CWID 2009
By CDR Rodger Ward, HQ JFNZ J6, NZDF Director for Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration
The Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWID) demonstrates information and communications technology for coalition partners. As well as NZDF sites, we send staff overseas to take part in CWID. It’s my job to identify the international locations during CWID where the technology is of relevance to the NZDF.
This year we sent:
- WOEWS Steve Lock, (the COP manager for NMCC) to Shirley’s Bay in Canada to see the Canada Command watch staff evaluate technology of relevance to Homeland Security and Defence in the Maritime Domain.
- LT Luke Taylor to San Diego State University (California) to work with technology that enhances interoperability with multi-agency partners.
- Other NZDF personnel went to Dahlgren, Virginia (the Navy Surface Warfare Centre) and to NORTHCOM (formally NORAD) in Colorado.
When we already have networks at sea and we have a programme in place to support and develop our Fleet Command and Control capability, why do we do this? It’s important to note that the technology that enables us all to send and receive emails and collaborate at sea today, was developed and perfected during a previous CWID (CWID and its predecessor Joint Warrior have been running for nearly a decade now).
The NZDF Network Enabled Capability Framework incorporates an annual Experimentation Plan. CWID and EX Trident Warrior are the culminating activities in that plan where we bring together all the experimentation that has been conducted in the various Research and Development facilities throughout the NZDF to evaluate products in a realistic operational (albeit totally scripted) environment.
This enables us to operationally test technology under stress from operationally relevant “ones and zeros.” We use simulated operational data to evaluate how the technology performs with actual war fighters pushing the buttons so the man-machine interface is tested by those that will eventually use the technology. We usually know within a few hours whether or not the capability will ever see the light of day onboard a ship.
CWID is a truly joint activity with this year’s involvement also including the Army C2 Battlelab, RNZAF No.5 Sqn, and IMSS, including an airborne P-3K, and DTA.
So what did we achieve this year? As well as our overseas staff, we stood up a CWID site in HQ JFNZ with three major aims:
- to evaluate the new Global Command and Control System (GCCS) that MoD is acquiring as the core of the Defence Command and Control System,
- to explore technology that would enhance multi-agency interoperability in the Homeland Security and Defence environment, with a particular focus on the interoperability challenges that Rugby World Cup 2011 may present, and
- to evaluate technology that would enable us to extend the core capabilities of DC2S into the tactical operating environment of the three services.
While not as glamorous as Canada or California, a large number of NZDF personnel - including many from Navy - were involved. We worked nights and slept during the day, and some aspects were very tedious; however, the efforts of this small team will have a direct result on the footprint and capability of the Defence Command and Control System that will be delivered to the RNZN fleet over the next 18 months.
The final CWID report will take some months to compile as we troll through the collected evaluations, however the following capabilities were proven:
- Black ICE: a globally deployable command and control capability suitable for small teams such as DHSU, MCM Dets, and Beachmaster.
- CoFDM: a video data link that enables real time line of sight transfer of imagery from airborne or mobile platforms to other units (in this case fitted to P-3K and received at an Army Command Post).
- Interoperability between GCCS and Cobham Wavehawk (RHIB and Small Boat Tracking System).
- Data to enable the determination of hardware footprint for DC2S fits to RNZN Platforms.
Those are four significant achievements, validating our participation in the annual Demonstration.
CWID happens every year in June. The RNZN personnel involved in CWID 09 – alongside 19 Army and RNZAF personnel – were CDR Ward, CDR de Ruiter, LTCDR Sinclair, LT Taylor, WOEWS Lock, CPOCSS Coleman, CPOCSS Kohi, POCSS Pohatu, POCSS Bryan & AEWS Revell. If other Navy readers feel even a little bit geeky and want to get involved, then register your interest with your Career Manager!
Coalition Warrior At Trentham
By Nick Lee-Frampton
The NZDF’s involvement in the 15-26 June Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration, the annual international trial of C4I technology, differed from the usual invented format by using operational scenarios. The (national) themes this year included:
- a homeland security incident focusing on interoperability challenges for the Rugby World Cup in 2011 and
- a non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) in the SW Pacific, using the official CWID focus on Aden in the Horn of Africa.
