I taught BOWMAN in 2005. I was considered a 'Guru', but then in the Kingdom of the blind...
I despaired of it so much I re-traded to avoid it and have used much better, simpler, smaller, cheaper, efficient COTS kit to communicate since.

BOWMAN has proved incredibly unpopular and with good reason. It is still unable to meet Comms requirements above Coy level in Helmand where the US PRC-117 is the radio of choice. If anyone wants to split hairs over RF propagation in an arid environment consider that with the right antenna and frequency you can talk around the world on 5W or less so surely the PRC 325 (HF) should be 'the radio' in Helmand.

I've seen BOWMAN HF (Groundwave) on 20W struggle over 2km out there. The power readings were high at the received end but due to the *** overhead and inability to maintain sync the result would be whats known in the trade as 'Donald duck underwater.'
Meanwhile, any enemy EW unit (standfast Terry), would be rubbing their hands together at these enormous 20W power spikes. Who cares if it's secure, if the lads are cranking the power up to the max to achieve comms (when infact the problems are more complex) then it's making the enemies job of locating them easier.

IMO the single worst piece of procurement in recent history.

On its way mate!

20W for 2km, bloody hell

Whats the data rate, no, hang on, don't tell me

But I assume were not passing real time video

They are not playing with data much out there.

No need or can't ?

(Removed)

Last edited by duplex on Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

No need, they have a plethora of server based, (which BOWMAN is not BTW), applications out there which do the job just as well if not better.

Duplex - I agree with you there are issues, and you have highlighted them perfectly. Most of these issues have been around since 2005, and have been flagged up again and again. It IS getting better though.

At least I hope it gets better or I will be an old(er) man by the time they sort it!

DG

I think you mean BOWMAN data? In that case you are correct.

Every Mil SATCOM data channel is choka, so much so PJHQ are renting Civvie ones and scrounging Bandwidth from the Yanks (no change there). There's more data systems in use than ever but none of them are BOWMAN...
The unofficial standard is Civvie SATCOM with Military Secure (Data capable) Telephony. Quitre simply because it works.

The P2P design seems the natural choice but I've yet to see BOWMAN do it's 'self healing' thing when a node disappears. Typically I've found on Regimental exercises that there will be one Det who've got their poo in a sock who spend all their time helping out everyone else who are in despair. Forget the RRB, that's the target if you want to take out a Regiment's Data Comms, the det that's working properly.

Yes but can you shove it in a Warrior or CR2 and charge around the battlefield? No. you can't. Why, because all the satcom and bandwidth in the world wont keep a decent signal to a moving platform. Nor will the network heal itself. Plus the systems you are used to out there are predominantly server based which in itself leads to a degree of inflexibility.

There are pros and cons on both sides. I'm glad. It keeps me busy.

You wouldn't have seen the "self healing" bit because Dynamic DNS (DDNS) has only recently been introduced.

I'm having to bite my tongue and resist the temptation to comment on this thread (it shouldn't take the brains of an Archbishop to work out who my employers are).

However, I do feel free to ask why, in the name of Dagon the mighty fish-god of the Phillistines, you imagine that PRINCE2 will help one iota. It is essentially a project management method developed by British central government. There can hardly be any organization on the face of the planet with a more persistent, disgraceful and incorrigible record of calamitous project failure than British central government. Large government IT projects fail massively, spectactularly and predictably year after year, none of the managers who presided over the horlicks ever suffers the slightest damage to his career, and the companies that munged it up are invited to bid for the follow-on system. Are none of these projects done under PRINCE or PRINCE2? I beg leave to doubt it.

Incidentally, over the next few years, watch for MODAF pulling the same trick of making wildly optimistic claims, being mandated by central authority, making work for drones and consultants, and failing to offer the slightest benefit to the few remaining poor fools who actually make systems instead of "managing" or "architecting" them.

It really isn't going to get any better until there is an algedonic feedback loop in place to reward success and punish failure. MoD procurement has never had such a thing in my memory.

All the best,

John.

DG. I'd like to qualify why, OPSEC permitting, I think BOWMAN is SHYTE.

Sect level/VHF:
1) Large, heavy batteries with short lifespans.
2) Large bulky radio with poorly designed connections and switches.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't the radio the VHF set is built on, is a COTS set?

