Military

SINCGARS Needs Maneuver Communications

 

AUTHOR Major Robert R. Logan, USMC

 

CSC 1991

 

SUBJECT AREA - C4

 

 

                                    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

TITLE: SINCGARS NEEDS MANEUVER COMMUNICATIONS

 

I. Theme: The Marine Corps is rapidly entering a period of transition in both its

philosophy of warfare and the equipment with which it fights. Nowhere is this more

prevalent than with tactical communications. In this particular area, however, a unique

"window of opportunity" exists for an important, if not mandatory, application of new

communications concepts to the implementation of pivotal communications systems for

Marine commanders.

 

II. Thesis: Apart from the rapid application of precepts for communications derived

from FMFM 1, the doctrinal standard of Marine Corps maneuver warfare, the benefits

to the commander from new "Digital Revolution" communications systems presently

being fielded, particularly the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System

(SINCGARS), will be endangered if not lost entirely.

 

III. Discussion: FMFM 1 presents a philosophy of warfare based on maneuver vice the

former standard of attrition. This departure from a previous "winning" style is based on

the sobering reality that the United States military, particularly the Marine Corps, no

longer enjoys numerical and technological superiority when it fights. Accompanying this

new style of warfare is a new style of command and new precepts for communications

supporting commanders. These precepts represent a set of standards by which newly

fielded digital-based communications systems must be evaluated and employed. This is

especially true of the next generation of tactical radio systems, SINCGARS, which

perform differently under the environments of maneuver and attrition warfare.

 

IV. Summary: As a representative of the "Digital Revolution" ongoing in Marine Corps

communications, SINCGARS requires an environment of maneuver warfare in order to

best support the commander. The precepts of maneuver communications as derived

from FMFM 1 must be inculcated within the Marine Corps to ensure this important

system is correctly assessed and quickly assimilated into the infrastructure of command

and control.

 

V. Conclusion: Maneuver commanders have the opportunity of enjoying a level of

support from SINCGARS which has no historical match. However, the success of this

team demands commanders still operating under the philosophy of attrition warfare to

immediately make the transition to FMFM 1 and its precepts of maneuver

communications.

 

 

                    SINCGARS NEEDS MANEUVER COMMUNICATIONS

 

                                    OUTLINE

 

 

Thesis Statement. Apart from the rapid application of precepts for communications

derived from FMFM 1, the doctrinal standard of Marine Corps maneuver warfare, the

benefits to the commander from new "Digital Revolution" communications systems

presently being fielded, particularly the Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio

System (SINCGARS), will be endangered if not lost entirely.

 

I.     FMFM 1 and Marine Communications

 

       A.    The Dragon "Never Enough" is Dead

 

       B.    Warfare, the World, and the Need for a Change

 

       C.    A Look Back at Attrition Warfare

 

II.    The Philosophy of Maneuver Warfare

 

       A.    Concepts Affecting Communications

 

             1.    Acceptance Vice Rejection of Chaos

 

             2.    Decentralized Vice Centralized Control

 

             3.    Implicit Vice Explicit Communications

 

             4.    Speed Vice Plodding

 

       B.    Precepts For Maneuver Communications Summarized

 

III.   SINCGARS and the Precepts for Maneuver Communications

 

       A.    The "Digital Revolution" of Marine Communications

 

       B.    SINCGARS Description

 

       C.    Application of Precepts to SINCGARS

 

             1.    Quality over Quantity

 

             2.    Why over How

 

             3.    Voice over Message

 

             4.    Availability over Velocity

 

 

 

                    SINCGARS NEEDS MANEUVER COMMUNICATIONS

 

 

       The sixth of March, 1989, is destined to become a hallowed occasion for Marine

 

communicators throughout the Corps. It marks the date on which General A.M. Gray,

 

Commandant of the Marine Corps, officially declared his philosophy of warfare as the

 

Marine Corps' own. FMFM 1, Warfighting, was born.

