DSEI 2025: General Dynamics in discussions with UK MoD on update to Bowman

Image of the General Dynamics communications suite used for British Army's Asgard project. It includes Scytale B, Virtual Tactical Routing Service (VTRS), Strategic Voice Bridge (SVB), and TacDS Cross Domain Guard. (General Dynamics)

General Dynamics (GD) is in discussions with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) regarding the potential for an update to the Bowman communications system from its 5.6 to 5.7 iteration, Chris Burrows, vice-president, UK Land Environment Tactical Communication and Information Systems (TacCIS), General Dynamics, confirmed to Janes on 10 September at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2025 exhibition held in London.

Bowman

Bowman or BCIP (Bowman, ComBAT – Common Battlefield Application Toolset, Infrastructure and Platform) 5.7 is an operating system update to the user data terminals (UDTs) across the British Army, including delivery of some new terminals. “Sometimes when you go through an operating system update, the processing power isn't possible with legacy equipment. So, we have a process that we're going through with the MoD, which is negotiating the contract now,” Burrows said. Once the contract is in place, GD will produce the assets for the operating system uplift and develop them to initial operating capability (IOC) and ultimately full operating capability (FOC) in “due course”, according to Burrows. The current version, also known as BCIP 5.6, was rolled out to active units from 2019 and includes 50,000 radios and 21,000 data terminals according to Janes C4ISR & Mission Systems: Land.

MESHnet