C4ISR: TECHNOLOGICAL SIDE OF MODERN MILITARIES

Hello World,

Have you ever wondered how the militaries get so much technologies at their disposal and use a lot of cool stuff to fight the bad guys? Well it is a vast domain out there but the most prominent one is what is called the C4ISR domain. Here is a very brief discussion of what it is with some views of mine on what could possibly help militaries get better. Enjoy and feel free to comment.

Here's an image from an interesting C4ISR blog that I came across:

http://achqk.blogspot.in/2011/06/hinh-anh-ve-c4isr.html

Introduction

The famous OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act) is considered to be one of the founding principles behind the development of most modern warfare mechanisms, especially the C4ISR platforms (Command, Control, Communication, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance).

What started off as a simple post-war analysis after a certain air combat against the North Korean air force by late Colonel John Boyd of the US Air Force, went on to be interpreted and applied in many areas of the Department of Defense, rewriting the basics of what are now known as the modern warfare mechanisms, C4ISR being the most prominent one in this context.

C4ISR may be simply understood as an integrated network-centric warfare mechanism, which tends to maintain an open-architecture form, integrating the land, sea, air and space segments of the defense platforms with the operators and decision makers via the internet. This mechanism may take any size depending upon the scope of implementation and the number of players involved, enabling this system’s capacity to interoperate across joint, inter-agency, inter-government and multi-national military operations.

Although the C4ISR has the capacity to interoperate, its feasibility and operational efficiencies tend to vary depending on the extent of interoperability which in turn depends on the compatibility of the participating military segments with the network-centric integration process, especially when multi-national forces are involved.

In this brief discussion, we would attempt to identify and understand the key features of C4ISR, its objectives and modern day warfare challenges pertaining to it.

Objectives of C4ISR

The primary objectives of C4ISR are:

• To connect multiple forces and enable multi-faceted & unified military operations
• To create ever aware, self-sustained & precision powered warrior systems
• To enable development and implementation of customized, mission-specific warfare methods

Defense ministries across the globe have been continuously attempting to improve their respective defense capabilities and the need to work together in combat situations has arisen in the modern times. Working together calls for integration and interoperability among defense platforms and C4ISR, is an attempt to realize the same.

The operational objectives of C4ISR, from the systems standpoint are:

• To improve and facilitate rapid employment of operational capabilities
• To enable quick synthesis of “Go-to-war” requirements
• To facilitate the free sharing of information across defense platforms and enable the creation of and access to a Common Operational Picture

Salient Features of C4ISR

Digitization being the backbone of modern warfare mechanisms, C4ISR effectively exploits this area to add value to its implementation across defense platforms. Operational battle space digitization is a prominent feature of C4ISR and most of its capabilities are connected and dependent on this feature.

Providing informational and strategic support to war fighting units, C4ISR enables the detection, location, identification, fusion and dissemination of target intelligence to the concerned war fighting units in a secure, real time manner.

With the inclusion of the space segment, C4ISR provides real-time navigation, control and guidance measures, across defense platforms, enhancing the military operations in the network-centric warfare environment.

C4ISR enables the constant connectivity of defense intelligence, decision makers and operators across forces and defense platforms, facilitating a real-time situational awareness among all the participating units.

Major Challenges of C4ISR

Interoperability

Being an open-architecture network-centric warfare mechanism, C4ISR may allow the inclusion of multiple platforms and forces but the consequential operational effectiveness may vary based on the interoperating capacities of the participating forces and its systems. When international military forces, with differing standards pertaining to one or more elements of C4ISR, are involved, their collaborative efforts may tend to face conflicts due to their inability to interoperate and allow unified network-centric integration.

Time-Critical-Target Engagement

Defense departments actively involved in C4ISR implementation are looking to reduce the time taken to engage a time critical targets, potentially employing faster weapons and unmanned systems. This would translate to the challenges in reducing the latency concerned with the transmission, processing and decision processes revolving around sensor-to-shooter data flow and related tactical mission tasks.

Measures for Future Growth of C4ISR

Common Standards for Systems and Operations

When the participating forces re-align themselves with newer standards of operations and employ integration-compatible systems, their involvement in any C4ISR implementation would be conflict free and beneficial to all forces involved. Defense ministries of friendly nations can work together to develop and implement a common set of standards in their respective defense platforms so that, their participation in C4ISR implemented collaborative military operations becomes more feasible and profitable.

Ongoing Analysis Procedures

The participating forces can evaluate themselves with the following analyses on a regular basis and assess their readiness and compatibility to the growing C4ISR interoperability requirements:

• ISR/Connectivity Analysis
• C4 Architecture Analysis
• Precision Engagement Analysis (Past Missions)
• Battle Management Analysis (Past Missions)
• Interoperability Study (With respect to the partner forces/platforms)

The scale, scope and depth of these analyses may vary depending on the current and future mission requirements and the instructions as approved by the respective defense ministries.

Continuous Improvement Policies

The defense ministries, forces and supporting defense contractors may work together to develop and implement policies that govern their processes so that their systems and methods allow integration of emerging technologies and facilitate decentralized execution of centralized command while operating in a network-centric warfare environment. Conventions may be organized to provide a platform for exchange of ideas among friendly forces and defense ministries from time to time.

Military Spending Patterns

Defense ministries should carefully plan their defense spending keeping the C4ISR element as one of the basis for their purchase decisions on various platforms. If the entire budget is spent on the platforms, the C4ISR will just take a long time to get implemented keeping the forces far from network-centric warfare capabilities. A good way to proceed will be to allocate a certain percentage of the annual budget for C4ISR integration. Having the available platforms connected will add more value to the military power than a mere increase in the number of platforms. Just my thought.

Platform Compatibility Assessment

Ageing platforms are difficult to integrate with the modern systems simply because they either do not have the support capabilities or they are too old to carry modern systems. Adding newer systems on-board the ageing platforms will just add to the electrical power loads of the platform, compromising its basic mission survivability. The militaries must assess their platforms for C4ISR integration compatibility, narrowing down to those platforms that can be integrated with minimum equipage while possibly not compromising with their overall range, reliability and mission capabilities.

Performance Based Maintenance Contracts

Militaries are increasingly implementing performance-based maintenance contracts, engaging suppliers and service providers to handle fleet wide platform maintenance support. Militaries that are aiming to modernize their forces and implement network-centric warfare methods must look into the future and arrange for suitable performance-based maintenance programs that pay the service provider on the basis of ‘Platform Availability.’ Platform availability and mission readiness are the top priorities of modern military forces, especially those that have implemented C4ISR integration.

Conclusion

Having discussed very briefly about what C4ISR is and how militaries can go ahead with their plans in a very generic way, I believe, this post will serve as an introduction with C4ISR to those of you who are curious about defense technology. I have merely shared my views on the topic which I think is very interesting, especially because this topic reminds me of all the techie war movies that I have watched. Feel free to share your views and comments on this topic. Have a good one!!!

Regards,