A series of events will help officials determine what the concept of employment for EW will be at the division level and what programs of record will look like.

Those events included a tabletop exercise at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia, focused on how electronic warfare will be done at division and higher; an October Fires Symposium at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, examining how network, intelligence, cyber and EW will integrate into fires; a capabilities-based assessment for electromagnetic warfare conducted by the Cyber Capability Integration Directorate at the Cyber Center of Excellence in Augusta, Georgia, that will be completed over the next year; and a sensor-to-shooter event focused on challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and long-range precision fires at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

“We’re doing a deep dive on that now,” Col. Leslie Gorman, Army capability manager for electronic warfare, said in a recent interview regarding how the service is thinking about fighting electronic warfare at echelon and with what platforms. “I had a sit-down with some folks at the Pentagon yesterday. One of the things that came back was truly, what does that concept of employment look like at the division?”

She explained that the Cyber CDID event helped determine what exactly the forthcoming Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB) system will be.

TLS-EAB was initially designed as an integrated EW and signals intelligence system primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater ranges. Like its smaller, brigade counterpart, TLS-Brigade Combat Team, following experimentation and lessons from Europe, the Army has decided to split up the SIGINT and electronic warfare functions.

Given the EAB effort was less mature than the BCT variant at the time the decision to split the functions was made, officials have stated EAB will be the main component for defining and demonstrating an initial EW architecture and publishing the requests for information concerning the architecture, that will eventually deliver it back to the BCT version for integration.

“There’s been some interesting information that came out of that [tabletop event]. We also have another CONEMP we’re taking a look at from [the] C5ISR [Center] to help shape some discussions with the maneuvers at an upcoming tabletop exercise with them because I think that’s going to be very important,” Gorman said, using an acronym to refer to command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “As we’re flushing out the requirements at echelon that we’re not only talking to fires, we’re also talking maneuvers. Because it’s ensuring that we’re incorporating our capabilities in a light infantry fight. Since we are an enabler, what does it look like to implement an EW sensor on a” robotic combat vehicle?

Officials are also looking at other capabilities that have been prototyped and used primarily at the brigade level to see if there’s applicability at division, namely, the Tactical Electronic Warfare System-Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or TEWS-I, which was initially a quick-reaction capability built by General Dynamics, providing a smaller system designed for infantry vehicles. It was a prototype activity to serve as a risk reduction and requirements pathfinder for the Army’s program of record, the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT) and has been used by units within the XVIII Airborne Corps.

Gorman noted that the service is looking at experimentation efforts next year to not only gain improvements for TEWS-I, but how that capability could potentially be a division asset.

The Army is still essentially in the requirements phase when it comes to the electronic warfare portion of TLS-BCT again, trying to figure out what makes the most sense going forward.

Gorman noted it could evolve to include more robust communications systems, deception capabilities or situational awareness tools. Moreover, while the Army is currently fielding the TLS Manpack — the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct direction finding with limited jamming on-the-move as well — for mobility, the service is looking at possibly bringing that into a vehicle mount with an amplifier for extended range, something that was conceived of initially within the original TLS family.

Constant feedback from units is also helping to inform future generations of the Manpack capability, Gorman said.

As the Army is continuing to work on the platform and capability side of the issue, fleshing out how they’ll be employed, the other critical parallel effort is moving out on EW-enabling capabilities to be able to plan and manage within the spectrum.

“It’s also ensuring that we address it as a system-of-systems approach … It’s going to be important to be able to ensure that these capabilities that we’re fielding, we’re able to communicate and C2 those systems, be able to also incorporate where the systems are on the battlefield and incorporate that into not only our EW plan of action via [the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool], but then also think leveraging [the Spectrum Situational Awareness System] for the spectrum management, the [electromagnetic emission control], the [electronic protection] capabilities, to be able to also bring that information into fires for a more comprehensive, holistic, synchronized, non-lethal effect support to fires planning capability,” Gorman said.

EWPMT serves as a command-and-control planning capability that allows service members to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations. The Army is embarking on the EWPMT “Next” effort, which involves shifting to the Tactical Assault Kit framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created for better joint and coalition integration.

The Spectrum Situational Awareness System (S2AS) is a new start in fiscal 2025 and is envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signatures, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and threat emissions.

Officials have described EWPMT as the glue that holds the electronic warfare architecture together, because if forces can’t see, understand and plan within the spectrum, jamming and sensing capabilities won’t be effective.

“We’re talking about this too, is like we have a lot of Manpacks coming out. We’re going to have to be able to ensure that those systems can be effectively C2’d and that missions can be planned at the optimal level at echelon, so that way everyone understands what’s going on their battlespace. I think that helps reduce potential adjacent unit RF interference or jamming,” Gorman said. “It’s also ensuring that our signatures that we’re emitting, that is also a part of our planning efforts and you have to do that with each and every EW emitter or an effector.”

