Page 13 - Ft. Irwin High Desert Warrior, Oct. 5 2018

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Army testing more effective ghillie suits
High Desert Warrior October 5, 2018
13
Army
By David Vergun
army News
FORT BELVOIR, Va — The Army is looking for an im- proved ghillie suit to replace the flame-resistant, camouflage suit now worn by snipers to keep them from being seen by the enemy.
The current ghillie suits are bulky, somewhat uncomfortable and hot in warm weather, said Debbie Williams, a systems ac- quisition expert with Program Executive Office Soldier, Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment.
The current suit is known as the Flame Resistant Ghillie System, or FRGS. The replacement the Army is looking for will be called the Improved Ghillie System, or IGS, Williams said. She added that although the term “flame resistant” is not in the new name, the IGS will still have flame-resistant proper- ties. Soldiers will receive most of their protection from the base layer worn under the IGS, such as the Flame Resistant Combat Uniform, or FR ACU.
The IGS will be a modular system, worn over the field uni- form, she said. It will be modular in that it can be taken apart, with pieces added or subtracted as needed, such as sleeves, leg- gings, veil, cape and so on.
Another change is that the IGS will not come with the acces- sory kit, like the one supplied with the FRGS, Williams said. It
was found that Soldiers were not using a majority of the items in their accessory kit or preferred a different material.
Williams said the cost of the IGS will be lower than the current $1,300 FRGS.
Mary Armacost, a textile technologist with Product Manager Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment, said the IGS will be made of lighter, more breathable material than the FRGS. Also, the material for the skeins that accompany the IGS will be stiffer than that of the FRGS, thereby making the IGS more effective at camouflaging the Soldier.
A request for proposal for the IGS went out Aug. 28 and closed Sept. 24, she said. Vendors must each provide three samples.
About 3,500 suits are expected to be produced under the contract for approximately 3,300 snipers in all three Army components, as well as Soldiers in U.S. Special Operations Command, Williams said.
After the samples are obtained, lab and field testing will begin at various locations in November, she said. For example, the Army’s Night Vision Laboratory will do full-spectrum testing. It will also use night vision goggles to see how well the suits remain hidden in darkened conditions.
Daytime testing for visual camouflage effectiveness will take place as well, with sniper-qualified Soldiers at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, Williams said. Additionally, acoustic testing will
Army photo
The current ghillie suit, known as the Flame Resistant Ghillie System, is shown here. A new suit, called the Improved Ghillie System, or IGS, is under development.
be done by the Army Research Laboratory to determine how much noise the IGS produces in field conditions.
ARL will also test the effectiveness of the fabric regarding tear resistance and fire retardant effectiveness, she added.
Following all of this, a limited user evaluation should com- mence next spring using instructors from the Sniper School at Fort Benning, Georgia
Mattis: More data needed to assess women’s effectiveness in combat arms
by Jim Garamone
DoD News
With so few women in combat arms right now, the services and Defense Department officials really can’t judge how successful the effort has been, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis told cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va., Sept. 25.
“It’s a very, very tough issue because it goes from some people’s perspective of what kind of society do we want,” the secretary said. “In the event of trouble, you’re sleeping at night in your family home and you are the dad, mom, whatever. And you hear glass break downstairs. Who grabs a baseball bat and gets between the kids’ door and whoever broke in, and who reaches for the phone to call 911? In other words, it goes to the most almost primi- tive needs of a society to look out for its most vulnerable.”
At heart, this is the issue DoD faces, Mat- tis told the cadet who asked him what results he had seen. The question for the department comes down to whether it is a strength or a weakness to have women in the close-quarter infantry fight, Mattis said.
Then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opened the door by removing the ban on women in combat jobs in 2013. In 2015,
then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter directed the services to open all military occupational specialties to women. Currently, 356 women are combat arms soldiers, and 17 women have graduated from the Army’s Ranger School. The Marine Corps has 113 enlisted women and 29 officers in previously restricted specialties. Specifically in infantry, the Marine Corps has 26 enlisted Marines and one officer who are women.
The secretary said he cannot make a deter- mination about the situation because “so few women have signed up along these lines.”
“We don’t even have data at this time that I can answer your question,” he added.
Unit Culture
Part of what drives the question is the cul- ture of close-combat units, the retired Marine Corps general said. “I was never under any illusions at what level of respect my Marines would have for me if I couldn’t run with the fastest of them and look like it didn’t bother me [or] if I couldn’t do as many pullups as the strongest of them,” Mattis said. “It was the unfairness of the infantry. How did the infan- try get its name? Infant soldier. Young soldier. Very young soldier. They’re cocky, they’re rambunctious, they’re necessarily macho, and it’s the most primitive, I would say even evil — environment. You can’t even explain it.”
Army photograph by Pfc. Zoe Garbarino
Army Capt. Nargis Kabiri, commander of Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division Artillery, helps her team prepare an M119 Howitzer on Fort Stewart, Ga., Aug. 22, 2017.
The close-combat fight is war at its most ba- sic, and Mattis cited an Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. quote when talking to his fellow Civil War veterans: “We have shared the incommunicable experience of war.”
The nation needs to discuss this issue, the secretary said. “The military has got to have officers who look at this with a great deal of objectivity and at the same time remember our natural inclination to have this open to all,”
he said. “But we cannot do something that militarily doesn’t make sense.”
The Army chief of staff and Marine Corps commandant are looking at the issue. “This is a policy that I inherited, and so far the cadre is so small we have no data on it,” he said. “We’re hoping to get data soon. There are a few stal- wart young ladies who are charging into this, but they are too few. Clearly the jury is out on it, but what we’re trying to do is give it every opportunity to succeed if it can.”
For more information go to www.irwin.army.mil