Information-management heuristics for improved coalition-operations effectiveness

Successful coalition-joint operations depend on the accuracy and timeliness of the tactical picture shared by participating units, and communications delays are one of many factors that degrade the quality of this picture. A priority assignment scheme is presented to reallocate the available communications bandwidth based on the value to the end user of the information contained in individual messages, and on the contribution of each item to overall mission success. Analysis of data from previous exercises suggests that even a simple such modification to communications procedures could increase the effectiveness of one critical command-and-control task, over-the-horizon targeting, by as much as 22%.