 The threats the United States Army must be ready to deal with fall into three familiar categories. At one end of the spectrum is the all-too-familiar challenge of counter-action to guerrilla or unconventional warfare against an elusive and possibly ill-defined enemy. That is to say stability operations. A second threat category is also familiar. The conventional warfare that is waged in terms of regular army forces operating in the more clearly defined type of combat, typical of most wars in which your army has fought until now, is a type of conflict the world has never known and toward the prevention of which the hopes, prayers and deterrent efforts of the nation are corrected, the all-out destructiveness of nuclear war. The United States Army must be prepared in advance. To provide that vision, both long range and immediate is the job of the United States Army Combat Developments Command. And as a difficult one to tell, that's because the work of CDC deals with intangibles, ideas, concepts, plans, studies, do produce, is essential to the total combat effectiveness of the entire army today, next year, 10 and 20 years from now. In today's world, CDC is a necessity. The reason for this lies in the way the pace of technology has collapsed. We can't play it by ear anymore. Things move too fast for that today. The attack of arms 10 years from now must begin with an attack of minds and ideas today. If we're going to benefit from developing technology, we've got to foresee and direct some of those developments. This looking ahead, anticipating, predicting, prescribing, is what the combat developments command has been created to do. Fort Belvoir, Virginia is the headquarters of CDC. From here, the search for the answers to three vital questions is directed. These are the questions. How should the army fight? How should the army be equipped? How should the army be organized? They look simple. They are not. For example, how should the army fight? Everywhere on earth, from polar ice cap to desert or jungle. How should the army be equipped? Today, five years from now, 20. How should the army be organized? For nuclear war, conventional war, stability operations? The combat developments command is organized to provide the best chance of getting the right answers. One of the tools CDC uses in its search for valid answers to those three questions is war gaming. Here, plausible battles of the future are fought in CDC's own war gaming laboratories. The computerized details of such theoretical combat are brought together to analyze the possibilities of battle in, say, 1975. Hypothetical weapons has yet non-existent units, firepower, transport, supply, and tactics. All are based on potentials indicated today by trends in technology and the shifting development of world power factors. Sometimes the working theories of a war game can sound pretty far out to the layman, but CDC is no dream farm. Using computers, scientific methodology, plus years of combat experience in the field, is a coldly practical way of getting an indication of when and how some particular theory can and should be brought into actuality. But war gaming is only one of several valuable tools. Field evaluation and troop tests are other fact-seeking devices used by CDC. We involve some large-scale army or joint maneuver into which CDC introduces a special unit to try out a particular concept or doctrine or organizational balance. CDC initiates the test, states its objectives, writes up the specifications for it, but the Continental Army Command, or maybe an overseas command, provides the troops and equipment and runs the test as part of the overall maneuver. With real men and machines in action, the theoretical is translated into the actual, and the results reported for evaluation. The troop tests and field evaluations like war gaming are valuable tools, but they have limitations. For one thing, the evaluations come from the judgment and opinions of the human beings involved in the action. They're bound to be colored to some extent by the people who do the observing and reporting. What is needed is a controlled test environment in the field where concepts can be evaluated in realistic action and yet with true laboratory objectivity. CDC has created just such a field laboratory at Fort Ord in California. This laboratory is in action and under constant refinement today, and the key to the uniquely objective results gained here is in one word, instrumentation. This is CDEC, the Combat Development Command's experimentation command. It develops and uses sophisticated devices designed to gather and transmit and record data concerning free-moving action in the field. These devices do what no team of human beings could begin to do, keep track of everything that happens second by second with a record of exactly when it happens and where and how. The heart of this unique capability is an almost incredible system called RMS-2, CDEC's second generation range measuring system, and its associated instrumentation. RMS-2 has several elements that work together. This 17-pound backpack is called a B unit. It receives and sends data through an antenna rig fitted to a helmet. The B unit also includes a belt-mounted key-punch unit for input and output of event data. But you'll see all this in action in a moment. The next key element is a network of highly transportable A units. These are electronic interrogator stations, complete with lightweight antenna tower, 24 feet high. There are also D units, which look much like the A units, but do no interrogating. They are simply automatic repeater stations to relay transmissions between the A station units and a central control point, where field mobile vans house the central processing subsystem. A general purpose versatile computer system capable of keeping track of literally millions of bits of information during a given test run. Basically, these are the working elements of RMS-2. Now let's look at how it works. From the moment a test run