Specific trials being conducted by the NZDF in CWID ’09 included:
- two C2 situational awareness applications, Sitaware from Denmark and the UK-developed Battlehawk;
- a Microsoft-based mapping application called Joint Mission Planning System (JMPS);
- Mitre Corp’s Cursor On Target (COT) and,
- Black ICE (Integrated Communications Encryption) marketed by Fujitsu New Zealand.
“What we were trying to show in CWID was that these products, if chosen, would be interoperable with the core joint system Global Command and Control System (GCCS)” said CDR Rodger Ward. GCCS will form the core of DC2S, says CDR Ward. Other applications, like Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services, Military Messaging, Office Communication Services, and some additional military applications that come with GCCS, will form the rest. JCCS is the joint system that will deal with Operational and Strategic Level C2.
LTCDR Nikki Sinclair, responsible for maritime communication services at HQ JFNZ, said that CWID had shown DC2S “is useful at a strategic level. We have demonstrated that products like JMPS, Sitaware and Battlehawk, which are suitable for Army C2, are readily interoperable with DC2S.”
CDR Ward said that DC2S was in its final prototyping phase, with the next step being a decision on what type of DC2S capability each of the entities within the NZDF network would get before commencing rollout. “There’s no one size fits all. What the NZDF is striving to achieve is the least amount of systems to cover the strategic to tactical Command and Control Environment. One example is that the system Navy has chosen for its small boat operations is the same one that Army is trialing for Land C4ISR. We proved during CWID that these were capable of connecting to GCCS, thus enabling important information to pass between the two systems unhindered and undisrupted.”
Nick Lee-Frampton is a Wellington-based defence journalist who writes for ADM (Australia) & Defense News (USA).
Trident Warrior
Overlapping CWID was the complementary annual exercise Trident Warrior ’09, running from 22 June - 3 July. It is the major annual FORCEnet Sea Trial event and is officially described as an “Operational Experiment executed using operational forces, with the aim of testing experimental capabilities in an operational environment prior to introducing them into service.”
TW09 was led by the USN NETWARCOM; SPAWAR (Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command) provides the Chief Engineer, and a rigorous independent analysis of results is conducted by the US Naval Post Graduate School. The two main aims of TW09 were to:
- provide Speed to Capability” – a rapid fielding of improved FORCEnet Command and Control war fighting capability to the Fleet, with full supportability and maintainability and
- to “develop supporting tactics/techniques/procedures (TTP) for the new capability to optimize the execution of Naval operations.
MANAWANUI’s Part
Members of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) team based in San Diego came onboard Manawanui to fit the Spatially Aware Wireless Network (SPAWN). SPAWN is a high data rate line-of-sight communication system and is the equipment used enabled international video conferencing and transfer of data between stations. The aim of the trials was to test and improve the data rate between stations and to also overcome satellite vulnerability.
During the “operational experiment” Manawanui and Kahu were co-ordinated by the onboard leader of the SPAWN team, Dr Randall Olsen. Manawanui was used mostly as the control ship or ‘guide’ with Kahu being instructed to move to different relative positions. This allowed Dr Olsen to test different sectors of his equipment and different types of data transfers. The ship anchored each evening; this allowed time for Dr Olsen’s team to assess the results of each day’s evolutions.
Dr Olsen explained that Manawanui’s current communication system provides data transfer at the rate of 64 kbps or thereabouts. This year’s trial proved that data can be transferred at a much increased rate of 1 – 10 mbps. This rate is in the order of 50 – 500 times faster than what is currently in use. During the trial a relay of data was sent from Kahu to the Noise Range base station and then onto Manawanui, a total distance of over 50 nm. One example: a feature-length movie which would normally take 80 minutes to download from your home broadband, was transferred and downloaded in 25 minutes!
“We exceeded expectations by at least 10% and this bodes well for the future. The trial was a complete success,” Dr Olsen concluded.
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