C2BMC Overview
The Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) system is a hardware and software interface for the ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) that integrates of data from multiple sensors and fire control units. This integration helps to build a common picture of the battlespace for operators across the BMDS, and enables the warfighter to select optimal firing solutions based on the BMDS status, system coverage, and ballistic missile tracks. It also allows combatant commands to plan engagements, particularly for missions that require coordination between a number of BMDS elements. As of 2016, there were more than 70 C2BMC workstations fielded across every combatant command with BMDS assets in the region.1
Development, Fielding, Deployment
The first C2BMC workstation became operational in 2004.2 Since then, they have been adopted at USSTRATCOM, USEUCOM, USCENTCOM, USNORTHCOM, and USPACOM as a means of providing integration and battle management to operators of the BMDS. A number of updates to the system or “spirals” have been released to improve the management of sensors and to bring new BMDS elements into the network.3 These capabilities make C2BMC the first true BMDS battle management system in that it allows coordination for combatant commanders across platforms, and enabling launch-on-remote concepts of operation through the ability to net sensors and link them to shooters. The system also allows battle planning and design allowing coordination across combatant commands and system element planners before live engagements.4
The current C2BMC software spiral is S6.4, though the Missile Defense Agency is working on an updated S8.2 spiral that is scheduled for an FY17-18 deployment.5 This spiral will be fielded to NORTHCOM and PACOM, and will allow C2BMC to integrate data from multiple forward-based TPY-2 radars, the SBX, UEWRs, Cobra Dane, and space sensors. A later version of S8.2 will incorporate the data from LRDR.
Footnotes
- Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, “FY 2014 Annual Report,” January 2015, 307, http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2014/pdf/other/2014DOTEAnnualReport.pdf.
- Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, “FY2004 Annual Report,” January 2005, 327, http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2004/pdf/other/2004DOTEAnnualReport.pdf.
- DOT&E, “FY 2014 Annual Report.”
- Missile Defense Agency, “Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC),” MDA Fact Sheet, https://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/c2bmc.pdf.
- James D. Syring, “The FY2017 Missile Defense Agency Budget Request,” (statement at hearing of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, 114th Cong., 2nd sess., April 13, 2016), 13, http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/041316%20-%20Vice%20Admiral%20Syring%20-%20MDA%20-%20Testimony.pdf.