ENHANCING BATTLE COMMAND WITH THE TOOLS OF THE 21st CENTURY: Combat Training

ENHANCING BATTLE COMMAND WITH THE TOOLS
OF THE 21st CENTURY
Functional Requirements of Force XXI Digitized Battle Command

by LTC William G. Webster, United States Army War College

Introduction

The Force XXI process, as outlined by the Chief of Staff of the Army, is designed to ensure that we are adequately prepared to accomplish any and all missions our nation gives us during the next century. General Sullivan has provided a vision and a process for the "reconceptualization and redesign of the force at all echelons, from the foxhole to the industrial base, to meet the needs of a volatile and ever changing world. It will be a force organized around information and information technologies."1However, we are not just talking about reorganizing for the sake of change; we must be sure that we place the most helpful technology available in the hands of our soldiers before we send them off to tackle tomorrow's missions. In particular, we must enhance battle command with the tools available from technology. At the same time, we must select technology that allows us to upgrade and improve our operations as this fast-paced world continues to improve the tools. Technology can remove some of the burdens from our soldiers and leaders, to the extent that we can afford it. It can liberate commanders to exercise more hands-on leadership and decisionmaking. In short, we must "reassess the time-honored means of battle command - to recognize that in the future, military operations will involve the coexistence of both hierarchical and internetted, non-hierarchical processes."2We can use Information-Age technology to enhance battle command functions, but the systems we select must be no more difficult to use, and no less reliable, than the Industrial-Age tools we use now. This paper highlights observations of digitized battle command and offers suggestions for improvement.

What Do We Know Now?

The Army has embarked upon a new way of preparing for the future, called Advanced Warfighting Experiment (AWE). The purpose of an AWE is to begin to find new and innovative ways of using the new, Information-Age equipment that is being fielded across the Army. This new, or as some call it "digitized" equipment has the potential to greatly improve lethality, tempo, survivability, and battle command. As head of the NTC's Army task Force Training Team, I had the opportunity to observe and train units employing much of this new Information-Age technology at the NTC. My experience at the NTC and the ensuing months of thought and discussion have provided what I believe are some critical observations of the emerging digitized battlefield for Force XXI combat developers.

We should focus our digitized battle command efforts by working to automate those functions that best lend themselves to automation, and leave those battle command functions best performed by humans to commanders. Computers perform certain functions very well, such as computations and keeping track of things. Trained, experienced commanders do other things very well, like making decisions and leading soldiers. We must ensure that the digitized tools we buy help commanders exercise battle command by easily keeping track of things and displaying them when needed in a user-friendly manner. We must also ensure that the tools we buy make it easier for the commander to make informed decisions, communicate them to his subordinates, and carry them out The concept of digitized battle command is a good one, but some of the equipment we are trying to use is not. Some of the digitized equipment does not yet make it sufficiently easy for soldiers to get the information they need. It has been repeatedly proven that soldiers readily adopt what is easiest for them in difficult situations. Sometimes soldiers revert to manual, Industrial-Age methods; sometimes they capitalize on digital, Information-Age methods that served them better. Their choice was clearly based on what systems were easier to use, and what methods were most reliable. Our use of Information-Age technology must fully support the art of battle command in full-dimensional operations as outlined in TRADOC Pam 525-5. We cannot afford to let the new technology add anything to the soldier's or commander's workload, which is already extensive.

What Battle Command Means

Battle command is the "art of battle decisionmaking, leading, and motivating soldiers and their organizations into action to accomplish missions. [It] includes visualizing [the] current and future state, then formulating concepts of operations to get from one to the other at the least cost."3For commanders to visualize the current and future state, and then make the right decisions in battle, they must practice something called seeing the battlefield. That is, they must continually see the enemy, see the terrain, see themselves, and understand the relationship of the three. Upon that basis, they then make effective decisions and supervise their execution. This sounds deceptively simple, Just as it was described by Sun Tzu in 400 BC: "Know the enemy, know yourself; your victory will never be endangered. Know the ground, know the weather; your victory will then be total."4However, executing battle command is an extremely complex and difficult task. As the Army's keystone doctrinal manual, FM 100-5, states, leaders "must assimilate thousands of bits of information to visualize the battlefield, assess the situation, and direct the military action required to achieve victory. Thinking and acting are simultaneous activities for leaders in battle. Visualizing the battlefield is a continuing requirement for commanders." 5

