ARMY VEHICLE MODERNIZATION: MOUNTED MISSION COMMAND AND ONBOARD POWER

The Army’s Future Lies in All Domain Command and Control. Leonardo DRS’ tactical mission command system and onboard vehicle power can play key roles.

Battlefield technologies—from combat management systems and vehicle power generation to cyber-hardened network computing for C4I—are at the top of the Army’s modernization priorities. Leonardo DRS has been one of the Army’s best providers of these systems, with recent contract awards from the Army and foreign allies.

Leonardo DRS received another production delivery order in June 2020 for the Army’s mission command computing system called the Mounted Family of Computer Systems II (MFoCS II). Worth $104 million, Leonardo DRS is in the second year of a 10-year contract supporting the Army’s Mounted Computing Environment. Around the same time, the company reported that it has already delivered 70,000 of the MFoCS tactical computing units for ground combat vehicles and command post operations.

In October 2020, the company announced that it was awarded a $44 million contract to provide advanced situational awareness hardware and software for an allied Middle East nation. Under the contract, the Leonardo DRS Land Electronics business unit will provide a significant number of tactical mission systems to be installed into a range of vehicles across a number of brigades. At the core of the architecture is the latest version of the Leonardo DRS voice, data and video tactical server, data distribution unit - block 4 (DDU-4), an upgraded digital vehicle intercom system, and new rugged multi-touch commander’s display.

In the following sections, Bill Guyan, senior vice president and general manager of Leonardo DRS Land Electronics business, provides updates on Army combat networking modernization and onboard power generation.