Published in ARMADA International
Written by Dr Lee Willett
As rivalry returns at sea, navies are seeking dominance at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. In this context, using networked datalinks to enable, integrate, and enhance communications is a strategic, operational, and tactical priority for navies.
Naval operations by definition demonstrate the requirements for, but challenges in, effective communications at sea. In contemporary naval operations, the requirement for integrated communications to support effects at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels is growing. However, this growing requirement also highlights enduring and emerging challenges. These include: the need for rapid, effective transfer of significant data volumes; the physical and environmental challenges in so doing; and developing system and network technology to enable such data volumes to be transferred in such an environment.
As naval rivalry returns and naval presence grows around the world, there is a need to integrate that presence at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels across the sub-surface, surface, air, and space domains. Moreover, as faster, more effective response is required, there is greater emphasis on collecting, communicating, and using greater amounts of data.