Battlefield communications – the ability to send voice and data to/from higher- and lower-echelon units – is vital for command and control. Gordon Arthur reports.
The ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, fought between conventional peer forces, is providing important lessons about how to protect and exploit communications.
However, before delving into lessons being learned from Ukraine, it is useful to sample three battlefield communications programmes elsewhere in the world, specifically in Australasia, Europe, and North America.
Case Study 1: Australia
Boeing Defence Australia (BDA) implemented Australia’s JP2072 Phase 2B programme, which replaced army and air force networks with the Integrated Battlefield Telecommunications Network (I-BTN). BDA announced in September 2024 that the I-BTN had achieved final operational capability, nine years after being issued this Project Currawong contract.
Tom Minge, BDA’s programme manager, said of I-BTN: “This capability gives deployed forces access to more voice, data and video services than ever before on the battlefield … The project’s ongoing capability enhancement strategy also supports resilience against emerging threats by continuously adopting new and emerging technologies to meet the changing operational needs of the warfighter.”
BDA recognises that the I-BTN cannot atrophy, so it is investing in technology refreshes and adding extra features.
One such innovation unveiled last September was a lightweight portable router. This 3.3kg Rapid Tactical Router (RAPTR) fits inside a backpack-sized transit case, and it rapidly establishes connections via satellite communication (SATCOM), radio, voice over internet protocol, phone or public internet. Significant RAPTR numbers are now on order.
Earlier, Australia acquired L3Harris AN/PRC-152(C) handheld radios, AN/PRC-117G wideband radios, AN/PRC-117F multiband radios and AN/PRC-150(C) HF manpack radios under Project Land 200 Tranche 2.
L3Harris Communications Australia continues to support this hardware, and on 4 March it opened an Indo-Pacific Regional Support Centre to reduce radio repair turnaround times. L3Harris estimates 50,000+ of its radios are operational in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia’s military is cognisant too that communication systems and networks need to be integrated, launching an expression of interest for Project Land 4140 Tranche 1 Land C4 Modernisation in 2024.
Canberra is looking for a programme integration partner to manage this software-heavy project that needs to embrace legacy equipment and evolve to build the next generation of networks. It encompasses transportable SATCOM terminals; a high-capacity data network eventually leading to 5G-level connectivity; mobile local area networks; and network modelling tools.
“It makes sense,” Darcy Rawlinson, senior manager – New Business at BDA, said. Land 4140 is “all the communications that army needs, from the forward rifleman who’s walking around carrying his pack…right the way through to a big joint task force headquarters with heaps of people in it.”
A request for tender is expected in Q2 2025, and the timeframe for Land 4140 delivery is 2025-30.
Case Study 2: Germany
Moving to Europe, Rohde & Schwarz is a well-known provider of communication systems, including to Germany’s Bundeswehr. Thomas Geißler, senior director Sales Defence, Security & Critical Infrastructure at Rohde & Schwarz, described some of its activities to Army Technology.
“Initially, we introduced our first vehicular and handheld radios to the Bundeswehr as part of the Nato Very High Joint Readiness Task Force (VJTF) programme. These radios enabled voice and data connectivity between infantry fighting vehicles and dismounted infantry.”
The VJTF is the spearhead element of NATO’s Response Force, and Rohde & Schwarz Soveron-family radios link to Elbit E-LynX (PNR-1000) V/UHF radios used by soldiers and vehicles at company and platoon levels. Elbit Systems announced in 2019 it had been selected to supply these E-LynX radios to the Bundeswehr.
Geißler continued: “As the Soveron family expanded within the Bundeswehr, additional radio types were integrated, notably the Soveron Airborne Radio. At the end of 2022, Rohde & Schwarz signed a comprehensive long-term agreement to supply its digital Combat Net Radio (CNR) family for the Digitalisation of Land-Based Operations programme.”
Rohde & Schwarz was awarded this CNR contract in December 2022, but despite Thales reportedly lodging a complaint about the selection process, Geißler said CNR deliveries are ongoing for a multitude of German operational platforms. Some reports suggest 30,000+ radios could be procured.
Discussing the Soveron family further, Geißler said it can seamlessly integrate with existing communications infrastructure, even analogue-radio networks. The family includes the Soveron D (voice and data), VR (vehicular), HR (handheld) and AR (airborne platforms like helicopters, fighters and special mission aircraft).
The Rohde & Schwarz executive said Soveron is compliant with European Secure Software-Defined Radio (ESSOR) standards, for which the company is Germany’s industrial representative.
ESSOR aims to “provide a sovereign, interoperable and highly secure radio capability, allowing European forces to share information in real time, thereby amplifying their collective effectiveness in joint operations”.
Furthermore, Rohde & Schwarz is supporting the transition to the mandatory SATURN standard for UHF-band military radio communications.
