This whole procurement feels like some kind of insider handshake rather than an honest development project. Where was the small scale, highly focused developmen

This whole procurement feels like some kind of insider handshake rather than an honest development project. Where was the small scale, highly focused development activity run by some kind of DARPA, DoE, Army Research entity? Was there a wildly successful pilot project with competitive test squads that proved the IVAS equipped teams had better measurable metrics? It just feels like this fell out of the sky, or some General saw a HoloLens demo and said "I want those on every soldier" and voila. For those of us old enough to remember, it also sort of smells like those old Cold War era programs where we pumped money into hopeless development programs hoping our adversaries started to do the same, except we knew we could absorb the loss while they couldn't.