Unit Request: Objective Force Warrior

[Kal-el]

Here are a couple of Articles:

Objective Force Warrior (OFW) is the Army’s flagship Science and Technology initiative to develop and demonstrate revolutionary capabilities for Objective Force soldier systems. An integrated system of systems approach is being employed to support the Army transformation to a soldier-centric force. The Objective Force Warrior is a major pillar of the Objective Force strategy, complementing the Future Combat Systems (FCS) program.

OFW notional concepts seek to create a lightweight, overwhelmingly lethal, fully integrated individual combat system, including weapon, head-to-toe individual protection, netted communications, soldier worn power sources, and enhanced human performance. The program is aimed at providing unsurpassed individual & squad lethality, survivability, communications, and responsiveness — a formidable warrior in an invincible team. OFW will also be developed to be fully integrated with FCS.Objective Force Warrior: Modernizing the Warrior through Army Transformation

Despite the advances in smart munitions and the ability to drop them from relatively safe distances, the time always comes, as it has in Afghanistan, for the infantryman to move in and take ground.

In the same way that technological overmatch has been achieved in many aspects of larger hardware, the aim now is to achieve similar overmatch with regard to individual infantry capabilities.
Janes: Technology aims to assist tomorrow's infantryman without adding to his burden

 

[Kal-el]

A few more images:

US looks to create robo-soldier
Guns that hit targets around corners, computerized helmets, a grenade-launching pickup truck that foils pursuers with oil slicks and smoke screens. The U.S. Army is investing in a host of new technologies that might someday revolutionize American war fighting.

The Soldier of Tomorrow
In this artist's concept of the soldier of the future, microphotonic materials embedded in the soldier's suit camouflage her right leg.

As the U.S. Special Forces unit approaches the enemy compound, a sentry shouts an alarm and the soldiers duck beneath a hail of gunfire. The point man drops to the ground and stretches a flap of his battle suit in front of him; with the push of a button it hardens into an instant shield. Two commandos move left, away from the forest cover into a rocky outcropping. As they move, the browns and greens of their camouflage change to shades of gray. Two move right, but one man is hit in the leg. Immediately, sensors relay information about his injury and location to field headquarters, where doctors instruct his suit to administer painkillers, apply pressure to the wound, and harden into a cast around his leg. Sensors tell HQ which soldier is closest to the wounded man; new orders and the target's position appear on the rescuer's heads-up display. To reach his comrade, the soldier must cross 20 feet of open ground—which he does with a single leap through the air.

That's the sci-fi scenario the U.S. Army has charged the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to make real. The Army last week chose MIT for a new $50 million research center, with the goal of creating the uniform of the future. The center, called the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, will develop new materials that industrial partners—including DuPont, Raytheon and two Boston hospitals—will integrate into futuristic battle suits.

Pentagon Rolls Out 'Latest, Greatest Prototype' Soldier System
"WASHINGTON, May 23, 2002 – DoD engineers are developing the 2010-era Objective Force Warrior even before the next- generation Land Warrior is fielded in 2004.

Project managers from the Natick Soldier Center in Natick, Mass., rolled out a prototype Objective Force Warrior for the Pentagon press corps today.

Project Engineer Dutch Degay called the prototype the "latest and greatest" individual soldier system. He explained the Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki tasked the Natick lab to "completely rebuild the (combat) soldier as we know him.

 

[Ed O'War]

Balou's Armored Shock Infantry unit could probably fill in as the OFW unit.

 

[Kal-el]

It could but I think these guys, especially the last two images with the full face plate are really cool too. The Shock trooper is more futuristic whereas these guys could be seen on the battlefield within the next ten years.