Battle command is really the art of command, based on intuition that comes from years of practice, experience, and study. It means seeing, or visualizing, the current state of both friendly and enemy forces; seeing and feeling the terrain of the battle space with all its nuances; and visualizing how the three will interact as a result of key decisions. Then soldiers must be led and motivated to accomplish the commander's intent. Machines are highly suited for the task of seeing and keeping track of friendly forces, the enemy, and the terrain. Machines can also help the commander see the interrelationship of the three through automated wargaming and rehearsals. This liberates the commander to concentrate on making decisions and leading and motivating soldiers. Machines should be used to complement the commander's intuition and free him up to practice the art of battle command, but it will assist only if the machines actually simplify the commander's job.

Battle Command at the NTC

From my observations at the NTC, and from the observations of many other senior observer/controllers (O/Cs), commanders of task forces and brigades frequently have great difficulty exercising effective battle command. They have difficulty gaining and maintaining situational awareness--seeing the enemy, seeing the terrain, and seeing themselves. Commanders and staffs rely upon the time-tested methods of the Industrial Age--written and oral reports, radio and telephone communications, key subordinates, and personal observations. All these methods are vulnerable to the fog of war and the friction of the battlefield. They present the commander and his staff with problems--sometimes critical problems--of timeliness and accuracy. Reports are incorrect, misinterpreted, or lost. The commander also faces the age-old dilemma of how to divide his time between personal contact with subordinates and personal participation in his own, and his boss', planning and preparation processes. Moreover, what he is able to sense from personal observations is limited (or enhanced) by his own experiences and intuition. Much personal and unit energy is normally expended by the average outfit in gaining and maintaining essential situational awareness.

For example, commanders have great difficulty sensing where the enemy is, and what his condition and intentions are, using current methods. Again, they must rely on written and oral reports, with all their imperfections, and limited radio and telephone communications, to augment their own observations and intuition. Their key subordinates, such as scouts or the S3 at another location, are limited by what they can see, assisted by the relatively limited 20th-century technology available. The young, usually inexperienced task force S2 and his two- or three-man section work themselves into the ground trying to gain enemy situational awareness. Failure to conduct thorough, focused reconnaissance and surveillance is normally the first weakness. But intelligence staffs are also hamstrung by communications based on weak, inadequate radios, and observation of the enemy based on little more than binoculars in the hands of the scouts. They are also hampered by inadequate personnel to compile the proper reports in the middle of the night and ask the key incisive questions about a fleeting enemy. Thus the commander frequently goes into battle with a poor picture, at best, of the enemy, his situation, and intentions.

Commanders also frequently have a very poor understanding of the terrain on which they will have to fight They are not able to adequately see the key and decisive terrain beyond the most obvious features on the battlefield. Maps assist to some extent but are often limited by an inadequate contour interval and the age and accuracy of the data. Even when personal reconnaissance and subordinate reports are able to fill in the missing information, commanders have an extremely hard time sharing that critical information with their subordinates. Often, critical terrain information from reconnaissance is gathered too late in the preparation process to affect the outcome of the fight. Commanders frequently issue initial planning guidance at a command post and then stay there to assist with planning and preparations, only to become bogged down in situational awareness problems. Then, when they are able, they depart late in the process to conduct personal reconnaissance, only to find that the ground looks significantly different than it did on the map. Fields of fire shrink; fighting positions become untenable. Commanders and staffs may then be left with the right plan for the wrong terrain, relying on hope as the only remaining method for victory.

