The famous children’s book series titled Where’s Waldo? showcased the main character Waldo, who dressed in a red and white shirt and hid among red-and-white-striped objects. The author, Martine Handford, wanted to challenge children to locate Waldo and his friends in various backgrounds, all hiding in plain sight. In comparison to finding Waldo, Army logistics leaders must start training on hiding our command-and-control nodes in plain sight to increase survivability. The intent of this article is to describe a starting point to help logistics leaders develop tactics, techniques, and procedures when it comes to hiding their command posts in plain sight.
The 1st Armored Division (1AD) completed National Training Center (NTC) rotation 24-03, the Army’s first “division in the dirt” NTC rotation, which highlighted the crucible and challenges divisions will face in large-scale combat operations (LSCO). 1AD’s NTC 24-03 rotation concluded with a forward passage of lines (FPOL) for an organic armored brigade combat team (ABCT) to start NTC 24-04. 1AD’s division sustainment support battalion (DSSB), the 142nd DSSB, was there for both NTC 24-03 and 24-04. During both rotations, the 142nd DSSB trained against four training objectives: (1) resupply the brigade support area (BSA) in two hours or less; (2) conduct rehearsals for resupplying the BSA down to the Soldier level; (3) conduct the military decision-making process with staff NCOs deliberately incorporated into the process; and (4) hide the battalion command post in plain sight.
The 142nd DSSB focused on hardening and hiding our battalion command post in plain sight during both NTC 24-03 and 24-04. The 142nd DSSB occupied both open and urban terrain to prove that we, as the sustainment community, must train our formations to execute command post survivability. For example, during the first battle period, the 142nd DSSB occupied TV Hill, which is in open terrain located south of Life Support Area (LSA) Santa Fe. To hide the battalion command post, the 142nd DSSB used deception tactics. We dispersed our logistics capability a football throw away, employed decoy command posts, and used camouflage netting to hide the command post in plain sight. As a second example, during the second battalion period, the 142nd DSSB was the first DSSB in NTC history to occupy urban terrain and hide its command post inside a city. The 142nd DSSB battalion command post was never detected, not during the electronic warfare (EW) spectrum scans, not during five opposing force (OPFOR) raids (that included an OPFOR battalion), and not during the counterattack to the ABCT, all while occupying the same urban terrain as the DSSB.
The early phases of the Russian aggression against Ukraine proved that large command posts occupying open terrain are a thing of the past. At the initial invasion into Ukraine, Russian forces were quickly halted because their command posts were occupying open terrain and in large base clusters. As a result, a Russian command post was destroyed by Ukrainian fires, and the Russians’ advance stalled due to their extended lines of communication. As a sustainment community, we must change our command post behavior by looking small and insignificant, and we must do so because our lives depend on it.
Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, states, “Army forces must ensure their command posts are difficult to detect, dispersed to prevent a single strike from destroying more than one node, and rapidly displaceable. ... Use of existing hardened structures and restrictive terrain to conceal headquarters equipment and vehicles, instead of tents organized in standard configurations, are options commanders have to improve command post survivability.” This article discusses a way to do this.
What Does Doctrine Say about Command Posts?
As the Russia-Ukraine War proves, command posts must look small and insignificant. Long gone are the days of robust command posts with lavish command and control systems and digital displays without a care in the world for what our EW signature looked like due to our dominance in the space and cyber domains.
Early in the Russia-Ukraine War, we saw Russia try to employ U.S. tactics, techniques, and procedures by establishing a robust command post in open terrain, only to have it rapidly targeted and destroyed by Ukraine’s artillery. In an LSCO fight, divisions are the center of gravity and are supported from a division support area (DSA) typically found in the division rear boundary. The DSA historically is a large footprint located between 30 to 40 kilometers away from the forward line of troops and is either third or fourth on the enemy’s target list. Russia learned a hard lesson when its main effort from Belarus to Kyiv was halted because its DSA was targeted and its lines of communications were overextended, which resulted in the end of its main effort and the failure to seize its objective, the city of Kyiv.
