UK fields upgraded Bowman

New communications network applications and hardware have been successfully fielded to British Army and Royal Marines units on operations under the Bowman ComBAT Infrastructure P-BISA (BCIP) 5.6 project.

UK troops deployed in Poland under Operation ‘Cabrit’ and Royal Marines very high readiness units of 3 Commando Brigade have received the new applications and hardware for the Bowman communications system, according to a programme update by the British Army on 1 July seen by Jane’s .

Units of 20 Armoured Infantry Brigade, which is leaving Germany this summer, as well as British Army training organisations in Canada and Kenya, have so far received the BCIP 5.6 upgrade to their radios and command systems. Over the next four months, British Army units in Estonia, Iraq, and Afghanistan will receive the new system, as will 16 Air Assault Brigade, Headquarters 3 (UK) Division, the Royal Air Force (RAF) Regiment Force Protection Wing, and 1 Armoured Infantry Brigade. Training units in the UK will also start to receive the system in September, including the Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (CATT) in Warminster in Wiltshire.

The update revealed that the Land System Reference Centre at Blanford in Dorset has carried out a trial this year to test interoperability with the French Système d'Information pour le Commandement des Forces (Forces Command Information System, SICF) ahead of the validation exercise for the UK–France Combined Joint Expeditionary Force in 2020.

Colonel Jonathan Cole, the British Army’s director of information, is quoted in the update as saying that the BCIP 5.6 fielding would be complete by June 2020, with units receiving their new hardware and software updates at a dedicated facility in Warminster.