Additionally, they have difficulty seeing themselves, or gaining timely, accurate awareness of where their units are, their condition and status, and their ability to accomplish given missions. The commander must know where his subordinates are and what they are doing; and he must know what their logistics and maintenance status are, as well as what they are projected to be by the time he has to join the fight with them. Command posts and their staffs frequently struggle to maintain the current readiness status of subordinate units using monotonous periodic reports sent by FM radio or delivered by hand. Timeliness of reports often comes to be regarded as more important than the quality of the information therein, and commanders, therefore, continue to plan with sometimes useless data. The frequent result is a plan that becomes nearly unexecutable because unit status (e.g., number of operational combat vehicles, number of antitank mines on hand, status of TOW missile rounds, etc.) is different at execution time than it was when the planning occurred.

Finally, commanders and their staffs demonstrate great difficulty in visualizing the interrelationship of the enemy, the terrain,and themselves, even if they have a decent picture of the three individually. The main obstacles to the visualization process can normally be grouped under the headings of: commander's limitations, distractors and unprepared staffs. The visualization process is normally conducted through some form of wargaming. Sometimes commanders suffer from inadequate training, education, experience, or intuition. They are not sure what to do, and they have an insufficient intuitive base from which to visualize the battle. By the same token, lack of time and focus also hamper the process of wargaming as staffs and commanders encounter many distractors. Some of these distractors come from meetings and planning sessions with others. Other distractors include the very process of trying to determine ground-truth situational awareness--trying to see the enemy, see the terrain, and see themselves-- that takes so much personal and unit energy. Finally, when commanders and staffs are able to devote adequate time and energy to the process, they frequently lack the tools necessary to visualize the battle. Staffs also often lack the necessary training and experience to intuitively know what to do.

The Digitized Battle Command Systems

At the NTC we recognized the power of the digitized battle command concept when observing a number of Information-Age tools used to facilitate enhanced battle command. The primary digitized battle command systems were the M1A2 Abrams tank with the Inter-Vehicular Information System (IVIS) and the Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV); the M2A2 Bradley fighting vehicle with the lVIS digital communications system and laser range finder; and the Paladin howitzer system. Additional systems included the digitized dismounted soldier, the Bradley Stinger vehicle with the Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAADC2) system, the Lightweight Computer Unit (LCU) with Brigade and Below Command and Control (B2C2) software, the Battle Command Vehicle (BCV), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Enhanced Mortar Fire Control Systems (EMFCSs), Enhanced Position Location Reporting System (EPLRS), the All-Source Analysis System (ASAS), and Telemedicine. These systems provided the task force commander with both capabilities and limitations that the conventionally-equipped commanders did not possess.

The Digitized Difference

Anyone who has witnessed units using the new Information-Age technology truly has seen a glimpse of the future. Technology, if focused on doing the right tasks reliably and easily, can truly enhance the commander's ability to exercise battle command. Information-Age technology has significant added value capability, with the ability to improve the lethality and survivability of the brigade and battalion task forces. Of the technology that has been tested, there are some real winners and some potential winners. There are also some systems that do not make any difference at all except to increase some leaders' workloads. AWEs have allowed us to see the potential difference that Information-Age technology can make on the battlefield, but that potential has not yet been fully realized. Unit performance suffers from the same problems, in varying degrees, of trying to see the enemy, see the terrain, see themselves, and visualize the relationship among the three. As a result, unit performance has not significantly changed from that of nondigitized units.

One of the reasons performance has not improved dramatically is that we have not equipped the troops with a fully integrated, commander-oriented system. In other words, all the digital systems available to a task force commander are not fully integrated with each other so that they could share necessary information, and they were not focused on assisting the commander in his difficult tasks. The commander's ability to synchronize with technological support is limited because many of the systems lack a seamless interface with other systems. For example, some digitized combat systems do not communicate with other systems at all, or critical information is lost in the transmission process. Since not all of the elements in the typical brigade or battalion task force will have digitized equipment, or some elements may be equipped with slightly different digital devices, the task force staff has to do three times the normal work to distribute orders. They have to make two different kinds of digital overlays and also make the traditional acetate overlays to ensure that everyone receives usable copies. This is an example of how some of the systems available do not reduce the workload of the soldier or enhance battle command. The technology is available now to make improvements.

