Internet for C3I at Exercise Tandem Thrust 97

ADFA Computer Science School Seminar

10 April, 11:10am, Computer Science Room 152

Repeated 14 April 3pm APW4-3-34 for the Defence Material Division

& 15 April 2pm for the Air Power Studies Centre

by Tom Worthington

Manager IM Architectures, Department of Defence

Created: 10 April 1997 - As at 28 February 1999

Outline

• Exercise Tandem Thrust 97
• USS Blue Ridge
• Internet for C3I
• See also

Exercise Tandem Thrust 97

• U.S. Pacific Command sponsored exercise
• Shoalwater Bay Training Area
• U.S. and Australian Defence Forces
• test Australian and U.S. command & control

USS Blue Ridge

• purpose built Command and Control ship
• 620-foot 18,500 ton, 1550 crew
• flagship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet & Command ship for Tandem Thrust 97
• Joint Maritime Command Information System (JMCIS)

Internet for C3I

• unclassified and classified a TCP/IP over exercise area
• satellite links radio, land lines and LANs
• US and Australian networks joined using routers
• Lotus Notes, Internet e-mail & military messaging

4 5

Aboard Blue Ridge

• MS-Power Point for briefings
• Web for routine administrative information & some C3I
• Commercial of the Shelf (COTS) hardware and software
• MS-Office for WP, e-mail
• Netscape Navigator Gold for web browsing and web pages
• Commercial video conferencing equipment and video projectors
• Equipment tied down using webbing straps, racks and adhesive tape

6 7 5

The Future

• Internet worked well for this military exercise
• enthusiastically accepted by ADF personnel
• Used by U.S. Forces in our region
• ADF should consider adopting it

• Technology: Internet & COTS for Defence:
  • Internet e-mail in place of X.400
  • Web interface for C3I
  • Would allow low cost briefcase sized equipment providing data, video and voice facilities
• Standards development:
  • Internet developers take an incremental, pragmatic and engineering approach
  • Interoperation between two working implementations must be demonstrated
  • Simple standards which can then be built on
  • Avoid problems with OSI and GOSIP
  

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• On-line Working: Apply practical experience of decision making on-line:
  • use of newsgroups and mailing lists for discussion
  • web pages to provide background information
  • Change paradigm from information push to pull
  • "headquarters" as an on-line resource linking people

One example

• selecting the most useful information
• getting that information down limited communications links

Internet solutions:

• Progressive image display: Interlaced GIF, progressive JPEG and PNG for image resolution selected for available battlefield bandwidth.
• PICS: Use for "Secret" and "Confirmed by Intelligence" labels (designed for "Suitable for Children" labels on web pages).
• Meta-data tags: Automatic searching of military information using meta-data search engine announced Tuesday 8 April 1997, by Australia's Distributed Systems Technology Centre

• Text of talk
• "Web Warriors take Net advantage" by James Riley, The Australian, page 51 Tuesday 8 April 1997
• To USS Blue Ridge by Helicopter, 20 March 1997
• Defence Efficiency Review, 11 April 1997
• Australian Defence Force Academy
• Air Power Studies Centre
• Department of Defence
• Other talks by Tom Worthington
• Tom Worthington's Home Page
• Photo acknowledgements:
  • RAN Sea King helicopter from the RAN Home Page
  • USS Blue Ridge from the Blue Ridge Home Page
  • Joint Operations Control Center, US Navy photo by PH2(NAC) H. Wolfgang Porter from the Tandem Thrust 97 Home Page
  • Other photos taken on the same Kodak DC50 Digital Camera used for Hot Air Balloon Over Canberra