From The Source: Major General John Caligari Head Modernisation and Strategic Planning – Army

After almost two and half years in the inaugural job, MAJGEN Caligari has a lot to show for his time. Army is looking to the future under a range of new documents and concepts shaped by the new division. He spoke to ADM Editor Katherine Ziesing about the work being done and what lies ahead for Army.

ADM: In Army modernisation, what are your short-term, medium-term and longterm objectives? Is there a current endstate such as Force 2030 or is it a process of continuous modernisation with ongoing milestones?

Caligari: The key for Army modernisation revolves around being able to adapt to circumstances as they arise. It’s not a matter of setting what you think the Army is going to look like in 2030; it’s setting Army up to be able to adapt to the circumstances. And that’s every circumstance be it economic, political, environmental, or responding to where the world’s hot spots are, where the problems will occur,
what sort of the tasks the government is likely to give us, what the Defence Intelligence Organisation thinks is the enemy threat and what the capabilities the enemy will have; all of those things change constantly. We are about setting Army up in the short, medium and long term to be as adaptable as possible.

ADM: What are the parameters that you work to and who sets them?

Caligari: Our parameters come from strategic guidance like the White Paper, Defence Planning Guidance, and Future Land Operating Concept. The key document inside Army that we work to is called the Army Objective Force Handbook. It’s a description of the Army that we’ll need based on what is feasible, but that is also cognisant of the legacy equipment we have. For example, there are some things we can’t change. We’ve got LHDs coming, we’ve got the M1A1 tank, and the helicopters coming into service now will be with us for many years. We’ve got significant equipment and capabilities that we’ll likely have for 10, 20 or even 30 years in some cases. What we think is needed is derived from an analysis we call the ‘Army After Next’ which engages Australian and international universities, think tanks and working groups. We engage in discussion and think about the possibilities. We blend that with the realities of what we can’t reasonably change and that’s distilled into the Army Objective Force Handbook. This Handbook is used to guide decisions about Army’s modernisation and is under constant review for new thinking and to take advantage of changes that present opportunities.

ADM: That handbook was due to be finished mid-this year. Is that complete?

Caligari: No. We’ve had such detailed feedback and comment that needed to be incorporated from the first round of consultation, that we went out for one more comment run with all of that included and it will now be completed by the end of this year.

ADM: Will it be released publicly?

Caligari: Yes, there will be an unclassified version released publicly.

ADM: The CLIPS, or Core Land Integrating Primary Systems, are a relatively new innovation: how is it helping with the modernisation and capability development process?

Caligari: CLIPS are an innovation that was derived in our analysis done in preparing the Army Objective Force Handbook. We realised that we were doing gap analysis on a haphazard basis. We were just really identifying gaps as equipment we saw we needed or needed to replace and we weren’t applying a systems methodology. A gap should be identified as a gap in a system, not a simple analysis of what equipment is
coming into obsolescence. So the CLIPS is essentially an expansion on what we know as the Battlefield Operating Systems but it’s much more comprehensive.

It now includes the force generation and the modernisation systems that are required. The 32 CLIPS are a complete description by system of what the Army does. They’re not closed systems at all, they’re open systems. They’re systems that are able to be described and each of them has projects in the Defence Capability Plan (DCP), which represent gaps that need filling in Army capability. This methodology was arrived at because we’ve recognised that Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) and Capability Development Group (CDG) concentrate on project numbers.
CDG is concerned about the schedule and the information needs and paperwork and process to allow decisions to be made by government. DMO is concerned about the schedule and cost risk associated with a particular equipment project, but when it comes to how does that all fit with what Army needs, it’s all about the system. Army sees project slippage as an impact on a system or multiple systems.

A simple example would be if you were going to slip to the right the communications network required for the operation of a battle management system (BMS), but leave the BMS arriving on schedule, then you’d have a BMS you can’t use, waiting for the network to turn up. You’ve got to synchronise all of these things in a command and control system and not see them as separate stovepipe projects.
CLIPS is Army’s attempt to help us and others understand the connections and interdependencies between projects. We can better explain gaps and help others appreciate why slippages or changes in the basis of provisioning affect a particular system.

ADM: You’ve been a vocal advocate for simulation as both a training and a force development tool – what do you believe simulation and modelling technology can bring to the evolving ADF?

Caligari: Simulation is a significant multiplier to everything we do because you can keep doing it and it costs nothing. You can keep driving it until it breaks and you find the edges of the problem. You can do that for modernisation, you can do it for training, you can do it with a soldier sitting in a vehicle who thinks when he turns the corner too fast and the vehicle rolls he’s dead.

You can use it for command post exercises or force modelling and to test organisational force structures. You can change any of the parameters and do it over and over, more quickly and more safely than doing for real or live. There are things you can do with simulation that you just couldn’t do for real, even if its because its too expensive to do live. Everything that can be simulated should be considered
at the time every capability is considered for acquisition and it must conform to a single synthetic environment.