Certain areas of the planning and preparation process that show the most promise for automation must be pursued in the future, leaving the battle command functions best performed by the commander for him personally to perform. Commanders and staffs must be freed from the energy- and time-consuming activities that do not really require their personal touch. Many of the automated systems tested were not quite adequate, and did not integrate information horizontally and vertically for the commander to liberate him to practice the art of command.

Seeing the Enemy Must Be Easier

Soldiers must find the digital method of gaining effective situational awareness easier than conventional means or they will not be inclined to use or trust the digital method. IVIS assists the vehicle commander with situational awareness and the ability to command and control through a small orange and black digital screen and keyboard. The commander is also able to see enemy vehicles that have been identified through the process of lasing and designation. He can send a number of reports, including a fire request, directly to the Paladin guns at the stroke of a key, delivering accurate indirect fires faster than ever before. But the limitations are many, and, in some cases, make it more difficult to gain and maintain situational awareness than using manual means.

Current log-on procedures are directed from the top down and require several fixed steps to be followed. These procedures take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete, and tie up the FM command net during the entire process. Even then a TF commander will rarely have all of his subordinates operating at the end of the log-on procedures. He has to be satisfied with having only maneuver company team commanders, his TOC, and S4. Vehicles frequently "drop out of the net," or become inactive digitally and are no longer logged on during operations. Other commanders cannot tell whether these vehicles are reporting current locations and receiving digital traffic or not. There are currently other problems with the gateway interface between IVIS and the other digital Battlefield Operating Systems. The interface is not yet seamless, and there are difficulties in passing data between systems. Because IVIS and other systems do not all use the same software programs or speak the same language, there is a seam at the interface, where data is lost or caught in a bottleneck. Lightweight Computer Units (LCUs) with Brigade and Below Command and Control (B2C2) software share some limited information with IVIS, but the ASAS intelligence system, which provides so much valuable access to information, is not compatible with IVIS. ASAS intelligence imagery and reports cannot be sent to the commander in his IVIS tank, or to LCU- equipped scouts and others.

ASAS provides the ability to access national intelligence products from the TOC on the battlefield, but the S2 is left with manual methods of providing this information to the task force. We must provide the ability to integrate and export various products from ASAS to the combat vehicles on the ground and remove the manual labor from the process. All other systems must be connected in a seamless fashion also. Laser designator and phototelesis systems forward must have the ability to send enemy locations to all others in the task force digitally, just like IVIS-equipped tanks can do now. Equally important, eye-safe lasers must be provided for all lasing systems. Later model M1A2 tanks will have eye-safe lasers, but virtually no other lasing system on the battlefield, to include the first 200 M1A2s, will have an effective eye-safe laser capability. This is extremely detrimental since soldiers cannot train to the full capability of their systems in force-on-force operations without potentially blinding their opponents. This capability will also be extremely important in operations other than war, where we will need to use the laser range finders to safely designate many objects that will not be actual enemy.

Scouts, air defenders, forward observers and fire support teams, attack helicopter pilots and aeroscouts, engineers and chemical reconnaissance elements must all be able to provide digital enemy information they gain to the soldiers of the force. Air defenders, using the FAADC2 system, can see enemy and friendly air tracks beyond 40 kilometers, but they cannot share this information digitally and with the task force except by typing out a report on their keypads.

Seeing the Terrain Must Be Easier

In addition to the problems with seeing the enemy and seeing friendly forces, the IVIS commander has problems with seeing the terrain. The IVIS screen is a small flat screen with a grid overlay, but with no terrain relief displayed. The system is superb for navigation in straight lines between points but does not help the commander as much as it could with terrain appreciation. It does not help the commander decide the best covered and concealed route to take to his next position. Some of the non-IVIS systems have actual map data as background to assist with situational awareness and planning.

We must put digital map data from Defense Mapping Agency into whatever battle command support systems we use. IVIS must allow the commander to see terrain better from his vehicle. It should also provide for line-of-sight intervisibility analysis of the map data base quickly and easily. Such analysis is extremely time-consuming when done manually, a disadvantage that can potentially make the difference between life or death.

