The current condition of more than 90,000 bridges in Germany is not known. This is a problem for the deployment of troops. Heavy combat vehicles in particular cannot use every bridge. Until now, the pioneer advisors have only been able to rely on outdated data from land registry offices, military geoinformation services and the former Wallmeister organization.
Our innovation project EvE (Erkunden von Einsatzstellen) enables more reliable organizational planning. This is because the web app enables pioneers to quickly and efficiently reconnoitre the bridges assigned to them during reconnaissance and transmit an assessment of the situation on site directly to the command post. The innovative project was recently successfully tested in a field test with the implementing company MaibornWolff and the reconnaissance platoon of Panzerpionierbataillon 4 on several bridges in Bavaria. The app used enables the soldiers to explore twice as many bridges as before in the same period of time with a significantly higher information content.
Bundeswehr intrapreneur simplifies bridge exploration
The idea for the system came from Tino Richter, a specialist service officer at the Army Engineer School in Ingolstadt. As a Bundeswehr intrapreneur, he realized EvE together with the CIHBw. A real game changer for the pioneers.
“Every NCO and officer must be able to judge whether a vehicle with the appropriate weight class can safely cross a bridge. With EvE, the evaluation of bridge exploration can now flow into a platform-independent software application to put the paperwork with pencil and paper to bed,” says Bundeswehr intrapreneur Tino Richter, emphasizing the advantages of the innovation project.
The data collected on the navigability, load-bearing capacity and dimensions of the bridge is entered into the app, which is linked to the Bundeswehr's battle management system, thus raising the availability of the information to a different level than before: EvE standardizes the information collected, increases the speed with which the information can be provided and creates a uniform, reliable database.
With EvE, the CIHBw is making an important contribution to the security of Germany and its allies. As a hub, it must be possible to deploy its own soldiers, NATO troops and vehicles for national and alliance defense reliably and quickly throughout the country.