The Army will begin embedding its requirements personnel with experimental units to create a direct feedback loop to inform the software developers for EWPMT in the program office. This will help the program office prioritize as the service is planning likely tranches of 12 improvements per quarter going forward in line with a holistic software modernization strategy for EWPMT Next.

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Officials are finding from Ukraine’s conflict with Russia that the technology landscape can change in days, not months. As a result, the Army is pitching the need for fiscal nimbleness to be able to make changes to systems on the battlefield or procurement efforts to get soldiers the capabilities they require.

“Recognizing that we’ve made the shift from primarily what used to be a counter-IED focus to now one where we’re dealing with near-peer threats and a very, very contested battlespace. Flexible funding is one of the three areas we’ve talked about. Recognizing that even as we’ve seen in Ukraine, the EW changes in software that both sides are employing, often are done in a matter of days or hours,” Gabe Camarillo, undersecretary of the Army, told reporters on the sidelines of the annual AUSA conference. “We are looking at making sure that we can rapidly iterate our EW capabilities in a similar fashion. I think having the program and funding flexibility to do it will help us.”

At the end of the Cold War, the Army divested much of its electronic warfare inventory. During counterinsurgency fights of the last 20 years, soldiers used blunt jamming tools to thwart improvised explosive devices, which, in turn, inadvertently jammed friendly systems. Now, the service is trying to develop more sophisticated systems to directly compete with advanced adversaries, their tactics and capabilities.

“A direct result of what we’re seeing in Ukraine is causing us to — our budget [request] that will come up next spring, you’ll see a significant increase in investment in unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and electronic warfare capabilities as well,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said at an event in September. “There’s a very tight cycle between the Ukrainians and the Russians in terms of developing a capability and then developing a counter to that capability. But one of the things the Russians have really been cycling quickly on is their EW capabilities, and that’s made it harder for the Ukrainians.”

As part of the flexible funding request — which also includes uncrewed systems and counter-unmanned systems technologies — the Army will be plussing up its electronic warfare budget, though top officials have been vague on exactly where those investments will be made.

According to the Army’s program office responsible for electronic warfare, the service embarked on a comprehensive review of its EW enterprise that spanned the scope of electronic attack, electronic protect and electronic support capabilities, also examining their relationship with signals intelligence as a means of ensuring it’s postured to address the current and emerging threats associated with large-scale combat operations.

“We considered major capability gaps, investments opportunities, trades, architecture considerations, and policy change requirements. Prioritization is on increasing EW capabilities at all echelons and formations from the company level all the way up to theater,” the program office said in a statement.

Some specific efforts mentioned by name include:

• The Electronic Planning and Management Tool, a command-and-control planning capability that allows service members to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations. The Army is embarking on the EWPMT “Next” effort, which involves shifting to the Tactical Assault Kit framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created for better joint and coalition integration.
• The Spectrum Situational Awareness System, a new start in fiscal 2025 envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and what threat emissions look like.
•  The Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum System, which is related to command post survivability and could employ techniques to confuse and deceive adversaries born out of a prior science-and-technology effort called Modular Electromagnetic Spectrum Deception Suite (MEDS). That will be a new start in fiscal 2026.

Other capabilities in the Army’s current pipeline not mentioned include:

• The Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large, a pod-mounted capability on a MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone serving as the Army’s only airborne electronic warfare (with limited cyber) capability organic to combat aviation brigades to support maneuver commanders on the ground.  
• The Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team Manpack system, the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct direction and signal finding with limited jamming on-the-move as well.
• The TLS-Echelon Above Brigade system, designed primarily for divisions, corps and Multi-Domain Task Forces to sense across greater ranges than its brigade counterpart.
• The TLS-Brigade Combat Team system, which was designed as the first integrated signals intelligence, cyber and electronic warfare platform and as initially conceived, was to be mounted on Strykers and then Army Multi-Purpose Vehicle variant prototypes. The Army has now decided to split up the platform, separating the signals intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities, and it will be pursuing a new architecture for its EW suite.

Army officials have also noted they want to move away from major programs that take years to develop through lengthy requirements, in favor of more commercial-based systems that have demonstrated maturity.

The program office added that the Army is considering several ways to be more agile in the electronic warfare space to include the potential consolidation of funding lines to allow for increased flexibility while maintaining acquisition discipline and oversight, and establishing contracting mechanisms to acquire and integrate software solutions faster.

As it currently exists, programs are set up as specific line items with specific pots of money. The Army can’t take money from one electronic warfare program line item and move it to another to adjust to real-world needs, if, for example, a certain technology has matured that could be surged to forces on the battlefield.

Flexible funding could allow the service to move those pots of money to where forces need them, or if a new technology comes along that is ready for primetime.

