Enhancing Performance In Light Infantry Digital Tactical Operation Centers

"At the request of the Commanding General, U.S. Army Infantry Center, this report assesses whether current digitization efforts for the light forces are addressing the specific needs of light forces, as opposed to more simply migrating heavy/mechanized digital solutions to light platforms. Twelve Infantry leaders, selected by the Chief, Dismounted Battlespace Battle Lab, provided information: the most critical digital concerns for light Infantry; differences between light and heavy tactical operations centers (TOCs); battle captain requirements; modifications of light infantry tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) resulting from digitization; and 'soldier as a platform' requirements. The most frequently mentioned light Infantry TOC concern was the need for user-friendly, information management capabilities that will allow: situational awareness of friendly and enemy units, more accurate and simpler battle tracking, and integrated access to information across battlefield operating systems. Responses also indicate significant efforts must be made to minimize information overload. New training programs, TTPs, and automated tools must be developed to permit fall utilization of new digital capabilities. The new digital systems must be lightweight, durable, and maintainable, and contain reliable communication links with adequate bandwidth. Relevant results from the Warrior Focus and Focused Dispatch Advanced Warfighting Experiments are also summarized."--DTIC.

"The advent of battlefield digitization increases the work trainers for live force-on-force exercises must do to control exercises and provide feedback to units, and it will pull trainers at platoon and company level out of the tactical information loop. The goal of this study was to describe instrumentation capabilities with the potential for reducing workloads and pulling trainers back into the information loop for exercises at the Army's maneuver combat training centers (CTCs) and at home stations. This study documents the experiences of approximately seventy of the National Training Center (NTC) observer/controllers (OCs) and analysts that participated in the training of the Army's first digitized brigade during the Force XXI Army warfighting Experiment (AWE). To gain a better understanding of what is required to support digital training, the study team reviewed emerging tactical doctrine from platoon through battalion task force level to develop a sample of potential digital training points and then designed displays that would help a trainer monitor unit performance with respect to these points. The team then defined the capabilities a workstation would need to create these displays. This report describes, defends and illustrates twenty workstation capabilities that support exercise control and feedback for digitized units."--DTIC.

"Trainers for force on force training exercises at the Army's maneuver combat training centers and at home station are often distracted from coaching and mentoring responsibilities by the need to perform exercise control and feedback (OAF) functions. The fielding of new weapons and reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) systems as part of force modernization will overwhelm trainers with new requirements unless improved concepts for tactical engagement simulation (TES) and instrumentation systems (IS) are implemented. This study produced an online database that was used to assess the benefits of implementing various new TES and IS concepts, or combinations of concepts, in terms of the number of OAF functions automated, the extent to which each function disrupts trainer coaching and mentoring activities, the number of gaps in training feedback addressed, and the number of systems to which each function or feedback gap applies. The TES and IS concepts we evaluated were designed to address the additional goal of avoiding the stove-pipe nature of past systems. The online database can be used to extent%mine the benefits of additional TES and IS concepts. The study sponsor is using the results to define requirements for future TES systems and IS for live training at CTCs and home stations."--DTIC.

"This study report provides an overview of critical training issues facing the Army as the 21st% Century Force becomes increasingly digital. The focus of this report is on understanding the significant change brought about by digitization and the ramifications that may result in degraded mode or back-up training requirements. This report is the first of three prepared under the U.S. Army Research Institute's Studies and Analysis effort titled Back-Up Training Requirements for the Digitized Battlefield. Issues and concerns documented in this report are addressed in two subsequent study reports: Analysis of Emerging Digital and Back-Up Training Requirements and Issues and Recommendations: Training the Digital Force. The impetus for this effort was provided by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel's Directorate of Personnel Technologies. Of concern was the lack of analysis regarding how the Army should address training and sustaining conventional or back-up skills for operations when digital system capabilities become degraded. This issue will become increasingly important as digitization of the force increases and resources decrease."--DITC.

"The possible effects of information technology insertion on organizations and their personnel are derived from an analysis of published management science and business literature. Two major points are developed. First, many factors other than the technical potential of a given information technology interact with one another and with the technology itself to determine the resultant nature, form, and functionality of the digitized organization. Second, the most significant impact on commanders and their staffs for the foreseeable future will not be quantum improvements in operational performance made possible by information technology but, rather, the technology insertion process, itself. Based on this analysis, we propose that implications for command in a digitized environment can be best described by reference to a continuum of organizational structures and associated behaviors. The extremes of this continuum are defined as digital mechanistic and digital organic. A third point between these two extremes is defined as digital adaptive. We discuss the nature of command over the range of the proposed continuum. The new competencies that might be required of commanders and their staffs regardless of the outcome of the technology insertion process are then discussed. The chapter concludes with suggestions for improving the technology insertion process."--DTIC