Seeing Ourselves Must be Easier

How do conventionally-equipped units gain friendly situational awareness? The soldier either sees friendly elements visually from his turret, or he looks up call signs and frequencies in his SOI, tunes his radio, calls other elements, asks them their locations and posts them on a map overlay. With IVIS, however, the commander is able to see friendly elements operating in his area as they appear as on his screen as icons. Their positions are updated automatically by using a gyro-based internal navigation device called POSNAV (vice a global positioning system using satellites). Theoretically, the vehicle commander should have significantly improved situational awareness. However, the task force commander sees only friendly IVIS-equipped vehicles in his area, and then only if they are operating on his FM radio or EPLRS net, and only if they are currently logged in as one of the 17 addressees that IVIS protocols currently recognize. The commander does not see vehicles without IVIS, and he can see only a maximum of 27 vehicles on the largest, most complete IVIS matrix, the TF command net. Additionally, IVIS POSNAV data had a significant error rate over distance, requiring commanders to reinitialize POSNAV systems frequently from GPS receivers, sometimes as often as every 3,000 meters of travel. This meant that positions of friendly vehicles in IVIS might be reported inaccurately, further skewing situational awareness.

Because of current limitations in IVIS, therefore, tank commanders gain only partial situational awareness. Since the commander can see only the limited addressees on his own net, he cannot see his scout vehicles, adjacent or higher units operating in or near his area, any of his CSS elements, or the platoon leaders and their wingmen operating in his own companies. IVIS commanders gain only partial situational awareness, and they have severe limitations in gaining additional situational awareness. They cannot switch nets and see where additional elements are without going through new log-on procedures on the new net, and then doing the same when they return to their own frequencies. Additional problems occur with units that use non-IVIS digital equipment. These items of equipment do not provide updates of their locations and they do not appear on IVIS or other screens.

Another problem with friendly situational awareness and seeing ourselves concerns situation reports and status updates. The M1A2 tank automatically keeps track of its own ammunition status and fuel status. It also has the ability to conduct maintenance self-tests and display for the tank commander any faults with the vehicle. The current IVIS protocol calls for the vehicle commander to send a preformatted report of personnel, fuel, ammunition, and maintenance operational status. However, the information cannot be automatically aggregated at higher echelons as reports are sent up the line. Therefore, although each tank commander digitally sees his own status, we are not using the computer to keep track of all the vehicles together. We could easily use technology to compile and automatically report unit aggregate status. The soldier should not have to intervene.

There are several steps we must take to make situational awareness easier to gain and maintain, and to help commanders and staffs better see themselves, the terrain, and the enemy. The technology is available now to take many more burdens off the soldiers and commanders in the field and improve battle command. We can get automation to perform many of the mundane tasks which presently use up so much unit and personal energy.

Perhaps most important, we have to give our soldiers a more complete picture of our friendly location and situation. Soldiers should not have to go through long log-on procedures to see only part of the picture. We have the ability for all vehicles to automatically appear on every friendly screen when the vehicles' master power switches are turned on. We can use automation to allow soldiers to selectively turn various elements in the sector off or on. But presently, soldiers cannot tell if the vehicles to their flanks are friendly or enemy if they are not logged-on to their system on the correct frequency. In addition, the current rigid matrix system does not support hasty task-organization changes. For instance, there is no address for more than one engineer commander or one ADA commander, and there is no room for their XOs on the nets. Soldiers must be able to see all vehicles in their own units, in all units working in their area, and in adjacent units as well. Otherwise we will not see much improvement in the fratricide problem. Our units require some secure universal position reporting and update system.

We must also include in this system an easy way to make friendly obstacles appear on soldiers' screens as they are emplaced. Engineers could employ a digital sending device for locations of manually emplaced obstacles. But, equally important, artillery-delivered minefields should appear on screens when they are fired and emplaced. If we can cheaply insert GPS into an artillery fuse, we can do this, too. The vehicle system should emit an audible tone when approaching a minefield or other obstacle.

