South African Army to get command and control system

LOCAL defence company Saab Systems South Africa has beaten off competition from major international groups to win a Brigade Headquarters command and control (C2) system contract from Armscor. This system, which will bring the South African Army into the twenty-first century in terms of C2 of deployed tactical units, is also attracting international interest, and could win export orders in the not-too-distant future. The new system will provide South African Brigade commanders and their staffs with situational awareness, and allow electronic planning of operations and distribution of the resulting operational orders to subordinate units, as well as control the execution of those plans. These capabilities will be of immediate use in peacekeeping operations, to which the SA Army is already heavily committed. "This project is groundbreaking for the SA Army, so they took some time and really thought about it," reports Saab Systems SA business development and marketing executive Maj-Gen (retd) Piet Verbeek. "This will give the Army something they have never had before. It will also be used for C2 of joint operations, so it will benefit more than just the Army. This system is an operational necessity - the Army needed a digital C2 system. The South African Air Force (SAAF) already has digital C2, supplied by us". The project was initiated in the period 2001/2002, and carries the designation Project Legend, but the Request for Proposals was only sent out to industry in December 2006. Armscor then put the contract out to tender, and the competing companies submitted their proposals, which were subjected to detailed evaluations by Arsmcor and the SA Army. Selection of the winning bid followed, and then the contract was awarded. "It was a very stiff competition," he says, "but we won fair and square." Saab Systems SA has 18 months in which to deliver its system to Armscor. The key to the system is the software, developed by Saab Systems SA in South Africa, by South Africans. This software is known by the brand name Chaka. "Chaka was born and bred in South Africa. We have the source code. This is a strategic capability for South Africa. We are very proud of this," asserts Verbeek. "This differentiated us from some of the other contenders - our system is all South African. We are part of a multinational group, but we are a South African company." As the source code is local, this means that updating or altering the software is easy and economical; it also provides much greater military security for the SA Army. Chaka was developed on the back of some years experience with Brigade-level wargaming (simulation) software, branded by the company as BattleTek. "Wargaming and C2 are actually two sides of the same coin - ‘train as you fight, fight as you train'," says Saab Systems SA systems engineer Johan Maritz. "We are the only company in South Africa, and one of the few in the world, with this continuum between simulation and C2 systems". Development of the new Army Brigade C2 system also followed on from the successful development and delivery to the SA Army of a tactical C2 system, under project GBADS, pronounced Gee-Bads. (GBADS stands for Ground-Based Air Defence System - in other words, surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, their associated radars and other sensors, all linked together and made to function as a single unit by the C2 system.) As previouslly mentioned, the company has already supplied a C2 system to the SAAF. "We are working towards making the SAAF and the new Army Brigade C2 systems interoperable," assures Saab Systems SA Project Legend project manager Cobus Valentine. "In terms of our contract, Chaka is required to be interoperable with all other systems that are being developed for the South African National Defence Force". Regarding possible exports, another African country has already shown considerable interest in Chaka, while other countries on the continent are interested in BattleTek.