Read ya five by five...
Posted on 03/15/2009 9:07:09 PM PDT by llevrok
March 13, 2009: For five years, the U.S. Marine Corps has been using its own battlefield Internet, based on off-the-shelf equipment. Late last year, the U.S. Army tried out the marine approach, and found that it worked.
This all began when the marines went to war in Iraq in 2003. There they quickly discovered that their radio equipment was not up to the needs of fast moving mechanized warfare. That's understandable, as Iraq was the first time the marines ever had to advance so quickly, and so far inland, during combat. Taking this as the wave of the future, and lacking the money for a lot of expensive new communications gear, the marines came up with CONDOR (Command and Control on the Move Network, Digital Over the Horizon Relay). Basically, CONDOR equips each marine battalion with satellite telephone and encrypted wi-fi gear, as well as networking hardware for all sorts of marine radios. The satellite link means that no battalion is ever out of range of radio or Internet communication. Most marine radios are "line of sight" (FM) and are of limited range. When units spread out too far, they lose radio contact unless they have satellite phones. The marines got satellite phones and satellite based communications gear from the army during the Iraq campaign. This proved a lifesaver.
But CONDOR went one step further by establishing wi-fi nodes throughout the battalion area, and also collects and transmits data from the EPLRS (locator transmitters) that every vehicle carries. The problem with EPLRS was that it used a line of sight signal (unlike the army Blue Force Tracker, which used satellite communications). CONDOR transmits EPLRS data to all marine units in the area, thus allowing a division commander to see where all his vehicles and troops are, even if they are hundreds of kilometers apart. CONDOR also allows any radio in the battalion to use the satellite link to call anywhere in the worldwide marine communications network.
But what really got the army's attention was how CONDOR provided Internet connections for everyone in the battalion. EPLRS has Internet capability built into it, but troops don't always turn it on. During last years army test, the EPLRS Internet feature was heavily used, along with troposcatter radio (signals are sent straight up, and they bounce off the troposphere back to other radios) to connect EPLRS units that are not within line-of-sight of each other. As the marines discovered, this works quite well.
Everyone was happy, except the contractors and bureaucrats trying to get the JTRS radio system to work. Since the 1990s, this distance and communications problem, as well as the need for battlefield Internet, had been foreseen. A new family of radios (JTRS) were developed to deal with it. But JTRS underwent one delay after another, and won't be available for another year or two (a phrase that has been overused with regard to JTRS). So EPLRA can fill in until JTRS arrives. CONDOR and EPLRS are more examples of how new technology is being developed so quickly that the usual Department of Defense way of developing new gear is often overtaken by faster evolving civilian equipment. No one expected satellite phones and wi-fi to come to market as quickly as they did. But here they are, and they will fill in until the official solution, JTRS, catches up.
In 1993, when the USMC started this drive towards “COTS” equipment, we at cisco were dumbfounded. We’d have these USMC E5/E6 and Lt’s calling us saying “We need these changes in this protocol to do XYZ...” and we’d ask “You don’t want some super-special change, you’re just using the stuff we’re shipping for everyone?”
And they said “Yup. It is how the USMC gets more done with less money than any other branch.”
They were not kidding, and my experience working as a supplier to the USMC and chatting with members of the Corps who came to our customer events wholly and completely impressed me. If there is one group of people in the US Government who actually care about getting more done with less money, it is the Marines.
Case in point: When they USMC needed computers (eg, laptops) back then, they went down to CompUSA or some other retail vendor with their AmEx charge card that said on it “Name, Rank, USMC” and they’d just BUY the darned thing. Just as you or I would. Less paperwork, less hassle and less expense overall than getting every new laptop variant to come out qualified through the GSA bureaucracy.
When I asked the Marines about their special requirements, they said they solved most all of those two ways:
1. They’d use a PCMCIA card for their commo/crypto stuff. When/if the laptop failed you pulled out the card and trashed the laptop.
2. A huge part of the expenses in military electronics is the “BITE” — Built In Test Equipment. It amounts to anywhere from 25 to 40% of the total circuitry in some systems. The Marines said that they were saving great gobs of money by using COTS computers and repairing them the way anyone in the civilian world did. And if they were in the field and they had to dispose of a non-functional laptop in a way to obliterate the data on the hard drive, their FM said “Dig a hole, put in laptop, drop in frag grenade, get the heck away... no more data!”
Their attitude and revolution in purchasing and system design wholly impressed me.
Thanks for the ping.
