Fort Monmouth team provides communications Reachback for logisticians in Iraq, Afghanistan

Army Communicator, Spring, 2004 by Stephen Larsen

It's pretty much a given. In a war zone, Combat Service Support units--which support the warfighter's logistics needs, from bullets to butter--aren't going to get much in the way of communications. Military communications systems are usually focused on maneuver and control, so the logistics slice is often insufficient to meet the communications requirements of forward-deployed logistics elements.

Until now, that is.

Thanks to a trio of systems provided by the Product Manager, Defense Wide Transmission Systems--including Very Small Aperture Satellite Terminals in tandem with the Multi-Media Communications System and the Combat Service Support Automated Information Systems Interface--the Army's forward-deployed CSS logistics elements in Iraq and Afghanistan now have communications Reachback capabilities to Continental United States support facilities.

How successful are these systems? According to CWO2 Brian Wimmer, Automation Management Officer for the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq, the systems have "hit a home run."

"The VSAT has been the most consistently available method of connectivity available anywhere in theater throughout OIF I (Operation Iraqi Freedom I)," said Wimmer. "The ability of Forward Support Battalions to electronically pass and track supply requisitions cannot be overstated. VSAT has been a Combat Power force multiplier directly contributing to greater operational readiness rates and reduced down time of combat systems in the entire Task Force."

Heady praise, indeed. LTC Earl Noble, who as PM DWTS is assigned to the Project Manager, Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems at Fort Monmouth, is quick to point that what makes the VSAT valuable is the capability it provides in tandem with systems like MMCSO and CAISI.

A deployable office for Combat Service Support units

MMCSO, said Noble, is a modular, rapidly-deployable, mobile system that provides forward-deployed logistics elements with voice, video and data communications, with connectivity to the Defense Switched Network and commercial telephone systems and access to Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Network, Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and e-mail.

"MMCSO provides Combat Service Support people the same communications capabilities they have back in their home station offices," said Noble, "except that it's deployable to wherever in the world CSS units are deployed."

Noble said that MMCSO can be configured in sizes ranging from a micro "flyaway" unit in three transit cases for 24 users to a mega unit accommodating more than 1,500 users. The mega unit comes in a trailer or shelter, complete with air conditioning and heating--"truly a deployable office," said Noble. At the low end, he added, the MMCSO cost is about $16,000 for a micro unit and at the high end, about $1 million for a mega unit in a shelter or trailer.

The MMCSO configurations are used in conjunction with either dual-band (C and Ku band) or tri-band (C, Ku and X band) VSATs to provide satellite connectivity back to sustaining base information systems.

Exactly how small are Very Small Aperture Satellite Terminals? They come in two sizes, said Noble, 1.8 meter or 2.4 meter quick-erect sizes, which can typically be set up by a two-person team in 30 minutes.

"MMCSO used with VSAT is a mobile, commercial SATCOM (satellite communications) capability for the CSS community," said Noble, "supporting broadband information exchange, rapidly deployable anywhere in the world, and fully integrated into the GIG (Global Information Grid)."

For smaller networks--where the emphasis is on e-mail and data transfer, such as with CSS users-Noble said the use of time division multiple access--a digital transmission technology that allows multiple users to access a single radio-frequency channel by allocating unique time slots to each user--can reduce costs.

"By contrast, most networks assigned a fixed bandwidth based on the highest expected demand," Noble said. "But not everybody needs the same bandwidth all the time, so why pay for huge bandwidth all the time? That's like always having a huge warehouse full of ammo, regardless of how often you need it."

He gave an example of 30 users, each of whom typically need only 250 kilobits per second of bandwidth, but occasionally need up to 1 megabits per second. "Instead of buying 1 meg all the time for each of 30 users at a cost of $300,000 per month," said Noble, "we buy only 250K for each user, at a cost $30,000 per month--and pay a surcharge just for the times they actually need more than that. That's a 90 percent cost reduction."

Support to the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility

All in all, said Noble, PM DWTS has fielded more than 90 MMCSO/VSAT systems for Warfighters in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, for customers including the Coalition Forces Land Component Command; the U.S. Central Command; the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC, formerly known as the Military Traffic Management Command); the Product Manager, Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care and U.S. Army Forces Central Command.