FORCEnet Implementation Strategy (2005) / Chapter Skim
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1 Transforming the Navy and Marine Corps into a Network-Centric Force
1 Transforming the Navy and Marine Corps into a Network-Centric Force
Pages 11-30
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From page 11... ...
The more time-compressed challenge of coordinated air defense against kamikaze aircraft motivated the development of the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) , which used first-generation computers to exchange radar pictures from multiple ships to create a common picture for the air defense controller.
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From page 12... ...
This study committee -- the Committee on the FORCEnet Implementation Strategy -- decided that a vision of how FORCEnet could play out in the future in a specific, complex, joint scenario might illustrate the range of capabilities and the effectiveness that FORCEnet would enable: shared awareness, collaboration, responsive tasking, automated analysis and data synthesis, information composability, tactical decision support, collaboration and tasking of joint assets, force self-synchronization, rapid force composability, automatic incorporation of new sensors to form a new common picture, real-time composability of allied force response, and overall speed and decisiveness of command. The following is a scenario that mentions fictitious names and is set in the future; the shaded blocks highlight the capability illustrated.
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From page 13... ...
Reconnaissance data from the Dragon Eye commander are automatically transmitted directly to Commander Smith's personal digital assistant (PDA) and over the theater communications network (linked via a high-altitude UAV to the Transformational Satellite (TSAT)
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From page 14... ...
Simulta neously, the tactical alert service accesses the data base on Angerian force capability and readiness posture to display all potential ordnance sources- aircraft, cruise missiles, surface attack missiles, and ground forces -- along with approximate time to intercept and probable weapons effectiveness. 0807: General Gamble directs LtCol Tucker, USMC, Navy and land his land force commander, to prepare a company of force joint Marines at the Dosama Airport for rapid deploy operation ment.
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From page 15... ...
0811: The SEAL unit's Dragon Eye imagery (re layed through the JIWP) shows that the trucks have forcibly entered an oil-processing facility outside Rio del Agua, less than a mile from the SEAL unit.
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From page 16... ...
0817: With JSFs en route, the JIWP automatically Common picture, updates its tactical picture with data from the supe incorporating rior JSF radar. Real-time Dragon Eye imagery best current analysis indicates that the Angerian forces have sensor inputs noticed the Dragon Eye and have launched a guided missile to intercept it .
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From page 17... ...
relevant new If its location is confirmed, the submarine is nearing sensor data in the the British frigate HMS Trincomalee. The UAV data common picture and target analysis are continuously accessible through the JIWP to the Trincomalee command center.
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From page 18... ...
The Angerians return uncoordinated fire and are distracted from the Ma rines' arrival. 0844: The five Marine Corps Opsreys land on the opposite side of the facility from the SEAL team and engage the enemy ground forces.
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From page 19... ...
However, the force's information infrastructure will need a set of essential characteristics to make this possible: · Robust availability, · Assurance and trustworthiness, · Coherence -- avoidance of "Tower of Babel" problems, · "Plug-and-play" composability of networked forces, and · Adequate capacity and timeliness. Each characteristic will be very challenging and indeed some are beyond the current state of the art.
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From page 20... ...
1.2.3 Coherence -- Avoidance of "Tower of Babel" Problems One clear benefit of network-centric operation is a common operational picture through which operators can see at a glance their own current locations, the positions of nearby friendly forces, and current estimates of enemy locations. Unfortunately, experience has shown that such "common" pictures are anything but common.
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From page 21... ...
1.2.5 Adequate Capacity and Timeliness Finally, at the most basic levels, the network infrastructure must provide adequate bandwidth, and it must deliver information in a sufficiently timely manner that it is still useful when it arrives. This will likely prove challenging for the Navy and Marine Corps even when new satellite systems and peer-to-peer radio networks are in place, since connectivity to mobile platforms is by its nature slower and less reliable than that to fixed sites.
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From page 22... ...
The military's information infrastructure must also be designed to withstand various levels of attack -- not just the annoyances created, for example, by teenage hackers, but the heavy attacks launched by determined nations with significant budgets and top-notch technical expertise. Potential attacks range from the old-fashioned jamming of satellite links, to the use of electromagnetic pulses to disable commercial computers, to the deliberate "poisoning" of significant information within U.S.
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From page 23... ...
This section briefly discusses how network-centric the recent Navy and Marine combat activities have been and which programs, already underway, are starting to build out the first major network-centric capabilities for use in future naval operations. 1.4.1 Recent Navy Operations Perhaps the most striking aspect of recent Navy operations has been the dramatically shortened Air Tasking Order (ATO)
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From page 24... ...
1.4.3 Basic Infrastructure -- A Common Information Technology Infrastructure Across the Force In recent years, the Navy and Marine Corps have installed a solid, almost ubiquitous information technology (IT) infrastructure built from standardized commercial computers and networks.
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From page 25... ...
1.4.4 Basic Infrastructure -- The Global Information Grid Even more recently than the installation of the NMCI, an energetic effort has been launched to design and build the key technological capabilities required to link all tactical and strategic forces into a unified GIG. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (ASD(NII)
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From page 26... ...
Lastly, the report does not consider the cost implications of realizing FORCEnet capabilities. All of these are clearly important factors that would have to be considered in more detailed FORCEnet planning.
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From page 27... ...
It is inconceivable that naval information systems will not form part of this rapidly evolving, overall joint information infrastructure, in order to share information freely with the other Services and with national agencies. Second, experimentation will be a critically important tool for the evolution of network-centric operations and their supporting information infrastructure, and naval network-centric experimentation will take place within the broader context of joint experimentation, which in turn is rapidly evolving.
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From page 28... ...
Even the FORCEnet Information Infrastructure (FnII) qualifies as a complex system.
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From page 29... ...
Well-defined methods for composing large software systems "on the fly" are currently not well understood, nor is there any good way to predict the behavior of the systems thus assembled. · Large-scale modeling and simulation will likely be essential for the proper understanding and analysis of tomorrow's networked forces, but current technologies will probably not scale adequately.
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From page 30... ...
30 FORCENET IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY The third issue arises because a commander trusts most those forces under his or her command. Being responsible for the mission outcome and troops' welfare, every commander will try to plan for all contingencies.
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