Bowman (communications system)
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Bowman is the name of the new tactical communications system being deployed by the British Armed Forces. Bowman C4I system consists of a range of HF radio, VHF radio and UHF radio sets to provide voice and data services to dismounted soldiers, individual vehicles and command HQs. It replaces the Clansman series of radios in service.
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[edit] Procurement history
The concept of Bowman dates from a 1989 UK MoD General Staff Requirement (GSR) for a system to replace the ageing Clansman radio system. The GSR was subsequently modified to accommodate post Cold War scenarios. The procurement programme has had a long and chequered history, with a number of consortia involved in the development and bidding process. This process culminated in the failure in 2000 of the preferred bidder, Archer, to deliver the requirement within budget and on time, and the resultant cessation of the contract by the UK MoD. The subsequent rebidding process for the contract was won by CDC Systems UK Ltd, now General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd, elements of design and manufacturing have also been sub-contracted to SELEX Communications, ITT Corporation, Harris Corporation, L-3 Communications, DRS Tactical Systems and Thales Group. The procurement cost of the supply and (initial) support phase for Bowman is approximately £1.9 billion and the current acquisition cost of the whole project is £2.4 billion. Bowman’s initial operating capability was delivered into service in March 2004 and will continue in service until approximately 2026.
[edit] System overview
Bowman provides a tactical voice and data communications system for joint operations across the British Armed Forces in support of land and amphibious operations. It will be integrated with over 20,000 military vehicles, from Land Rover Wolf to the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank. The entire Royal Navy fleet will also be fitted with Bowman equipment and all the major helicopter types supporting land operations, such as Apache, Chinook, Merlin and Lynx will be fitted. Bowman will feature enhanced communications security (COMSEC) through integrated voice and data encryption devices and enhanced Electronic Protective Measures through features such as Frequency-hopping spread spectrum. The complete contract involves more than 48,000 radios (excluding the 45,000 Personal Role Radios) and more than 30,000 computer terminals being installed in more than 30,000 platforms, together with the necessary training of around 75,000 Service personnel. The Bowman system is a fundamental part of the British Military achieving a Network Enabled Capability, as it will provide the carriers for the passage of data between the various software applications involved.
[edit] Equipment
Nominally the lowest deployed part of the Bowman series of radios is that provided by Marconi-Selenia Communications (then Selenia Communications, now SELEX Communications, Davies Communications Division), in the form of the UHF H4855 Personal Role Radio (PRR), which is primarily used by infantry fire teams (at section level and below). PRR is only partially connected with the Bowman programme, in so far as it was hived off from the acquisition process in October 1999 for more rapid implementation, and the first of 45,000 units formally entered service in early 2002. Operating in the 2.4 GHz band, PRR is has no integrated encryption devices and does not intercommunicate with the rest of the Bowman network, but is widely acclaimed as having revolutionised intra-squad communications and small-unit tactics.
Models are designated "UK/PRC", which stands for "United Kingdom / Personal Radio Communicator".
[edit] VHF radios
- VPT - a UK Type 1 (Pritchel) encrypted platoon-level UK/PRC354 5W VHF Portable Transceiver (VPT)
- ADR+ - an enhanced and improved 'Bowmanised' version of ITT Corporation's company/squadron-level SINCGARS (Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System) frequency-hopping radio with a 30-88 MHz frequency range. Depending on it's configuration, the ADR+ is variously designated UK/PRC355 (5 W manpack), UK/PRC356 (16 W ground-role manpack), UK/PRC357 (16 W vehicle clip-in radio), UK/PRC358 (16 W low-power vehicle radio), or UK/VRC359 (50 W vehicle-mounted high-power radio).
Under the terms of the baseline contract ITT Defence is delivering a total of some 26,000 ADR+ radios and 8,000 VPTs, complemented by 580 examples of the UK/ARC341 VHF aircraft role radio (a derivative of the company's SINCGARS AN/ARC-201D airborne transceiver) for helicopter platforms.