“You talk to a lot of these companies out there, with tech companies … they will tell you that six months from now, things are going to be completely different. We want to buy a modular, open system architecture systems that we can put any different kind of sensor on. I think that’s going to help with the money problem as well, and that we can continue to adapt,” Gen. Randy George, chief of staff of the Army, told reporters at the AUSA conference.

“Agile funding enables us to buy technology in tranches that work together in open architectures, with interchangeable parts, and software-defined components that can be changed quickly to meet our needs. This is how we move from named systems to capabilities. We have to be willing to make smaller bets within budget cycles and we have to pick winners with more frequency. We cannot buy programs for 10 years at a time anymore. Technology changes too fast,” George said during remarks at the conference.

Officials noted that Congress has been receptive to this need but also wary.

“In my experience, appropriators in particular, are leery of what they see as slush funds. But I think, given the dangerous environment we’re in and the recognition by everyone that technology is evolving as rapidly as it is, there’s more openness to this,” Wormuth told reporters. “We’ve been talking to both members, but also clerks and PSMSs on the Appropriations Committee about how we can perhaps consolidate budget line items into fewer pools and have the ability, as a result, to be able to move money around … We’re not trying to eat the whole elephant all at once. We’re trying to start with more of a pilot approach, see if that works, and if members and their staffs feel like they can have the oversight and transparency that they need to have to do their jobs, we may, in the future, be able to expand it.”

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Those units are part of Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s so-called transforming-in-contact concept, where the service plans to use deployments and troop rotations to test new equipment — mainly commercial off-the-shelf gear — that could allow units to be more responsive on a dynamic battlefield.

According to George, there are three areas where the Army needs to be faster and more adaptable when it comes to delivering equipment to forces, due to how challenging the threat environment is and the cat-and-mouse aspect of countering opponents’ moves: unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and electronic warfare.

Those transforming-in-contact units include: 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division — the first mobile brigade combat team — 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division and 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

Given the rate of change in the electromagnetic spectrum, enabled by software-defined systems that can be altered as fast as a patch is able to be developed and delivered, the Army wants to prioritize tools that can be fielded rapidly.

“My number one talking point in terms of our equipping for the future is our focus on doing limited prototyping and rapid fielding of mature [commercial-off-the-shelf/government-off-the-shelf] products,” Kenneth Strayer, project manager for electronic warfare and cyber at program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said in an interview previewing his remarks that he’s slated to deliver Wednesday alongside the Army capability manager for EW at the TechNet Augusta conference.

“The pendulum consistently swings and we’re going back towards the need and the desire to get equipment, limited prototypes, in the hands of units very quickly so that they can learn, they can iterate, and we can get early, good enough capability out to the field,” he added. “We’re looking at off the shelf. We don’t want to do all the development in house. I don’t think we need to because there’s now a competitive marketplace out there to be able to buy ready products or things that need minor modification and integration. Long, long list of vendors who are offering some very effective capability for remote sensors and [software-defined radios] and digitization.”

Part of that change is necessitated by observations from Ukraine in which the cat-and-mouse game of systems being countered and counters being countered, are occurring in hours or days as opposed to the Cold War paradigm of weeks, months or years.

The Army is now trying to get out of the business of major programs that take years to develop through lengthy requirements, tweaks and user tests, shifting the way it talks about strategies and prioritization, but Strayer declined to quantify the ratio or percentage of commercial versus major government-run programs in the future. In some cases, though, these exquisite systems are necessary to build for specific needs.

One such system is the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large (MFEW) that serves as the Army’s only airborne electronic warfare (with limited cyber) capability organic to combat aviation brigades to support maneuver commanders on the ground. The Lockheed Martin-made technology is a pod-mounted capability on a MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone. It has been under development for roughly seven years.

“It’s not like I can go out and just go buy a pod that does this. It required a lot of detailed engineering and testing and packaging. That’s part of the reason why MFEW is taking perhaps longer than some people hope it would because there are problems out there that requires that level of engineering and acquisition,” Strayer said. “We would prefer, whenever possible, to not go down that pathway.”

Strayer said he’d like to get MFEW in the hands of a transforming-in-contact unit following the system’s limited user test next year, but that might be a ways off. Currently the program is getting ready to perform airworthiness certification on the Gray Eagle. Once that’s completed, officials will perform a developmental test at the beginning of next year with a limited user test at the end of the year. Pending the results of that, Strayer said he’d like to get the initial pods in the hands of a unit in 2026.

MFEW has done some support at Fort Drum, New York, with the 10th Mountain Division to demonstrate the payoff of having that high-capability airborne, long-range platform. There were favorable comments from the unit during their recent exercises, Strayer said.

One of the best examples of the new approach is the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team Manpack system, the first official program in decades for a dismounted electronic attack capability that soldiers can use to conduct jamming on-the-move as well as direction and signal finding with limited signals intelligence capabilities.

