As a key contributor to exercise TALON STRIKE, Systematic has been recognised by the UK MOD’s Defence Equipment & Support organisation for the outstanding success achieved by the team.

A certificate of commendation was awarded to the Niteworks team at MOD Abbey Wood by the director of safety and engineering, Howard Mathers CBE, who praised the team saying: “I know this was a technically challenging project, undertaken by a professional and dedicated team of military and civilian personnel whose combined expertise proved that simulated exercises can be used to support military forces’ training activities and significantly reduce the need for UK personnel to train on US systems. It is an achievement of which you and your team members can be justifiably proud.”

The objective of exercise TALON STRIKE was to investigate the interoperability achievable by a British Army Brigade operating within a larger US Army division, each using their national command and control (C2) systems, technologies and procedures.

The two-week exercise, which took place in June 2010, used an Afghanistan-based scenario to explore interoperability issues, highlighting capability gaps and identifying potential solutions or workarounds. Week one was set in 2010, with UK forces using the joint automated deep ops coordination system (JADOCS) as its primary C2 tool. Week two was set in 2017, with UK forces migrating to BCIP 5.4 / ComBAT to communicate with US forces who were primarily using command post of the future (CPOF).

Working as part of the Niteworks partnership, Systematic’s SitaWare suite of software sat at the very heart of the interoperability exercise: it provided the vital MIP Gateway through which the UK and US national C2 systems successfully exchanged and replicated operational data.

Systematic’s interoperability specialists are now preparing for exercise FLANDRES, an Anglo-French interoperability exercise in June 2011, where it is expected that Systematic’s COTS C2 and military messaging products will, once again, allow nation to exchange data unto nation.