 

       Those familiar with FMFM 1 may wonder why it holds such significance for

 

communicators. After all, doesn't FMFM 1 contain truths about the maneuver

 

philosophy of warfare, a dogma primarily for combat arms personnel? Though correct,

 

this observation fails to recognize the impact which the adoption of maneuver warfare

 

has on other military specialties, primarily communicators. For them, one message from

 

FMFM 1 comes through loud and clear: the great dragon called "Never Enough" is dead

 

at last.

 

       Communicators have been fighting the battle against "Never Enough" since the

 

first commander lost his first battle. The weapon used has always been the same:

 

"More." A number of times throughout history, communicators thought the dragon was

 

defeated. This was particularly true when electrons entered their arsenal. During the

 

Civil War, as telegraph replaced messenger, the dragon was momentarily staggered but

 

quickly regained his momentum. In World War II, when radios and telephones assaulted

 

the beast, communicators on both sides stared in disbelief as he emerged not weakened,

 

but stronger than ever.

 

       And during Vietnam, when satellites and airborne radio relays and tropospheric

 

multichannel systems relentlessly attacked, communicators were stunned when "Never

 

Enough" not only failed to die but actually grew in size. This bloody campaign was

 

witnessed by a sympathetic Army infantryman named General Creighton Abrams. As he

 

reflected upon the battle so determinedly fought by his signalmen he commented: "You

 

fellows belong to something that is almost a bottomless pit. No matter how big you

 

make the system, there are more people going to want to talk over it and more people

 

going to want to send things over it..." (14:157)

 

       With the slash of his pen, the Commandant did what no communicator could

 

ever do. He declared the "Never Enough" attitude toward communications as dead and

 

established the reign of a new view: "Enough is Enough." His philosophy presents a

 

concept of communications set in the context of a new style of warfare. The perspective

 

is one of realism and reasonableness. Like a professional doctor, FMFM 1 outlines a

 

sound, philosophical "diet program" which curbs the insatiable hunger for

 

communications fostered by previous philosophies of warfare.

 

       To appreciate this we must first consider the foundations on which FMFM 1

 

rests: its view of the world and war, and its doctrines of warfighting and command.

 

From these concepts, a number of precepts will be derived for communications needed

 

to support command and control on future battlefields. The "Enough is Enough" edict is

 

a preview of one of the most important, if not the most dramatic, comments about the

 

changes for military communications instituted by FMFM 1.

 

       Unlike some views of warfare which portray war as a deterministic process to be

 

analyzed and solved given "enough" resources and information, FMFM 1 supports a

 

model of war which, as originally coined by Carl von Clausewitz, is cloaked in fog and

 

heated by friction. The fog of war "makes absolute certainty impossible; all actions in

 

war will be based on incomplete, inaccurate, or even contradictory information." Friction

 

makes "even the simplest functions in war extremely difficult." (3:119)

 

       FMFM 1 describes a world in which changes have taken place within the United

 

States and for potential adversaries. These sobering insights portray our nation as a

 

world power which no longer enjoys vast numerical and technological superiority over its

 

foes. Given this view of the nature of war and our country's status, FMFM 1 calls for a

 

bold departure from our nation's previous philosophy of warfighting. This traditional

 

philosophy, known as attrition warfare, had been the predominant style used by winning

 

American commanders since the Civil War.

 

       The fundamental belief of advocates of attrition warfare is that success depends

 

on destroying the enemy's physical means of promulgating war. This was the style of

 

warfare which pitted the overwhelming superiority of the American war machine against

 

the teeth of the enemy, matching strength against strength, and eventually grinding the

 

opposition down through massive firepower. Warfare was a systematic process, with the

 

victor being the one still standing after giving and receiving massive punishment in each

 

toe-to-toe engagement. Known as having a voracious appetite for men and equipment

 

already, warfare fought in this manner produced the highest losses of all.

 

       It is difficult to argue with success. On the surface, departing from attrition-style

 

warfare appears to be a clear violation of the axiom: "Don't fix it if it isn't broken."

 

However, FMFM 1 assesses the reason this style was successful--the unmatched

 

superiority of the American military--and correctly concludes a new philosophy is

 

required, one not needing such conditions to achieve success on the battlefield.

