Introduction
Operation Anaconda took place in March 2002 in Afghanistan. The operation consisted of many elements from different branches of service including local national armed forces being leveraged by American Special Operations Forces (SOF) for support. Coordination with these elements and lack of clearly defined leadership lead to the operation not going as planned and elements of mission control which caused delays in reaction time and forced U.S. commanders to adapt.
The old methodology of the Armed Forces called Command and Control or C2 for short relied heavily on upper echelons of command to make crucial decisions. Information was being passed through commercial off the shelf (COTS) satellite phones to the Persian Gulf where the Chain of Command (CoC) that made these decisions to take action were located. The three elements in Afghanistan that were in charge of combat operations were Central Command (CENTCOM) which utilized two sub commands to direct operations. These two other components were the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) and the Coalition Forces Air Component Command (CFAAC). General Tommy Franks was in charge of CENTCOM while LTG Paul Mikolashek led the CFLCC and LTG Michael Moseley led …show more content…
Creating this shared understanding was difficult especially with Task Force 11 a SOF and Ranger element that played a key role in locating and destroying high value targets using accurate and deadly air strikes. This element still fell under a separate chain of command making it difficult to coordinate efforts in the beginning. Furthermore General Hagenbeck also could not direct air support from the elements slatted to support the operation due to lack of command authority over the CFACC and the Combined Air Operations Command
Operation Anaconda took place in March 2002 in Afghanistan. The operation consisted of many elements from different branches of service including local national armed forces being leveraged by American Special Operations Forces (SOF) for support. Coordination with these elements and lack of clearly defined leadership lead to the operation not going as planned and elements of mission control which caused delays in reaction time and forced U.S. commanders to adapt.
The old methodology of the Armed Forces called Command and Control or C2 for short relied heavily on upper echelons of command to make crucial decisions. Information was being passed through commercial off the shelf (COTS) satellite phones to the Persian Gulf where the Chain of Command (CoC) that made these decisions to take action were located. The three elements in Afghanistan that were in charge of combat operations were Central Command (CENTCOM) which utilized two sub commands to direct operations. These two other components were the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) and the Coalition Forces Air Component Command (CFAAC). General Tommy Franks was in charge of CENTCOM while LTG Paul Mikolashek led the CFLCC and LTG Michael Moseley led …show more content…
Creating this shared understanding was difficult especially with Task Force 11 a SOF and Ranger element that played a key role in locating and destroying high value targets using accurate and deadly air strikes. This element still fell under a separate chain of command making it difficult to coordinate efforts in the beginning. Furthermore General Hagenbeck also could not direct air support from the elements slatted to support the operation due to lack of command authority over the CFACC and the Combined Air Operations Command