NCW
– the future is here
“At
the end of the day, Network Centric Warfare is all about people-centric
warfare...what it is about is technology enabling people to do
things faster and do things better.” - ACM
Angus Houston, CDF
By
CPL Andrew Hetherington
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Conceptual
image shows the inter-relationships between sea, land and
air forces in a Network Centric Warfare environment.
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Image
courtesy of
BAE Systems Australia
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Photo
by LAC Euan Grant
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Photo
by LEUT Ian Lumsden
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Photo
by AB Justin Brown.
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All
about people: The technology is there to assist people
to make quicker and better decisions.
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Photo
by AB Nina Nikolin
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DEFENCE
is moving towards being a more networked and integrated force
as a part of the ADFs Network Centric Warfare (NCW) concept.
The recently released NCW Roadmap 2005 by the Chief of the Capability
Development Group (CCDG) outlines the ADF’s future NCW capability
requirements, its current capabilities and how the future NCW
capabilities requirements will come about.
Then there is the question of what is NCW? A Google search on
the topic receives 391,000 results for the query. It is a current,
well discussed and popular topic worldwide.
In addition to the many Google entries a booklet Explaining NCW
will be released this month by Defence as the first significant
guide to coordinate a common understanding of NCW within the ADF.
The NCW concept states “NCW is a means of organising the
ADF’S forces by using modern information technology to link
sensors, decision makers and weapon systems to help people work
more effectively together to achieve the commander’s intent.
It is a tool that can contribute significantly to producing a
warfighting advantage.”
NCW makes a major contribution to this warfighting advantage by
increased synchronisation through the four major and interdependent
elements of command and control systems (the C2 grid), sensor
systems (the sensor grid), engagement systems (the engagement
grid) and the network (the information network).
Defence sees NCW as a way of structuring itself so that people
can take advantage of information and ultimately increase joint
force combat power.
Essentially NCW has two dimensions, these being the network dimension
and the human dimension. The network dimension is the way different
platforms, firepower and headquarters are linked. The human dimension
recognises that the network includes people and people make decisions
and fight in the battlespace.
These two dimensions are brought together through networking.
The Director of Network Centric Warfare Implementation, GPCAPT
Ian Meyn, said NCW was essentially about technology assisting
people to enable them to make better and quicker decisions.
“Too many people unfortunately get confused, as they believe
NCW is just about the technology, it is not, it is also about
people as well,” he said.
“I would prefer to have well-trained people with a less capable
network, rather than have the best network and poorly trained
people.
“The network can’t adapt but people can.”
GPCAPT Meyn, while serving as Chief of Staff of the Australian
National HQ in the Middle East during Operation Falconer, experienced
working first hand in an NCW environment and has seen the benefits
it brings to military operations. He has used the US forces Blue
Force Tracker system.
“On my desk I was able to open my laptop and I could see
on the screen where all of the Blue Force units were on land,
sea and in the air,” he said.
“Where the power of that is, that an individual unit can
also know where other blue force units are.”
GPCAPT Meyn said we have to be aware that we are not going to
have a button that will be pressed and all of the technology will
appear and so will a NCW environment.
“It is about a convergence of equipment, technology and training
which will be introduced over time and will continue to be introduced
gradually leading up to the year 2020,” he said.
“NCW is bringing all of the new equipment and technologies
together, such as GPS, Wedgetail aircraft and UAVs. It will take
some time for this to occur.”
“It has to be remembered that we are not building an NCW;
we are actually building a better Defence Force, which is enabled
by NCW.
“The ADF has adopted the NCW concept because it is one way
of enabling the ADF to make sure that its speed of decision is
faster than that of its enemies.”
Defence is serious about the implementation of NCW and has established
a NCW program office within Capability Development Group to better
integrate Defence Capability Plan projects into an NCW architecture.
Also the creation of a Rapid Prototyping Development and Evaluation
Program known as RAPID brings together Defence and industry in
an innovative and collaborative way to accelerate the insertion
of NCW capabilities into the ADF. An education program on NCW
started with the NCW Roadmap 2005 and continues with the booklet
Explaining NCW.
Over the next three editions readers of the Defence Newspapers
will find a different NCW brochure explaining more about NCW and
how it affects them.
Each and every one of us, as members of Defence, has an important
part to play as the changes are made to link people and technology
into a networked force.
The three NCW brochures are a good start to understanding NCW.
More
information as well as the links to publications such as Explaining
NCW is available at http://intranet.defence.gov.au/CDGWeb/Sites/NCWI.
Electronic banking: an illustrative example
Further
reading on NCW:
THERE
are numerous books in existence which incorporate different levels
and facets of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) into the text of the
battles they describe.
These four books allow the reader to put different aspects of
NCW into the context of a military working environment at a variety
of levels:
