Extended Cold Weather Clothing System

By Scott R. Gourley

If all goes according to plan, America’s warfighters will receive a special holiday gift near the end of this year. The gift will be the result of the late December 2006 Department of the Army contract award for the Generation III extended cold weather clothing system (ECWCS).

The seven-layer, 14-component multilayered insulating system allows the soldier to adapt to varying mission requirements and environmental conditions. The system is also more compatible with the survivability mandates of body armor. Components include a lightweight undershirt and drawers, midweight shirt and drawers, cold-weather fleece jacket, cold-weather wind jacket, soft-shell jacket and trousers, extreme cold/wet weather jacket and trousers, extreme cold weather parka, and trousers.

ECWCS components entered force acceptance field testing in December 2005 and quickly garnered praise from tactical commanders. Representatives for the U.S. Army Project Manager Soldier Equipment (under the Program Executive Office Soldier) cite one early field comment from Lt. Col. Christopher Cavoli, commander 1-32 Infantry Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, who observed, “During Operation Mountain Lion I found myself praying for bad weather, the first time in my military career I was actually begging for a cold front to come through. I knew my soldiers could handle it and the enemy couldn’t. ECWCS allowed my men to outlast the enemy on their own terrain. When the enemy was forced out of the mountains because of the bitter cold to take shelter, that’s when we got them.”

“ECWCS is designed for an individual soldier to tailor the system based on environmental conditions and also on the soldier’s individual needs,” explained Maj. Robert A. Helms, assistant product manager for Clothing and Individual Equipment (within Project Manager Soldier Equipment).

Helms noted that earlier generations of ECWCS began with a Generation I system, fielded in the early 1980s, that was made up of polypropylene underwear, insulation layers and a top and bottom outer shell. The second generation system evolved just a few years ago and featured the same base layers but with a jacket redesign and the introduction of a camouflage pattern.

“Basically it was keeping up with the technology,” Helms said. “But now, with where the outdoor industry is going, soft-shell fabric is the new thing on the market. It allows more permeability and breathability in the garment, which means that as the soldier is moving through a winter environment, all the sweat—or excess heat—that he builds up can breathe out of the jacket. At the same time, it is protecting the soldier from the elements. The previous [generation] could do it but not as well as the fabrics that we have now.”
The availability of these design and material improvements eventually led to the Generation III ECWCS contract, which was awarded to ADS (Atlantic Diving Supply), Inc., last December.

In terms of Generation III’s significance to today’s warfighters, Helms explained, “There is more versatility than the previous generations. For example, there are more shell layers than the previous versions, and it’s less bulky. Basically, it does more with less. For example, the fleece jacket that comes in Generation III provides the same warmth ratio as the current fleece jacket that comes in the second generation and first generation ECWC, but the bulk is reduced by one-third. And the entire system is 2 1/2 pounds lighter than the previous generation, so that reduces the soldier’s combat load. Also, I can pack the entire third generation system in the current Rapid Fielding Initiative (RFI)-issued assault pack, whereas before I would be lucky to get the fleece components into an assault pack.”

He continued, “Also, with the old system, one of the main insulation layers—or main warming factors when you were static—had to be placed underneath the shells of the components. When you do that you lose all the body heat that you just worked up maneuvering through snow. But with Generation III we have a loft layer, which fits over everything, even the combat load, so you’re able to retain all the body heat that you have generated.”

With the recent contract award for the Generation III system, a December first-unit-equipped date is projected.

“Our fielding plan is still being staffed at the HQDA level,” Helms said. “The plan is that it is first going out to deployers; and the kit will then go to the cold region areas, like Alaska and Fort Drum, N.Y., and then slowly work its way down the United States.”

According to Al Dassonville, deputy product manager within Product Manager Soldier Equipment, some of the ongoing fielding discussions involve the possibility of adding Generation III ECWCS to the Rapid Fielding Initiative core item list for fiscal year 2008.
“If that’s what the Department of the Army decides to do, then it will come out as part of RFI. Otherwise, it will be fielded at a fairly low rate to the Army. Currently, the Army is pretty big and we don’t have the kind of funding in our base program that would cover large swatches of the Army in any one fiscal year,” Dassonville said.

Emphasizing that ECWCS Generation III highlights a great partnership between the Army and industry, Helms added, “The main reason for the third generation is that instead of just surviving in a cold winter environment, you can actually sustain combat operations.”

“And I think that’s the key,” he continued. “Previously [the clothing] was good for the time. But now [a soldier] can actually sustain long combat operations in a cold weather environment, whereas before there was a certain threshold where you started becoming a survivor in cold weather. And once you start surviving in cold weather you’re combat ineffective.

“Now you can actually go out into the harsh mountain terrain of Afghanistan and pursue the enemy at elevation, because the Gen III ECWCS will take care of you.”

“We actually put it on two brigades of the 10th Mountain Division who took it to Afghanistan this past year,” added Dassonville. “It’s been battle tested, and it’s proven itself. So we have real-time soldier feedback—combat soldiers in a combat environment—who have told us that it is definitely value-added to the soldier. We can outlast the enemy up here.”