 

    FMFM 1 mandates the replacement of the traditional philosophy of attrition

 

warfare, based on firepower, with a philosophy of maneuver, based on movement.

 

Strength against weakness replaces strength against strength. The will of the enemy, not

 

his war machine, is the center of gravity against which the maneuver-style commander

 

focuses his main effort. The goal being to shatter the enemy's cohesion, organization,

 

command, and psychological balance rather than his accumulative physical destruction.

 

Victory depends more on military competence than sheer superiority of numbers in men

 

and equipment. This philosophy enables a Marine eppeditionary force to "win quickly,

 

with minimum casualties and limited external support, against a physically superior foe."

 

(17:37)

 

       The maneuver commander possesses a number of characteristics which are

 

different from his attrition-style counterpart. These differences provide the link to why

 

changing warfare philosophies have such an affect on tactical communications. Four of

 

the most distinguishing features of maneuver warfare in this regard are presented in the

 

following paragraphs. From each is derived a corresponding precept for maneuver

 

communications:

 

       Acceptance vice Rejection of Chaos: The management expert of the eighties,

 

Tom Peters, in his preface to Thriving on Chaos, had this comment for the business

 

community:

 

    The true objective is to take chaos as given and learn to thrive on it. The

    winners of tomorrow will deal proactively with chaos, will look at the chaos per

    se as the source of market advantage, not as a problem to be got around. Chaos

    and uncertainty are (will be) market opportunities for the wise; capitalizing on

    fleeting  market  anomalies will be  the  successful business's greatest

    accomplishment. (10:xiv)

 

       Replacing the words "market" with "battlefield" and "business" with "military"

 

makes this observation applicable for the maneuver-style commander. This attitude

 

accepts the battlefield as being inherently unknowable. Perfect knowledge is simply not

 

attainable, no matter how sophisticated the command, control and communications

 

systems. Commanders holding the maneuver philosophy of warfare waste neither time

 

nor resources in useless attempts to "get around" the chaos.

 

       Maneuver-style commanders recognize that continually striving for more

 

communications systems to exchange greater amounts of information about the

 

battlefield is nothing more than a "futile quest for certainty." (4:264) The attrition-style

 

attitude still can be found in orders aimed at standardizing command and control

 

operations throughout Marine Expeditionary Forces. Apparently these publications have

 

not yet been updated to reflect the FMFM 1 philosophy of warfare:

 

    Only through an efficient command and control system will the commander be

    able to acquire and process greater and more accurate amounts of information

    in order to more effectively command...A command and control system must

    assist the commander in reducing the amount of uncertainty on the battlefield

    as to the enemy's activities, capabilities, and intentions, as well as, to accelerate

    his own planning and decision process. (16:5-3)

 

Unlike the philosophy of attrition, which fervently believes "More is Better," the

 

maneuver philosophy of warfare recognizes the existence of, and more importantly the

 

requirement for, an upper limit on the "amount" of tactical communications.

 

       Therefore, the first precept for maneuver communications is "Quality over

 

Quantity." The goal of maneuver communications is not simply to pass more

 

information about the battlefield but to support the exchange of the right information for

 

the commander. What is not yet distinguishable is what constitutes quality and quantity.

 

The remaining precepts will help clarity both points.

 

       Decentralized vice Centraiized Control: Decentralized control is the antithesis of

 

micromanagement. Maneuver commanders achieve this through mission-type orders and

 

conveying operational intent. (15:1-3) Subordinates armed with this information are able

 

to operate virtually autonomously. They can respond quickly to local battlefield changes

 

while still operating under the adequate cohesion and coordination of a common goal.

 

       The communications requirements for decentralized vice centralized control are

 

substantially reduced. Decentralized control employs communications which closely

 

follow the hierarchy of command: senior to immediate subordinate and supporting to

 

supported. Centralized control, on the other hand, tends to disregard such structures in

 

an effort to control all elements from a single location on the battlefield. The British

 

historian John Keegan identified this type of behavior on the grandest scale with Adolph

 

Hitler when he observed:

 

    It may, to the layman, seem impressive that Hitler could dispute with Zeitzler

    exact details of one or another regiment's complement of equipment--so many

    guns of this calibre, so many of that. To the professional such pettifogging is

    evidence of necessarily dangerous meddling. For radio did not bring to the

    Fuhrer's headquarters all the other information of an immaterial but much more

    important kind...which only a man on the spot would gather. (7:301)

 

This greater dependence on positive control directly results in more communications

 

required. In contrast, maneuver communications are considered a means of enhancing

 

operations, not as a requisite for their conduct.