FM 3-0 states, “Command posts are extremely vulnerable to detection from air and space, as well as in the electromagnetic spectrum.” Our command posts and DSAs must look small and insignificant. As sustainers, we often struggle to strike a balance with the mission-essential tasks of providing sustainment and defending. One way sustainers can find that balance is to make their formations look small and insignificant, so they are not targeted by enemy fires. Sustainers can do this by asking themselves three questions: How do I see the enemy? How do I see the terrain? How do I see myself? When we have the answers to these questions, we can disperse logistical assets, use creative thinking, and use hardened structures and restrictive terrain to conceal command posts from the EW spectrum and enemy forces.
Hiding the Battalion Tactical Operations Center in Open Terrain
The 142nd DSSB occupied TV Hill during the first battle period. To describe how we saw the terrain, TV Hill’s terrain is wide open with multiple avenues of approach for enemy forces. There is high ground to the north and rolling hills to the east and south. Defending TV Hill is possible, but one would need the proper emplacement of crew-served weapon systems, obstacles, and roving patrols to increase survivability.
A typical rotational unit will place its command post in the center of TV Hill for command and control. The advantage of positioning the command post at the center is for the ease of command and control. However, a disadvantage is the command post can easily be targeted by enemy fires. The 142nd DSSB employed a different tactic. We placed the battalion command post at the most southern boundary of the DSA and placed three camouflaged decoy command posts scattered across the DSA. We emplaced the actual battalion command post at the southern boundary based on our assessment that it was the least likely avenue of approach by OPFOR, which proved to be true. This answered the question “how do I see myself?”
As the commander of 142nd DSSB, my biggest concern was making the command post look insignificant from a drone’s perspective. As the war between Russia and Ukraine continues to evolve, sustainers must look at their support area from a drone’s perspective if they want to increase survivability on the battlefield. If you have not been to NTC recently, you will find that drones are the new sensors and are habitually linked to the shooter, and that the shooter is linked to enemy fires. We knew we had to make the command post look insignificant. I told our junior leaders to think about how to increase survivability and what their positions looked like from the drone perspective. Our junior leaders met the challenge by pushing mission command nodes as far away as possible from the actual battalion command post. This meant pushing out the upper tactical internet (TI) node, lower TI node, and power generation as far as possible, so that if those nodes were targeted, a node disruption would not destroy the DSSB command post.
The 142nd DSSB staff focused heavily on developing analog products using operational graphics and measures, maps, and overlays by warfighting function in the event enemy fires successfully targeted our power generation or our command post decoys. We achieved this training objective by pushing each of our mission command systems the full length that cable would permit, and buried cables in the ground. The intent was to prevent enemy forces from sensing friendly forces from an aerial perspective. We took hiding in plain sight a step further by only operating within TI blackout windows to minimize our EW signature. We quickly learned that the Joint Battle Command Platform (JBC-P) system emits a massive EW signature when used. We looked small and insignificant on the EW spectrum by only using our JBC-P and frequency modulation radios for two-hour periods twice daily to facilitate reporting from our dispersed formations.
One might ask how we were able to exercise command and control of our division convoys while resupplying three BSAs across the division’s battle space. We did this by having the convoys use their JBC-P when they arrived and departed from LSA Santa Fe. The intent was to deceive the enemy into believing the division convoys were originating to and from LSA Santa Fe. The convoy commanders reported to our 916th Support Brigade liaison officer (LNO) using the 916th’s JBC-P role name, since the OPFOR is accustomed to seeing the EW spike on a routine basis, and we used our LNOs as a digital retransmission process to communicate between the convoy command and the battalion command post. The battalion command post received transmissions on the convoys’ progress from our 916th LNO only on the upper TI spectrum, which was hidden by TV Hill’s EW signature, since TV Hill emits a massive EW signature that is largely used for transmitting Wi-Fi signals for garrison operations. Therefore, our communications between the command post and the convoy went undetected and increased our command post’s ability to survive in a persistent observation environment. As FM 3-0 states, “during large-scale combat operations, survivability measures may include radio silence, communication through couriers, or alternate forms of communication.”