Discussing the trajectory of radio technologies in increasingly complex operational landscapes, Geißler highlighted three features: “To address these challenges, a trifecta of key enhancements is crucial: more resilience in tactical networks to withstand the intensity of modern battles; European/Nato interoperability to facilitate seamless cooperation among allied forces, ensuring a unified response to emerging threats; and support for multi-domain operations, enabling effortless communication across land, air, sea and cyber domains.”
Case Study 3: United States
An important current US Army project is the Handheld, Manpack & Small Form Fit (HMS) programme. The purpose of HMS is to provide voice/data communications to tactical-edge warfighters with on-the-move, at-the-halt, line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight capabilities for both dismounted personnel and platforms.
HMS contractors include Collins Aerospace, Thales and L3Harris Technologies. A spokesperson from the latter told Army Technology: “We’re a trusted prime contractor to the US Army, delivering resilient communications in software-defined architectures to meet the requirements of many of the service’s tactical-communications programmes, including HMS, Combat Net Radio and Air-to-Ground Networking Radio, among others.”
Indeed, L3Harris announced in late January that the US Army had awarded it a full-rate HMS production contract worth nearly $300m for manpack and leader radios. This deal followed orders in 2023 worth $247m.
Under these HMS contracts, L3Harris is supplying AN/PRC-158 and AN/PRC-163 radios to the US Army. The spokesperson explained: “We provide a wide array of capability to the army to meet both general and mission-specific needs. This includes our high-assurance Falcon IV family of radios, flexible line of very small aperture SATCOM terminals, battlefield management systems and a portfolio of resilient waveform technology.”
Asked what the key characteristics of modern US radios need to be, L3Harris noted: “Above all else, truly resilient communications are key to operational success in contested and congested environments.
“To have truly resilient systems and networks, don’t allow your enemy to know where your comms users are or what they intend to do around the battlespace; penetrate through both contested environments and sophisticated electronic warfare threats as well as congested environments with a lot of competing comms going on; meet the latest NSA encryption and decryption standards for communications/transmission security (COMSEC/TRANSEC); ensure joint force interoperability through NSA high-assurance, certified waveforms; and leverage waveforms conforming to Department of Defense specifications.”
Lessons from Ukraine
The Ukraine war is offering poignant lessons. Tom Withington, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), highlighted several points about tactical communications in Ukraine.
“The first, and one of the most important, concerns COMSEC/TRANSEC. Both Russian and Ukrainian frontline units have suffered at the tactical edge through only sporadic use of personal role radios equipped with robust COMSEC/TRANSEC protocols,” Withington explained.
“This has allowed opponents to eavesdrop on tactical-communications networks to exploit this communications intelligence (COMINT) and also to jam these networks.”
Withington said both sides are working hard to implement secure networks, but it remains a work in progress.
This thought was echoed by L3Harris’ spokesperson, who pointed out, “If your communications aren’t secure, they’ll be heard – adversaries are always listening in contested environments. To ensure COMSEC, nations must have standards around key management.
“Refreshing of COMSEC encryption keys and mission plans on a regular, frequent basis prevents communications from being compromised.”
Furthermore, L3Harris related: “Fixed-frequency communication can easily be detected, located and jammed – especially waveforms based off commercial protocols, and the stronger and more effective your electronic counter-countermeasures capabilities, the more effective your communications will be in surviving electronic warfare threats.”
Non-GPS-reliant communications and waveforms are also critical, as are sophisticated tactical radios that identify when they are being spoofed.
Withington also noted Russian tactical communications have suffered from lacking common, secure waveforms suitable for both new and legacy radios. Russian land forces are conducting a comprehensive overhaul, but compatibility problems have been encountered, preventing the new radios that are being introduced from communicating securely with legacy systems.
“As a result, Russian troops often move traffic en clair between new and legacy radios, which leaves this traffic vulnerable to COMINT exploitation and jamming,” Withington said.
In addition, Withington noted that millimetric-band SATCOM systems like Starlink have provided relatively jam-resistant, wideband trunk communications across long distances. These SATCOM systems also provide wideband links between unmanned aerial vehicles, pilots and consumers of gathered data.
“However, as useful as Starlink has been, it has underscored that such capabilities need to be sovereignly owned, rather than in the hands of a mercurial billionaire,” Withington said.
To remedy this, the European Union is moving forward with initiatives like the IRIS² satellite constellation, with other countries such as the UK also looking to develop additional battlefield communications capacity.
New is not always better
Withington highlighted another lesson, where Ukraine has illustrated the robustness of legacy radios supplied to Ukrainian forces in the face of Russian electronic warfare.
“SINCGARS radios, which use waveforms designed in the 1980s, have shown themselves to be robust against Russian jamming, as have other Nato systems like France’s PR4G tactical radios,” he said.
Continuing his analysis of Ukraine’s tactical communications use in the midst of a full-scale war, Withington said that Kyiv had accelerated such technologies that had been in development and under discussion for several years.
“For example, Ukrainian engineers are already implementing avant-garde technologies like quantum encryption into their communications systems, while also embracing artificial intelligence in cognitive radio software,” Withington concluded.
