A tactical WAN architecture for the theatre support vessel

The U.S. Army´s Program Executive Officer Combat Support & Combat Service Support, Product Manager Army Watercraft Systems (AWS) is developing a concept of operations for the new generation of high-speed, maneuverable watercraft, and has leased two such vessels as part of the theatre support vessel (TSV) advanced concepts technology demonstration (ACTD). These vessels are to have a state-of-the-art command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance (C4ISR) system-of-systems suite, including a wideband satellite networking capability based on the current and future DoD and DISA communications infrastructures, utilizing commercially-based equipment to provide a wide bandwidth, flexible connectivity for both classified and unclassified access to terrestrial networks. The architecture is a DISA-approved asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-based methodology, utilizing hardware identical to/compliant with systems inherent to the DoD Teleport program. This architecture has two main advantages: it provides a flexible (non-stovepipe) allocation for the various applications and networks operating over the satellite link (e.g., NIPRNET, SIPRNET, VTC), and by it´s compliance with DISA Teleport hardware and standards, is compatible with coverage world-wide. This methodology is based upon that developed for the Navy, Army, SOCOM joint experiment, the HSV-XI JOINT VENTURE, which was utilized successfully in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from February-July of 2003. This paper details this WAN architecture, describing the two implementations of such on board the US Army theater support vessels, the USAV JOINT VENTURE and the USAV SPEARHEAD, as well as how this design is driven by requirements and the current DoD Teleport Program.