DOOB

Commanders, assisted by their staff, integrate numerous processes and activities within the headquarters and across the forces. Command is the commander’s authority to exercise over subordinates whereas Control is the regulation of forces and warfighting functions to accomplish the mission in accordance with the commander’s intent. Command & Control cycle is a continuous process repeating the monitoring, assessing, planning and directing functions. These are done by the commanders and their staff in a collaborative environment supported by necessary automation aids.

Monitoring is to follow the current status of forces and receive information to assist in allocating and moving these forces. Monitoring requires situational awareness of friendly, hostile and neutral forces and also changes in the environment. Assessment is to measure the progress in achieving the objectives and end states of the released operation order. Assessment process can be supported by decisional tools, statistical reports, and what-if scenarios to predict next course of action. Planning is the preparation of the next phase of the current operation based on the recent assessments. Planning is a coordinated staff effort to gather the necessary information to form the alternative operation orders. After assessing the best course of action based on the current developing operation, the decision is taken by the commander to release the operation/fragmented order to direct the ongoing operation. This requires publishing the information in a secure, timely and semantically complete format with necessary details on a need-to-know basis.

JOC is a strategic level operation center, which is connected and integrated with other operation centers (land, maritime, air, police, non-governmental organizations, etc.) down to operational and tactical levels. To compose a joint operation picture, there is a need to receive and fuse other pictures like friendly, hostile, neutral forces of land, maritime and air domains, augmented by the environmental picture (terrain, meteorological and oceanographic), cyber picture, electronic warfare picture, space picture etc. By continuous fusion and correlation of multi-domain pictures, a seamless and timely (real-time) joint picture is presented at JOC and can be shared back to other domains simultaneously.

JOC automation and accommodation facilities must be sufficient for all members of the center in one place for a minimum of 48 or 72 hours (desirable). In the heart of the JOC building, there is a primary operation hall where current operation is conducted by the functional and liaison operators. Result of monitoring is mainly displayed here by projecting a joint common operational picture on the wall to follow the same situation. The cells’ working rooms surround the main operation hall with necessary coordination centers like Intel, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) Center, Fire Support Center, Air Coordination Center, Cyber Defence Center etc.

DOOB has a complete planning capability that during the current operation is going on, the next operation plan can be composed interactively by the staff. Planning can also be used to compose future contingency plans from current Order of the Battle (ORBAT) of the blue forces to the construction of a task organisation (TASKORG) for the specific campaign. Based on predefined workflows among the staff, all activities are reviewed, approved and published.

DOOB also presents decisional aids in planning and execution of the operation. For instance, calculation of the combat effectiveness of blue forces can be done by continuous summation of equipment holdings and available personnel. Comparison of the planned and current situation provides the detection of the deviation points which helps commanders to handle decision points. Also, a replay of the last selected period of operation presents a good recap of situation evolved, during the handover of the shifts at JOC.