[edit] HF radios
The Bowman HF frequency-hopping radios, 10,800 examples of which are being produced by Harris Corporation, are based on that company's RF5800H-MP Falcon II radio, otherwise known as the PRC-150(C) in its US Type 1-encrypted form.
The Bowman version is designated UK/PRC325 in its basic 20 W manpack form and UK/PRC326/7 in its 100 W high-power and co-sited vehicular configurations. The UK version of the PRC-150 has had the proprietary Harris Citadel encryption removed, having instead the UK Type 1 (Pritchel) encryption and frequency hopping waveform, also the Falcon II's original dual-band HF/VHF frequency range (1.6-60 MHz) has been narrowed to the 1.6-30 MHz (HF) band.
[edit] HCDR
The top tier in the Bowman series of radios is provided by the UHF, Mobile ad-hoc network ITT UK/VRC340 HCDR (High Capacity Data Radio), a 'Bowmanised' version of Harris Corporation's Mercury NTDR (Near-Term Data Radio) wide-band networking transceiver. HCDR has a 225-450 MHz operating frequency range. It has wideband (4 MHz) and narrowband (500 kHz) modem configurations, with a user rate of 288 kbit/s on a 375 kbit/s channel and 576 kbit/s on a 750 kbit/s channel. Some 3,600 HCDRs are being supplied. HCDR provides a self managing mobile Internet Backbone using standard RFC interfaces and routing protocols.
[edit] Ancillary Equipment
Provision of the associated User Data Terminal (UDT) for vehicular and static use has been contracted to DRS Tactical Systems Ltd, which also produces the Bowman Management Data Terminal (BMDT) for network management, the Vehicle User Data Terminal (VUDT) with keyboard and touchscreen for use on the move, the Staff User Data Terminal (SUDT) for command centres, and the PBISA Processing Unit (PBPU) for Challenger 2 tanks.
Since the start of the programme the capabilities of the UDTs (based on 700 MHz Pentium processors) have evolved, their original 256 MByte RAMs and 20 GByte drives having been superseded by 512 MByte RAMs and 40 GByte drives. The contractor for supply of Portable User Data Terminal (PUDTs), based on a 266 MHz Intel StrongARM processor, is L-3 Communications.
Responsibility for supply of Bowman audio ancillaries, including the stereo staff-user headset, noise-cancelling general-purpose handset, and loudspeaker unit, has been vested in SELEX Communications, which also provides the lightweight headset, respirator adaptor, and remote pressel switch associated with the PRR.
Racal (now Thales Group) has been selected to provide antennas for the Bowman contract. These include HF Wire/Vehicle, VHF Vehicle/Elevated, VHF Ground Spike, 5.4 Metre GRP Mast and UHF Vehicle/Elevated Antennas.
[edit] Controversy
When first rolled out, the Bowman system was said to contain many faults, to the extent which The Sun claimed that troops thought that Bowman stood for "Better Off With Map And Nokia" (a reference to mobile telephones).
The programme came under scrutiny following an National Audit Office accountability hearing for the governments procurement policy [1] and was generally considered to be a success considering the complexity and changing needs of the UK Armed Forces.
However a more recent report by the Commons Public Accounts Comimittee [2] was overwhelmingly critical of the entire system. The report itself is split into four sections entitled: "programme governance arrangements were not fit for purpose", "initial decisions were not well informed" "through life costs were not rigorously assessed", and "operational benefits are limited".
Recently, as Bowman was being phased into service, senior officers in the British Army had serious reservations about the system. Such were the misgivings, the Director of Infantry initially refused to accept the portable radio into service, saying:
"All the rumours you've heard. It is as bad as you've heard. But we have been told that, politically, we have got to make it work. Now you guys will have to go out and find a way of making it work."
Other complaints were brought up by the 1st Bn Royal Anglians who tested the radio system in July 2005. Problems included (but were not limited to) radiation burns received while transmitting data on some settings, complicated wiring on the radio man and inflexibility with assigning call signs to radios.[3]
