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USAFRICOM PR Capability and Capacity

Project Proposal

16 February 2017

Prepared For: SYST 699 – Masters Capstone Project

George Mason University

Prepared By: The ROCKSTAR Group

Don Brody Soham Trivedi

TURTLE Wilson Harry Yoo

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Introduction The United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) Personnel Recovery (PR) enterprise is a

complex and coordinated system of people, processes, and capabilities essential to the proper care

of United States (US) service members and all US persons operating on or traveling within the

African continent. PR includes medical evacuation (MEDEVAC), casualty evacuation

(CASEVAC), Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR), and Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and

Personnel (TRAP). Each scenario, to include the recovery of non-Department of Defense (DoD)

personnel and resources, presents a complex and unique challenge. The enormous size of the

continent coupled with varying degrees of limited infrastructure creates an operational

environment significantly different from similar missions in combat areas like Iraq, Afghanistan,

or even Vietnam.

For the DoD, Personnel Recovery is a critical enabler of the US National Military Strategy to

foster stability, build peacekeeping capacity, and counter transregional and violent extremism

across the continent of Africa. A conflict free continent is a primary goal of the Command.

Figure1:StateFragilityandPoliticalConflict,Africa,2015

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The figure below provides a high-level overview of PR events occurring at USAFRICOM in

2014 and 2015. The Command has indicated that over 80 PR missions occurred over the past

three years.

Figure2:Themajorityof2014and2015PReventsinAfricaoccurredalongitscentralbelt

The PR enterprise focuses on the central belt of Africa spanning from Western coastal nation of

Dakar to the Eastern coastal nation of Somalia where over 90% of the PR events took place.

At a high level, when a service member is wounded or injured in the line of duty on the continent,

there is a full-scale effort to mitigate the situation. The effort begins with immediate first aid to

stabilize the injury and is followed by a series of communication efforts requesting a need for

recovery. A PR team is deployed in response to the distress, and extracts the wounded/injured

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service member. Air extraction has dependencies on lift availability and assessment. Air

extraction may or may not require overflight authority and the ability to reach a suitable treatment

facility. That facility must have adequate staff and supplies to include “clean” and “safe” blood.

An execution effort that must occur within a six-hour window as designated by the Command.

The Command is unable to meet the “golden hour” rule established in Iraq and Afghanistan

campaigns by the then serving Secretary of Defense. The golden hour is a significant challenge

for USAFRICOM due to the contrastingly vast operational environment as compared to Iraq and

Afghanistan. Within USAFRICOM’s constraints, a six-hour rule was established as a more

realistic goal for the Command.

Problem Statement The United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) Personnel Recovery (PR) capability and

capacity has exceeded its ability to consistently ensure the survivability and recovery of injured

US personnel on the continent of Africa. Resources are required to improve, expand, and sustain

USAFRICOM PR capability and capacity.

The solution developed by the team will provide the Command with a series of recommendations

they can utilize to improve their PR capability and capacity. Potential recommendations include

modifications to resource allocation or investments that improve infrastructure while also

improving PR capability and capacity. The end goal is to provide a recommendation to the

Command that can potentially improve survivability of US personnel on Africa based on The

ROCKSTAR Group’s analysis.

Scope

This project will focus on USAFRICOM’s PR capability and capacity on the continent of Africa.

The complexity of the PR environment on Africa coupled with the operational restrictions placed

on military aircraft and only one Department of Defense (DoD) approved medical facility shape

the Command’s operational environment. The Command has invested in Contract Owned /

Contract Operated (CO/CO) PR capabilities to mitigate a portion of its current capability and

capacity shortfall. Due to the sensitive nature of overseas military operations, The ROCKSTAR

Group intends to focus on CO/CO PR capabilities as such data is publicly available. The location

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and allocation of military assets is and will remain unknown to the project team. Developed

recommendations and supporting materials is dependent on information the Command is able to

provide coupled with information the project team is able to procure through public means.

According to Joint Doctrine, PR activities include planning and execution of “operations

to report, locate, support, recover, and reintegrate isolated personnel” on the African

continent. Within the operational and security parameters, the project team will work

with the following assumptions:

- “Report, locate, support, recover” process has a desired timeline of 6 hours or

less.

- Personnel Recovery “clock” starts when an injury occurs.

- Location of injured US person is known; search is not required.

- A local Command and Control (C2) node is present to facilitate reporting; this

may include an operations center, a US Embassy, or US Consulate.

- Local C2 node has an individual assigned PR coordination responsibility forward.

- Local C2 node coordinates airspace request when a PR capability is required to

cross a national boundary.

