For US Army’s future command posts, one size will not fit all
By Colin Demarest
Oct 7, 07:00 AM
WASHINGTON — Command posts must become nimbler and better networked over greater distances to prevent an enemy from targeting them and killing soldiers, according to U.S. Army leaders closely watching Russia’s assault on Ukraine for lessons in warfare.
Command posts of old were relatively stationary, a bear to construct and then breakdown, and often distinguishable by their heat, noise and electronic signatures. Such recognizable targets will not cut it in a fight against advanced adversaries such as Russia or China, as battlefields teem with advanced sensors, powerful jammers and weapons touting extended ranges, said Mark Kitz, the service’s recently installed leader of Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical.
“We learned a significant lesson in Ukraine, right? You have to move. These lower echelons, below the division, their command posts have to move to be survivable. They have to be dispersed to be survivable,” he said in an interview. “The command posts that we were building and architecting, with the network as an enabler, clearly would not be survivable in a large-scale combat operations fight.”
https://www.defensenews.com/battlefield-tech/2023/10/07/for-us-armys-future-command-posts-one-size-will-not-fit-all/
