In a first, Army uses Slack-style battlefield software in field exercises

FORT JOHNSON, Louisiana—Sgt. Maj. Gary Lynn spotted U.S. soldiers playing his enemy and pulled out the most powerful piece of communication equipment he had: an Android phone bolted to his body armor.

With a few taps, Lynn marked the enemy’s position in the WinTAK app, sending it instantly to a 101st Airborne command post camouflaged among tall pine trees in the Louisiana forest.

This week saw the debut of WinTAK at the Joint Readiness Training Center here—and the first time it has been used in any of the Army’s four sophisticated combat-training centers, according to Alex Miller, a senior science and technical advisor to Army Chief of Staff Randy George. The deployment comes as the Army pushes to modernize its command-and-control approaches and slim down its command posts.

Beyond plotting the positions of forces on a live map, WinTAK enables soldiers to create chat groups and pipe in communications from radios, among other functions. Compared to older mapping tools such as Blue Force Tracking, WinTAK appears to offer a more flexible, easier-to-use interface.

The map even allows command posts to track the speed and direction of units that are carrying a linked Android device, said Capt. Charles O’Hagan of the 101st Airborne’s second brigade.

In the old process, O’Hagan explained, staff officers would keep track of the battlefield by producing PowerPoint slides based on radio messages and other reports.

WinTAK allowed O’Hagan to project map data onto a strip of canvas in a busy command-post tent. The data is sent via WiFi—not some military-grade system that would reveal its presence to an enemy snooping the electromagnetic spectrum.

The ability to set up a command post with nothing more than an Android phone, a projector, and a WiFi puck also cuts down on the clutter of a command post, a key objective as the Army seeks to make the formerly bulky posts more nimble amid the ever-present threat of missile strikes.