A Marine's-Eye View of the Networked Battlefield

Ian Lamont writes "Tyler Boudreau, a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq and a blogger, has written an interesting analysis of the impact of email, IM, and other digital devices upon 'ground-pounders' and their commanders in the field. These innovations were introduced in hopes of increasing situational awareness, rapidly gathering data, analyzing it, organizing it, and then pushing it back out to operators as actionable intelligence. They also provide commanders with the freshest possible information and aid them in their moment-to-moment decision-making. However, Boudreau found that the technologies can lead to micromanagement and deep frustration, trends that he illustrates by describing a shooting incident in al Anbar and its aftermath. He also warns that soldiers can become too dependent upon headquarters for critical decisions, which can lead to dangerous situations when communications get cut off."

Comments

Vietnam redux?

[JThaddeus]

This sounds very familiar. I joined Army ROTC in '73, when all instructors had at least one tour in Vietnam. I served in the 82nd Airborne in the late '70s, when every senior NCOs, many captains, and all field grades had been to Vietnam. Micromanagement was was a common complaint, both from them and in the reading I've done then and since. But while the Infantry School would lecture against micromanagement, I can't say that I saw many of my seniors taking a hands off approach.

Re:Micromanagment and abu ghraib

[HBI]

Taking things that happen between headquarters "tactical operations centers" or TOCs and individual units, then extrapolating that into the communications that happen between higher echelon headquarters or logistical operations is a stretch at best.

At a real TOC somwhere like Iraq, you have 7x24 coverage by people whose job is to report upward on events at that locale. Therefore, a small unit action becomes well known to those in the chain of command associated with that unit. However, a random DFAC (mess hall) at Camp Victory isn't reporting up to its chain with anything approaching that frequency. In fact, that might happen once a week or once a month, aside from regular orders for foodstuffs and personnel actions. Moreover, all the tactical systems associated with this reporting are used by actual warfighters. Those engaged in logistical work will never see such a system.

Same goes for prisons - they have no tactical systems.

Yes, I just came back from there in late April.

With Soldier Radio and WNW, comm will jump again

[JohnnyComeLately]

The level of communications is set to jump even more as networking waveforms are developed and comm systems link up even more. If you look at the CONOPS for some future capabilities, the guy on the original foot patrol could have sent video of the entire firefight to the other patrol, or to an Apache/A-10 overhead and then back to the Battallion. Texting is already in place, but if you listen to any Marine or Army officer talk, voice will always rule supreme. Yeah, you'll have streaming video, IM, texting, etc. But the platoon leader wants to hear voice, and more importantly, the inflection in his voice. I'm sure this article's author backed his man because he heard the sincerity and urgency in his men's voice while on patrol.

Google JTRS if you want to see where the Marines and Army are headed with comm. These will be small form factor, maritime, manpacks, handhelds, etc. Micromanagement and bad leadership will always happen, regardless, but I think good situational awareness and NCOs it will even out.

To all the posters saying, "Soldiers don't think". Please STFU. You're just being dumb and either anti-military, biased, or just spouting crap you heard on CNN. I taught new recruits in the Air Force as a special duty assignment at Vandenberg. I have friends who are Marines that leave and go to Iraq more than you go to the dentist. If there's any common thread between all the branches it's this: accountability is much higher, better skills required , and critical thinking never been more demanded. You can point to Abu, but you're ignorant of the thousands of patrols who held back their trigger finger to allow a bad guy get away because of the civilians behind him. The hundreds of additional hours spent planning ATOs (Air Tasking Orders) so that __IF__ a bomb missed it would not hit innocents and that the proper munition is used for the target, building, support, etc. If you're still not convinced, spend at least an hour reading the foot patrols blogged here and then click "Next". Spend some time poking through his dispatchs.