Practical Sustainment Concepts for the Non-Linear Battlespace

The Hierarchy of Nodes
A few observations can be made to facilitate the planning of sustainment to combat
operations. First of all, the level of service in various nodes is inherently progressive.
The smallest of nodes can literally be a 5/20 drill, 3 which is essentially the first step in
securing ground for the conduct of a task. Of course, nodes can vary in size all the way
up to the very significant infrastructure seen today in KAF, where 13,000 people live and
work. During OP ATHENA Roto 4, the order OP ZERIN ZMARAY (Ref B) defined the
level of support in a given node as a function of the disposition of units on a piece of
ground. The order called nodes Tactical Infrastructures (TI) and defined a hierarchy as
summarized in Table 3. Arguably, these concepts could potentially apply to any nonlinear
theatre environment.
Generally speaking, support is provided from superior nodes to inferior ones. For
example, a supply detachment in a PB will likely receive support from an adjacent FOB
or camp, as opposed to receiving from a SP or leaguer. One could say that a certain
dependency exists between nodes of equal or greater levels of support. There are
nonetheless limits; OP ZERIN ZMARAY also showed that only nodes of a certain level
of support could be used as dependencies. Column “Dependencies” of Table 3 shows
that TI under that of PB do not have the capability to stock materials in sufficient
quantities in order to replenish other nodes without additional assistance. Nonetheless,
one can use this general rule of superior node dependency in order to design
sustainment architectures, and an example of this is shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: The rule of superior node dependency. The arrows denote dependency on superior nodes.
There are exceptions to the rule of superior node dependency, as it would be
feasible to see the reduction or even dissolution of an inferior node in order to boost a
node in support of a priority operation. Also, if specialized or high value service exists in
another location, such as a mobile repair team (MRT) for a certain type of vehicle, then
that service can be re-tasked from an inferior node. Nonetheless, superior node
dependency can be considered a general rule of thumb for sustainment planning.
We can make an analogy of the sustainment network to the Internet. The nodes are
equivalent to the hierarchy of ports, switches, routers, hubs and servers in order of
increasing capability to transfer information. Links are comparable to trunks, wires, or
wireless connections that bring a given service to the users on the nodes. When an
Internet user submits a request, it is processed through the switch. If the information
requested is available within the switch’s internal network, then the information is
rendered. Otherwise, the request is pushed to the router, to hubs and servers until such
time as the information is located and pushed back through the architecture to the user.
Similarly, when an infantry soldier submits a support request (e.g., a repair request), it is
processed initially by the CSS det in his PB. If the support is within the control of the
CSS det, then the request is approved, and the service is rendered (i.e. vehicle is
repaired). Otherwise, the request is further dispatched between FOBs, camps and SB
until the resource is located and pushed back through the network to the user. There is
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.2 Summer 2008 53