We can use emerging technology to help soldiers see the enemy and synchronize the effects of combat systems against that enemy. We must establish a building code for the battle command support system and require all automation systems to meet the standards of the code. In other words, if a system is not completely compatible with all other digital equipment, it would not be acceptable. This will ensure seamless connectivity between different types of systems so that enemy and friendly information can be shared without loss of data.

Technology Can Help the Commander Visualize and Decide

Planning, preparation and synchronization during execution can also be made easier with digitization. Again, however, if it is not easier to plan digitally than it is to plan manually, soldiers will not use what we give them. We must look at the tasks that staffs and commanders perform as they prepare for and execute the fight to see where automation can help. For instance, because the IVIS system was not compatible with the LCUs and their B2C2 software, staffs had to produce three different kinds of overlays for each plan or FRAGO. And because the overlays cannot be transferred to or from the IVIS screen, overlays had to be built manually using IVIS as well as acetate. The battle command support system must be at least as easy to use as acetate and a map are now. The screen should have a light pen so soldiers can quickly transfer overlays from acetate to the digital system, and should be large enough to allow overlays to be copied from the screen to acetate, at the appropriate scale. The digitized battle command system must be capable of multiple map scales with proportionately sized symbols. The IVIS system uses scales of 1:25,000,1:50,000 and 1:100,000. However, since the current-size graphic symbols do not adjust according to the scale of the IVIS grid, they take up an inappropriate amount of space on the screen. This has to be corrected.

More importantly, many of the graphic symbols in the IVIS database are not doctrinally correct This is unacceptable, given the importance of precise terminology and graphics in understanding the commander's intent. Any battle command support system we use must have doctrinally correct graphics and symbols, and must be completely compatible with all other nodes in the system. There are too many opportunities for disaster from misunderstanding concept and intent. At the same time, we should have the capability to pull down standard fill-in-the-blank orders and reports that can be adapted by forces on the ground and used easily. There are no OPORD formats on IVIS now and free text messages are limited to about five lines--insufficient for most concepts or intents. In addition, the keypad is small and very limited, making message input much like using a touch-tone phone for a keypad.

Another limitation is that voice and digital traffic operate on the same net using the same radios. Voice traffic has priority, causing backlogs of digital data and lost information. This places additional training requirements on the units, and requires precise procedures and strict net discipline. It instills doubt during operations about whether critical digital reports were received, since acknowledgments are not sent for all reports. The digital system must rely on some separate, universal communications means that does not compete with voice traffic. The storage capacity of the computer must be sufficient to allow for normal task force operations. Right now messages and overlays are lost because storage is too limited for the normal working volume. Most stations can store much less than 10 messages. Leaders should also get cues that tell them when messages have been received by all addressees, as well as when messages have been read. Otherwise, they spend Industrial-Age energy trying to determine whether the right guy received the right information and whether he is acting on it.

Helping Commanders Do What Commanders Do Best

Finally, the screen should be portable. It should function for the soldier just as his map functions for him now. That is, he should be able to move it around in the vehicle where it suits his purpose, and he should be able to fold and unfold it digitally. By that I mean he should be able to scroll from one part of the terrain with operational graphics to another. And he should be able to dismount with his digital map (screen) and conduct reconnaissance, or participate in a rehearsal, or explain his intent to other soldiers. If it is technically too hard to make the screen portable, then a small, high-quality printer is necessary. With a printer, the leader could print out a copy of his screen and dismount it to conduct reconnaissance or to brief other soldiers.

Conclusion

Force XXI technology can and must assist commanders and their subordinates with battle command by doing what machines do best, and by doing those things automatically, without requiring soldiers to do extra work to manipulate data. Automated data processing systems can be used to keep track of things, eliminating tasks for leaders that waste time and attention, allowing commanders more time with soldiers to lead, decide and supervise execution. But the digitized battle command support system must be no more difficult to use, and no less reliable, than the Industrial-Age systems we use now, or soldiers will not be inclined to use them. Moreover, the system must be fully compatible with all other systems on the battlefield, sharing information in a seamless manner with no loss of data. Finally, the digitized system must help the commander see the enemy, see the terrain, and see friendly units in an automated manner, providing the ability to assist with wargaming and visualization.

