A state-of-the-art command center in Camp Pendleton, Calif., will help the
Marine Corps take advantage of the latest information technologies when planning
combat operations, officials said. Built for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
under the leadership of the current commandant of the Corps, Gen. Michael W.
Hagee, the center is viewed as a steppingstone in a larger plan to improve command-and-control
capabilities.
The command center gives war planners access to real-time information on worldwide
operations, said officials. It acts as a centralized repository of up-to-date
information about ongoing deployments and contingencies.
“We are not going to have maps,” Hagee said. “Information
is going to be fused electronically, so that the planners do not have to worry
about fusing it themselves. They can worry more about the actual planning.”
Inaugurated in July 2002, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (1-MEF) Command
Center in Camp Pendleton is a $13 million, 23,000 square-foot facility designed
for MEF leaders to command and control up to 45,000 Marines in an air-ground
task force. The center also provides a “hub for extended, reach-back connectivity
with engaged units,” said a Marine Corps spokesman. The idea is to decentralize
the decision-making process at the command level, so field commander can make
decision faster and more competently.
“Nothing helps an enemy more than a chaotic, disconnected battle-space,”
said the spokesman.
The existing technology for command and control is not adequate to achieve
an integrated picture of the battlefield, he explained, because current systems
typically don’t talk to each other. Further, much of the hardware is heavy
and impractical for fast-faced field operations.
The Marines hired a California firm, Panoram Technologies, to supply visualization
displays, develop and maintain the command-center software, under a four-year
contract. Cal Leuning, director of government solutions for Panoram, said that
the Marines, first and foremost, want interoperability among multiple systems.
MEF officials said they are hopeful that collaboration with far-flung units
deployed around the world will be made easier using the center’s various
cross-compatible, network-centric capabilities. “Much of what was done
to collect operational data independently in the past will now be done collectively
through information sharing across command lines,” said the Marine spokesman.
To bring together disparate sources of information into a single console, Panoram
uses a technology—whose patent is still pending—called Integrator
2000, a multimedia visualization system that evolved from multi-projector flight
simulators.
The command center’s operations planning room has a three-dimensional
holographic stereo-optic display, so mission commanders can virtually fly into
and out of an operational theater.
Planners use large touch-screen whiteboards, where text and video can be projected
and transferred to other boards, making tactical analysis more convenient than
paper and pencil. Plasma monitor displays are a lower resolution alternative
for general television-type training, leaving higher resolution systems for
critical mission planning.
The command center provides top-of-the-line secure communications for interaction
with coalition forces.
In the future, the 1-MEF wants to further integrate current command-and-control
systems. The Defense Department’s Office of Force Transformation, along
with the commandant, has approved the go ahead for the planning and development
of a new command-and-control center structure focused on “sea-basing,”
a Pentagon buzzword used to describe expeditionary operations.