LandWarNet JOINS THE ELECTRONIC BATTLESPACE
By Scott R. Gourley
The Net Centric battlespace is becoming more crowded every day. The latest addition to the C4ISTAR environment, designated by the U.S. Army as “LandWarNet,” was introduced in the days leading up to the March 2004 Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Winter Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
“I was reading the Army draft vision last week and I spotted ‘LandWarNet,'” Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jack Costello, Vice President, Army Transformation, Raytheon Network Centric Systems [See “Raytheon Focuses on Network Centric Operations,” Battlespace C4ISTAR Technologies, December
2003]. After encountering the new term as part of the emerging Army vision, Costello passed a quick question to his business development group who confirmed that “LandWarNet had been included in a briefing in early February. It’s the latest.”
In fact, the Army officially revealed and clarified the new network terminology on 26 February, announcing that “LandWarNet” is the new name for the Army’s network enterprise, and includes all Army networks-from sustaining military bases to forward-deployed forces.
LandWarNet is described as a combination of infostructure and services across the entire Army that will provide for processing, storing, and transporting information over a seamless network. As such, LandWarNet will serve as the Army counterpart to the Air Force ConstellationNet and the enterprise network of the Navy’s FORCENet.
According to the official Army release, “LandWarNet is the Army’s portion of the Global Information Grid (GIG) supporting users around the world,” said Lt. Gen. Steven W. Boutelle, the Army Chief Information Officer/G-6. “LandWarNet provides networks to the Active Component forces, National Guard, Army Reserve, and our sustaining base. This is all part of the Army transformation into joint, network-centric, interoperable, knowledge-based warfare.”
LandWarNet’s network elements include: Installation connectivity to the GIG. The National Guard’s GuardNET and the Army Reserve’s ARNET are both part of LandWarNet at this level; Echelons-Above-Corps connectivity to the GIG supporting Combatant Commanders, Land Component Commanders, and Joint Force Commanders; and providing the bridge between the deployed soldier and the GIG; and Echelons-Corps-and-Below connectivity to the GIG supporting Soldiers, units of action/brigade, Division and Corps elements located in the deployed theater.
When fielded, the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T), Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), Transformational Communications System, GIG-Bandwidth Expansion and Network Centric Enterprise Services will all be integral parts of LandWarNet.
Pointing to the recent LandWarNet “milestone” as just one recent example of the growth of Net Centric Operational thinking, Costello provided Battlespace with a philosophical industry perspective on the unfolding digital battlespace.
“We may have the ‘biggest cottage industry’ that you’ve ever seen in terms of Net Centric Operations,” he said. “In fact, given the growing number of ‘true believers’ perhaps ‘biggest theology’ would be a more accurate description.”
Noting that, “the standard reference architecture drives an operational architecture which drives a tactical architecture, etc,” Costello pointed to hopeful signs of a coalescing of architectural philosophies.
“You’ve got the Joint Battle Management Command and Control group that meets regularly,” he said. “You also have DISA that’s doing the Net Centric Enterprise System [NCES], which is an architecture that feeds into the Global Information Grid. You have the Navy’s FORCENet program. You have the Air Force C2 Constellation [ConstellationNet]. And now you have the Army’s LandWarNet. All of these things go as each of the services’ approach toward Net Centricity.”
“We are comfortable at Raytheon with the term Net Centric Operations,” he continued. “And, from a t