1. ASCMD,
3.3 BATTLE MANAGEMENT COMMAND, CONTROL, AND COMMUNICATIONS
3.3.3 BMC3 System Architecture
ASSESSMENT OF THE CURRENT STATE OF TECHNOLOGIES FOR TMD 81 For NTW and overland cruise missile defense, BMC3 begins to assume a critical importance. In general, the farther the Navy must stand off from a hostile coastline, the more it will be forced to rely on external sensors. Its reliance on BMC3 systems will grow accordingly.
There is every reason to believe that both ballistic- and cruise-missile threats will grow more stressing over time. Thus, even those scenarios that can at present be managed by platform-centric approaches—namely, area and ship self- defense—will in relatively short order become too stressing for that simple ap- proach. They, too, will begin to require more complex BMC3 solutions. This is not a new phenomenon. The rise of the cruise missile threat led to the relatively complex and distributed CEC system for ship self-protection. In other words, as the threats become more sophisticated and more numerous, distributed BMC3 systems will grow more important. Such systems are, in essence, the glue that binds the widely distributed sensors and shooters that form the protective shield for naval forces.
In summary, BMC3 is already critical for the Navy’s more stressing threat scenarios (NTW and overland cruise missile defense). As time passes, it will also become more and more critical for even relatively local types of defense since the evolution of the threats will require ever-more-complex defensive systems.
One further aspect of missile defense bears special mention. Overall, in- creasing threat levels lead to a radical physical separation of the sensing, shoot- ing, and command components of the entire system—and, indeed, lead very quickly to systems in which these various functions are handled across Services.
For example, the Army may provide the radar and the Navy may provide the missiles. Thus, the perhaps inevitable response to ever-growing missile threats leads to a system that is “joint” to a profound degree and as such may require a major change in Service cultures.
The Department of the Navy should therefore be placing a fairly heavy emphasis on its distributed BMC3 architecture and systems (Figure 3.8). These systems are already important for the more stressing naval missions and will rapidly become critically important even for missions that can currently be han- dled by platform-centric BMC3 systems. These systems and the associated ar- chitecture are discussed next.
The left-hand block in Figure 3.9 refers to time-critical (but not real-time) decision making and non-real-time planning. Various data feeds, including from intelligence sources and communication means, enter the global command and control system-maritime (GCCS-M). Some tactically derived information is input to the left-hand block, but an additional large source is the tactical digital informa- tion links (TADILs) shown in the right-hand block. The TADIL inputs are pro- cessed in the command and control processor (C2P) for use by the rest of the BMC3 system.
A more rational, modern design for the overall BMC3 system would recog- nize that there is significant commonality of purpose and use of the data inputs and processing in the right- and left-hand blocks. In particular, a more modern approach would move from the many special-purpose systems shown here to a configuration based on common standards and general-purpose communication and computing capabilities.
The center block in Figure 3.9 represents real-time and near-real-time deci- sions to allocate and launch defensive ship-based missiles. The components involved are the advanced combat direction system (ACDS), the SSDS, and the Aegis command and decision and display system (C&D/ADS). This module FIGURE 3.8 Increasing area coverage and/or threat level will require distributed BMC3.
Threat Sophistication or Number of Threats
Coverage Area
Single-Platform Solution (Easy BMC4I)
Distributed, Multi-Platform Solution
(Hard BMC4I)
ASSESSMENT OF THE CURRENT STATE OF TECHNOLOGIES FOR TMD 83
receives its data input from the CEC, which are netted Aegis radars, as well as from the TADILs and GCCS-M data sources. The Navy has been experiencing interoperability problems as it upgrades the components of this module. Those problems appear to be in the process of resolution. In the longer term, the Navy intends to replace this module with the so-called Aegis common command and decision system (CC&D), which will be based on a modular, open architecture that should help to minimize future interoperability problems.
The TADILs and CEC are essential for providing the sensor input necessary for the BMC3 process. Of the three TADILs shown in Figure 3.9, Link 16 is the primary one in Navy plans. Thus, CEC and Link 16 are discussed in more detail below. National information feeds (coming from the left-hand box) are also important, especially for cueing sensors. While there is no further detail to be presented here, it should be noted that the timeliness of delivering these data could stand improvement.
FIGURE 3.9 BMC3 system architecture. DMS, defense message system; OTCIXS, officer in tactical command information exchange subsystem; TADIXS, tactical data in- formation exchange system; CUDIXS, common user data information exchange system;
NAVMACS, naval modular automated communications system; TACINTEL, tactical in- telligence information exchange system; JTT, joint tactical terminal; CTT, commander’s tactical terminal; TIBS, tactical information broadcast service; TDDS, tactical receive applications (TRAP) data dissemination system; ADS, advanced display system; CDLMS, common data link management system.
GCCS Link 11
Link 16 Link
4A OTCIXS
Command, Control, and Communications Systems
Tactical Data Links Command and
Decision Systems (C&D)
TADIXS
CUDIXS
JTT/CTT Intel
Systems NAVMACS TACINTEL DMS
TIBS TDDS
CEC GCCS-M
C2P/
CDLMS ACDS
BLK 1/
SSDS MK2 Aegis C&D/ADS
The quality of the situational picture derived from the input data is of course critical and is a matter of much concern. A new effort, the SIAP System Engi- neering Office Program, is being established to address this concern. In addi- tion, the area air defense commander (AADC) module has been established to provide a display capability to help time-critical (but not real-time) decision making and non-real-time planning. Both the SIAP program and the AADC module are discussed in more detail below.