Press Release - Delivering digital tactical
communications through the Bowman CIP programme
25 July 2006
The Ministry of Defence’s £2.4 billion programme to transform
battlefield communications, command and control through the joint
introduction of Bowman digital radios and the advanced Combat
Infrastructure Platform (CIP) to an exacting 30 month timescale,
has been recast. A revised programme and a further £121 million of
funding have been approved to deliver the capabilities that the
armed forces require by 2007. Initial versions of Bowman and CIP
have already started to deliver benefits to the UK armed forces on
operations. Technical challenges still remain, though good progress
has been made in making the system more stable and easily
useable.
We found evident commitment to the success of Bowman CIP from a
wide range of participants in the Department, the Armed Forces and
General Dynamics UK. Yet delivering the required capability to time
and cost has proved difficult. Under Bowman CIP some 48,000 radios
and 28,000 computer terminals are to be installed in up to 15,700
vehicles, as well as ships, boats and helicopters. An estimated
75,000 users are to be trained on the system. Another particular
challenge is that programmes like Bowman CIP are incremental in
nature and require continual development, as external technical
change, software upgrades, evolving military doctrine, and
operational experience require regular adjustments to be made.
Initial increments of Bowman and CIP are already delivering
benefits to the armed forces on operations, including in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Those using it find the secure communications and
situational awareness capabilities are having a direct and positive
effect. Acknowledged to be considerably quicker and more secure
than the outdated Clansman radios, the Bowman CIP programme
indicates progress, through delivery of enhanced technical
solutions, towards the originally envisaged improvements in
operational tempo and effectiveness. However, it will not be
possible to quantify how far the armed forces are achieving these
specific measures of operational effectiveness until they use the
full fielded system.
Replacing analogue technology Clansman radios with Bowman
military digital radios has been a longstanding priority for the
MoD. The Department’s first target for introducing Bowman by 1995
was missed for technical, industrial and budgetary reasons. By 1999
the Department had lost confidence that its original preferred
supplier could deliver a system that would meet its requirement by
2004 and which would offer value for money. So in 2000 it launched
a fresh competition that led in 2001 to the appointment of General
Dynamics UK to begin to deliver Bowman by 2004. In 2002 General
Dynamics UK also won the contract to develop and supply CIP, to be
installed in army vehicles, in ships and in aircraft concurrently
with Bowman. The sensible decision to manage these contracts as a
joint programme reflected the need to avoid taking military units
out of service twice for conversion, but added to the challenges of
the programme.
Bowman was declared in service in April 2004 but, not unusually,
with some shortfalls in capability (27 provisos, 20 of which still
apply, against the achievement of 18 of the Department’s 19 key
user requirements). CIP achieved in-service status a year late in
December 2005 with 32 provisos. The Department and General Dynamics
UK have agreed a recast programme for complete delivery of the
programme, through enhanced technical solutions, with removal of
any remaining provisos by 2007. Other, still-evolving and
technically difficult requirements such as exchanging information
with coalition partners, and the ability to quickly retrieve and
share data, have been taken out of this recast Bowman CIP programme
to reduce risk. The way forward for these is to be assessed in a
new £10 million validation phase.
Today’s report contains recommendations to the MoD on how it can
further develop its arrangements for the delivery and sustainment
of such complex military capabilities. The recommendations relate
to the particular problems encountered by Bowman CIP, but have
wider application. They include
- the need to work towards clearer programme management
arrangements that meet good practice as defined by the Office for
Government Commerce,
- more explicit measures to assess the extent of concurrency and
contingency within major programmes, and the risk this poses to
timescales,
- the need to develop more flexible programme milestones, such as
in service dates, which recognise that systems undergo constant
enhancement, while increasingly being delivered in increments, over
extended periods and not in one delivery,
- better information on the numbers, configuration and
distribution of vehicle fleets when planning major installation
programmes, and
- Extending the use of joint boards of suppliers and officials,
an approach championed on Bowman CIP, to tackle the challenges of
linking up, and integrating, systems and networks that need to
interface.
Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, said
today:
“The introduction of Bowman and CIP provides the first
increment of a world class military communication, command and
control system, which is delivering considerable benefits to the UK
armed forces. The timescales set for the original programme in 2001
were overly ambitious given the technical challenges that emerged
and the sheer scale of the conversion. To ensure delivery of the
recast programme by 2007 the MOD and its contractor General
Dynamics UK should continue to respond flexibly to inevitable
change and to the remaining technical challenges."
Notes for Editors
- CIP is three interrelated projects procured as a single entity
to replace current manual mechanisms for command and control on the
battlefield.
-
- The Common Battlefield Applications Toolset, (ComBAT): is to
provide the core of the battle management system, from fighting
vehicles up to divisional headquarters. Integrated into Bowman its
role is to support command and control, as well as provide
situational awareness, of military units. The purpose is to quicken
the tempo of operations, and assist the survivability and
effectiveness of land forces.
- The Digitisation Battlespace Land Infrastructure: is to provide
the software to enable ComBAT and other Battlefield Information
Systems on Bowman to operate concurrently. It also intended to
deliver computer terminals, ancillary devices and office automation
into field headquarters, enable best use of information and enable
collaboration with allies, through interoperability with their
systems.
- The Platform Battlefield Information System Application
(P-BISA): is to integrate ComBAT and the infrastructure software,
together with existing and planned systems and sensors, into
armoured fighting vehicles, such as the Challenger 2 main battle
tank, to optimise their fighting capability.
- Press notices and reports are available from the date of
publication on the NAO website, which is at www.nao.org.uk. Hard
copies can be obtained from The Stationery Office on 0845 702
3474.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General, Sir John Bourn, is the
head of the National Audit Office which employs some 800 staff. He
and the NAO are totally independent of Government. He certifies the
accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other
public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to
Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which
departments and other bodies have used their resources.
Press Notice 56/06
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