The system, made by Mastodon Design, a CACI subsidiary, was previously used by U.S. Special Operations Command, allowing the Army to shrink down the timeline for much of the necessary vetting and testing of a new program. The Army awarded Mastodon a nearly $100 million procurement and fielding contract earlier this year.

“It was a huge win for us. I mean, we went from good idea to a fielded product in about 24 months, which is unheard of in acquisition cycles. A lot of that’s because it was a mature baseline. We had a lot of tests and performance data, not only with Socom, but other services and units who had been buying this product over the last couple of years,” Strayer said. “Another good example of how [in] industry there’s now a very robust industry community who’s developing what I call off-the-shelf products that we view more as a catalog buy than a developmental program.”

Strayer said 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division received some of these systems — albeit on loan — during its rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center this month, to test the system and provide feedback.

Overall, the Manpack system received enough funding in the fiscal 2024 appropriation to purchase enough for two brigades. Pending the fiscal 2025 appropriation, the service will have enough for another eight brigades, with the eventual goal of total Army fielding.

In addition to the Manpack, 2nd Brigade, 101st is also experimenting with the Tactical Electronic Warfare System-Infantry (TEWS-I) at JRTC, a quick-reaction capability built a few years ago by General Dynamics, serving as a smaller system designed for infantry vehicles. While there won’t be any future production on that system given it was a quick-reaction capability, Strayer said it has generated discussion on requirements for light and airborne forces for mobility.

“Because it’s more tightly integrated into a platform, you get some of the advantages of the tactical mobility and the power that comes with that. We’re really interested in getting the feedback and seeing where we go,” he said. “If there is a requirement for this lightweight mobile kit, then we have to look at the payoff as to whether you need some of the more higher-end capability that comes on TEWS-I or if it’s really a Manpack, which is maybe up-gunned and more fully integrated into a vehicle platform. I think those are two different approaches you could take to the problem.”

Strayer noted that other transforming-in-contact units have begun to experiment with other capabilities, although he declined to specifically identify those units. One includes pre-prototypes of a Spectrum Situational Awareness System (S2AS), a new start in fiscal 2025 envisioned to be a commercial off-the-shelf solution that will provide sensing and visualization of what units look like in the spectrum and allow commanders to be able to sense and report in real-time their command post signature, sources of electromagnetic interference — either from coalition partners or the enemy — and what threat emissions look like.

The program office also hopes to get emerging systems into the hands of the these units. Those include the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) Next, a command-and-control planning capability that allows service members to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations. The “Next” effort involves shifting to the Tactical Assault Kit framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created for better joint and coalition integration.

The emerging systems also include representative products associated with a new electronic warfare architecture the Army is developing, once established.

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The effort was part of the annual Cyber Quest event held earlier this month at Fort Eisenhower, Georgia. Cyber Quest is an experimentation venue where the Army seeks to test emerging technologies on either existing or desired capabilities brought by contractors that respond to specific problem statements from the service in order to help inform future requirements and concepts.

Officials involved with the exercise noted this year’s event was different than in years past, explaining they wanted to develop a data flow that covered all domains of battle and was housed in a single repository at the division level, the new unit of action for the Army.

Moreover, for the first time, the event served as a lab-based risk reduction effort for technologies and concepts that will eventually feed into the next Project Convergence capstone event, the culmination of several experimentation events to test the interoperability of systems across the Army as well as the other services and multinational partners.

The experiment sought to get after “how do we maximize data in that future environment,” Maj. James Harryman, Cyber Quest lead exercise planner and a U.K. exchange officer at the Cyber Center of Excellence, said in an interview.

Turning the Army into a data-centric service is one of Army Secretary Christine Wormuth’s top priorities, which essentially means starting with data as the foundation for operations as opposed to platforms. Data is also crucial for the Pentagon’s top priority dubbed Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), which envisions how systems across the entire battlespace from all services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked and connected to provide the right data to commanders for better and faster decision-making.

To reduce integration challenges between the capabilities brought by vendors, Harryman said he directed they all put their capabilities in the same file format — in this case, the JSON open standard file format.

“By understanding that and giving almost that integration challenge back out to industry, we really managed to make massive strides securing a really short three-week dedicated integration window here in the battle lab,” Harryman said.

“The reason that I did that, again, was to reduce the friction for integration. But then by also being able to translate that cursor on target’s file format, again, into a JSON file format and populate that into that elastic repository means that they’ve managed to stitch together the land domain along to all the other ones and then coalesce them in a single location,” he continued.

