Joint Fire Support in 2020 : development of a future joint fires systems architecture for immediate, unplanned targets

Abstract

The United States military has continually strived to develop systems and procedures that attempt to maximize the effectiveness and improve the collaborative effects of fire support across the spectrum of warfare. Despite improvements in the interoperability of the Department of Defense service components, there continue to be difficulties involved with executing emergent Joint Fires in a timely manner in support of the commander. In this context, the Joint Fire Support in 2020 project applied systems engineering procedures and principles to develop functional, physical, and operational architectures that maximize rapid battlefield effects through efficient targetprovider pairings. The unplanned, immediate joint fire support requests, and the architectures that enable the rapid pairing and tasking of fire support providers to fulfill those requests, were the emphasis of the study. Through modeling, simulation, and qualitative assessments of existing and planned command and control systems and organizations, a Centralized Joint Fire Support Network that incorporates and consolidates the various crossservice fire support functions, was chosen as the preferred evolutionary development path to a fully Distributed Joint Fire Support Network. The Project Team recommended several doctrinal, organizational, training, tactics, and materiel acquisition (DOTMLPF) solutions and identified areas of continued effort and study.--p.i.