5) Poor range. 5W = 5km (GSM 900 by contrast: 250mW = 30km)
VHF and GSM are in two different frequency ranges. You might as well complain that your PRR doesn't have the same range as a cellphone - it doesn't for a very good reason!


HF:
2) High 'message failure' rate resulting in messages getting silently dropped
3) Sync errors resulting in garbled digital speech
The problems of using a digital signal over HF - How lossy can you be? With a bigger faster processor, and more system space you can afford to have a more lossy signal...at a cost of bucks.

4) Complex menu tree.
COMBAT:
1)This software is so bad it hurts. It is simply too complicated for the Battlefield.

Shoving too many features with too basic an interface maybe. Maybe some kind of PDA would make it more user friendly... but would it survive in the field?

On Frequencies: The VHF CNR band (30-75) we've used for so long is a poor choice. It has none of the beneficial propagation characteristics of HF or V/UHF. It's got a high MEH so you need to erect a mast if you want any decent range, and a very high attenuation for a groundwave signal meaning if you don't bother erecting a mast then your signal is going south fast and you're only getting 5km tops out of 5 Watts! Rubbish.

It's not as if the MOD are forced to use the 30-75 band. They pay for it, just as they could pay for a UHF band and sell this to the science museum to teach kids about attenuation and how not to design a radio system.

Re PRRs: My PRR has a waterproof bag over my microphone otherwise it shorts out when wet. Another great bit of design.

Sort of brings us back to the expectation management point again

Just to quantify my stand point. CLANSMAN was ageing and needed to be replaced. I received my first brief on the new BOWMAN system in 1986 on my class 1 Sigs cse. It was a bloody long time in coming and when it arrived was not what was promised.

The reason BOWMAN is not used in Theatre has absolutely nothing to do with the availability of other systems and all to do with the lack of availability of a robust workable BOWMAN Data system (admittedly due to compatability with other 'stuff' as well).

Yes things are improving (slowly) and 5.4, 5.5 and beyond may bring a solution to the problems, however, these solutions are only addressing what was promised in the first place not enhancements to capability due to new technology.

Wasn’t the F in BCIP 4 meant to mean Final

I will apologise unreservedly if anyone without a vested interest in the BOWMAN gravy train can prove the above is complete b*llox

Are you one of those people who sucks it then dips it in the orange drinking powder by any chance?

My bold.
Have you actually any experience of worldwide HF? Because I have.

You seem to have picked up little snippets on comms and strung them together to form technobabble. You know some of the capabilities but not the downsides that go with them.

What would be the "right antenna"? Would you just set this up or would have to make changes to it through the day? Roughly, how big a job are we looking at?

What would be the "right frequency"?, how would find this freq, how would disseminate it to the crews, would you need to change this freq through the day? and could we all use it in theatre?

How would the weather affect us? After all we may need to consider such minor details as the F layers collapsing at night.

Whilst many will scoff at such problems as Sunspots or Sporadic E, and rightly so over say 20Km, when talking around the world these start playing a part. Then (for the higher frequencies of HF in to VHF and even UHF) we have Ducting when cold fronts come in.

Still sure 5W around the world is doable? With vox or CW? Or shall we use the more traditional power settings for such activites?

If you could see all these problems, why retrade? Why not see if you open some eyes in the kingdom of the blind?

After reading the response I was going to post I have decided that OPSEC issues preclude me from going any further with this debate (what a copout )

However, sad as I am I have just dug out the BOWMAN performance requirements, issue 4 dated Aug 1997 (a weighty document) says a hell of a lot of what BOWMAN will do (admittedly in GD’s defence it doesn’t say when it will do it though ). All I will say is EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT

As for your final bit. Faith is something people have in a supreme being that they are told exists yet there is no proof (I see were your coming from with BOWMAN ).

Bearing mind the word BOWMAN is in my job title, I kind of know it’s here I live with it daily (intimately).

Finally, surely you can come up with something better than telling all and sundry who happen to disagree with the GD (party) line to ‘Dry your eyes princess’ and get on with it. We are soldiers, we always turn to the right salute and crack on. It will never stop us having our say though.

As for the gravy train, I am very happy on my own DPM coloured one thanks.