems Division (LSD)

•           DMO’s Electronic Systems Division (ESD)

•           Capability Development Group (CDG)

•           DSTO’s Human Protection and Performance Division (HPPD)

The ISSDD is staffed by close combat practitioners, project managers, systems and design engineers, technical advisor and DSTO liaison personnel, and is located in Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. It is part of the recently overhauled mechanism by which Army seeks out operational lessons and then feeds these into training and force preparation activities for successive rotations of troops and units going to Afghanistan and other theatres. This process also extends to unit and personal equipment.

Diggerworks is a holistic response to the need, first, for rigour in the development, adaption and integration management of soldier combat systems; and secondly for a more responsive and adaptive acquisition approach, which employs rapid feedback and modification of equipment to meet the operational deployment cycle.

It is designed to identify and develop solutions to current issues, and assess new technologies as they emerge in order to deliver enhanced, integrated soldier combat systems. It has four key tasks:

•           Development: Continually improving soldier combat systems. Finding solutions to immediate and mid-term problems that affect the performance of the combat soldier;

•           Systems Integration: Ensuring the combat soldier is an integrated combat system and not an aggregation of individual components (remove the Christmas Tree effect);

•           Configuration Management: Supporting Army in having informed configuration control over the soldier as a combat system; and

•           Modernisation: Developing the requirements of the future soldier systems within the context of Army’s force modernisation objectives and Defence’s capability development plans.

Its focus is to identify ways of ‘reducing the burden’ for the close combatant while increasing survivability through enhancing protection, mobility, lethality and C2SA (command, control, situational awareness).

Subject: Defence Industry