“I think as we move further forward, that’s key, when we put out these calls to industry, it’s not just a ‘What have we got that you have that you might be able to answer our problems? And we also need it in these file formats.’ I think, with the proliferation of sensors across the battlespace, being absolutely key about how we receive that information and understanding the data flows is imperative we move further forward, otherwise, it’s going to be really messy and we certainly won’t get anywhere near the advance in speed that we’re trying to get after if we are stuck with a data problem. But you need to do that ahead of time,” Harryman added.

The Army has also begun moving several of its programs to the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created. This information is displayed on Android-based devices mounted to soldiers’ chests, vehicles, or operations center screens.

One such program is the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT), which serves as a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

The Army earlier this year canceled a task order for the next phase of the program that had been planned, shifting EWMPT’s electromagnetic warfare and spectrum management capabilities to TAK to be more interoperable with joint systems.

While that next phase is still in the early stages of development, Harryman said officials will look to work with the program office as they add new capabilities to better understand how the Cyber Center of Excellence can best help as part of next year’s Cyber Quest.

Moving to these standard file formats helps set the groundwork to the capstone series. It has also demonstrated to the acquisition community, who will be running programs, that this can be done.

“From an experimentation lens, we want to show that there’s the possibility to do this, but we can drive the acquisition process through experimentation,” Col. Brett Riddle, director of the Cyber Battle Lab, said. “As it shifts over the acquisition, there’s going to be that other process that they need to go through to get the pieces put into place where they can actually drive that data standardization. That’s the piece that we’re really trying to push the acquisition community into saying, ‘OK, here’s the way to do it.’ James is showing that and as we shift into acquisition, here’s one way to do that.”

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The Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) serves as a C2 planning capability that allows forces to visualize potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

As DefenseScoop first reported, the Army canceled a task order for the next phase of the program that had been planned.

In an announcement Tuesday, the Army said it is shifting EWMPT’s electromagnetic warfare and spectrum management capabilities to the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) framework, where applications for situational awareness data and geospatial visualizations can be created.

This information is displayed on Android-based devices mounted to soldiers’ chests, vehicles or operations center screens.

“Transition to the TAK framework is consistent with ongoing efforts to deliver capability at speed by leveraging common technologies across the Services with a similar user experience,” the Army said in a release. “The TAK user community collaborates across the EW user space and presents opportunities for technology advancement and integration across the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and the Joint Communities of Interest.”

The Army noted that while it will continue to prioritize its current service-specific fielding of EWPMT’s first increment, the program office will begin piloting this architecture with the Marine Corps.

“This strategic move aims to ensure that EWPMT is a relevant capability at the forefront of emerging operational requirements,” the Army said. “The results of the U.S. Army-USMC collaboration on the TAK-X foundation will provide for microservice-based, modular software architecture satisfying Joint and individual Service requirements. It will enable agile development, integration, and ability to rapidly adjust to evolving operational requirements.”

For years, there has been collaboration between the Army and Marines on EWPMT and other EW and EW visualization efforts from a ground service perspective. Furthermore, all the services are looking to converge on more joint solutions and standards in line with the Pentagon’s top priority of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control that aims to better connect systems and data streams for faster decision-making.

In the electronic warfare realm, the Defense Information Systems Agency is developing a joint solution for visualizing and planning operations within the spectrum dubbed Electromagnetic Battle Management–Joint. It awarded a $9.8 million other transaction agreement to Palantir to develop a prototype earlier this year.

The first releases of the modernized architecture, which the Army is calling EWPMT-X, will be piloted and demonstrated over the next year, the service said, in order to get operator feedback. If the pilot is successful, EWPMT-X will replace the current version of EWPMT in fiscal 2026, moving toward a joint electronic warfare and spectrum management set of capabilities.

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The task order under the Responsive Strategic Sourcing for Services (RS3) Enterprise contract was canceled March 18 due to changes in requirements and overall program strategy for the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT), according to a program office spokesperson.

The technology has been described by officials as the glue holding all EW capabilities on the battlefield together. It serves as a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize the potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

The program finished the first increment, as officials called it, which consisted of four capability drops of incremental software deliveries that each built upon the previous one, with Raytheon as the prime contractor. The program has been in development for over eight years.

Following the completion of those capability drops, the Army decided to alter its acquisition approach, opening the program up for bids again to focus on the next era of the system.

The Army issued a request for proposals in 2022 for a developer services provider. Documents from an industry day in January 2024 listed April as an estimated award date. The effort sought to provide a variety of services for the continued design, build, integration, testing, delivery, fielding, maintenance, configuration management and sustainment for EWPMT.

“The program office is assessing future contract efforts based on operational and support requirements. Updates on future contract opportunities will be released either via APBI or at SAM.gov,” the spokesperson stated. 

Officials with the Army have maintained over the last year and a half that the program has a backlog of requirements.

In its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Army asked for $26.3 million in procurement for the system for new equipment fielding and associated training for 39 units at various echelons and locations worldwide, including procurement of commercial computer systems.

