'Data Empowering Combat Capability Building' Series | Data Orders: Re-'Formulating' Combat Capability Building
Editor's Note: Chairman Xi pointed out at the National Science and Technology Awards Conference, the Joint Conference of Academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the 11th National Congress of the China Association for Science and Technology that the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is profoundly changing the way humanity produces and lives and the pattern of world development, and that scientific and technological strength and innovation capability are increasingly becoming the core competitiveness of nations. In recent years, with the rapid development of science and technology, the form of warfare is accelerating its evolution toward informatization and intelligentization, and data, as a new type of strategic resource, is profoundly changing and reshaping the mode of combat capability generation. In a certain sense, future war is about fighting with data, and data superiority is the superiority that wins. At present, data application is accelerating its integration into all fields and aspects of our military's development, becoming a new growth point of combat capability. Starting today, the PLA Daily launches the 'Data Empowering Combat Capability Building' series of reports, reflecting the experience and practices of various units in acquiring, analyzing, and applying data. Please follow along.
Viewing the Effect of Data Empowerment Through the Changes in Unit Demands——
Data Orders: Re-'Formulating' Combat Capability Building
■ PLA Daily Reporter Sun Xingwei
Officers and soldiers collecting data in the field. Photo by Zhang Xiaoshui
In just one morning, Engineer Zhao of the data support team of a certain unit of the Information Support Force received more than ten phone calls.
The voices on the other end of the line were all seeking Engineer Zhao's help: relevant data needs to be prepared in advance for next month's training; the bridge data still needs supplementary load correction values; the schedule for the three-dimensional map needs to be moved up...
"All of them are 'placing orders'!" After putting down the phone, Engineer Zhao told the reporter that in recent years, as the strategy of strengthening the military through science and technology has been deeply advanced, their team's phone has become a genuine 'data order hotline.'
Recalling more than ten years ago, the phone in the office of Engineer Zhao's team was often so quiet it might as well have been a decoration. At that time, their main task was updating traditional maps, and everyone would often sigh over thick map volumes: "How inconvenient it would be to fight a war carrying such a thick book—how great it would be if we could someday fit maps into a tablet computer..."
However, when electronic maps replaced the thick volumes, the officers' and soldiers' delight was quickly replaced by new difficulties—the maps on the screen updated slowly and were still 'dead.'
Engineer Xu of the team has a vivid memory of an embarrassing situation encountered during a joint exercise: because the network was down, the valuable data collected by the unmanned aerial vehicle could not be transmitted back in real time, and they could only wait until after it returned to base to remove the card and import the data into a computer. By the time the data had 'traveled over mountains and rivers' to reach the command post, the opportunity had long been lost.
"It was like wanting to cross a river but having no bridge, and only being able to go over the mountain and take the long way around." When speaking of this, Engineer Xu's tone carried a great deal of regret.
In recent years, as the unit's means of acquiring and using data have become increasingly rich, the data bridge of interconnectivity has finally been completed, and the manner and speed of information transmission have undergone a qualitative change. Now, while an unmanned aerial vehicle is still in flight, it can transmit acquired information back to the command post in real time.
"Before, data circulation was like riding a long-distance bus—not only slow, but often requiring transfers along the way; now, data has boarded a high-speed rail, with transmission speeds multiplied and capable of reaching the destination in one stop." Speaking of the changes, Engineer Xu broke into a grin. "This interconnected data bridge was worth building!"
War is fought within a system, soldiers are trained within a system, and data likewise flows within a system. Once the data bridge was open, unit demands came flooding in like a tide.
The first to keenly perceive the trend and embrace the change was a certain combat engineer unit. In the past, when executing missions, they needed to dispatch advance detachments to repeatedly reconnoiter terrain. Now, a commander lightly taps the screen, and site selection, parameter verification, and route planning are accomplished in one seamless sequence.
As more and more people used the data bridge, some unit commanders worried: "What if the data gets lost in transmission?" Engineer Zhao confidently told them: "Don't worry—the entire transmission is encrypted, more secure than a safe."
In recent years, data demands from units have grown increasingly dense, and Engineer Chen has noticed a clear change: "Before, there were only a handful of 'orders' in a year; now I have a deep appreciation for what it feels like to have the phone 'blown up.'"
As the volume of 'orders' surged, the nature of units' data demands also kept changing—an Air Force staff officer requested that the most vulnerable parts of a building be marked on the map; an Army Aviation unit pressed for detailed information such as the height of trees in a forest... A demand from the duty room of a certain unit was even more unexpected: "It's too troublesome to switch between several screens while on duty—can the force disposition, weather conditions, water level warnings, and other information be merged onto one large screen for display?"
The emergence of such 'customized orders' is a vivid reflection of units' combat-realistic training and war preparation advancing into deeper waters. Faced with the surge in volume and qualitative change in units' data demands, it has become the norm for the unit's data support team to join forces with multiple departments and work overtime to tackle difficult problems.
When the 'vulnerability index' of the target building was clearly presented in three dimensions, that Air Force staff officer's eyes lit up: "With data support, we can make our plans more concrete, ensuring strikes are more precise and more effective!"
As that staff officer said, with data empowerment, units' operational efficiency has improved significantly. During last year's flood control and disaster relief operations, Engineer Chen personally witnessed the following scene——
On the screen in the command hall, footage transmitted back by unmanned aerial vehicles clearly presented real-time information on the surging floodwaters, the trapped villages, and the breached levee sections. "Search further east—there are submerged houses there"; "Downstream residents have not been evacuated—mark them"... The commander, eyes fixed on the screen, issued a continuous stream of dispatch orders, with a more comprehensive and clearer view than the search-and-rescue officers and soldiers on the ground. Flight data from more than ten sorties of unmanned aerial vehicles provided solid decision-making support for personnel evacuation and breach plugging.
During the interview, the team's engineers described a case to the reporter: during an exercise, officers and soldiers analyzing data discovered that a 'lawn' on the battlefield had undergone continuous morphological changes over several hours. "This is no natural change—it is clearly a dynamic change in surface features caused by human activity!" Based on this judgment, the commander ordered the unit to act swiftly; the forward detachment struck with thunderous force and annihilated the 'enemy' in one blow.
"The growing backlog of 'data orders' fully demonstrates that units are attaching ever greater importance to data application," the unit's leadership stated. As the degree of informatization and intelligentization of warfare grows ever higher, data has become the new 'ammunition' of the battlefield. To a certain extent, the odds of winning future wars depend on these continuously accumulating 'data orders.'
By the time the interview concluded, it was already late at night. Looking back at the brightly lit offices of the unit's data support team, the reporter seemed to see stacks of 'data orders' growing ever higher. These data demands and applications are re-'formulating' combat capability building.
Short Commentary
One More Point of Data Superiority, One More Point of Battlefield Odds
■ Cheng Xue
From 'a mere decoration' to 'in burning demand'—the shift from idle to busy of the office phone of the data support team of a certain unit of the Information Support Force is, in a certain sense, a vivid footnote to the transformation of our military's mode of combat capability generation.
With the high-speed development of science and technology and the deepening evolution of the new military revolution, data has become a key variable affecting the outcome of battles. Once the obstacles to data flow are cleared, information superiority can be efficiently and rapidly converted into the confidence to make decisions and the advantage to take action.
One more point of data superiority, one more point of battlefield odds. The fruits of victory in future wars belong to the military that can efficiently acquire, process, and apply data. Faced with the surging tide of informatized and intelligentized warfare, we must make greater efforts to master data resources and accumulate data superiority, continuously consolidating the foundation for winning on the future battlefield.