“As communication technology has improved, so has the demand for information at the headquarters level. When these demands from head- quarters are not synchronized with the work ongoing in units that are engaged in battle, the communication process itself can reduce battle effectiveness by diverting leader attention and by adding stress to an already overstressed situation.”
BCTs and interoperability frustrations. Many of the TTPs we used in the past to overcome the avalanche of data still apply – we just have to develop, inculcate, and enforce basic discipline and knowledge management practices.
Best Practices
The best practices to many of our current digital challenges can be found in long -standing, analog-era formats and pro- cedures. The first step is to enforce ruth- less discipline in communication.
Establish and adhere to a - Channel PACE Plan. RTUs are most successful when they establish a brigade -channel PACE (command, operations and intel- ligence (O&I), fires, and administrative and logistics (A&L)) and clearly delineate what traffic goes in each channel. Defined PACE should also include transport, as a PACE is not functional when everything uses the same transport layer. Units must define the PACE and rehearse it at dis- tance to ensure full functionality. Leaders must immediately address any attempts to create separate or extra channels out- side of the established - channel PACE, as messages on extraneous chats can quickly turn a brigade’s orderly commu- nication channels into something more akin to the unstructured chats we all often encounter on our personal devices. Particularly for digital chats, limiting atten- dees to only those that need access also helps keep communications channels streamlined and provides a forcing func- tion for the filtering and analysis of data.
Use concise, standardized reports. Enforcing the use of concise, standard- ized formats in all digital reporting, es- pecially in chat rooms, can dramatically cut down on unnecessary verbiage and make information easier to process quick- ly. Reporting formats like the SALUTE (size, activity, location, unit, time, equipment), SALT-W (size, activity, location, time, and what you are doing about it) and logis-
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tics status (LOGSTAT) help structure data and are also codified in doctrine to facil- itate commonality in reporting.
Focus Reporting on PIR and FFIR tied to COAs and Decisive Points. The comman- der’s PIR and FFIR must drive information collection and reporting. Staff must con- stantly ask, “Does this help the comman- der make a decision?” and provide the filter to help the commander. When a PIR or FFIR is answered, simple processes like highlighting the chat message in a different color can ensure this critical information does not get buried by less crucial data.
Develop and enforce SOPs. Every bri- gade must develop, publish, and enforce a detailed SOP for information and know- ledge management (KM) that governs how the formation communicates. This SOP should clearly define: 1.) Chat chan- nel rules of engagement (ROE): Which chat rooms are for what purpose? Who is authorized to be in them? What are the rules for formatting messages? How are we identifying critical information that must not get lost between routine reports? 2.) The flow of information: The SOP should map out how a piece of data - for example, a contact report from a scout or ISR asset - is processed by the staff. Who receives it? Who logs it? Who analyzes it? Who is responsible for placing it on the COP? Establishing and rehearsing the SOP is essential to providing structure and setting expectations for communica- tion across the organization.
Designing CPs. Rather than using the size of the CP as the first criterion, leaders should first establish the essential capa- bilities (personnel and systems) each com- mand node must possess to meet its primary requirements. Once this occurs, it becomes much easier to reduce the size of command nodes without sacri- ficing functionality.
Embrace Automation: AI and Bot Inte- gration. As AI integration into mission command systems continues to develop, brigades can leverage existing AI models to automate low-level tasks. Simple soft- ware bots or scripts can be programmed to monitor chat rooms for keywords re- lated to PIR. When the bot detects a keyword, it can automatically highlight the text and send an alert to a specific channel, ensuring that potentially critical information gets immediate attention. This frees soldiers from the time-consuming task of reading every single message and allows them to focus their attention on analysis and prediction. One recent success at JMRC involved a brigade de- veloping and employing an AI bot to assist with intelligence analysis. This bot parsed large amounts of data from the brigade internal O&I chats and provided estimates and recommendations on potential enemy COAs. While building and training this bot required a great deal of initial effort, it enabled a brigade S2 shop to rapidly iden- tify key information and make assess- ments to the brigade commander.
Assume the “Swivel Chair” Burden: If a manual “swivel chair” between two sys- tems is unavoidable, the highest echelon possible should execute that function. The higher headquarters, with its larger staff and greater resources, is generally better postured to absorb this friction than subordinate staffs. Observations indicate that pushing this burden down to lower echelons, particularly from the brigade to the battalion level, results in loss of information as subordinate elements do not have the personnel or system density to execute the swivel chair quickly enough while conducting their own operations.
The Way Forward
Brigades and battalions cannot solve the data overload problem on their own. Di- visions and corps have a critical role to play and a responsibility to their subo- rdinate units. Higher headquarters must establish a clear, non-negotiable standard for how their subordinate brigades will communicate and share data. They must dictate the primary systems and reporting formats to solve the potential brigade- to-brigade interoperability challenges. Furthermore, if a division dictates a stan- dard, it must also provide the necessary resources - the equipment/software, the
CAVALRY & ARMOR JOURNAL Spring 2026
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