The FCS-based force in future battle.

The future is not as far away as we might think. During a recent experiment conducted at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, soldiers, combat and concept developers, "Graybeards" and contractors caught a glimpse of future warfare.

This article walks through the operational insights gained during the FY01 future combat systems (FCS) experiment conducted by the Depth and Simultaneous Attack (D&SA) Battle Lab in support of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Independent Design, Experimentation, Analysis and Studies (IDEAS) supporting FCS.

Two stage-setting thoughts are worthy of note. First, at the time of this experiment's conception, the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) had not conducted experiments designed exclusively to examine warfighting with an FCS-based force. While this condition existed in the "Warfighting Requirements" community, there were four industry teams under contract to deliver concepts for the FCS system-of-systems to DARPA in December 2001.

Secondly, at the time of the experiment, the TRADOC community was still in the midst of writing organizational and operational (O&O) concepts for the FCS. This fact essentially dictated the scope of the D&SA Battle Lab's proposal to DARPA. The proposal was purposely broad with execution aimed at delivering insights that could inform the FCS concept evaluation and development process. Although insights do not readily translate into requirements, they do give an indication of the realm of possibilities.

Background. The Objective Force O&O describes units of action (U/As) as brigade-like and battalion-like war-fighting organizations. The U/A brigade will integrate combinations of FCS-based and non-FCS-based organizations and capabilities.

The principal fighting force of the U/A brigade will be the FCS combined arms combat battalion. The U/A brigade will employ four to six FCS combat battalions, which in turn will employ four to six subordinate combined arms companies (also referred to as teams of teams).

A fires battalion from a unit of employment (division or corps) will support U/A brigade operations. The fires battalion will consist of both FCS-based and non-FCS-based cannon, rocket and missile capabilities.

During the experiment, D&SA Battle Lab manned four FCS combat battalion cells; one was more robust with a six-man command and control cell. This "main effort" battalion controlled four subordinate company cells, each manned by two personnel. A five-person U/A brigade cell guided the tactical operations of the combat battalions and fires battalion.

The Objective Force networked fires environment was designed and validated with this experiment. It was established as a test-bed for examining the integration of Objective Force command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ([C.sup.4]ISR). (See Figure 1.)

The networked fires environment was stimulated by the FiresSim XXI distributed interactive simulation (DIS), which was enhanced to include replication and display of maneuver operations, and the multiple UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] simulation environment (MUSE).

Experiment Design. The experiment was one week of training and two weeks of battle runs. In training, player staffs were exposed to information about the Objective Force, the operational environment and the hypothetical "Road to War." They also were introduced to a new computer system that emulated Objective Force command, control, communications, computers and intelligence ([C.sup.4]I) and the networked fires environment they would operate in.

Training was followed by a one-day rock drill for execution-focused battle planning and then six battle runs that placed great demands on the staffs' professional and newly found skills. Through the battle runs, players were observed and surveyed as they performed the critical functions required of them.

Participants and contributors came from various Army agencies and research organizations to ensure the experiment remained non-parochial while retaining the ability to be informative to both the Army materiel developers and TRADOC combat developers. Senior consultants who served as the U/A brigade commander and the Red Force (REDFOR) commander were maneuver subject matter experts current in Army Transformation processes.

The TRADOC Analysis Command (TRAC) from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, sent two observers to gain insights on how to model networked fires and effects in simulations. In its pre-analysis of Objective Force capabilities, TRAC recognizes that some network application of automated fires and effects will be essential to the FCS-based force and must be further defined and analyzed. The Army Research Lab (ARL), headquartered in Adelphi, Maryland, supported the experiment with human engineering and behavioral research personnel. Military personnel (Army and Air Force) and government contractors were the player/controllers.

Finally, the Office of the TRADOC Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (DCSINT) provided the threat data (force structure and capabilities) that were simulated in this experiment. It was the first constructive experiment in which a future threat used an "adaptive defense"--a threat outlined in TRADOC Objective Force seminars.

The Battle Command Battle Lab at Fort Gordon, Georgia, linked the Dismounted Maneuver Battlespace Battle Lab at Fort Benning, Georgia, to Fort Sill's Battle Lab and successfully extended the networked fires environment. The Force Projection Battle Lab Support Element from Fort Eustis, Virginia, sent an observer to examine the force design used and provide a deployability comparison and assessment.

