DEFENSE NEWS
by Barbara Opall-Rome
August 17, 2014

Cites Fully Networked Air-Land-Sea Force

TEL AVIV — On July 8, the first day of Operation Protective Edge, five Hamas frogmen attempted an amphibious assault on an Israeli military base bordering northern Gaza. They didn’t get far.

First, they were spotted by a Navy coastal sensor, which streamed targeting data through the Army’s new command-and-control network to air, sea and ground shooters. Almost instantly, the Nahal infantry battalion commander in the sector had multiple options for these moving targets of opportunity. A Merkava Mk4 tank poised at the border had them painted in its sights, as did Israeli Air Force unmanned aircraft. At the same time, a Navy offshore patrol vessel was following the frogmen, eager for orders to launch electro-optically guided Tammuz missiles.

Brig. Gen. Eyal Zelinger, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief signals officer, and C4I Directorate chief of staff, recounts what happened next. “In the end, everyone shot at the same time,” Zelinger said. “As the event was unfolding, they all shared a common picture that allowed the ground commander in charge to choreograph the strike.”

In an Aug. 13 interview, Zelinger ticked off examples in which fully networked joint force capabilities, demonstrated for the first time in Protective Edge, prevented potentially game-changing setbacks at the hands of Hamas. One was the underground infiltration attempt near Kibbutz Sufa on July 17, the first day of the ground war. Young female IDF observers at the border detected at least eight dark-dressed commandos emerging from a tunnel and starting their advance toward the kibbutz. As initial visuals streamed through the IDF network, they were fortified and fused with other land and air sensors. Within a few minutes, the commander on the ground understood the enemy squad had aborted its mission and was heading back to the tunnel.

“In that event, several shooters were available to the ground commander,” Zelinger said. “The decision was made to attack from the air directly into the access point from which they emerged.”……

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140816/DEFREG04/308160016/Israel-Lauds-New-Capabilities-Gaza