 

       The second precept for maneuver communications becomes "Why over How."

 

This highlights the importance of chain-of-command communications which support the

 

maneuver commander's dissemination of his intent rather than detailed "how-to"

 

directions to subordinates. "Why over How" also highlights the rejection of attrition-style

 

communications which attempt to maintain strict control during the heat of battle. In

 

fact, this precept acknowledges the importance of communications conducted prior to the

 

battle's start.

 

       Implicit vice Explicit Communications: FMFM 1 calls for the exploitation of the

 

human ability to communicate implicitly. Through familiarity and trust, commanders

 

communicate quickly through mutual understanding and anticipation of actions, using

 

minimum phraseology, vice the exchange of explicit, detailed instructions common with

 

attrition-style commanders. (2:72)

 

       Methods of information exchange do not possess the same degree of

 

effectiveness. The "non-worded" elements of human communications, which indudes

 

facial expression and tone of voice, are given substantial importance in FMFM 1. Face-

 

to-face conversation is judged the most desirable form of communications. Radio and

 

telephone systems which support voice communications are next; the advantage being the

 

spoken word carries far more information than its written equivalent and is far quicker.

 

The least desirable means is the emotionally vacant exchange of written messages.

 

(1:188)

 

       Based on this axiom of maneuver warfare, the third precept of maneuver

 

communications is "Voice over Message." Systems supporting implicit communications

 

place high value on capabilities which most closely mirror face-to-face conversations.

 

Desirable features include the ability to exchange human voice at the quality level which

 

allows recognition of the speaker. Unlike attrition-style communications, which are

 

oriented toward exchanging detailed message directives and statistical reports of the

 

battlefield, maneuver communications concentrate on supporting implicit voice

 

conversations between commanders.

 

       Speed vice Plodding: Boxing experts claim the three most important attributes of

 

fighters are "speed, speed, and speed." The same belief is held by the maneuver warrior

 

as it relates to his philosophy of war. Speed is the prerequisite for maneuver. Success

 

on the battlefield requires the maneuver commander "to operate inside the enemy's

 

observation-orientation-decision-action loop, rendering his forces ineffective and

 

eventually disrupting the enemy commander's world view, causing the collapse of the

 

enemy forces." (9:26)

 

       In the plodding environment of attrition warfare, high capacity communications

 

networks requiring hours or even days to employ are acceptable. Some fixed

 

communications systems used during the Vietnam War required several months to

 

establish. (14:155) Admittedly such systems, once installed, possess a type of speed

 

associated with moving information at high velocities. However, these systems are

 

completely unsuitable for the dynamic environment of maneuver warfare.

 

       Maneuver communications enhance the operating speed for the commander by

 

increasing system availability. This characteristic provides a comparison of the "on-line"

 

or operating time of a system with the "off-line" or overhead time required for planning,

 

installing, troubleshooting, and repairing. For maneuver communications systems, the

 

primary goal is not to send more information at faster velocities but to enhance the

 

operating tempo of the commander by being available when needed, regardless of the

 

battlefield situation.

 

       A suitable analogy for attrition communications is a train which, having such

 

great inertia, is both slow to start and difficult to change directions. In contrast,

 

maneuver communications is more like a slalom sports car which, being both light and

 

maneuverable, can rapidly adapt to both destination and environmental changes.

 

       The final precept for maneuver communications is "Availability over Velocity."

 

The fluid nature of the maneuver battlefield demands communications systems which are

 

quick to employ, easy to use, and highly reliable. The accepted tradeoff is that such

 

systems may not possess the highest velocity of information exchange. Since

 

conversational voice communications is the dominant media of maneuver warfare, the