Road to War. The year is 2015. Objective US forces as part of a larger US and coalition force are deployed to support the defense of Azerbaijan. The Objective Force mission is to conduct offensive operations to repel Armenian forces that occupy the country.

The four FCS-based combat battalions of the U/A and its supporting fires battalion are strategically positioned along the exposed southern flank of the Armenian force. From there, the U/A brigade rapidly conducts offensive operations northward to secure a strategic airstrip at Agdam to be used to support the flow of follow-on forces. These additional forces will continue operations to force Armenian forces from Azerbaijan.

During the experiment, a total of six battle runs were performed. Battle Runs 5 and 5.1 comprised continuous operations over two days and yielded the most complete data for analysis. Other "targets of opportunity" in the first four battle runs included gaining insights about networked fires and effects; examining how battle staffs can exploit a robust situational awareness (SA) picture to achieve a higher level of understanding of the enemy and examining two tactical concepts for the employment of FS-based capabilities.

Insights. By the start of Battle Run 5, player/controller staffs had achieved their highest levels of competence and cohesion. A more cohesive battle staff effort across the board allowed the D&SA Battle Lab to gain the insights needed to meet experiment objectives.

Making Fires Automatic. The experiment showed that having fully automatic fires and effects is a very complex proposition. On the one hand, the force may be able to achieve maximum efficiency in processing fire missions, but on the other, the delivery of fires may not be as effective as the commander needs to achieve his intent or properly influence the battle.

Networked solutions may achieve their greatest effectiveness with semi-automatic solutions. Some parts may need to be fully automatic while others may need to be semi-automatic, having man-in-the-loop intervention and management.

The U/A brigade network and combat battalions networks both have sub-networks that compete for the right effects in the right amount and proportion all the time. The fires battalion from the unit of employment also brings its own network that must be seamlessly plugged in to answer the U/A brigade's demands for reach-back and shared lethal effects.

In this experiment when fires were fully automatic, several issues arose. First, commanders did not like seeing their assets delivering fires and, possibly, putting at risk their own capability to deliver fires later in the operation. Second, commanders unexpectedly received accurate enemy counterfire, which immediately affected their plans. Last, commanders did not like being unable to stop the network from selecting their units to fire in mutual support of peer units.

Our first look at networked fires in experimentation showed it is an important component of network-centric and commander-centric operations. However, its components, conditions and rules of employment need further definition and validation.

Automating Targeting. In our experiment, all targets were always militarily significant, and therefore, battle staffs and organizations did not have to deal with noncombatants, urban areas and other non-military targets. We acknowledge that this was not representative of the complex operational and threat environments in which an Objective Force may find itself.

However, this was a deliberate and acceptable condition set in the experiment to allow the Battle Lab to gain insights about a level of targeting and engagements "approaching near perfection." This capability is implied in emerging O&O concepts and requirements.

"Near perfection" means that targeting is on "automatic," causing battle staffs to rely on smart sensors directly linked to smart computers that quickly adjudicate the location, identity and nomination of targets. Anything less implies man-in-the-loop intervention, delays and reduced operations tempo (OPTEMPO).

This experiment demonstrated that automated targeting should be combined with both automatic and non-automatic engagements. Why? Because we observed that network solutions to non-line-of sight (NLOS) fires may be efficient (reduce the response time), but not necessarily effective.

The degradations to the "effectiveness" span many aspects of the overall engagements. They included compromising a plan, putting friendly units at risk, failing to deliver the right effects on the enemy and, even, instilling high anxiety in the battle staffs who suddenly feel they've lost control of their organic assets.

Ultimately, the true measure of how effectively fires and effects are employed is whether or not the commander's intent is achieved--including whether or not he is able to influence the battle when and where he needs to do so.

Swarming UAVs. Player/controllers unanimously recorded that the sensors being envisioned for the Objective Force provide excellent and necessary capabilities. The benefits are improved reconnaissance and surveillance at greater distances and without contact. (See Figure 2.) However, the FCS-based force had to learn how to work with these capabilities.

A 50 percent SA-intelligence picture of the REDFOR was provided to the U/A brigade and its subordinate battalions at the start of the experiment. This level of SA yielded a need for the force to further develop the situation out of contact, so the experimental force launched its UAVs.

