Tactics and Technology for 21st Century Military Superiority. Volume 1
Abstract
Attached is the final report of the 1996 Defense Science Board Summer Study Task Force on Tactics and Technology for 21st Century Military Superiority. Our Task Force was charged to explore new ways to make rapidly deployable forces much more effective than they are today. Based on our work, we believe that substantial, possibly revolutionary, improvements in the effectiveness of rapidly deployable forces are feasible. The concepts described in the report can be refined, tested and evolved into fielded capabilities over the next two decades. Furthermore, these concepts have broad applicability beyond the time urgent conditions of rapid deployment. The essence of this new expeditionary force concept is an ability to mass fire rather than forces. It relies on an ensemble of remote weapons effective against all types of targets; an extensive suite of sensors, information processors and information warfare capabilities to provide situation understanding dominance; a ground force comprised of light agile combat cells that offers few targets for the enemy; a precision logistics capacity that provides the right stuff at the right place at the right time; and a robust information infrastructure that ties this distributed force together. The report describes potential ways to achieve these capabilities as well as meet other challenges including command, force insertion and training. The report also describes how this new force concept could operate to perform various missions in different environments. In addition to this summary volume, we have produced two supporting volumes which include reports from the Task Force Panels, analyses done for the Task Force by others and a collection of papers on potential technology applications. While we don't expect that we got most of the details right, this work should provide a rich starting point for further development and experimentation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA640736
Entities
Organizations
- Defense Science Board