My main effort in simulation has been to avoid the situation of every simulator coming with a proprietary system. Army has a Simulation Campaign Plan that defines a generation zero simulation capability, which is what we’ve got now through to a Generation 3 simulation environment we aspire to with a single synthetic environment so that all of the simulations across all of those capabilities are optimised. We ought to be able to have, for example, not a single simulator for a tank, which does nothing other than drive the tank or fire the main armament. We should have a simulator that drives, shoots and sees the tank next to it and could see offensive support from the guns or aircraft support, should we chose to bring them in for collective training. All of these things should be connected.

So the aim for Army and Defence now is to establish a single synthetic environment and over time move to everything being connected into one simulated environment.

ADM: Land 400 seems to suggest we’ll have a much heavier Army in the future with mounted close combat capabilities Australia has never really had before – what does this mean for training, both individual and combined?

Caligari: No, it’s not right to say that we’ve never had it before. We had a mounted close combat capability with the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) in Vietnam. What’s changed is the threat. What it means is that the M113 and the ASLAV are no longer suitable for mounted close combat given the enemy that we face today, particularly because of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat. It’s true to say that at the
moment we do not have a mounted close combat capability but we did have when the threat was different.
What we want with Land 400 is re-establish our mounted close combat capability to meet the contemporary threats, and the threats of the future. Land 400 will be the centrepiece of our mounted close combat capability and we’ll be training both individually and collectively as we did 30 years before to make us capable of doing that. The fundamentals of operating armoured vehicles have not changed; it just needs to be adapted to new technology.

ADM: How do you see the Combined Arms Fighting System Integration Centre (CAFSIC) working once it is established, and how will it fit in with other Army integration initiatives like Diggerworks and the Land Network Integration Centre (LNIC)?

Caligari: Those three integration centres are central to the way Army manages the issues raised in your previous question. We act to bring together all of the disparate projects and phases of the DCP into systems. But our key role is manage two types of integration. The first one is simply integrating those projects and phases into systems and the second role is to integrate that equipment as it arrives into an Army that’s on the move. This is the introduction into operational service of equipment.
The Army doesn’t stop when a new capability arrives. It’s not like saying “Okay, everyone down tools, we’re going to accept a B vehicle or new digital radios.” We are on the move; we’ve got soldiers at war, we’ve got training being conducted to prepare people for war. It’s about Army headquarters and my division integrating the capability into the Army’s current capability, as it arrives.

These three organisations help us do that integration. Diggerworks at the base level is the configuration manager for the soldier, the integrator of the soldier with everything we want him to carry, eat and wear. The LNIC is about the network. Every capability on the battlefield integrates by the network. Army’s LNIC validates everything to be added to the land network before it is introduced
into service. If it works in the LNIC, then we introduce it into the Army.

But the single thing that’s missing is the integration of the combat team, which we see as the Army’s key unit of action. The CAFSIC will be about bringing together the soldier with the vehicle and the network into a single combat team structure. The CAFSIC will involve a broad range of disciplines from many organisations into one location to ensure we have done the best job possible to integrate the soldier
into the vehicle and the vehicles into the combat team by the network.

Key to the work of the CAFSIC will be the establishment of a relationship with the industry partner that is awarded the contract for the close combat vehicle. DSTO will ensure integration is supported by our own science and with an army organisation with soldiers available to test the efforts routinely as we progress toward a truly combined arms fighting system.

ADM: What is Army doing to prepare for the introduction of the amphibious capability offered by both HMAS Choules (formerly Largs Bay) at the end of the year and the LHDs in the near future?

Caligari: As part of our Plan Beersheba (see P22 for more), which is yet to go to the government, it is the Chief of Army’s intent to create an amphibious battalion. One of the infantry battalions in Townsville will become a specialised amphibious battalion and it will be assigned to the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, which is designated by Chief of navy to become the joint force amphibious headquarters for Australia. Army is now working fast and hard to make sure that we’ve got all the Army fundamental inputs to capability lined up and a robust command and control arrangement in concert with Navy and Air Force to make sure that the three ships you mentioned are a world class capability for Australia.

ADM: Will that happen in time for HMAS Choules at the end of the year?

Caligari: No. The Choules first task will be humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) in the first instance. We will be able to put soldiers on a ship to execute a HADR mission from December this year, but the full amphibious capability will take a few more years to reach full maturity.

ADM: And that would come around the same time as the LHDs?

Caligari: Yes. We’ve done a range of things to support that timeline. For example, putting people on courses around the world with forces that have strong amphibious operations forces. We’ve got people on courses in America right now. We’re about to get to a USMC officer and a UK Royal Marine officer posted to Australia into areas that will best help us stand up our amphibious capability.

ADM: Have you had any practical response to your speech at D+I criticising the time wasted by unnecessary institutional process in the capability and procurement cycles?

