Command and Control · 5:31pm Nov 22nd, 2015
When the movies portray a crisis, there will probably be a scene with a big room full of people sitting in front of computers while some guy with lots of rank looks at huge screens on the wall that display all kinds of data.
While I’m not sure whether the military or the movies had the idea first, today the military does in fact use big command centers that look just like you'd expect.
They come with many nicknames. A war room implies active battle. An operations center is supposed to give orders. A watch floor tends to do less active things like intelligence.
Before going further, let’s review some terminology.
Joint = more than one military branch working together.
Combined = more than one country working together.
For this blog’s examples, I’ll be using the 609th Air and Space Operations Center. It’s the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC “kay-ock”) for the Middle East. It’s run by the United States, and has representatives from every country that is currently participating in coalition airstrikes in the Middle East. 60 Minutes recently did a report on it, which I encourage you to watch. The CAOC is located at Al Udeid airbase in Qatar.
The CAOC controls the air picture in the Middle East. Any coalition aircraft that flies gets its orders from them. The orders are put out in an Air Tasking Order, which is distributed to all concerned parties the day before. The ATO is written with input from target planners and representatives from all the respective countries who contribute what assets they can. Advances in technology now allows the ATO to be emailed on secure networks. During Desert Storm, for example, it had to be printed out and flown to where it needed to go every day.
While the airplanes are flying, they’re being monitored on literal bigscreens.
Image of the main ops center at the CAOC. Big screens and lots of people sitting in front of computers. Note the outline of Iraq on the screen to the right and the international flags on display. They’d probably have even more stuff going on if someone wasn’t taking the picture.
According to 60 Minutes, up to 160 coalition planes are airborne over Iraq and Syria on any given day. These could be (for example) Saudis flying from their home bases, US jets flying from various land bases or aircraft carriers, the British flying from Crete, drones, or any number of others. Connecting the dots on all those simultaneous missions, making sure they don’t interfere with each other, and getting bombs on targets is a tall order, not to mention making sure everyone gets all the aerial refuelling they need. Dozens of tankers transport millions of pounds of jet fuel over Iraq and Syria every day. Plus some for Afghanistan, which is currently winding down but still active.
The goal of the CAOC is to bring together information. If you can see every plane - friendly, enemy, neutral - on a big screen and you know where the targets are, it becomes much simpler to get the mission done, almost like a video game.
Of course it’s not that simple. Many of those airplanes are doing on-call close air support, just hanging out and waiting for guys on the ground to get into a fight. Most fighter-sized airplanes don’t have satellite radios, so if plans change the CAOC will have to communicate through someone closer, like an AWACS airborne command center. With a couple of AWACS or coalition equivalent over the battlespace, they can pass messages to individual planes and monitor air traffic.
AWACS. Big radar, big radios.
Interestingly, one of the best tools is chat. It’s an easy way to send information, especially if you want to save bandwidth. The AWACS has a secure computer aboard that can do secret chat rooms with anyone connected to the SIPR network, like the CAOC, aircraft carriers, etc. (For more on SIPR, see Classified Information.)
To summarize, the CAOC takes in information from platforms like drones and AWACS to put together a comprehensive picture which can then be used to give orders. This is the function of many command centers.
Some of you may be wondering where the Russians doing missions in Syria fit into this. I doubt they will be part of the Air Tasking Order in the near future, if ever. For now, the CAOC is focused on preventing accidents between us and them. However, recently the UN Security Council unanimously condemned ISIL. It's possible a UN-backed fighting force could be created, bringing in a whole lot more countries. (More on the UN here.)
Let’s widen the scope a little. The CAOC runs the air picture in the Middle East. The guy they report to is the Combined Forces Air Component Commander (CFACC.) He’s probably an Air Force General, someone who knows a lot about air.
As you may imagine, there are also Commanders for Land (CFLCC) and Maritime (CFMCC) areas, people who know a lot about dirt and water, respectively. Plus a couple others that aren’t specific to geography, like spec ops (CFSOC).
Inside the coalition, we have the US. The US by itself has the Joint Forces components. (JFACC, JFLCC, etc.). And of course, inside those you have individual service branches.
For the US military in the Middle East, all of the components build up like a pyramid into Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for running operations across the whole theater in all areas.
Up another link in the chain we have the other component commanders. Like CENTCOM, we have commands for Europe (EUCOM), Pacific (PACOM), South America (SOUTHCOM), North America (NORTHCOM), and Africa (AFRICOM). Commands not focused on a specific part of the world are TRANSCOM for transportation, SOCOM for special operations, and STRATCOM for strategic stuff like nuclear. These commands together form the United States Unified Combatant Command.
TRANSCOM, SOCOM, and STRATCOM are effectively worldwide. Click each of those links for more information.
So, to summarize again, think of it like a pyramid. The Unified Combatant Command is at the top. In our example, CENTCOM is responsible for the Middle East and is one of the pyramid blocks a level down from the top. Below the CENTCOM block are the blocks for CENTCOM's Air, Maritime, Land, Spec Ops, etc. commanders. The United States Air commander joins with the coalition to form CFACC, which uses the CAOC to carry out the mission of controlling the air operations in the Middle East.
A couple other examples could help. If a US ship was near Australia, it would fall under the Maritime component of PACOM. If some US soldiers were working with with their British counterparts in the UK, they would fall under the combined Land component for EUCOM. If there were pictures to explain all of this easier, I would definitely use them.
Each of the groups along the way probably has a watch floor of their own. Whoever is first to receive a piece of information can pass it up and down.
While complicated, the framework lays out a clear chain of command, so everyone knows where orders come from and where they go. Now we can all be confused together.
Thanks to Biker_Dash
Edit/update: In addition to the previously mentioned commands, as of 2017 there is now also CYBERCOM.
Hmmmm... thinking we could expand on the roles of Russian and Allied forces in Syria at some point. Thinking in a talk show...
*not so subtly drops hints and shit*
Thanks for the detailed look at military logistics.
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I laugh at pathetic capitalist BRRRRRRRRRT, design of comrade Andrei Tupolev put more boolet out faster for killing of Fascist!
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88 gun of Shpagin shoot over 79,200 boolet per minute!
As of August 29, 2019, SPACECOM has been reestablished. The original lasted from 1985-2002 before it was absorbed into STRATCOM.