starts, the light instrumentation packs provide a constant pinpointing of movement and action. Each pack constantly beams out a recognition signal coded to the particular man that carries it. It can also receive coded commands or information from the central control. The recognition signals from each moving B unit are constantly monitored by at least three of the interrogator stations. So that by triangulation, a highly exact fix is kept at each backpack's position. Under the control of the central computer, the interrogator units ask electronically, where are you? And what is happening? Several hundred times each second and passes the answers by relay to the central control. This provides a second by second record of exactly what is happening in the field, as each man's position is tracked within nine meters of his actual location at any given moment. But in addition to location, what about specific events along the way? The RMS-2 instrumentation provides for this tool. The B unit's event buttons send coded signals which carry specific means. In this case, one is programmed for, I have sighted the enemy. Instantly the computer is notified, and knowing as it does, the exact position of each man, both friendly and enemy, it makes a record of where and when visual contact was made, at what range and by which side. All this takes the nearest fraction of a second. Meanwhile, the free-moving action in the field continues without interruption. For instrumentation purposes, each man's weapon is equipped with a direct-fire simulator, a laser device, which fires a pencil-thin beam of light instead of bullets. A trigger is squeezed. This information is sent via the RMS-2 to the computer, which takes down all the facts, time, type of weapon, which individual man fired it. If the shot is a miss, the fact is recorded. If it's a hit. At the bolt of light reaches the laser sensors worn by the target soldier, the computer registers the hit, time, place, range, and which man. And at the same time, it orders a signal to be sent, coded, to the backpack worn by the man who was hit. And the backpack notifies this particular man and no other that he is now a casualty. And all this transmitting and recording takes place in less time than it would take for a real bullet to travel between the two men. The action continues, and the detailed data recording goes on. All the individual fighters, hits, misses, and movements kept track of. When, where, by whom, with what weapon, and at what range. This same versatile system can be used when the action involves armor or aircraft as well as ground troops. It is this kind of instrumentation that enables CDAC to run free moving field problems. And yet have true laboratory control and objectivity in gathering the facts about that free moving action. This is what the field laboratory at Fort Ord is all about. It provides one essential element to the process of combat development's planning. Objective detailed data. The other element, equally essential, is the expertise and experience which CDC's military personnel bring to the decisions and evaluations based on these objective facts. Then one combat development in terms of tactics, organization, and equipment evaluated through the combat development's command has proven itself in action. For example, in 1962 the Secretary of Defense directed a study to be made to determine how in essence our troops could be moved in force and fast over terrain normally considered impassable. An experimental unit called the Eleventh Air Assault Division was created and development that in the past might have taken a decade or more was crammed into just over 24 months. The concept called for a division which could put a full one-third of its men into the air at once and protect them on the way to their objective and soften up that objective before landing. A new book had to be written and at once new techniques were conceived, try, test. This testing was extremely thorough. Some 83 major field maneuvers, tests, war games were involved. The answers were solved and found. On July 3rd, 1965, the Eleventh Air Assault Division became the first cavalry division, Air Mobile. The new division was only weeks old when the main body of its people began unloading onto the soil of the Republic of Vietnam. Since then the new organization, the new concept, tactics, equipment have shown in battle that the conclusions and recommendations that came out of CDC's evaluations of the Air Mobile Division idea were valid. Tests first evaluated above the long leaf pines and scrub oak of Georgia have been perfected above the jungles of Vietnam, but CDC's job didn't end there. There was a vital need for realistic information on the survivability of Army aircraft against such types of ground fire as they face in Vietnam. Testing and evaluation at CDEC provided this survivability yardstick through hundreds of test flights against all types of weapons, with electronic data gathering devices keeping track of all the vital factors when and at what range aircraft was sighted by ground forces at varying altitudes, how long they were in range or under fire. In this phase of course, blank ammunition was used, but the realism of live fire evaluations was also essential. Toe targets carrying instrumentation which could register both hits and nemeses made hundreds of runs before a wide range of firepower. And scale model drone targets, radio controlled from the ground, provided a realism of effect that was vital to the overall study. The millions of bits of data gathered from hundreds of test runs were analyzed and evaluated, and the final results published. These findings by CDC on Army aircraft survivability have proven out in the skies above Vietnam. Actual results in combat have turned out to be within a few percentage points of the survivability predicted. And today, still other aspects of testing with regard to Army aircraft are under study and evaluation by CDC. For example, there was the test program