PARIS -- U.S. Army officials have expended plenty of resources to build their next generation communications system. Germany's Bundeswehr has built a similar system to outfit each of its soldiers with a scope of the battlefield and radio systems with push-to-talk buttons built into their rifles.
Germany wants to buy 10,000 of each system called Gladius built by Rheinmetall Defense. In October, 300 soldiers will receive prototypes to later deploy with in 2013 to Afghanistan. Rheinmetall displayed the system here at the Eurosatory land warfare conference.
Get the details and specs on the system over at Defense Tech.
U.S. Army officials will keep an eye on the system as the Germans test it in Afghanistan at the same time the first pieces of the Army's Capability Set 13 also arrives in Afghanistan.
It's a surprise the U.S. and Germans didn't work closer to develop the systems. Many pieces of each system share the same technology. Both faced major hurdles to build the expensive systems. However, Olaf Aul, Rheinmettal's Head of System Engineering Soldier Systems, said the respective country's armies only observed each other's work from a distance.
