Informing the Fight

Article / November 19, 2024 / National Defence

By Directorate Army Public Affairs

Note: Dismounted Infantry Capability Enhancement Initiative equipment starting user trials soon

If hearing about the “Dismounted Infantry Capability Enhancement (DICE) initiative” makes your eyes glaze over, let’s put it for you another way: New kit for Light Forces in CADPAT (Multi-Terrain) is on its way. And just like that, you’re hooked.

With an eye towards better fit, form and function for soldiers, the team is laser focused on outfitting the Canadian Army’s Light Forces with modernized equipment to better face current threats.

As the next step in the DICE initiative, several bidders were approved by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) to deliver trial samples of a new load-bearing vest, integrated body armour, modular pouches, and a pack system. Each bid will provide all four pieces to form a single system. Approval of these bids for samples are an important step toward modernizing this equipment for the Canadian Army.

But how does the Army make the final recommendations back to PSPC on which system is preferred? By asking the professional soldiers, of course! This November, a trial of potential systems will kick off with a select group of soldiers getting their hands on the options. They will check the equipment’s fit, range of motion, and how they perform during weapons drills, SAT range trials, during ruck marches, FORCE tests, and during "advance to contact" training scenarios.

By putting each system and its individual equipment in the hands of the expert end users in realistic training conditions, the DICE team gets essential feedback on the effectiveness and comfort of each system, and soldiers – who have to live with the results – get to have their say. Known more formally as User Acceptance Performance Evaluation, the feedback captured from these professional soldiers will help the project team quantitatively assess each DICE System bid, alongside results from lab testing which has already been conducted on each of the pieces.

These user trials will allow soldiers more flexibility over how they carry their mission-essential equipment, all the better to respond to dynamic conditions and threats.

This trial will whittle-down the finalists and contribute to the selection of a single system in the CADPAT Multi-Terrain pattern, which will begin to be fielded in the 2025-2026 timeframe.