An investigation of distributed communications systems and their potential applications to the command and control structure of the Marine Corps

Abstract

The Marine Corps Tactical Command and Control System (MTACCS) is expected to provide increased decision making speed and power through automated processing and display of data which previously was processed manually. The Landing Force Organizational Systems Study (LFOSS) has challenged Marines to examine "how Command and Control will be exercised, and what the organizational impact will be" of MTACCS. (MAR 78). This thesis is aimed primarily at the post MTACCS concepts of Command, Control and Communications (C3). It has been heavily influenced by the areas of concern which the acquisition of MTACCS has generated. The areas of mobility, maintainability, survivability and implementation are all areas in which distributed systems hold promise of improvement upon those provided by the hierarchically structured MTACCS architecture. Here we examine the required architecture for a second generation automated C3 system entitled the Mobile Command Concept (MCC).