The Army’s recent success in distributing its nascent network to several sites offers a glimpse of how the service can not only play an important role in the new defense strategy, but how it can offer a way for all the services to overcome the vast distances of the Pacific to train, rehearse, examine new concepts and equipment.
“The network gives us the way we connect, communicate and fight, gives us situational awareness, gives us mission command,” said Maj. Gen. Genaro Dellarocco, commanding general of the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) that tests and evaluates new equipment for the Army’s network.
The ATEC work is done via the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) as part of the triumvirate of testers, users–the Fort Bliss, Texas-based 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division (2/1)–and acquisition personnel via the the System of Systems Integration Directorate.
During the just completed NIE 12.2 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., soldiers used the new tactical network to conduct operational scenarios. The network was ported, or distributed, to the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Div. at Ft. Campbell, Ky., which provided higher command for the brigade.
“The network was stable enough to make this happen,” Dellarocca said during a recent presentation in Washington. That ability to distribute the network is a “key power of the NIE.”
NIE 12.2 may be the “start of a paradigm shift,” he said at a media roundtable. As Capability Set 13 is fielded to eight brigades starting this fall, and as more brigades receive the network capability, new avenues open up.
“It gives us a powerful capability stateside as well as going down range,” he said. The NIE can grow and become more distributed.
NIE 12.2 was the first to distribute the network–it had seven nodes, and one was joint, he said.
“What’s to say that couldn’t be enlarged,” he said. “We had Ft. Campbell, a higher headquarters…Take several brigades and do it all at once.”
That could create another layer of NIE, perhaps, Dellarocco said.
“What this will allow us to do is to exercise the rest of the DOTLMS and create some leader development opportunities to demonstrate the Army’s relevance in the new defense strategy that’s PACOM oriented,” he said.
Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), one leg of the triad, is responsible for doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities, and is the parent organization of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and Brigade Modernization Command that conducts the integration and valuation of the network and other equipment.
“We’re going to train and update doctrine in a joint environment,” Dellorocco said. “As we go forward you’re going to see more joint, more distributed and much larger complex-type things be enabled by the systems coming out of ASA(ALT) for Capability Sets 13 and 14.”
The NIE will continue to encompass more locations to truly assess the integration capabilities of the systems the Army is fielding to soldiers.
“NIE 13.1 will introduce Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., to test the Paladin Integrated Management program,” he stated. “This expansion allows us to really stress the system to ensure it is capable and effective in any theater.”
Additionally, each NIE going forward is likely to have more participation by other services.
“Having an integrated Joint Force is more important than ever as we move into the next decade,” he said.
In NIE 12.2, the Army hosted the Marines. This fall, it expects the Air Force to come on board. And the sister services are collocated at many bases across the United States, such as Holloman AFB, at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and Joint Bases as a result of Base Realignment and Closure.
“The testing structure of the NIE has matured to the point where other services can become involved at various locations, including Alaska and Hawaii,” he said. “In that construct the NIE can be leveraged as a tool to demonstrate the relevance of the ground force as the nation shifts its defense strategy to the Asia-Pacific region.”
These expansions will drive change in how things are done that have never been done before and in a cost effective way.
For example, you can rehearse PACOM scenarios at a low cost, Dellarocca said. “It’s return on expenses versus return on investment.” Reducing temporary duty and boots on the ground in favor of plugging into the network at home station reduces expenses. Return on investment means reducing the risk by bringing leader development activities to joint task force commanders, developing netcentric tactics, techniques and procedures, Army and joint doctrine, and getting ahead of the threat.
“When has the army ever deployed 12 brigades at once,” he asked rhetorically. “It hasn’t. But it can, and it can do it very cheaply.”
For example, troops could drive out the front gate to the local training area and plug into the network. With modeling and simulations driven by the increasingly voluminous and accurate data ATEC has been collecting during NIE’s, an area of responsibility anywhere in the world could be simulated. The Army has already paid for the data, now it can be funneled into models and simulations for increased fidelity, better quality and better reflect reality.
“Distance doesn’t care if it’s over land or water; nor does a network and that’s the power of it,” Dellarocco said.
It’s likely the service can do such training within its budgets and the service could synchronize some of its training activities across the board.
“A lot of intellectual thought is going into how we’re going to fight in the future,” he said. “This decade coming the NIE will be one of the major components that will help the Army maintain its relevance in the defense strategy.”
The use of the network for the future is “limited only by the imagination,” he said.