code named Reno. And the question, how can Army reconnaissance aircraft be made more silent? Is the answer in some kind of new aircraft? Or should existing aircraft be modified to reduce their noise level? Who will detect the approach of such aircraft first? A man using only his eyes or one using only his ears? These are only a few of the questions put to the test in C-DEX evaluation series called Reno. Each aircraft used carried a complex package of data recording and transmitting instrumentation on every flight. Instrumentation in the gear was linked to data collection centers on the ground. Test runs were made with varying types of aircraft, against observers using eyes only, ears only, and both eyes and ears, and under both day and night conditions. Some observers were stationed in underground listening bunkers duplicating those used by the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Instrumentation at observation sites measured exactly the sound level of the approaching aircraft. Information from the instruments in the aircraft, and from the observer locations where men punch buttons as they first detect the approach of the aircraft, funnels into the central data collection and recording fans, as hundreds of test runs were made, and the exact impersonal body of information available for use by the combat development's command in outlining the Army of Tomorrow. But C-DEX evaluations are not confined to questions involving the Army alone. Recent Joint Task Force Experimentation involved Army, Air Force, and Navy, with aircraft crammed full of complex recording and reporting devices. To a C-DEX control center equipped to monitor guns, radar, and data recording and collecting equipment. This was a large-scale evaluation of the threat posed by ground fire of the kinds most commonly faced by combat aircraft. Like the aircraft, the various weapons were fully instrumented for objective data collection. Each side, thousands of additional facts, electronically observed and recorded in an exact timeframe. For each of the services that took part, the insights gained through this Joint Task Force Experimentation will provide new understanding of the threat factors which face combat aircraft. But if C-DEX evaluations and developments aren't confined to the Army alone, neither are they limited to one environment or one theater. With a new weapons system just over the horizon, the AH-56A Cheyenne Attack Helicopter, the Army had to wring out a concept of employment. But in order to understand the tactics and organizations proposed for this weapons system, it first is necessary to realize the full capabilities of the Cheyenne. This versatile aerial weapons platform can fly map of the Earth at speeds from zero to more than 200 miles per hour. It is equipped with a sensory system that permits effective night operations and operations during conditions of poor visibility, both internal and external armament can be used on the AH-56A. The internal armament consists of a nose turret and a traversable belly turret, which provides a 360-degree firing capability and innovation in attack helicopters. The external armament consists of a variety of weapons which can be mounted under the stub wings. These include rockets for use against area targets and the tow anti-tank missile for use against hard point targets. It is in the anti-tank role that this new system appears to have greatest promise. An operating task group composed of representatives of the various institutes and agencies of combat developments command reviewed all previous studies relevant to the attack helicopter. The purpose of this effort was to validate and articulate conceptual doctrine, tactics and techniques for employment of the attack helicopter. The training was given to computer-assisted war games, which were conducted as part of an entire spectrum of studies. Besides the foregoing studies in war games, experiments to determine the optimum basic attack helicopter team, called ABAP, were conducted at Sea Deck. Throughout the computer-assisted war games, the AH-1G Cobra attack helicopter was used to represent the AH-56A Cheyenne. Based on the data obtained from these studies, war games and experiments, combat developments command has articulated a concept for the employment of a highly mobile rapid striking attack helicopter. This concept is embodied in two new organizations that will undergo extensive field testing at the Army's big field test center at Fortwood, Texas. The Air Cavalry Combat Brigade, an experimental organization, built around the capabilities of the attack helicopter, is the first organization designed so that the entirety of its combat power is borne by the helicopter. This new brigade will be tested concurrently with another new concept in combat organizations. The Tri-Cat Division, so named because of its triple capabilities, armor, air mobile and air cavalry, and just as the answers were solved and found in the 11th Air Assault Testing. We said at the start the story of the combat developments command is a difficult one to tell because all the studies, testing and evaluating are aimed not at a specific hardware design but at insights into its use. Not an end product but a beginning, full ideas. But if the commodity CDC deals with is intangible, its ultimate aim is simple and clear. That is, a greater total combat effectiveness of the Army gained through increasing the effectiveness of a single man, the individual American soldier. This is no mere symbolism, since it is the individual men who must put into action all the tactics, organizational concepts and devices that will result from CDC's search for answers to those three vital questions. How should the Army fight? How should the Army be equipped? How should the Army be organized? These are questions which must be answered. They must be answered correctly and they must be answered in time. This is the mission of the commitment of the United States Army Combat Development Command.