Assessing the Operational Impact of New Network Centric Technology, Collaborative Replanning with User Defined Operational Picture: A Controlled Experiment with Warfighters

In adapting C2 to the 21 century we plan to conduct a controlled Human-InTheLoop (HITL) experiment with new Network Centric Warfare (NCW) technology which will be introduced to sixteen experienced warfighters in the form of a collaborative User Defined Operational Picture (UDOP) with SORTS Force Readiness and intelligence data access enabled by an IP wide area network as a possible improvement over their use of current baseline technology in the form of the GCCS with Common Operational Picture (COP) capability. We examine here the general methodology of using controlled HITL experiments employing combat scenarios as a means of testing and evolving more effective C2 technology for the warfighter. (See the Award-winning TTCP GUIDEx, 2006) In addition, we hypothesize that the results of this particular experiment will show significant improvements on the NCW performance metrics of Situational Awareness, Shared Situational Awareness and bottom-line Combat Effectiveness due to use of the new NECC(Net-Enabled Command Capability) technology employed in the experiment trials. The important role of enhanced operational replanning quality, and speed, enabled by the new technology, will be carefully examined here, since recent experimentation results strongly suggest them as NCW metrics that warrant more scrutiny by the research community. (See Hiniker & Entin, 2006). Thus we expect that collaboration and synchronized replanning will play important roles impacting combat effectiveness in this C2 experiment. As in our prior published experiments, we use a withinsubjects design while employing multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) in the statistical testing of our hypotheses. We intend to conduct the actual experiment trials during late April/May of 2007. Introduction Net Centric Warfare (NCW) has been defined as an information superiority-enabled concept of operations that generates increased combat power by networking sensors, decision makers, and shooters to achieve shared awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater lethality, increased survivability, and degree of self synchronization. (Alberts, Garstka, and Stein (2000)) Situational Awareness (SA), as well as its sharing by linked warfighters (SSA), is thus deemed to be a major causative factor in increasing combat power. (Hiniker & Entin, 1990, 1992: Perry, et al, 2004; Hiniker, 2005; Hiniker & Entin, 2006) Increased Speed of Command, and the associated increased speed and quality of planning, have recently received some empirical support as NCW contributors to combat effectiveness. (Hiniker & Entin, 2006) Besides the higher connectivity created through the construction of broader band networks, the major information technologies that are indispensable for enabling NCW for a warfighting team are the Common Operational Picture (COP) coupled with a shared whiteboard for collaboration over the map of the battlespace. DISA’s most advanced versions of these technologies are the User Defined Operational Picture (UDOP), as instantiated by NECC C2 Common Services with the Lightweight Collaborative Whiteboard (LCW). In addition, warfighter access to remote data base capabilities such as SORTS (Blue Force Readiness) data base and the improved TMS/CWS (Red Force Tracker) data base should contribute directly to the speed and quality of replanning, and hence also contribute to increased NCW combat effectiveness. Does greater Speed of Command via improved speed and quality of replanning utilizing remote data bases by a distributed warfighting team enabled by a network in fact cause improved combat effectiveness? What are some of the causal mechanisms involved? The purpose of the experiment described here is to demonstrate and to analyze the differences in operational effectiveness between current warfare practices and NCW practices using the combined technologies of the UDOP with collaboration technology, and the remote data bases of SORTS and TMS/CWS while capturing quantitative measures of NCW parameters under controlled conditions. Here collaboration technology is instantiated through the LCW shared map planning capability with audio. In addition, this experiment will serve as an early Operational Assessment in the Test and Evaluation of the combined Capability Modules of UDOP, SORTS, and TMS/CWS as contributors to the effectiveness of the Adaptive Planning Capability Definition Package which is expected to increase significantly the measures of the Key Performance Parameters of the Combat Loss Exchange Ratio and the Speed and Quality of Replanning in the combat mission threads played out by the participating warfighting teams here. (See DoD/DAU, 2003; TTCP GUIDEx, 2006) In the evolutionary development of C2 technology it is useful to benchmark progress through the use of standard measures of performance and effectiveness. Thus use of the standard performance parameter of Situational Awareness was made in a 1990 experiment (Hiniker & Entin, 1990) and again in 2006 in an experiment with a similar scenario and set-up. The comparison of the results of these two experiments demonstrated noteworthy evolution in C2 capability for the warfighter over the intervening decade and a half (Hiniker & Entin, 2006). The baseline condition in the first experiment consisted in local tactical pictures located at the two ship captain posts and a big picture Gulf view located at the remote team leader’s command post. This experiment showed significantly higher Situational Awareness by the warfighters in the COP prototype treatment condition. The later experiment used the COP condition as baseline and found comparable and significant improvements in Situational Awareness in the postreplanning phases of the experiment when warfighters employed the new collaborative UDOP technology. Such a comparison in the evolution of technological progress in C2 would be more difficult to draw without the use of standard measurements of performance parameters. In the current experiment, we examine the impact of these surviving C2 technologies coupled with new network enabled distributed intelligence and readiness databases, i.e. TMS/CWS; and SORTS, while focusing on the measurement of their contribution to effective adaptive planning by the warfighting teams.