Page 5 - Maritime Services and the Kill Web

The Maritime Services, the Allies and Shaping the Kill Web

And this was with air power multi-mission assets, which went out to execute a command directive in a
particular area of the battlespace to deliver a particular type and quantity of ordinance in that area of the
battlespace.

With new air technologies, multi-tasking platforms will fly to the fight and execute the initial commander’s
intent but will shift to the mission as needs arise during the air combat operation. Fleeting targets are a key
reality, which requires the ability for the pilots to prosecute those targets in a timely manner, rather than a
deliberate C2 overview manner.

Put in other terms, the command structures will need to “lean out” and to work with warfighting assets where
the pilots and operational decision makers are at the point of engagement, not in a building housing a CAOC.

http://www.sldinfo.com/c2-modernization-an-essential-element-for-21st-century-force-structure-innovation/
This requires building in a new approach to C2 from the ground up as the new assets are introduced into the
force. For example, the introduction of the F-35 should bring with it a fundamental rethink away from hub-
and-spoke C2 to distributed C2 and modular force package operating forces.

C2 for fifth generation aircraft is about setting the broader combat tasks and unleashing them to the
engagement area, and once there they can evaluate the evolving situation during their engagement time and
decide how best to execute the shifting missions within the context of the overall commander’s intent.

Hierarchical command and control of the sort being generated by today’s CAOCs is asymmetrical with the
trend of technology associated with fifth generation warfare.

http://www.sldinfo.com/reshaping-operational-and-training-approaches-airpower-led-combat-innovation/
The emerging perspective which can be characterized as a kill web, or the “network as a weapon” or a “fifth
generation enabled force” can be encapsulated in the following graphic, which reflects the convergent lines of
transformation shaping a foundation for the next decade of change.

FIGURE 1 GRAPHIC CREDITED TO SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE
We next look at the emergence of key elements of the kill web entering service with today’s US Navy, USMC,
the RAF and the Royal Navy, and the RAAF and the Royal Australian Navy.

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