Its research-and-development ask is split across two sections. It includes $2 million for navigation warfare situational awareness capabilities to provide positioning, navigation and timing overmatch by countering jamming effects and denying adversary PNT services. An abbreviated capabilities development document for NAVWAR-SA was approved in March 2021, and the funds requested would go toward continued transition and integration of NAVWAR-SA software, the documents state.

Another $12.2 million in the R&D request would go toward continued relevancy updates, sensor integration on other electronic warfare platforms and improved messaging standards, as well as software architecture modernization to make the software more efficient and ease integration with other EW systems.

Increment 1 of the program continues to field to units based on unit prioritization and availability, according to the spokesperson.

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The Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT) has been described by officials as the glue holding all EW capabilities on the battlefield together. It serves as a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize the potential effects within the invisible spectrum and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

As it currently stands, the program finished the first increment, as officials called it, which consisted of four capability drops of incremental software deliveries that each built upon the previous one, with Raytheon as the prime contractor. The program has been in development for over eight years. The Army decided last year to essentially alter its acquisition approach, opening the program up for bids again to focus on the next era of the system.

“We’re still trying to figure out what the name is. I don’t think it’s going to [be called] increment 2. I call it ‘EWPMT next,’ but we’ll see what the real name of it is,” Ken Strayer, project manager for electronic warfare and cyber at Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, told DefenseScoop during an interview at the annual AUSA conference.

For fiscal 2024, the Army requested research-and-development funds to chart a new course under Navigation Warfare Situational Awareness (NAVWAR-SA), which is described as a systems approach to detecting, geolocating and determining the impact area of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in a contested environment.

Strayer added that there is a huge backlog of requirements for the program spanning technical and operational. Updated requirements are being written to include operational needs as well as extending EWPMT’s ability to interface with other battlefield systems.

A request for proposals was released last year for a developer services provider, Strayer said, and a contract should be awarded in the first half of this fiscal year. Once awarded, the Army will be looking at the architecture for “quick wins” in terms of micro services.

“There is also an architecture problem and architecture requirement as I describe it, because we have to keep pace with where the Army is going in terms of data management, it’s cloud instances, how it wants to share data between programs, and also just to keep the pace of modern software practices and our agility that we need to keep the pace in the technology,” Strayer said.

“Once [a contractor is] on board, we are going to be looking hard at the architecture to figure out how we can have some quick wins in terms of new micro services in there opening up [to] take what’s right now an open standard solution and even expanding that greater with the community. Because we want to have this quick, agile solutions where we can go to any vendor to be able to bring that plugin with very little interface with an [original equipment manufacturer] type vendor.”

While there are still questions about how the program will be structured given the requirements are still being worked, this new contract for a services provider will at least let the Army get some momentum.

Strayer said the program ultimately is here to stay and the Army is going into full fielding. The service plans to equip the entire force in the next couple of years.

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The contract is for Phase 2 of the Terrestrial Layer System-Echelons Above Brigade, a capability that will be designed for higher echelons — primarily division and corps — that will need to monitor and sense the battlefield across greater distances than lower, more tactically focused echelons. It will be used by the Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force.

The technology comes as advanced adversaries are forcing the Army to operate at greater distances, and therefore, the service needs to be able to sense farther and at higher echelons.

The other transaction authority agreement totals $36.7 million for a 21-month period of performance, the Army announced Tuesday.

Lockheed Martin, in a release, said that in the coming months, it will build a prototype system at its Syracuse, New York facility.

The Army last year awarded Lockheed and General Dynamics an initial contract to develop designs for the system during an 11-month competition period.

The Army had recently altered its approach to TLS-EAB, recognizing that a one-size-fits-all model might not be suitable. For example, a platform in Europe might not be the right tool for the operating environment in Asia.

According to Army budget documents, the service plans to spend $859,000 for procurement in fiscal 2024 for TLS-EAB, which will be a new-start program. It also plans to spend $66.4 million on research-and-development in 2024, which will go toward integration, demonstration, experimentation, prototyping and vendor testing, among other activities. Total R&D funding funding for the effort over the next five years is projected to be $175.8 million.

The Army is using a middle tier acquisition approach for the program “to rapidly deliver an integrated ground intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber capability on multiple platform types to align with maneuver forces,” the budget documents state.

The first unit issued is slated for the third quarter of 2025, with production and fielding expected in 2026 through 2030.

The TLS-EAB award is a big win for Lockheed as that rounds out a series of capabilities the company is providing the Army in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Previously, Lockheed has been awarded contracts for TLS-Brigade Combat Team — the first brigade-organic integrated signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber platform — and the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare system, an airborne pod that’s designed as the first brigade-organic airborne electronic attack asset that will also provide limited cyberattack capability.

