Contemporary Operational Theatre and an Old Concept for Survivable Command Posts

How does command and control survive against Russian use of force?

 An excellent article by Raido Saremat, “The issues with the command posts in modern warfare”[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/issues-command-posts-modern-warfare-raido-saremat-n5jsf/],  brought to my mind the Transferable Operation Centre (TOC) prototype project from early 2000. I was privileged to participate in the Northern Command of Defence Forces Finland. 

The challenge to have enough human competency in proximity to create viable plans, conduct complex operations, or analyse sound assessments of adversary intentions while surviving on the battlefield was our driver in those scenarios and today’s Ukrainian theatre. 

Our team used the spiral development method over three years to incrementally build-test-improve a concept for Transferable Operation Centre that would ensure human proximity while improving survivability under intense C2 warfare. 

Instead of having a single, slowly transferable headquarters (HQ), the project introduced a swarm of command post elements. Each element consisted of five staff officers and two support persons. These elements could be housed in fixed shelters, transferable containers, civilian or military vehicles or only officers carrying their computers in suitcases. 

Concept

Command post elements could be deployed together in close quarters within protective facilities or distributed anywhere over a wide area network (WAN). Each element was designed to be operable within 15 minutes from arrival and dismantled within the same time due to departure. The access connection was wireless (WLAN). If the command post element was mounted in a vehicle, the assembly and disassembly could be even quicker. 

The survivability of the transferrable operation centre is adjustable to the threat environment by varying the location, number of elements, strength of assembly, and movement of elements. Swarming TOC concept supported, for example, the following scenarios:

• In peacetime, all components can be assembled in a large shelter or industrial warehouse to maximise physical proximity.
• For task or forward post situations,  a selection of planning, C2 and Intel elements could create a forward command post either on the same site or distributed within the access network.
• The elements would be geographically distributed and divided into shifts during intense operations and under high risk. The duty shift of C2 would be online and conducting operations. The second C2 shift would be resting, and the third shift would be training and readiness to take over if the duty element is lost.

The outcome is a virtual headquarters that is not dependent on any location or computer. All information services and databases are clustered in the cloud computer infrastructure, providing operational awareness, planning tools, and analysing applications to the whole theatre of battle. 

Adversaries would not have fat HQ targets to hunt with image or signals intelligence, but tens or hundreds of small elements of 5 experts distributed in the theatre and cloud computing infrastructure that would be distributed to tens of data centres in the country and abroad.

Lessons from experimentation

Because of the spiral development method, each year of development included several live exercises. One of them provided positive feedback, although reserve officers both used and operated the TOC services for the first time: [https://c4isys.blogspot.com/2013/01/spiral-development-of-c4isr-system.html]

1. Those processes staffed with off-duty and on-duty shifts suited the virtual CP concept well and allowed the CP site to transfer every time the shift changed.
2. With online support and IT-skilled reserve officers, the technical support for each element transfer was sufficient.
3. The establishment time needed for each user to gain access and start working with the operational picture and planning process was eliminated to minutes after arrival at the CP site.
4. All information and documents must be digital and stored in the cloud to enable digital staff work.
5. The security can be adhered to while working with secure and restricted information systems over a public access network.
6. The collaboration enhanced with VoIP-telephone and virtual whiteboard enables practical virtual staff work among distributed command post elements.

It seems that the military were foreseeing a scenario that we all were forced to adapt during the COVID pandemics.