The maiden voyage of the world's only glass-bottomed hot air balloon

Petraeus reloads rules of engagement

Petraeus reloads rules of engagement: "The top commander in Afghanistan on Wednesday issued updated rules that limit the use of artillery and airstrikes but recognize the right to use firepower in self-defense."
Click here to read more...

Navy invention gives Marines secure data connection in field

Afghan theater gets 'Wi-fi on the run'


By Jeanette Steele, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 10:31 p.m.

/ SPAWAR photo
A vehicle carrying a SPAWAR invention that is providing troops in Afghanistan secure data networks in the field is tested at Camp Pendleton in September.

A vehicle carrying a SPAWAR invention that is providing troops in Afghanistan secure data networks in the field is tested at Camp Pendleton in September.

Imagine trying to do business on the go without your BlackBerry or laptop. No information, no good.

Now imagine trying to direct a battle without that kind of information, with lives on the line.

As recently as last fall, Marine commanders in Afghanistan were venturing into a virtual data blackout when they went into the field.

They had telephone capability and rudimentary “force trackers” that showed Marines as dots on a screen. But in a vast country that lacks many modern roads — not to mention cellular antennas on every street corner — the troops had no way to send or receive data via classified or secret Internet networks on the run.



Enter a contraption rigged up by San Diego scientists at the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command research labs.



It provides a kind of “Wi-Fi on the run” for Marine commanders. They can roll out to the battlefield and keep in communication with all the networks they had back at the command post.

“It’s a game changer for us,” said Thomas Staley, 48, who recently won one of the Navy’s awards for top scientist of the year for leading the design team.

He jokingly calls it “Starbucks on the move,” referring to the free Internet access that the coffee chain provides for laptop-carrying customers who use the shops as an office-away-from-the-office.

Defense analysts said SPAWAR’s invention solves a major problem for Marine commanders in the field, providing the communications that troops complained were missing in Iraq.

“On the road to Baghdad in 2003, U.S. forces found that they were usually out of touch with higher command authority unless they stopped and set up fixed towers and dishes for communication,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.

“It’s hard to believe, but it is a fact that much of the time in places like Iraq and Afghanistan our warfighters can’t get the kind of links that everybody expects in their car in the United States.”

Staley’s modular device rides around in an armored truck driven by two lance corporals. It gives the Marine regimental commander instant Internet access over hill and dale. And at 60 mph.

Before this, command post technology was designed to be stationary. To set it up in a new location took somewhere between six hours and two days.

The first field version arrived in Afghanistan in November. Two more will be tested at Camp Pendleton this month, then shipped out to the battleground.

Here’s how they might help in Afghanistan:

The United States uses unmanned planes to track the movement of trucks driven by Taliban leaders. A bunch of sport-utility vehicles parked in front of a house indicates a bad-guy summit is probably under way.

Information from drones is typically relayed on classified networks, said John Pike, founder of GlobalSecurity.org.

“Letting the commander know that it looks like there’s a big meeting going on at the other end of the valley because there are a dozen SUVs parked out front — that’s the sort of thing you’d like to get in real time,” Pike said.

“It makes it more difficult for the enemy to meet and scoot faster than we can catch up with him.”

The Army is developing a similar technology, which it calls Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T.

The Marines trying out Staley’s invention — called Mobile Modular Command and Control, or M2C2 — are still on the battlefield. With them is Staley, the officer with a quick eye who helped goose the Navy along to get the rig into the field.

A former naval officer who lives in Tierrasanta, he led a team of up to two dozen scientists in San Diego and Charleston, S.C., who worked on the concept for five years.

They presented a prototype during a 2008 war game exercise in Hawaii.

The Marines landed on the beach, encountered the prototype for the first time and realized what it meant for them.

The eyes of the Marine operations officer lit up, said Staley, who was present at the exercise.

“It clicked. He was generating ideas faster than we could get things to work,” he said.

The Marines issued a statement of urgent need soon after, in late 2008. SPAWAR worked at unheard-of speed to turn the prototype into a battle-ready device in less than the usual three years.

But it’s not just for wartime. The Navy sees this technology as a humanitarian tool.

When U.S. ships arrived off Haiti after the massive January earthquake, sailors realized all of the island’s networks were shot. That feedback made it to Staley’s lab at SPAWAR.

“Even a day delay in setting up communications has a huge impact in finding places to land, getting information back so they can get stuff there that needs to be there,” Staley said. “They desire this right away.”

The system in use in Afghanistan cost $4 million, but that includes all of the related equipment, the armored truck and the staffing to make it work. Later devices will only add $600,000 to the price of the truck used to carry them.

But Wi-Fi isn’t everything. Given the complexities of the Afghanistan war, information alone isn’t going to turn the tide, analysts said.

The Taliban has some of its own communication ability, including satellite phones and Internet access from fixed locations. It is much more rudimentary than the Marines’ new equipment.

However, some of the major hurdles in the Afghanistan war aren’t about information availability. There’s the corruption in the local government and the poppy-based opium drug trade financing the terrorists.

“When you’ve got problems on that scale, the question of what does your battalion commander’s connectivity look like is just not going to register,” Pike of GlobalSecurity.org said.

“What are they going to do? They are just going to drive around and say, ‘Sure are a lot of poppies out here.’ ”

Jeanette Steele: (619) 293-1030; jen.steele@uniontrib.com. Follow on Twitter @jensteeley

The Warrior Song - Hard Corps