The Army recently put out a request for proposals for a dismounted capability associated with TLS-BCT.

Additionally, the Army is still bidding out for the next phase of its Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool, for which Raytheon has been doing development work. The system is described as the glue holding all EW capabilities on the battlefield together, serving as a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize the potential effects of these types of weapons and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

“The U.S. Army’s Family of Systems concept is a proven model for developing and delivering converged cyber and electronic warfare technologies into the hands of the warfighter quickly, cost efficiently, with lower risk, and at the speed of relevance,” Deon Viergutz, vice president of Spectrum Convergence at Lockheed Martin, said in a release. “Moving into this next phase, we are going to continue to embrace Soldier Touch Points to drive the design while leveraging a proven DevSecOps pipeline and an open architecture that will enable a highly interoperable, configurable 21st Century Security solution that can be easily tailored for specific mission requirements.” 

The Army has been pursuing a yearslong effort to rebuild its electronic warfare arsenal and architecture for the battlefield. After divesting much of its capability following the Cold War, modern threats have forced the service to develop new, more sophisticated systems.

The military writ large has been vocal about the pitfalls of so-called vendor lock, or relying on a singly company to provide a large majority, if not all the capabilities of a particular system. The Army has worked to institute open systems such as the C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards.

Correction: An earlier version misstated the contracting phase awarded.

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Army budget documents note that the service requested a total of $67 million for electronic warfare procurement in fiscal 2024, which is more than triple the $21 million enacted for fiscal 2023.

While these types of jumps in funding are often anticipated in future years defense program requests, many significant Army electronic warfare programs didn’t include any procurement funding for fiscal 2024 in the fiscal 2023 budget released last year.

Part of the jump is due to the fact that this year appears to be a culmination of years of prototyping and research and development of systems the Army was pursuing as it seeks to rebuild its entire EW arsenal.

At the end of the Cold War, the Army divested much of its electronic warfare inventory. Modern conflicts, particularly Russia’s incursions in Ukraine over the last decade, have pushed the Army to rebuild its arsenal, which includes offensive jamming capability, defensive capability and tools to sense and manage the electromagnetic spectrum.

“There was a recognition that given Russia, China threat, the Army’s got to rebuild its EW capability,” Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, told reporters at the annual McAleese and Associates Defense Programs Conference, told reporters March 15. “I know, it’s one of the undersecretary’s priorities. We definitely see the need. We got rid of a lot of that, now we got to get it back.”

Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo has previously said electronic warfare keeps him up at night and that he has been concerned about the Army’s EW and electronic protection capabilities for the last decade or so.

Army officials have described an overall architecture for which major electronic warfare systems will plug into. Capabilities will be part of a layered approach providing complementary effects that build off each other.  

Budget documents show the biggest spend is for counterintelligence/security countermeasures at $22.8 million for fiscal 2024. This goes towards counterintelligence requirements and funding address requirements for the exploitation of signals intelligence as well as to the European Deterrence Initiative. The Army plans to spend $2 billion over the next five years on the program.

 The Army is requesting $21.3 million for the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT), which is the glue holding all EW capabilities on the battlefield together. The tool serves as a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize the potential effects of these types of weapons and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

That funding request will go towards fielding, budget documents state.

The fiscal 2023 budget didn’t include a procurement funding line for 2024 as the program was undergoing a change in acquisition strategy.

In terms of research and development funding, the Army is requesting $2.2 million in fiscal 2024 for EWPMT under a new start titled Navigation Warfare Situational Awareness (NAVWAR-SA), which is described as a systems approach to detecting, geolocating and determining the impact area of Global Positioning System (GPS) in a contested environment. Officials have previously alluded to the notion that EWMPT’s next phase would focus on so-called Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) issues.  

Separately, it is also planning to spend $5 million in research and development that will go toward integration with other platforms such as the Terrestrial Layer System, Multi-Function Electronic Warfare (MFEW) and other sensors.

There was also no funding request for research and development for EWPMT in last year’s budget documents forecasted for fiscal 2024.

Additionally, the Army is requesting $15.9 million for the MFEW Air Large pod. This airborne pod is designed as the first brigade-organic airborne electronic attack asset and providing limited cyberattack capability has been somewhat maligned over the past couple of years.

The fiscal 2022 budget saw a cut in what previous budget plans had forecasted would be $12 million in procurement. The Army added back $3 million for MFEW in its fiscal 2023 budget request. However, in the future years defense program last year, documents didn’t provide any procurement funding.

Officials had explained to reporters that MFEW had to “prove it” following the loss of procurement funds, but ultimately, through testing, realized an incredible return on investment.

While originally planned to be mounted on an MQ-1C Gray Eagle, the Army is now taking a broader approach in that the pod could be mounted on any airborne platform that has sufficient space and power for it. Moreover, in addition to its electronic attack mission, it will play a bigger role in the Army’s deep sensing mission, officials have said.

