Land Warrior is a United States Army program, cancelled in 2007, that was to use 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.
The systems and technology of the Land Warrior program were to be rolled into the Future Force Warrior program.
While technology had long been a primary focus of the United States military, very little of it had actually been adopted by the 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. Despite the system's cancellation the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) was deployed to Iraq as part of the Spring 2007 "surge" of US forces, and used the Land Warrior, on which they had trained for the previous few years.
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).
Read more about Land Warrior: History, Description, Stryker Interoperable Vehicle Kit
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