While at TV Hill, the OPFOR conducted two night raids. On both occasions, the observer controllers/trainers (OC/Ts) and the OPFOR were unable to locate the battalion command post because of our deception plan, lateral dispersion, and camouflaging. Both the OC/Ts and OPFOR stated the 142nd DSSB were able to strike a balance between providing uninterrupted sustainment support and defending the DSA. On or about training day +2, we began key leader engagements (KLEs) with the Kunjhab mayor and police chief to set conditions for displacing the DSA into an urban environment. During the initial KLEs, the mayor requested security, food, water, and medical support because of OPFOR nightly raids inside the city. We did not promise security, but instead requested unmanned aerial surveillance through the engineer battalion’s assets. The 142nd DSSB met city leaders’ remaining needs internally. In total, we conducted three KLEs, and the mayor and the police chief granted the 142nd DSSB permission to occupy three buildings inside Kunjhab.
Hiding the Battalion Tactical Operations Center in an Urban Terrain
On training day +5, the 142nd DSSB established the DSA inside an urban environment, and the battalion became the first sustainment formation in NTC history to occupy and establish a DSA in an urban terrain. We conducted several more KLEs with the citizens of Kunjhab to establish trust with the local population. Our end state was to incorporate local security into our defense plan to help stop the OPFOR’s nightly raids.
We occupied an urban environment to hide our command post from the drone and EW spectrum, hardened our command post, and repelled an enemy force. Each urban area at NTC has Wi-Fi signals, which generate a significant EW signature. The NTC urban cities make for the perfect terrain to execute command and control while hiding our EW and physical footprint in plain sight from the enemy.
The mayor offered the battalion three buildings to occupy. We initially established our battalion command post in the city’s old radio station. We set up the operations center on the second floor and the administrative/logistics center on the first floor. The challenge we faced with occupying a war-torn urban area was power generation. We struggled with establishing lower TI to achieve initial operations capability per our battalion tactical standard operating procedures. After several hours, we made the decision to jump the battalion command post and we concealed it between three semi-trucks inside the city limits. We had all company-sized elements operating using base clusters located 1 kilometer outside the city limits, making the DSA look small and insignificant.
On training day +7, the battalion footprint came under attack by OPFOR nightly raids, which occurred three more times through the conclusion on training day +10. The OPFOR knew the battalion was in the area because they spotted the satellite terminal in the middle of the city. Each time the OPFOR conducted their raids they would search building-by-building, believing the battalion command post was nearby. The OPFOR failed to see that the battalion command post was located in the northeast corner of the city hidden between three semi-trucks and trailers. On the night of training day +10, an OPFOR battalion-sized element co-located with the DSSB inside Kunjhab but did not detect the 142nd DSSB inside the city. Moreover, for the first time in NTC’s history, the 142nd DSSB captured and killed the OPFOR battalion, disrupting the OPFOR’s ability to counterattack the ABCT.
Conclusion
In conclusion, 1AD completed its NTC rotation. Its organic ABCTs conducted an FPOL to start the rotation. The 142nd DSSB used both hardened structures and terrain to successfully conceal the battalion command post from five OPFOR raids. It also captured an OPFOR battalion-sized element and disrupted the OPFOR counterattack. The 142nd DSSB implemented tactics, techniques, and procedures that created an environment to hide its battalion command post in plain sight.
FM 3-0 states, “commanders account for threats from space, cyberspace, and outside their assigned area of operations (AO) as they develop protection measures.” FM 3-0 also talks at length about the importance of survivability. The 142nd DSSB dispersed its formations into smaller base clusters around the city of Kunjhab and placed the battalion command post inside the city to look small and insignificant.
The Russians’ war of aggression against Ukraine has taught them valuable lessons about survivability in LSCO and hiding their command posts. As a sustainment community, junior leaders must use innovative thinking and terrain to hide command posts in plain sight. NTC provides invaluable training opportunities for platoon leaders, company commanders, and battalion commanders to hide their command posts in plain sight. I encourage each of our sustainment leaders to apply creative thinking and set conditions to enable your command post to be hidden in plain sight. Let us not repeat the mistakes Russia has made on the modern-day battlefield, but instead use terrain to our advantage so that we can both provide sustainment and defend our areas of responsibility.
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Lt. Col. Steven T. Smith serves as the commander of the 142nd Division Sustainment Support Battalion, 1st Armored Division, Fort Bliss, Texas. He previously served as the chief U.S. European Command Deployment and Distribution Operations Center J-4 during the Afghanistan drawdown and the Russia-Ukraine War. He has a Master of Science degree in logistics and transportation management from American Military University.
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This article was published in the fall 2024 issue of Army Sustainment.
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