Top officials such as Camarillo have said they are impressed with the program.

In fiscal 2024, it plans to spend $15.9 million on two low-rate initial production systems. The budget also is projecting that in fiscal 2025, it will procure an additional four pods for $23.3 million, but no additional pods are projected to be procured across the future years defense program.

In budget documents from fiscal 2023, the Army didn’t include any procurement funding for fiscal 2024.

The Army is requesting $5.5 million in research and development for MFEW in fiscal 2024. There also was no funding planned for fiscal 2024 in last year’s budget documents.

The last two items included in the $67 million procurement request include a $6.6 million spend for Air Vigilance, which is a software-intensive Automated Information System (AIS) with specialized hardware that collect intelligence data on emerging threat aerial systems, according to budget documents, and CI Modernization at $400,000.

The Army stated that the Terrestrial Layer System is not included within the electronic warfare spend category of $67 million. Rather, it falls within the tactical intelligence category.

The TLS includes a brigade system, which will be an integrated electronic warfare, signals intelligence and cyber platform mounted on Strykers, and a system for echelons above the brigade involving similar capabilities but mostly for deep sensing for larger echelons.

The Army adjusted funding for TLS-BCT this year. Budget documents released last year projected the Army requesting $201.1 million in fiscal 2024 for procurement for TLS-BCT, however, that has shifted to prioritize infantry units and dismounted systems, which are cheaper than the Strykers.  

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The program in question, the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT), is described by officials as the glue holding all EW capabilities on the battlefield together, serving as a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize the potential effects of these types of weapons and chart courses of action to prevent their forces and systems from being jammed during operations.

Despite past issues, the program is effective, according to the fiscal 2022 annual report from the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, which was recently released.

“DOT&E assessed EWPMT as operationally effective at supporting electromagnetic spectrum planning and management operations, demonstrating the capability to support the commander’s Military Decision-Making Process subject to performance issues detailed in the classified Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) report published in May 2022,” the report stated.

The program was included in the classified portion of the report last year and therefore, no public data was available. In response to ire from lawmakers, the DOT&E office only released one report as opposed to an additional classified one.  

“EWPMT is operationally suitable, demonstrating high operational availability. The Army intends to assess the remote management of electronic warfare assets in [follow-on operational test and evaluation] events scheduled in FY25,” the report said.

The Army, for its part, noted it has remedied previous issues that have been identified by the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester.

“The majority of the initial findings from DOT&E have been addressed. We will continue to improve EWPMT, enhancing Soldier training and system survivability, adding new operational capability, and improving the open architecture and standards necessary to maintain alignment with the Army’s plan for future data management,” a spokesperson for Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, said in a statement to DefenseScoop. “EWPMT Inc 1 provides a first-of-its-kind operational capability to maneuver forces to dominate the Electromagnetic Spectrum.”

The spokesperson added that the Army is satisfied with the results of initial operational test and evaluation that occurred in August 2021 and is proceeding with a planned full deployment of Increment 1 in fiscal 2024.

The first increment, which recently wrapped up, included four capability drops that are incremental software deliveries that each build upon the previous one.

But now, the Army is getting away from the term “increment” as it moves forward with a new acquisition strategy for the next phase of the program.

According to DOT&E, the Army’s initial operational test and evaluation for the Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool — conducted with 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division in conjunction with a command post exercise in August 2021 at Fort Carson, Colorado — was adequate to support an assessment of operational effectiveness, suitability and survivability.

It included an adversarial assessment as well, but the report noted that the system’s survivability in a cyber contested environment is included in the classified annex of the IOT&E report.

“A unit equipped with EWPMT INC1 is effective in conducting EW and electromagnetic spectrum planning and management,” DOT&E found. Further, it is operationally suitable, demonstrating high operational availability.

“Soldiers were able to remedy software faults quickly. Soldiers indicated the system is easy to learn and use. Training was sufficient, but soldiers provided suggestions to increase its effectiveness,” the report said.  

The report did note that follow-on operational test and evaluation is delayed for two years due to a slip in the Multi-Function Electronic Warfare-Air Large and Terrestrial Layer System programs.

MFEW is an aerial jamming pod and TLS is the first brigade organic integrated cyber, signals intelligence and electronic warfare system that will be mounted on Stryker vehicles. Both systems are made by Lockheed Martin.

DOT&E issued four recommendations for the Army, which include: verify correction of system performance, suitability, and survivability deficiencies identified in IOT&E prior to follow-on operational test and evaluation; complete a cyber assessment from an outsider threat posture; refine training to stress troubleshooting and help staff understand the systems’ capabilities; and continue coordination with MFEW-AL and TLS to demonstrate control and management of the systems during EWPMT follow-on operational test and evaluation.

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