The first actions taken by the FCS-based force were to launch all or almost all of its UAVs at, essentially, the same time. [C.sup.4]I screens immediately began displaying more of the enemy across the entire front. The numbers of acquisitions grew to hundreds and thousands, and the information processed from the sensors competed with target nominations, fire missions and other automated information exchanges by the player cells. The result was inevitable: information overload and network stoppages.

Later, the battle staffs improvised, and rather than swarm the UAVs at one time, deferred to the longer range and more capable UAVs for as long as they could before employing shorter range UAVs. This tactic had the impact of improving survivability and future operational potential. Fewer UAVs being displayed in the staff's [C.sup.4]I screens also gave battle staffs a greater sense of control.

Decision Making with Complete Information. All the battle staffs were challenged to make sense of the information being provided by their sensors. In the six-man FCS combat battalion staff, the "Threat/Operations Officer" was responsible for providing threat assessments based on the common operating picture. No such staff member existed in the others units. In the end, the staffs relied on the literal display of threat forces as they were acquired to decide what actions to take and how to proceed.

We observed that even at the company level, there may be a need for pattern recognition. But who is responsible for this? Should the combat battalion provide it based on being able to see the same tactical pictures on its computer screens that all the subordinate companies see and having a larger staff to work with? This experiment suggests that the burden may reside with the battalion as the battalion commander must determine where the profitable fight is or will be.

Other Decision-Making Factors. During the experiment, we determined other issues needing examination and resolution. For example, the decision-support (battle staffs) and decision-making (commander and the network) must match the tempo and demands of the operation.

Also, due to the number of UAVs employed nearly simultaneously, the acquisitions of militarily significant targets many times did not match the commander's attack guidance. The targeting and engagement processes must adjudicate the differences.

Finally, the enemy will be adaptive and unpredictable. Unplanned demands for fires and effects will arise. Network solutions that do not fit battlefield requirements must be able to be interrupted without breaking network continuity.

Locating and Identifying the Enemy. Maneuver commanders had the luxury of near-perfect acquisition, providing complete information about the enemy it acquired. Such is the desired capability to successfully develop any situation out of contact.

Control of organic sensors must be embedded within the [C.sup.4]I display, and this direct linkage must give the company elements performing reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA) operations and the company headquarters a clear sense of actually being within line-of-sight (LOS) of the enemy.

These maneuver companies that are in harms way and physically isolated (albeit linked electronically for mutual support) need near-perfect understanding of the enemy situation. The battlefield conditions place great demands on the company headquarters to know exactly what it is seeing and be able to decide what is and is not a relevant threat. Aided by his battalions' guidance toward the profitable fight, the company commander must not become misguided in his intentions and actions.

During the experiment, the operational plan became disjointed at times because company commanders took immediate action to eliminate the enemy it acquired at all ranges. We found that not all the enemy the company acquired was a target that needed immediate engagement.

The human instinct to eliminate what appears to be a more immediate threat shows that experience and tactical patience are skills that need emphasis in training. It should be noted that in some cases the engagements were performed automatically by the network, but in others, company commanders initiated the actions deliberately.

Developing the Situation Out of Contact. Developing the situation out of contact is an information-oriented operation. The Objective Force's FCS combined arms company, that has abundant UAV capabilities at its disposal, employs its organic sensors to gain information without making physical contact with the enemy and develops the situation based on what's displayed on [C.sup.4]I screens.

Our findings are that employing UAVs and unmanned ground sensors (UGS) that provide standoff reconnaissance and surveillance does not mean the force is invulnerable to enemy acquisition. As such, the force does not stay out of contact for very long. This resulted in high anxiety within the company headquarters where tactical patience was tried.

Acting First and Finishing Decisively. There were a number of close engagements but no assault at the main objective. Some close engagements were surprise engagements.

According to the FCS O&O, surprise engagements are not supposed to be the norm. We found that during surprise close engagements, the company generally did not fare well, suffering critical losses to anti-armor engagements.

The FCS-based force must be able to sense the enemy in greater detail and with assurance to keep from being surprised on the battlefield. This includes sensing the individual soldier threat armed with rocket-propelled grenades.