Caligari: I’ve had some excellent feedback, and there has been plenty of evidence of people who have taken some of my suggestions and run with them. One of the things I spoke about was an Army Capability Needs Document, which is a document that Army needs to institute so that we clearly understand what it is we need without trying to second guess the requirement. The needs document is actually being picked up by
several people and organisation.

I’ve been really pleased to turn up to some committees and have other people identified that options being presented don’t appear to meet Army’s need. They are not in the formal paperwork yet, but clearly being read. They are simple five page, plain speaking documents that in essence should not change.

We commonly get accused of trying to get a Rolls Royce gold plate solution for a capability and that’s because we spent too much time helping write a requirement with an understanding that the requirement is going to take a long time to be filled. So we would always try to get the absolute best and spend every cent of the provision to achieve what we wanted at some stage in the future.
We’ve got examples where we’ve had majors working in the capability development space developing documentation for the acquisition of some capability and they’ve turned up as commanding officers of units seven years down the track and watched that capability be introduced into their unit. So the thought in everyone’s mind is if you concentrate on the requirement, you’ll understand how much in dollars you’ve got and you’ll focus on getting the absolute best. You’ll look around at what’s possible in that timeframe, not necessarily what you need. Army headquarters has focused on “What is the need?” Let’s stop asking about what’s the requirement to fill the need – that’s someone else’s job. We need to understand and define the need so that we can ensure that the options presented meet the need, therefore avoiding the gold plating.

Another of my suggestions being pursued, especially in Land 125 Phase 3B (Soldier Survivability) centred on what we have been calling the adaptive acquisition effect, which is a concept that takes advantage of the force generation cycle Army has set and buys equipment in tranches as it is to be issued to the multirole manoeuvre brigade while it is in the Readying phase of the force generation cycle, rather than buying an entire Army’s worth. By doing so we get the best of each annual acquisition introduced into service of the brigade that needs it most – as it enters the Ready Phase.

Then we learn by doing and buy the next tranche for the next Readying brigade. This clearly has some sustainment issues associated with it and it not suitable for all capabilities being acquired, but for example it is very suitable for the maintenance of the best kit on the soldier for survivability.

ADM: What can industry do to help improve matters?

Caligari: I think the thing that industry could do to help would be to understand the CLIPS systems that we have and help us apply what they see as being solutions to our systems so that at my end of the process we can articulate the need properly. But also help us understand what it is that they’re offering in a more comprehensive manner, rather than representatives turning up and giving a soldier’s five minutes or a 30 minute interview on one particular capability. We don’t need to be swamped by different representatives from different industry organisations giving us snapshots of small capabilities all over the place that we’ve then got to try and tie in comprehensively to a CLIPS system.

The thing that we’ve found particularly useful in the last 12 months has been a LinkedIn site named ‘Army Modernisation’. What we’ve done is sought ex-soldiers, sailors or airmen of any army, both regular and reserve, who are now out of the force and in industry who have a view to what we might need because they understand our needs having been in the service, and can see the opportunity.

They should connect with us through the Army Modernisation LinkedIn site and give us a heads up on what we should be looking for. We want people who understand our game who have left the service who are in industry who know what it is we require, who often see things and their eyes pop and they say to themselves “I wonder whether the Army knows about that?” And we want them to alert us to that. And it
would be very useful if they presented them as components of our CLIPS. To help with this endeavour we hope to put up a copy of our AOF, which includes the CLIPS on the LinkedIn site by the end of the year.

ADM: Lastly, what are the biggest risks and the opportunities that Army will face in the coming years?

Caligari: Our biggest risk at the moment is networking. One of the biggest quantum jumps for the way the Army will operate is going away from the current analogue network. Laptop computers, perspex covered hardcopy maps hanging inside 11 x 11 tented walls with china-graph pencils and marker-pens, largely drive the current battle management system. The next step is into a digital network where we’re all carrying around tablets and smartphones and they’re all networked by a digital bearer that’s able to carry volumes of data.

It automates things so units no longer having to send situation reports that describe their logistic demands, their logistics state is kept up to date on the tablet and automatically updates the HQ and triggers resupply. When I send a fire control order I don’t have to get onto voice; I can point a piece of equipment at the target and it gives my current location, the bearing and distance to the target, and transmits that directly via a digital network back to the gun line. Someone gives ground clearance and gun fires. It’s about being able to do things much more effectively and reliably because it’s digitised.

The culture shift required for Army to grasp the opportunities offered by digitisation will take some careful planning and time. The biggest risk to Army is not getting that digital network in a manner that supports Army’s operations, training and preparedness. For example, if it takes too long to digitise all the units to the same level, we would potentially have the problem of having to un-digitise a unit
because the unit it is replacing on ops is not yet digitised. So the length of time it could take is a big risk to Army.