Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Tactical Battlefield Communications

At the outset of this study, the Task Force observed that there was no such thing as "just" tactical communications. Rather, it saw requirements for conducting military operations in two major theaters of war as well as for conducting a wide variety of other missions. It also saw emerging requirements for a telecommunication infrastructure to support rapid force projection, early entry, reachback/split-base, and high mobility operations. Furthermore, Joint Vision 2010 (JV2OlO) assumed information superiority to be necessary for dominant maneuver, precision engagement, full dimensional protection and focused logistics. All these factors have led our Military Services to express a need for a fully integrated, strategic/tactical, voice/data/information telecommunications infrastructure rather than merely "tactical" communications. This infrastructure must bring post-camp-station information services to deployed forces and, conversely, bring information from our deployed forces to the continental United States (CONUS) or to other locations geographically distant from areas of operations. Although the Task Force expanded its view to go beyond its Terms of Reference (TOR) "Tactical," it also needed to narrow its view somewhat to keep the study manageable. It did this by not considering people issues such as recruitment, training, retention, or skills. Further, it did not consider information services above communications (transport); nor did it consider applications or middleware, all elements of a fully integrated Global Information Grid (GIG). Also not considered were intelligence data transport systems, including emerging Petabit concepts. The Task Force did, however, consider intelligence product dissemination in its deliberations.