NEC in Action - 3 Commando Brigade during Operation TELIC
In their Post Operation TELIC Report, 3 Commando Brigade stressed the importance of being able to fuse the information from a number of sensors in order to achieve an effect and that no one sensor or system proved decisive.
On one occasion when 42 Commando came under fire from a battery of Type 59-1 130 mm towed guns, the firing point was located by the Weapon Locating Radar ARTHUR.
This information was passed to a RN Sea King Mark 7 Airborne Early Warning helicopter equipped with Searchwater Radar, which was able to track the gun battery’s hasty withdrawal from its firing position.
This information was then passed to an Army Phoenix Ground Control Station, which re-tasked an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). This located the gun battery and tracked it to a fall back position near Al Basrah.
Using the target data gathered by the UAV, coalition aircraft were able to attack the gun battery, whose destruction was confirmed afterwards by the UAV.
This is not strictly a true account of what went on and lacks a lot of detail. Suffice to say, it was more down to the undirected adaptability of some outstanding personnel of all 3 services than any planned network capability and the idea that this action is representative of a properly planned seamless network-enabled capability is absolute drivel; it is more accurate to say that the command chain above SO2 level lived for the most part in blissful ignorance of such matters.