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Network Enabled Capability The UK's programme to enhance military capability by better exploitation of information.
"The ability to gather knowledge; to share it in a common and comprehensible form with our partners; to assess and refine it to turn into knowledge; to pass it to the people who need it in an edited, focussed form; and to do it in a timescale necessary to enable relevant decisions to be made in the most economic and efficient manner" DCDS(EC) 8 Nov 01
Introduction - The NEC information viewpoint Source: UK
MoD The use of information can be seen in the context of a set of basic, dynamic processes common to all military operations:
Understand Develop Intent Synchronise Effects
"Linking sensors, decision
makers and weapon systems so that information can be translated
into synchronised and overwhelming military effect at optimum
tempo" Network Enabled Capability vs. Network Centric Warfare
NEC shares the same tenets as NCW:
However...
"NCW Developing and Leveraging Information Superiority" is available
from the US The development of NEC has been arranged under a number of core themes, each capturing a related subset of the overal NEC vision. Full Information Availability - Enabling a user to search, manipulate and exchange information of different classifications captured by, or available in, all sources internal and external to the battlespace. Shared Awareness - Providing a shared understanding and interpretation of a situation, the intensions of friendly forces, and the potential courses of action amongst all elements in the battlespace. Flexible Working - Enabling assets to rapidly reconfigure to meet changing mission needs, allowing them to work together with minimum disruption and confusion. Agile Mission Groups - Enabling the dynamic creation and configuration of Mission Groups that share awareness and that co-ordinate and employ a wide range of systems for a specific mission. Synchronised Effects - Achieving overwhelming effects within and between Mission Groups by co-ordinating the most appropriate assets available in the battlespace through dynamic distributed planning and execution. Effects Based Planning - Taking an approach to planning that focuses on the use of military and non-military effects required against an enemy, and is integrated with other planning processes in the battlespace. Resilient Information Infrastructure - Ensuring information resources can be managed and that secure and assured access is provided with the flexibility to meet the needs of Agile Mission Groups. Fully Networked Support - Allowing the ready use of non-frontline government bodies, industry, academia and public service capabilities to support operations. Inclusive Flexible Acquisition - Co-ordinating
process across MOD, OGDs and industry that promotes the rapid insertion
of new technologies, facilitates coherence between acquisition
programmes and provides an incremental approach to delivering 'net-ready
platforms'. The challenges of delivering the UK's aspirations for NEC are considerable, and require co-ordinated action from a wide range of stakeholders and authorities. Military Research Dstl and QinetiQ are actively pursuing research into a wide range of issues grouped under the core NEC themes. Acquisition NEC will affect the acquistion and development of many equipment programmes. Co-ordinating these activities represents a considerable challenge for both the military customer and procurement organisations. The Integration Authority and DEC CCII, as the core capability DEC, will both play pivotal roles in the implementation of NEC. Experimentation Co-ordinated experimentation, involving research demonstrators, fielded systems and industry prototypes will be central to accelerating the development of requirements and delivery of capability. Concepts and Doctrine Delivering the full benefits of NEC, will require development of operational concepts and doctrine; this important aspect is being led by the UK's Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre (JDCC). Industry Industry partners have a key role to play in many aspects of NEC, including experimentation and delivery of systems. International Partners Many nations are currently studying and undertaking similar network related/network centric warfare developments. The UK will forge relationships with these nations to share research, leverage experimentation and build coalition capability. Perceived Benefits The advantages of implementing a network enabled force include having precision of control, precision in applying force, rapidity of effect, the force multiplier effect, improved force protection and improved combat effectiveness. These benefits will mean a shift in the Balance of Investment
towards increasing the integration rather than the effect of
weapons and sensors. NEC "encompasses the elements required to deliver controlled and precise military effect rapidly and reliably. At its heart are three elements: sensors (to gather information); a network (to fuse, communicate and exploit information); and strike assets to deliver military effect. The key is the ability to collect, fuse and disseminate accurate, timely and relevant information with much greater rapidity (sometimes only a matter of minutes or even in "real time") to help provide a common understanding among commanders at all levels". Secretary of State for Defence "NEC allows platforms and C2 capabilities to exploit shared awareness and collaborative planning, to communicate and understand command intent, and to enable seamless battlespace management. It will underpin decision superiority and the delivery of rapid and synchronised effects in the joint and multinational battlespace." Major General Rob Fulton NEC will be a key enabler of:
NEC Outline Concept, Part 1 - Background and Programme of Work
NEC Outline Concept, Part 2 - NEC Conceptual Framework
The NEC flyer v5.0
Quality of systems map v2.21
Quality of Service Map
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In
order to assist in a common understanding of NEC, MoD sponsers
wished to create a model of the information network that links
the key components of our equipment capability. This is seen as
the top-level view of the network, complementary to the detailed
systems and technical components on which work is in progress within
MoD.