Poor man's digitization of the battlefield - Army Tactical Command and Control Systems

Army Communicator, Summer, 2003 by Stephen Hamilton

The 3d Infantry Division spends the majority of its time deploying and preparing for future missions, as opposed to testing software that digitizes the battlefield. Although the Army did not field the latest versions of the Army Tactical Command and Control Systems machines to the 3d ID, the commanding general and his staff emphasized the need to integrate all of their tactical systems regardless of their documented compliance levels for their Warfighter Exercise in 2002. Armed with command emphasis, the 3d ID G-6 began a quest to integrate the tactical systems and present a near real-time digital common operational picture of the battlefield. The 3d 1D G-6 integrated its command and control computer systems including the Tactical Website, an Army developed command and control website, without an extensive number of contractors and costly software upgrades.

Web-based command and control

The 3d ID's TACWEB remains the commanding general and chief of staff's information dissemination system of choice. In 1997, the original creation of the TACWEB began at 2d ID in Korea based on MG Walter Sharp's vision. At this time, he was BC Sharp, and the 2d ID's ADC(M). He tasked 2d ID's G-6 to design a web-based system that could roll-up the division's reports to provide an overall view of the division's status. In addition, the system had to be easily modifiable in order to meet the commanding general's continually varying requirements. The TACWEB follows the concepts defined in the Army White Paper: Concepts for the Objective Force. The white paper states specifically:

Web based C2 systems enable commanders to reduce decision cycles within their organizations by engaging subordinate leaders and staffs in collaborative planning and decision making at all levels within units. Web-based C2 systems facilitate the rapid dissemination of orders to the lowest levels, thus maximizing time available for tactical units to prepare for, to synchronize and to initiate decisive action.

3d ID's TACWEB, based on the original 2d ID's TACWEB, consists of a very developed website that contains all major reports for units and staff elements. The software required to run the website is Microsoft Structural Query Language Server, Cold Fusion and Microsoft Internet Information Server. As reports are filed, they can be accessed through the battle status page. The most current reports are displayed, and past reports are archived. MG Sharp's primary concern dealt with the logistics situational reports in TACWEB. It did not make any sense to enter the same data in two different systems, which is why he determined CSSCS and TACWEB should share the data.

The primary unit reports contained in TACWEB are the Sitrep, personnel data summary report, personnel requirements report, logistical Sitrep, communications status and various chemical reports. The units are required to report their status at specific time intervals. Once the units submit these reports, the data enters into the database immediately, and the roll-up reports automatically reflect the changes. This dynamic content gives all commanders instant access to updated combat status throughout the battle. In addition, it allows the division staff to spend more time projecting future requirements as opposed to crunching numbers and creating power-point slides.

The Sitrep provides the most important data to the commanders. The Sitrep contains unit location information, equipment status, current and future operations information, and overall unit status. The unit location section provides the units with the ability to enter a left, center and right military grid coordinate for the unit's subordinate unit positions. The initial integration effort began with taking these grid coordinates and plotting them on a digital map. The 3ID did not have a digital map plotting system, however it soon would acquire one to meet this need.

Initial integration

In April of 2001, 3d ID began evaluating a tactical system that hasn't quite been accepted as an ATCCS system in its own right, however 3d ID relied on it more during Warfighter than all other ATCCS systems combined: maneuver control system light. The major difference with MCS-L and its bigger ATCCS brothers remains the platform MCS-L runs on. All other ATCCS machines run on Sun workstations running Solaris, while MCS-L runs on any laptop with Windows 2000 and Office 2000. MCS-L can store data in different ways: as a standalone system, in a small-group shared environment, or with a central SQL database server on a database called the joint common database. The 3d ID used the latter for their Warfighter in 2002. The DAMO chose this option because it enabled the division to share data between TACWEB and MCS-L.

In July of 2001, code was added to the TACWEB that posted the unit locations from the Sitrep into the MCS-L JCDB as a graphic on an operational overlay. The most difficult part of this process turned out to be converting the grid coordinate from military to latitude and longitude. The JCDB's design allows many different systems to share data, and since the majority of other mapping systems use latitude and longitude, the JCDB does also. The formula for this conversion is not trivial. Fortunately, the MCS-L team provided our G-6 with a dynamic link library that contained the functions for many different coordinate conversions. After linking these functions into Cold Fusion, we could post unit icons onto MCS-L from TACWEB Sitreps. The G-6 demonstrated this feature to the CG and unit commanders and they accepted this as the 3d ID's primary "blue feed" to show friendly unit locations on a digital map. This integration began the building of our common operational picture on MCS-L.