DSTO-TR-1034
1
1. Introduction
1.1 Human Factors Problems In Military Command Teams
Over recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the human component of
military Command and Control (C2). A variety of tragedies have demonstrated that
one of the largest influences on system performance is the human factor. Human
error has been found to be responsible for 60% to 80% of fatal aviation accidents, and
communication issues were found to be involved in more than 70% of accidents
(Brannick, Prince, Prince & Salas, 1995). The suggestion is that a large influence on
effective performance is the way humans interact with each other. Thus, a critical
determinant of performance is the team behaviour.
Nowhere was this influence seen so strongly as in the USS Vincennes incident. In
1988, the Commanding Officer (CO) of the Vincennes fired two SM-2 missiles at a
civilian Iranian airbus leaving no survivors (Gregory & Kelly, 1998). The CO made
his decision to engage based on information he received from crew members in the
Combat Information Centre (Klein, 1993). What is noteworthy is that all equipment
on the Vincennes (except the forward gun) worked impeccably throughout the
incident. Likewise, the information needed to prevent the tragedy was readily
available to the crew.
This incident sparked a congressionally mandated research project, and it has been
suggested that the dynamics of the command team were the cause of the tragedy. In
particular, the extent to which the team dynamics influenced the interpretation of the
available information was considered to be the critical factor. This information
included the fact that the team was under pressure to avoid the fate of the USS Stark
(in 1987, two Iraqi Exocet missiles hit the Stark, killing 37 crew). In addition, the ship
was under surface attack when the Airbus appeared on radar. These data were used
to support the team’s expectancy at the expense of ignoring contrary evidence
(Gregory & Kelly, 1998).
This suggests that the human interpretation of the data on the USS Vincennes was a
greater determinant of decision making than the data alone. The U.S. Government
considered the human factor to be so crucial, they funded the Tactical Decision
Making Under Stress project (TADMUS). This project started in 1990 and was still
continuing in 1999. It was an interdisciplinary program involving the development
of both training and human factor technologies (Collyer & Malecki, 1998). The aim
was to enhance the quality of tactical decision making, particularly in relation to the
effect of information presentation on military teams. This project is just one example
of the fact that team performance is considered to be of such importance that the U.S.
military invests more in team research than any other entity (Cannon-Bowers &
Salas, 1998).
1.2 Towards a Research Methodology in Army C2
Despite this focus in the U.S., there has been a relatively low level of empirical
research on C2 team performance in an Australian context. However, the Australian
Army is currently introducing information technology to C2 operations by installing
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