New shelter provides various configurations, amenities

By Bob Reinert
ARNEWS

October 13, 2011

	Photo courtesy of PMFSS Each Force Provider base camp comes with everything 150 Soldiers need, including a kitchen.

NATICK, Mass, — What fits into one C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, will be used by as many as 150 Soldiers, and can be set up and fully operational in as little as 3 1/2 hours?

Give up? Everything one would need to set up an entire base camp. It’s true, and it all came about as a result of Army shelters used and judged inadequate during Operation Desert Storm.

“It goes back to 1991,” said Mike Hope, combat field service equipment team leader for Project Manager Force Sustainment Systems at Natick Soldier Systems Center. “General (Gordon R.) Sullivan, who was the chief of staff of the Army during Desert Storm, looked on one side and saw the Air Force living in (comfortable), air-conditioned tents, and the Army on the other side not doing so well. So he directed the development of Force Provider.”

The Force Provider system furnishes everything those 150 Soldiers need — climate-controlled billeting, showers, latrines, kitchens, power distribution, even Morale, Welfare and Recreation facilities. “All you have to bring is the fuel and water, and it will run,” said Luz Diaz, a Force Provider project manager. “It’s the Army’s premier base camp for Soldiers.”

At the beginning, Force Provider was designed as a 600-Soldier camp. According to Hope, 9/11 changed all that. Eight Force Provider modules were flown to Afghanistan in November 2001.
“We had them right over there,” Hope said. “The first thing the commanders wanted to do was break them apart to support smaller forward missions.”

Hope’s team got right to work reconfiguring Force Provider for the smaller units deployed to Afghanistan.

“We packaged it so it was much more flexible,” Hope said. “You can put them anywhere you want. You can send them downrange to the smallest FOB (forward operating base), wherever you need (them).”

“The 150-man package is kind of tailored around a leg company, so a battalion commander doesn’t have to put all his people in one place,” said Lee O’Donovan, Hope’s systems acquisition manager. “He can have them in four different places, and they’re self sustaining.”

That 150-man camp can be established much faster than any other shelter systems of the past. In less than four hours, eight people can have it up and fully operational. Hope said the use of Natick-developed inflatable air beams in the tents streamlined the process.

“The set-up time was reduced dramatically,” Hope said. “It used to take us seven to 10 days to house 600 Soldiers. We can do it in one day because of that air-beam technology.”

O’Donovan pointed out that not much can keep Force Provider down.

“You can actually unroll the air-beam tent, put the four big stakes in the ground and blow it up in a sandstorm,” O’Donovan said. “It’s been done. You can’t do that with a temper or a frame tent.”
And what about that sandstorm? Well, it would stay outside, where it belongs.

“This thing is like a cocoon,” O’Donovan said. “It’s really nice.”

A diesel compressor can inflate the four air beams of a 32-by-20-foot shelter in 10 minutes.
“Once you get it to 60 (pounds per square inch), you take (the compressor) away,” Hope said.
“That’s it. You never come back and put air in it.

“The nice thing about that tent, though, is everything’s integrated inside so it doesn’t beat the Soldier up for another hour to go back in and outfit the inside of the tent.”

What happens if an air beam is pierced by a bullet?

“They don’t explode,” Hope said. “They would leak like a tire and just deflate. It’s very, very reliable.” And an air beam can be replaced in minutes.

Hope said Force Provider, 50 of which are deployed to Afghanistan, can be set up just about anywhere.

“The nice thing about it is it’s so flexible that we could probably set it up in a hundred different configurations,” Hope added.

Soldier feedback from the field over the years has spurred improvements to Force Provider.

“We have (had) eight guys in theater since (2001),” Hope said. “We have a technical assistance team. Those changes, in going to the 150-man camp and upgrading all the life-support systems, (are) really because of the TAT guys who are in theater living with the Soldier getting the feedback.

“We’re passionate about the Force Provider system, because we get to see what it does. We design it, we build it, we field it, we get to see the looks on their faces. We didn’t do anything scientific. We just listened to what the Soldier had to say,” said Hope.

“The modular capability that it provides has proven to be a force enabler from the battalion down to the company level. It takes care of our deployed servicemembers by providing for a one-stop sleep, feed, entertainment and exercise capability that means so much to each and every task force member,” wrote Lt. Col. Michael C. Lopez of Headquarters, Combined/Joint Task Force-82, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, in a Nov. 9, 2009, in a letter to Kevin Fahey, program executive officer, Combat Support, Combat Service Support.

“This Force Provider system is unlike any base camp system we have in the area of operations; specifically, the hygiene systems provide a like-home environment that increases morale more than you will ever know. Once again, thank you (from) all of us for ensuring our warfighters have the best equipment and for providing a piece of garrison while we are deployed,” Lopez wrote.
That’s just the kind of response that Hope likes to hear.

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