Automation of command and control in the modern army
The main criterion that determines the productivity of the application of an automated control system for military units of the type and rank of the military hierarchy has been and remains the reduction of a certain combat command and control cycle. In the military, near-war and non-military media at all, they talked a lot about the results of the military exercises in November 2010 of the year in Alabino. Only here it is rather difficult to understand the essence of combat control processes on tracking “color pictures” of launching RPA “Aileron-3”, interaction and work of officers on laptops, or reading general considerations of generals about the urgent need for automation.
Correspondents are invited, as a rule, to a particularly spectacular - the final part of the military doctrine, the so-called “dynamics”. At the same time, the lion's share of exercise time is always the process of preparing for the upcoming battle. But there is nothing to shoot here.
This part of the doctrine looks rather ordinary, to say the least - sadly. No clanking caterpillars tanks, neither helicopters rumbling in the air nor shooting guns at this stage you will not see. But at the same time, in the process of preparing for the upcoming battle, the tension of each link of the managerial staff approaches the highest point - as a rule, the battle takes place first in the minds of the bosses planning it.
For a soldier, the peak load is brought at the time of the attack. For the boss - at the time of the decision. In the course of a well-planned, well-calculated and comprehensively secured battle, the boss is calm and focused. He submits to his subordinates advance orders, submits the signals provided for and intelligible to them, and only occasionally makes minor adjustments to his plan.
There is an unwritten rule of the so-called “one-third” breakdown in any army. In the process of preparing the battle, the commander of the main unit distributes all the time allotted for preparation for the battle in this way: he retains one third of the time for taking a strategic decision and thinking through all the nuances and issues related to the organization of the upcoming battle; Two thirds gives to his subordinates - for making important decisions and actual preparation of troops for the upcoming battle. Having won the battle, the commander receives another combat mission. And again divides the existing term in the ratio 1: 2. Such cycles are called battle control cycles.
It should be noted that the temporary deadlines for the transfer of combat missions directly to subordinates are included in universal time for the commander to make a decision. It is, as a rule, up to 8% of the time allotted for organizing combat in the entire control link. An ordinary soldier in this "ladder" of the system to prepare for battle is given two and a half hours. Obviously, it was with the goal of increasing the time needed to prepare for battle to the lower link of the military hierarchy that automation was provided.
In the course of a battle, when a soldier has a clearly assigned task, and the chief only occasionally clarifies it, the control processes look like short recurring cycles of making a decision, bringing it to subordinates and implementing it in the form of troop actions. At the same time, the “organizational” share of such a cycle is already becoming relatively smaller - given that such decisions are, as usual, “private” within the boundaries of the previously adopted “big decision”.
In addition, utilitarian preparation for the implementation of these "microtasks" is usually not carried out - everything that had to be prepared was ready before the start of the battle.
Consequently, the proportion of time devoted to the task setting by subordinates in “small” combat control cycles can reach 50 and more than%.
In the press it was repeatedly stated that the use of ESU TZ provides a reduction in the command and control cycle in 2-2,5 times in comparison with the “manual method”.
Just a question, what cycle? Large (taking into account the selected period of preparation for battle)? Or small (during the battle)? And at the expense of what?
Any ACCS is the four most important and interrelated components:
1) hardware (systems);
2) software (software systems and software platforms);
3) communication facilities (complexes);
4) trained, trained personnel.
Let's start with the human factor. With officers. Who were trained to work with the complex under the supervision of experts of the concern "Constellation" in pre-prepared and properly equipped for this class and on special equipment, since there is a fifth ombr.
Hardware. The base of the complex was originally made by Baguet PC entirely of domestic production (including chips). It seemed a little. As a result, the grandiose plans for the creation of a complex based on the domestic element base were replaced by the use of the EC1866 PC of Russian production, but using imported microchips. Excellent computers, by the way, that was proved during the exercises.
Communication system As a result of the use of digital communication means of the Aqueduct class, it is possible to transmit some data in the indicated range in digital format at a speed of 1,2-1,6 kbit per second in the specified range. By the way, such data transfer rates are considered to be a breakthrough. If we consider that the analog radios that are in service, did not possess the ability to transmit digital information at all. But the main "feature" of the communication system used is the use of radio stations of the superhigh-frequency range (UHF). Here they have a huge throughput! True, at a very limited range. Within the line of sight.
As a result, encouraging reports on the reduction of the cycle of the combat command and control complex by two or more times. It goes like this, and it is real, but only in small cycles.
And what about the big ones? During the preparation of the battle, the software used was able to “ensure” that the normative period set for displaying the brigade’s solution was exceeded by approximately two and a half times.
And this - at each level of control. And not through the fault of irresponsible operators, military personnel. As a result, the programmers of the concern use ideologies and theses unacceptable for the implementation of software prepared for solving combat missions. And in the first place - this is the display, storage and transmission of data of the graphic atmosphere, as particularly difficult and responsible.
The ideology and theses of creating software systems, which were originally laid down at the stage of announcing tasks for its development and design, hinder the realization of all the permissible capabilities that can and must be implemented in it, taking into account the technical potential of the used hardware, the properties and qualifications of experts concern.
Intensively progressing in the originally laid wrong direction, the experts of the “Constellation” drove themselves into the tunnel, from which there is only one possible way out - back to the sources. And now the mistakes made at the initial stage of the plan cannot be recovered even by the intervention of a huge number of the most resourceful “backups”, “patches” and “crutches”!
Bringing the "Constellation" to mind is not only quite realistic, but also extremely necessary. But for this at least you need:
- change the algorithm of information exchange, currently used in the complex, to the rank involved in the system of modern imported "iron";
- it is real to integrate subsystems;
- change the rule of displaying and transmitting information in the graphics, abandoning the topographic program of the GIS "Integration", used in the system as a tool for the formation of the horizon. Use the "Integration" is necessary only for the visualization of the topobase;
-to carry out the final docking of the "Constellation-M with ACCS of the operational and tactical rank" Acacia-M ".
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