Recommendations



1.
 Adopt a digitized battle command system that:



   a. does not compete or interfere with voice traffic;

   b. automatically updates locations and status of vehicles and

personnel,
and keeps track of them, without log-on procedures; 

   c. stores all message traffic necessary at the brigade level

and
notifies soldiers when they have received new messages to

read,
even if they have been off their vehicles;

   d. sends acknowledgment when messages have been received and

another
acknowledgment when the messages have been read; and

   e. automatically relays for every other node in the system to

improve
range.



2.
 Require all new automated and digital systems to be

completely
compatible with all previous digital systems without

loss
of data, and to be secure from unwanted monitoring.



3.
 Adopt a system that:

   a. is user-friendly with prompts, using a windows-type

format;
and

   b. offers a choice of all doctrinally correct graphics and

adaptable
fill-in-the-blank OPORDS and  reports.



4.
 Require any new digitized battle command system to integrate

information
horizontally and vertically across all Battlefield

Operating
Systems without soldiers having to convert or 

manipulate
data. It must accept all intelligence data from ASAS

and
other intelligence systems so the leader can share with his

soldiers.
It must allow analysts to easily convert national

intelligence
to digital enemy templates on the system.



5.
 Require all laser range finders and laser designators to be

eye-safe
and to send enemy location data digitally.   



6.
 Adopt a system that includes:



   a. Defense Mapping Agency and overhead technical data about

terrain
relief and builtup areas;

   b. hasty intervisibility analysis capability on the screen;

and

    c. a navigation and location system as accurate and

consistent
as GPS-supported systems.



7.
 Ensure the system can be added to existing vehicles across

the
force through applique techniques with no loss of capability.

Ensure
it is fully compatible with dismounted and light Infantry

requirements.



8.
 Adopt a system that:



   a. allows soldiers to input obstacle locations easily;

   b. accepts firing and impact data from rounds that are

emplaced
by indirect firing systems, to include all aircraft from

all
four services; and

   c. accepts chemical alarm data, showing location and

automatically
sending chemical defense warning messages to all

stations
in the vicinity, sounding a system alarm when chemicals

are
detected, and showing a location.



9.
 Adopt a system with a removable, portable screen that:



   a. soldiers can use at night without giving away their

position,
and use during intense sunlight easily;

   b. allows soldiers to dismount and scroll digitally to

various
parts of the map and battlefield;

   c. has a light pen to quickly and easily accept graphics

information
from nondigital items such as acetate or maps; and

   d. uses symbols that adjust to the map scale, with at least

three
variations of 1:25,000,1:50,000 and 1:100,000.



10.
Adopt a digitized battle command system that incorporates

standard
Army wargaming software that is user-friendly, accepting

input
to fit the local conditions of METT-T, and with the ability

to
upgrade software as new Army wargaming versions are available.

DISCLAIMER: This article has been edited to remove any reference to specific units. CALL and the Combat Training Centers have stringent "non-attribution" policies and will not publish any individual- or unit-specific information.

NOTES



1.
 Gordon R. Sullivan, Force XXI America's Army of the 21st Century (Fort Monroe,
VA: Office, 

Chief
of Staff of the Army, Director, Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force, 15 January
1995), p. 1.

Back



2.
 Headquarters, U. S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC
Pamphlet 525-5,  

Force
XXI Operations--A Concept for the Evolution of Full-Dimensional Operations
for the

Strategic
Army of the EARLY Twenty-First Century(Fort
Monroe, VA: 1 August 1994) p. 1-5. Back



3.
 Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field
Manual 100-5, Operations

(Washington,
DC: 14 June 1993), p. G-1. Back



4.
 Samuel B. Griffith,
Sun Tzu. The Art of War
(London:  Oxford University Press, 1971),

p.
129.  For further discussion of this subject, see also p. 84 and Chapter X.
Back



5.
 Field Manual 100-5, pp. 2-14. Back