Advanced Battle Management System: Air Force Reorganizes to Tackle JADC2 Complexities.

• Author: Carberry, Sean

While the Advanced Battle Management System has been the Air Force's main program to realize the Defense Department's joint alldomain command and control vision, the service is aiming higher, seeking to build a battle network to unify JADC2 efforts within the service.

The Air Force launched the ABMS program to build a resilient command-and-control infrastructure to connect and integrate sensors, move and manage data and enable commanders to make operational decisions quickly, according to descriptions of the program in Government Accountability Office reports.

Over time, the service determined the Advanced Battle Management System does not capture the entirety of Air Force JADC2 efforts. Last fall, the Air Force established the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications and Battle Management, or C3BM, which took ownership of the Advanced Battle Management System. This spring, the service announced an overarching initiative: the Department of the Air Force, or DAF, Battle Network, according to Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Andrew Hunter.

"While we still have ABMS, we have added some additional terms to the discussion," Hunter said at a May 18 discussion at George Mason University's Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting. "As we've really gotten into this, what we've started to understand is there [are] a lot of levels to successful JADC2, and ABMS is really a set of programs the Air Force is working on to ensure that we can do command and control" for different missions across the Air Force and Joint Force in the near and long term.

"ABMS continues to have programs that are off doing things and actually making a lot of progress in the near term to deliver those capabilities," he added. "What we also understand, though, is we can't just look at ABMS and say, 'Okay, go fix command and control for the Air Force.'"

The entire Air Force must change its approach to command and control, and that involves partnering with the Space Force, he said. "You literally cannot even begin to succeed in this without Space Force capabilities, some of which are fielded and some of which are fielding in the near term. So, it is the entire enterprise that has to be able to deliver this capability."

Last fall, the Air Force tapped Brig. Gen. Luke Cropsey to serve as the new PEO's leader. That move rolled up the Advanced Battle Management System acquisition authorities from the...