The BMS will provide the Indian Army an integration tool supporting every level of military users ranging from individual soldier to Battalion Group/Combat Group Commander in the tactical battle area displaying in near real time an appropriate, common and comprehensive tactical picture by integrating inputs from all elements of the battle group

The Indian Army acquiring the battlefield management system (BMS) inched a bit closer with the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) clearing the BMS proposal as a ‘make’ project. Since future military operations will be combined and joint comprising of all arms and inter-service elements, the requirement will be of units and subunits of other arms to operate subordinated or in cooperation with each other, accelerated decision-action cycle and an ability to conduct operations simultaneously within an all arms group. The BMS will provide the Indian Army an integration tool supporting every level of military users ranging from individual soldier to Battalion Group/Combat Group Commander in the tactical battle area (TBA) displaying in near real time an appropriate, common and comprehensive tactical picture by integrating inputs from all elements of the battle group. It will be possible to pick up the enemy much before he picks you up, see the target and fire direct in quick time using the best weaponry available, as also monitor the after effects. As such, fielding of the BMS will be an important facet of capability building in the Indian Army.

Project BMS

The concept is to have an ideal system which should be able to integrate the means of surveillance and engagement through an automated decision support and command and control system. The concept aims to exploit technology for mission accomplishment in the TBA by rapid acquisition, processing and transfer of information, enhance situational awareness, acquire capability to react to information, sharpen ability to synchronise and direct fire, plus establish and maintain overwhelming operational tempo. Project BMS was envisaged to enable a faster decision process by commanders at all echelons, enable better decision due to reliable operational information provided in real time and have the ability to quickly close the sensor to shooter loop. The overall scope of the system is to integrate, test and field a BMS duly integrated with other components of the TacC3I. The system customised to the specific Indian Army requirement, needs to be first integrated and tested in a controlled environment for which a test bed laboratory will need to be established. After testing in the laboratory conditions, validation trials of the system will be carried out in field conditions. After successful validation of the system in field, the process for equipping will begin. the mission capabilities being looked at are as follows:

• Provide a command and control system spanning the TBA spreading across individuals, detachments, combat platforms, sensors, subunits, units to the Battalion Commander/Regiment Commander.
• Achieve faster reaction capability and flexibility in command and control by providing information automatically at the right place in the right time, thereby compressing observe, orient, decide, and act (OODA) loop.
• Provide a strong foundation for making decisions based on near real time, consistent and well-structured information, thereby enhancing the information handling capability of commanders at all levels.
• Strengthen information exchange by having a strong messaging and replication mechanism.
• Improve and modernise presentation of information in near real time.
• Integrate with other command and control system.

The BMS will comprise a tactical hand held computer with individual soldiers and tactical computers at Battle Group Headquarters and combat vehicles. The computers will be integrated employing application and database servers connected on a dataenabled communication network. The system will enable generation of common operational picture by integrating inputs from all relevant sources within a battle group by integrated use of geographic information system (GIS) and global positioning system (GPS). the BMS will be a highly mobile system which is able to network itself by integration of components and provide a high data rate. The communications should not interfere with the legacy communication equipment and should easily be retrofitted into combat platform. The communications system should optimally utilise the bandwidth available for military communications involving voice and data including video streaming and imageries. It should be scalable to ensure its availability to all elements and range from being man-portable to being fitted in combat vehicles.

The initial planned deployment schedule of Phase I (establishment of the test bed lab and field trials at test bed location of one Combat Group and three Infantry Battalion Groups by 2012) has already gone haywire because of the vital time lost due to indecision in the delimitation between the BMS and the futuristic infantry soldier as a system (F-INSAS) and concurrent fallout in re-ordering of the feasibility study. The Infantry insists in handling computer and radio subsystems plus software integration of Project F-INSAS by themselves and unfortunately, the situation was allowed to perpetuate due to lack of understanding of technology in higher echelons.

Current Status

The BMS has been cleared as a ‘make’ project by the DAC. the DG Acquisition, Ministry of Defence (MoD), will now order constitution of an Integrated Project Management Team (IPMT) to undertake a study, following which an expression of interest (EOI) will be issued by the MoD to the industry Raksha Udyog Ratnas (RURs). Going by earlier norms, the IPMT Report should take about 12 months, implying that the EOI can be expected to be issued by October 2012. Considering the response time to the EOI (about three-four months), nomination of prototype developers plus development time (about 12 months) and the test bed, Phase 1 may be expected to be completed by 2015 (instead of 2012) provided no further hurdles are put. The cascading effect has already delayed completion of Phase II (equipping) from initial plan of 2017 to 2020 and Phase III (change management and upgradation of system) from 2022 to 2025 as per current status.