Iirc, much of this started back in the ‘90s when the USMC started working on the problems that came up with a new doctrine model (Distributed Operations).
Again, going on long ago memory, so iirc applies, Camp Lejeune was divided in half and both sides given low end lap tops that troops taped to their harnesses and they went to war against each other for a week or so to see how that worked. I believe they were using both GPS and GIS.
I remember hearing somewhere that Al Anbar was the final “proof of concept” test bed for the Distributed Operations doctrine. Reliable communications over distance and available both up/down and lateral was one of the issues needing to be worked out.
Also, I, again vaguely, remember hearing something about a desire to avoid satellite dependent comms as much as practicable due to some of the international issues that were springing up in regard to such and pointing toward vulnerability.
Radio shack ain't what it used to be now its more like toys r us now and telephone store combined.
With all the Army acquistion rules in place, it is a wonder that anything gets done. The hoops they have to jump through is incredible.
Add to that the fact that if one contractor feels slighted or wronged, they can stop the whole process with one placed lawsuit.
http://www.darpa.mil/DARPATech2005/presentations/ato/tovar.pdf
https://www.mccdc.usmc.mil/FeatureTopics/DO/A%20Concept%20for%20Distributed%20Operations%20-%20Final%20CMC%20signed%20co.pdf (requires accept of certificate)
The beginning of this, I believe, came from the experimentation involved in “Sea Dragon” during the late ‘90s. Hunter Warrior and Urban Warrior were part of that.
JTRS and EPLRS are outdated technology. The newest, latest stuff is coming out pretty quick here to be fielded by some of BCTs that are deploying this summer. My job in particular is The Brigade Network Guy, and most of our stuff is COTS (commercial off the shelf).
The Marines weren’t the only ones who had the problem of outrunning their commo abilities. The Army was using Cold War-era Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE) commo gear. GEN William Wallace was constantly frustrated by his inability to talk to any of his forward units for long periods of time, since MSE was meant to be stationary, set up, then used, a la the choreographed attack/counterattack ballet of a Soviet invasion.
Since we need comms on the move now, MSE was finally dragged out back and shot, and the new stuff advanced very rapidly. Pretty soon, we’ll be an all-wireless commo Army, with all the flexibility and potential security nightmares that entails.
Thanks Lancey!
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They may well be different, I don’t know whether they are or are not. As for “pointing the straight up” as you say, NVIS antennas are “near vertical” which means they are not pointed straight up. There is a shallow angle. NVIS antennas are also generally made with wire.
That sounds like the old system the army used. Tropo uses up gobs of power, I feel safer when it’s focused in a direction away from me.
I’ve seen a lightbulb tossed in front of a tropo dish light up and explode in a matter of seconds from the radiation hitting and converting to heat.
Humm
“Damn Sarge, I can’t raise Fire Control for a fire mission!”
“WTF?!?!?!”
“Ya, the transmitter toasted again, someone left it out where the sun got to it- it’s only rated for 101 F!”
“Well, dig out the spare and get it going!”
“No can do, we used up the last spare when Snuffy splashed his coffee on the enclosure.”
“What else we got?”
“Dunno, can we try the SINCGARS and see of we can get the Air Foce C&C bird”
“No good Spud, they don’t use fox mike”
“[deleted]”
“Let me see if I can the C&C bird on hotel fox”
(sound of small fire increasing
“Any station, any station this is.......”
The operative is “working” MIL-SPEC commo gear is mil-spec for a reason. The better question why not bid for a working system and not an R&D effort.
Because at the pace of tech change in the commo industry, by the time a system gets through the T&E stage and ALL the politicians have had their say ot tweak to the program....
It will already be obsolete.
Also, the funny thing about a lot of COTS gear - quite a bit of it actually exceeds corresponding Mil-Spec gear these days because, surprisingly, some of the customers are actually *harder* on their gear than the military is.
Also, if we had done it your way, we would never have had the GBU-28 deployed in time to save lives in Gulf I.
Time to “go through standard channels” and “standard development for MilSpec” for a new GBU = seven years or so.
Time to improvise and use off the shelf components to get a superpenetrator bomb to the war zone - seventeen days.
yup - and had the GBU-28 not worked, the downside would have been??
Zip.
(BTW, I worked the Nellis Range complex when they tested that brute)
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Have fun with the family this weekend, it may be the next thing taxed!
The Marine Corps is an elite fighting force of which I am proud to be part. If you feel the need to badmouth a time-honored and tested-under-fire organization simply because you do not agree with them, then please keep your opinions to yourself.
Semper Fidelis
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