Vanguard Magazine

M777 battery . Photo: DND 22 APRIL/MAY 2022 www.vanguardcanada.com INTERVIEW and adversaries. Every future capability, and some of our current ones, will be a part of the military internet of things and our abil- ity to get the most out of these capabilities, to ensure overmatch in a fight, will only happen through an integrated and interop- erable Digital Army. This deep integration includes our soldiers which will endure as the most critical capability in the Army. Not only do we want to enable our soldiers to have access to the right data at the right time for better decisions and increased lethality, but we also want to attract and retain the best Canadian talent by providing an advanced force that meets the techno- logical expectations of future generations. Capital Investment Q Knowing that CADSI's Army Outlook provided participants with updates on over thirty army projects, please provide an update on the Army capital investment program. What repri- oritizations have been, or do you foresee being needed? What lessons are being learned from the deployment of an M777 battery to TF Latvia? In view of this M777 deployment and the dona- tion of M777s to the Ukraine, how is the Indirect Forces Modernization project progressing? As I mentioned during my address at Army Outlook, all of the Army's SSE projects remain important to us and will continue to be pushed through the process as quickly as we are able. I continue to be impressed by the professional excellence delivered by the team in Director of Land Requirements as the primary engine for the Army's capital equipment program. With respect to priorities, we will need to wait and see what is possible with repri- oritizations within the wider departmental program since there are lots of proj- ects competing for a limited number of resources. As stated previously, I believe the modernization of the Army's current fleet of sensors, applications, and commu- nication systems needs to be our top prior- ity, and we must be able to deliver, through our numerous capital equipment projects, a fully Integrated Command and Control System that works at the tactical team level up to the joint HQ. Q Speak to the importance of the network to a digital army, ADO, and interoperability with other CAF capabili- ties, allies, and partners. Similar to my previous comments, the network underpins the operational rele- vance and lethal advantage of a modernized digital army by serving as the backbone and connective tissue of the army's capabil- ity ecosystem. The digital network allows aggregation of disparate systems, so the overall capability is greater than the sum of its parts. Moreover, the digital network is increasingly the main determinant of joint and coalition interoperability; essentially, our gateway to entry into coalitions will be predicated on the maturity and robust- ness of our digital network. The ability to pass data across the CAF services and our allies in near real time will define our ability to see ourselves, make sense of the opera- tional environment, and improve decision- making. Although I've been speaking about Army equities, we really need to view these projects as joint capabilities because the ultimate goal is to push and pull data to and from any sensor in the joint or combined network to make a faster, more informed decision on what action to take next. The Army's share of this task is to develop a digital army that can seamlessly and cohe- sively integrate into the joint and combined network so we not only can take advantage of the overmatch provided by this level of I continue to be impressed by the professional excellence delivered by the team in Director of Land Requirements as the primary engine for the Army's capital equipment program.

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