DEFENCE Disconnected Operations: Keeping military assets in sight when ‘Going Dark’ A more distributed operational model poses serious connectivity and logistical questions. Matt Medley, Senior Product Manager at IFS explains what’s required to keep military equipment, personnel and commanders in sync during disconnected operations.
A Senior Product Manager at IFS, Matthew Medley is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy. He served as a Major in the US Air Force, compiling over 2,500 flight hours in C-130 aircraft. He holds the FAA Airline Transport Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor ratings.
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Military operations, in line with the connectivity developments in the outside world, have become increasingly connected. Operations are underpinned by a robust digital backbone that provides the connectivity that allows military organisations to take a huge step towards Total Asset Readiness, tying together the thousands of data steps and processes to provide information for military operators to keep updated on the status, whereabouts and availability of equipment and personnel—uninterrupted and in real time. But many such operations are, from a tactical and strategic planning point of view, becoming more widely distributed than ever before. We can see this in business. Gartner listed ‘anywhere operations’ as one of its top strategic technology trends for 2021, defined as “an IT operating model designed to support customers everywhere, enable employees everywhere and manage the deployment of business services across distributed infrastructures.” For the military, any connectivity interruption puts immediate pressure on their digital backbone, stretching it to near breaking point. At the critical
moment of service, when a commander is planning a mission to deploy key assets, that person needs to have a totally accurate representation of the equipment at their disposal. Failure at this crucial moment could compromise mission success and potentially endanger military personnel. It’s these periods of nonconnectivity that the spotlight is now on. Operational pressures to decrease visibility put connectivity under microscope A recent study from RAND Corporation, an American non-profit global policy think tank created by the Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces, illustrates this perfectly in the context of the Air Force. The study focuses on a set of emerging concepts for ‘distributed operations’ that call for a larger number of airbases to complicate enemy targeting and use a more decentralised command and control approach. In direct response to increased air and missile threats posed to larger main bases, the study notes that the U.S. Air Force is shifting toward Line of Defence
