Digital warriors: many armies have opted for the incremental deployment of soldier system technologies to meet the immediate needs of ongoing combat operations. In an unusual twist of events, France appears to be leading the pack in terms of both calendar and deployed capabilities with its Felin.

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Future soldier

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Digital warriors: many armies have opted for the incremental deployment of soldier system technologies to meet the immediate needs of ongoing combat operations. In an unusual twist of events, France appears to be leading the pack in terms of both calendar and deployed capabilities with its Felin.

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Through the several 'modern soldier' programmes initiated in a number of nations, the main objective is to promote the soldier from a status of mere pawn on the chessboard to that of a knight able to make smarter moves--this by implementing technologies that not only enable him to be constantly aware of the situation developing around him but also to constantly update superiors and comrades of this situation.

France

The French Army is set to become the first in Europe to field an operational soldier system. In 2007 the service began the operational evaluation of the Fe1in (Fantassin Equipement et Liaisons Integres) system developed by prime contractor Sagem. This phase began in October when about 30 prototype systems were used during the 'Phoenix 2007' digitisation test-bed exercise at the army's Mourmelon urban operations training centre and continued with technical trials undertaken by the 27e Bataillon de Chasseurs Alpins mountain infantry unit. By...

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