Challenge of Joint Fire-Support Interoperability, The

Sea Power, Jul 2004

Joint-service and coalition operations, such as close air support, require shared approaches and technologies. The challenge is large, however, with a legion of command-and-control computer systems all developed along slightly different lines of approach.

Some of these systems, for example, such as the Army and Marine Corps Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System or the Global Command and Control System, operate jointly within their spheres of influence. The bigger challenge is tying these and other efforts together in a shared global information network, linking ground, air and sea forces.

Since 1997, the Marine Corps has steadily improved its Target Location, Designation and Handoff System (TLDHS) fire support computer. Once directed solely at artillery fire support, the TLDHS software now includes another application, called the Advanced Close Air Support System (ACASS). ACASS is a computer program designed to coordinate airborne fires from the AV-8B Harrier II, the F/A-18 Hornet series and the Air Force's F-16 series aircraft.

Lt. Col. Brian McKinney, a project officer with the Marine Coips Warfighting Laboratory, led the development of ACASS and its interface with the TLDHS. The combined systems are under evaluation and will be fielded in fiscal year 2005. McKinney sees systems like the TLDHS as part of a wider effort to develop a joint-service fire-support solution.

"Joint Forces Command is looking to neck these efforts down to one single, joint solution," McKinney said. "Much of the interoperability we have enjoyed started on grassroots level, by the action officers meeting and discussing the joint development of software for these programs that do close air support missions."

McKinney's experience with ACASS illustrates the challenges of tying systems together on the global network. In 2000, the Marine Corps introduced new VMF target-designation point message format, for communication between ground and air units. Including the new message format in the F/A-18 computer costs $6 million and is due for release in September 2005.

Multiply that challenge - in terms of dollars as well as queuing up to wait years for the aircraft software code upgrade schedule to incorporate new message formats - by as many types of tactical aircraft as are in the skies over a battlefield. Not all of those aircraft have datalink capability, and those that do each require different digital protocols.