The company headquarter's ability to act first and finish decisively will be greatly assisted by [C.sup.4]I automation that is linked to smart sensors and is hyper-linked to available supporting and complementary fires and effects. The [C.sup.4]I also must intelligently balance the commander's guidance, priorities and endstate with every demand for integrated solutions for maneuver, fires and effects.

Emulating [C.sup.4]I Automation. Emulation of Objective Force [C.sup.4]I automation was accomplished through the use of a graphical user interface (GUI) to the FireSim XXI model. The GUI (pronounced "gooey") was a PC-based interface with the FireSim XXI model that allowed battle staffs to plan, coordinate, execute and manage combined arms battles on their screens.

Approximately 32 computers were configured in a network design that was intended to immerse battle staffs from the U/A brigade level down to the individual FCS combined arms company in a networked fires environment to produce high-tempo execution of combined arms fires and effects. (The GUI was not intended to replace any specific tactical [C.sup.4]I system but rather to serve as a stimulator for man-in-the-loop experimentation with FireSim XXI.)

More importantly, the GUI provided a broad emulation of critical battle command and effects management functions for a futuristic force organized with both FCS-based and non-FCS-based capabilities. With this experiment, the networked fires environment was validated to be a viable tool in man-in-the-loop DIS to examine Objective Force concepts and capabilities.

Conclusion. The experiment looked at future concepts and operational capabilities for an FCS-based force. It clearly has shown issues that need additional examination as we look to the future.

The D&SA Battle Lab took a bold step in FY01 to deliver insights that could inform the FCS concept evaluation and development process. In doing so, the networked fires environment was born, and the Battle Lab now is postured to support Objective Force experiments in the near future.

In this fiscal year, the D&SA Battle Lab is chartered to lead and execute a unit of employment/unit of action (U/E-U/A) "Shaping the Battlespace and Shared LethalEffects" experiment for TRADOC. Clearly, the road ahead spells opportunity for the Battle Lab to contribute to the Army's transformation to Objective Force capabilities.

Figure 2

Objective Force Family of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Brigade/Battalion Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (BAAV)

* 12-Hour Endurance

* 15,000-Foot Operating Altitude

* 200-Kilometer Mission Radius

Company Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (CAAV)

* 5-Hour Endurance

* 1,000-Foot Operating Altitude

* 150-Kilometer Mission Radius

Onboard Aerial Vehicle (OAV)

* Onboard All Future Combat Systems

* 3-Hour Endurance

* 500-Foot Operating Altitude

* 12-Kilometer Radius

Major (Retired) George A. Durham is Deputy Director of the Depth and Simultaneous Attack (D&SA) Battle Lab at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, overseeing all experiments and projects in the lab. He has been with Battle Lab since 1992. In the Directorate of Combat Developments in the Field Artillery School, also at Fort Sill, he was the Director of the Soviet Artillery Effects Program. George Durham was the Executive Officer (XO) for a Department of the Army Special Action Team for Corps Support Weapons Systems, developing the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). Before retiring from the Army, he served as the Executive Officer (XO) of the 4th Battalion, 4th Field Artillery, III Corps Artillery at Fort Sill and commanded two batteries.

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Frank. T. Myers II is the Lead Data Analyst for Future Combat Systems (FCS) experimentation under contract with the D&SA Battle Lab at Fort Sill; he also worked on experiments for the Fires and Effects Coordination Cell (FECC) in the Initial Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) and the Effects Coordination Cell (ECC) in the Interim Division. Before he retired in 1992, he served as the 2d Infantry Division Artillery XO in Korea while simultaneously commanding a provisional battalion, consisting of the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery; E Battery, 25th Field Artillery (Target Acquisition); and B Battery, 6th Battalion, 32d Field Artillery (Lance/Multiple-Launch Rocket System). He also was the Deputy Director of the Gunnery Department in the Field Artillery School.

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Charles L. Hernandez is the Lead Project Officer under contract with the D&SA Battle Lab for experimentation based on FCS concepts and capabilities. Previously, he was under contract to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for the Army's first FECC in the IBCT at Fort Lewis, Washington. He retired in 1999 after spending his last six years in assignments at the Headquarters of the Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and the Field Artillery School working on the Army's Force XXI and Army-After-Next concepts. He served 23 years in the Field Artillery in heavy and light force troop and staff assignments, including as Assistant G3 of the Ill Armored Corps at Fort Hood, Texas.