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The current family of US Army communications systems was designed to
support the Cold War scenario. These systems were created to operate
in a European theater and based on a maneuver scheme to defeat the
Soviet Military. As such, the Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE)
system, which is currently fielded to Army forces, relies on a grid
network of line-of-sight connected node centers to link command
posts at all levels.
As the Army conducted an analysis of its planned scheme of maneuver,
it was determined that the existing tactical communications systems
would not be able to keep up with the expected speed of advance and
dispersion of the combat forces. Thus, the Army developed a
commercial satellite solution that could be installed on critical
command and control vehicles that would give the tactical commanders
the connectivity and bandwidth required while dispersed, beyond line
of sight, and on the move To ensure consistent connectivity during
OIF, senior commanders utilized single channel (25 KHz UHF)
tactical
satellite (TACSAT) assets while on the move and fell back on
military X-band and commercial Ku-band TACSAT on the halt. This
hybrid solution, though heavily dependent on commercial assets,
proved invaluable in providing the robust, available on demand,
communications data and voice links required by the Corps Commander
down to his Division and Brigade TOCs.
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