HISTORY IS FULL OF EXAMPLES
OF HOW THE CAREFUL FUSION OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES WITH IMPROVED DOCTRINE HAS MITIGATED THE FOG AND FRICTION OF WAR
AND PROVIDED A MILITARY ADVANTAGE.
lia. Despite nearly perfect situational awareness at the U.S. command post, when a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down, the fog and friction of a high- intensity conflict began to take hold. The leaders in the command post could see in real time the locations of the downed aircraft, the converging armed mobs, and the friendly forces. But as they attempted to direct Soldiers to the downed helicopter, they could not relay the exact timing of the upcoming turn, causing the convoy to miss the turn and continue down the wrong road under heavy hostile fire.
T
Seeing no other option, the Soldiers in the convoy were forced to turn around and drive back through the heavy fire. With barricades being built, the enemy converging, and casualties mounting, the convoy returned to base. Other Soldiers on the ground struggled to get to the downed aircraft. They arrived, but not quickly enough and without sufficient force to effectively evacuate the aircrews before becoming isolated and taking heavy casualties.
Nearly 20 years after the conflict por- trayed in “Black Hawk Down,” it is easy to see how far we have come in developing
he motion picture “Black Hawk Down” depicts a real- life scenario from October 1993 in Mogadishu, Soma-
networked, platform-level, digital, com- mand and control/situational awareness (C2/SA) capabilities. If the vehicles in that conflict had been equipped with Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below/Blue Force Tracking (FBCB2/ BFT), they would have seen their location on a satellite image background, as well as the locations of all other friendly forces, including the downed helicopter. As sur- veillance aircraft located enemy forces and barricades, icons and graphics could have been created to display their exact locations on all of the FBCB2 systems in the vehicles. With this information, the convoy commander could have used his own enhanced understanding of the situ- ation to take the initiative and direct the convoy directly to the downed aircraft and back to base.
As it was, despite the SA at the higher ech- elons, the Soldiers on the ground were not empowered to take the initiative, result- ing in confusion and casualties.
FOG AND FRICTION IN ACQUISITION The fog and friction of war as described by Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian soldier and German military theorist (1780-1831), is inherent to battle. Fog and friction also wreak havoc on those fighting to provide enhanced capabilities to the warfighter. U.S. forces can look for ways to mitigate their effects.
A recent report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on DOD Policies and Procedures for the Acquisition of Infor- mation Technology explains that “the deliberate process through which weapon systems and information technology [IT] are acquired does not match the speed at which new IT capabilities are being introduced in today’s information age.” In short, the Army is not fielding advanced IT capabilities as quickly as they become available to industry. This should worry those in the acquisition community, because the country or organization that can field advanced IT capabilities fastest could gain a significant military advantage.
From the Prussians leveraging early rail- roads in the Austro-Prussian War to the Germans equipping tanks with radios during World War II, history is full of examples of how the careful fusion of emerging technologies with improved doctrine has mitigated the fog and friction of war and provided a military advantage.
Recent lessons learned from the use of networked, platform-level digital C2/ SA systems in training and combat have also demonstrated that their incorpora- tion into U.S. forces and doctrine will provide a tremendous advantage. Both FBCB2 and the prototype Nett Warrior battle command system have been used in combat and have been widely praised for the capabilities they provide to Soldiers.
A S C . A RMY.MI L 19
ACQUISITION
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