Rapid Equipping Force

The Rapid Equipping Force [http://www.ref.army.mil] is a U.S. Army Organization that provides Soldiers and commanders capabilities that increase lethality, improve force protection and enhance survivability. Conflicts invariably produce emerging requirements from operational commanders. The changing demands and increased complexity of 21st century battlefield require speedy materiel solutions to enhance mission capabilities and to reduce risk to the Soldier.The mission of the Rapid Equipping Force is to equip commanders with off-the-shelf technologies to increase effectiveness and reduce risk, insert future force technologies and surrogates to validate concepts and speed capabilities to the Warfighter, and assess Army business practices, desired capabilities, and acquisition techniques to the effect institutional Army change.The Rapid Equipping Force accomplishes its mission by leveraging commercial industry to attain three compatible objectives: access to leading-edge technology, acquire affordable products and to equip the Warfighter rapidly. The Rapid Equipping Force is a cohesive element that embeds Requirements, Technology, Acquisition, Budget and Logistics capabilities in a single organization. This unique structure allows it to rapidly validate requirements, acquire solutions, make the Warfighter part of the “Acquisition Cycle,” comply with all existing acquisition statues, and document a streamlined acquisition methodology within oversight of the Army Acquisition Executive.

By leveraging new technologies that enhance the Soldier’s ability to survive and succeed in combat, the Rapid Equipping Force has delivered successful solutions, to include robots for interrogating caves and suspicious packages for booby traps and explosive devices; personnel and vehicle scanning systems; hearing conservation and communication devices; persistent surveillance systems; digital translators for Soldiers to communicate with locals in their own language; explosive material detectors, and power generation equipment and advanced material for energy power conservation.Rapid acquisition is a key asset to the Army in support of the Global War on Terrorism, as it preserves America’s technological superiority in combat and boosts every Soldier’s survivability and lethality. The Rapid Equipping Force’s adaptive practices are at the forefront of Army modernization.

Some of our Systems:

Packbot:Remote-Controlled, full sensor package capable tracked vehicle.

PocketTerp:iPaq modification allows user to prerecord translations for specific phases with voice print recorded that can be recalled.

Magnetometer:Commercial of the Shelf (COTS) ultra-sensitive metal detecting wand.

Lock Shims:Small hand-held lock picking devices, used by Soldiers to gain entry into premises to conduct searches, without actually breaking the lock of the door.

Wellcam:Complete man-portable video system to search wells.

Armor Kit:4-door vehicle protection kit.

PILAR:Acoustically based, fully passive system that determines sniper fire direction on LCD screen.

External links

* [http://www.ref.army.mil/ Official site] .
* " [http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/read.php?story_id_key=8536 Rapid Equipping Force helps Soldiers with a bright idea: laser pointers] ." Army Public Affairs. February 3, 2006.