Bangladesh Army Set for C4ISR Transformation Under Emerging US Defence Industry Partnership Model

Reading Time: 5 minutes A reported proposal by US defence contractor L3Harris Technologies to establish a local assembly line for tactical radio systems in Bangladesh signals a potentially significant shift in the country’s battlefield communications modernisation strategy, moving beyond conventional procurement towards embedded capability development. If implemented, the programme—centred on the Falcon III communications family—would form a core building block of a future Bangladesh Army C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) architecture, while also representing one of the most structured defence-industrial cooperation frameworks yet reported between Bangladesh and the United States. Under the proposal, approximately 4,000 Falcon III tactical radios systems would be assembled in Bangladesh for the Bangladesh Army under a phased technology transfer model beginning in FY2025–26. The programme would start with semi-knocked-down (SKD) assembly before gradually progressing towards deeper localisation over a six-year roadmap. From Procurement to a Networked C4ISR Construct Rather than a