Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private> http://inquirerinside.com/?article=10581 By Doug Mohney 21 July 2003 THE UNITED STATES Navy is quietly and aggressively touting its horn on adapting a Network-Centric philosophy, one that will win them brownie points with Donald Rumsfeld and the current wave of "transformational" thinking flowing through the Pentagon. To rework the old cliche, the network is the weapon, more specifically the glue that binds together sensors and weapons, allowing warfighters to view the battlefield more precisely and apply the force necessary to achieve desired "effects." The new way of fighting is built around Internet standards, including web pages, routers, Ethernet, instant messaging, and chat rooms. Casualties appear to be both expensive customized systems and Microsoft software. According to retired Admiral Dennis McGinn, now in private industry and an NBC analyst, the U.S. Navy has embraced the information age with more successes than failures. Presenting at the SuperNova 2003 conference, McGinn described the overhaul of fleet decision-making from a stove-piped set of legacy system using Mil-Spec CRT monitors to a quick purchase of off-the-shelf "smart boards" incorporated into a display wall (Oh, and the off-the-shelf equipment used less power and was cooler to boot). Sailors and officers, once laboring under the burden of daily PowerPoint presentations, went web-crazy, putting and updating information in real-time on a web-site and sharing the information using the Navy's secure network. Naval Allies saw the new toys in action during a war game and wanted to plug in to share the data wealth. Unlike the Yanks, they didn't have a lot of cash, so they too went the COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf) route and joined up in a Coalition Wide-Area Network linked together by Inmarsat 64Kbps satellite links and Lotus Notes. The WAN was put together in weeks and was used to coordinate everything thing from anti-sub warfare to live fire missile shoots. Organization and planning, once highly centralized, became very flat and horizontal, commanders getting out of the way with a few exceptions. Chat rooms were used to exchange data in real time between units so much McGinn told his staff only half-jokingly, "If the war is going to start in a chat room, please make sure I'm in the chat room." However, the cornucopia of information flow needs to be shaped and processed. Information in the network-centric world– especially on a war-footing – needs to be current, accurate, comprehensive, and relevant. If the data being passed around meets those criteria, said McGinn, it should result in better and faster decisions. Pull out one of those four characteristics, and there's a problem. Challenges of the network-centric world include the security of information (Don't want to be shooting at false targets), bandwidth, and the whole concept of information warfare. Bandwidth was a particularly hot button issue. The Navy has been a wireless shop from day one, ships can't always get the bandwidth they want when they need it. Satellites currently provide the "backbone" for operational needs, but the number of satellite hops to pass around information is clumsy and there was the unspoken fear of "Gee, what happens if we lose the satellite." Line-of-site communication with data-rates of at least 8-10 Mbps seems to be the wave of the future as well as turning every node into a repeater. McGinn's evangelizing is supplemented by two articles published in the July 2003 Proceedings, the hard-copy magazine of the U.S. Naval Institute by Lieutenant Pet Majeranowki and Captain Eileen MacKrell respectively. MacKrell's account is particularly amusing. Since the carrier battle group used a web site with information updated in real time by all participants, briefings for command staff were done directly from the site, rather than the old-fashioned method of a daily PowerPoint briefing. The dumping of PowerPoint freed up MacKrell's assistant to stand watches onboard ship and train junior officers. µ * INQBLOT it hasn't happened in Her Majesty's Royal Navy yet. A programme last night about the nuclear submarine HMS Splendid, clearly shows Windows software being used not only in the sub, but also at the command HQ in Northwood, just a few miles down the road from the INQwell. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ---------------------------------------------------------------- C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org ================================================================ Help C4I.org with a donation: http://www.c4i.org/contribute.html *==============================================================* - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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