- CO/CO airborne PR capabilities operate from the major international airport in

the country of deployment (Burkino Faso, Uganda, Niger).

- Airborne PR capability will refuel when required; “clean fuel is assumed

available when needed to meet a medium range PR mission.”

- Transportation of an injured US person to a location suitable for recovery occurs;

this would include activities such as driving to an airfield or clearing that is

helicopter accessible.

- Long range air transport is available and at the ready on continent to support

reintegration or transport to the nearest US medical facility (Landstuhl Regional

Medical Center, Germany).

This Master’s capstone project is bound by the assumptions noted above. The

consideration of military assets and locations is out of scope for this project. Project value

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is based on the strategic course of action recommendations from the team leveraging

civilian assets used by USAFRICOM.

Preliminary Requirements

A simulation model will be developed to analyze USAFRICOM’s PR operations on Africa. The

high-level requirements for this model are as follows.

R.1 The USAFRICOM PR model shall allow users to set parameters including the probability

of being allowed access into foreign nations, probability of injury, and probability of

survival.

R.2 The USAFRICOM PR model shall allow for three types of PR events: injured human,

non-injured human, and non-human.

R.3 The USAFRICOM PR model shall stochastically generate and execute PR events based

on user-set parameters and hard-coded data.

R.4 The USAFRICOM PR model shall generate output including recovery time, flight path,

success, and survivability.

R.5 The USAFRICOM PR model shall consider PR events no further south than the

Democratic Republic of Congo.

R.6 The USAFRICOM PR model shall consider PR events as far north as Tunisia.

R.7 The USAFRICOM PR model shall consider PR events as far west as Senegal.

R.8 The USAFRICOM PR model shall consider PR events as far east as Somalia.

R.9 The USAFRICOM PR model shall denote the recovery of a human PR asset in six hours

or less as “successful”.

R.10 The USAFRICOM PR model shall denote the recovery of a human PR asset over six

hours as “unsuccessful”.

Technical Approach

The team has developed a tentative approach for the creation of the model that will be utilized to

develop recommendations for the Command. The initial focus is around data setup to create an

environment in which the simulations can run. To accomplish this, the first task is to determine

the countries of interest and create a database with points that make up their approximate national

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boundaries. These points will be used to geofence the countries themselves. This task has already

begun as shown in the image below.

Figure3:Geofencingexamplefromthesimulationunderdevelopment

Furthermore, the team will determine the tabular data needed for the application. This

includes but is not limited to hospitals, aircraft and personnel. The data will be

maintained in a SQLite database and will be configurable from within the application.

The use of a SQLite database has been determined to meet the needs of the application

while also accomplishing the need for portability between systems, as it will be packaged

within the application itself and require no system configuration by the end user. The

following image depicts the set of tables that currently have been loaded in the database:

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Figure4:Currenttablesloadedindatabase

After data collection and set up has been completed the next step will be to determine the

parameters for each run of the simulation. The configuration of these parameters will

determine the alternatives with the Command approved use case set as the control. This

may include the probability of being allowed access into a foreign nation, probability of

injury, or probability of useable fuel at a refueling location among others.

Once the data and parameters are set the model will be developed to an executable state

to allow the team to run simulations and gather output. Each simulation will run through

scenarios that are stochastically generated and carried out using the parameters and

tabular data entered by the user. The simulation will run through the procedural steps

identified by the team and approved by the command which are outlined in the table

below.

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Figure5:DBBrowserforSQLite

Outside of the steps outlined in the table the simulation will also automatically generate a

flight plan(s) based on what national boundaries may be crossed. This will be

accomplished with the development of a variation of a standard shortest path algorithm.

After each run of the simulation the team will attempt to validate the output in two ways.

First a visualization will be generated and verified to ensure that the data seems visually

accurate. These visualizations will be created via Google Earth kml files, which is seen in

the national boundary image above in figure 3. Next, the team will attempt to validate the

simulation using historical data. This data will hopefully be provided by the Command,

but if not, publicly available data will be used for non-African PR situations and force-

fitted to the African dynamic. Once output validation is complete, the team will analyze

and tweak both parameters and tabular data to improve probability of success.

Expected Results

Various ideas will be tested during simulation runs to see the results of manipulating various

combinations of model variables. This data will be analyzed to identify and recommend the

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effectiveness of various courses of action the Command could take to improve their PR

infrastructure. Should USAFRICOM act on a potential course of action recommended by the

project team, this data will also provide empirical evidence for helping justify funding requests

made by the Command.

Project Plan

Figure 3 shows the work breakdown structure (WBS) of the project team. This WBS is broken

down into six high-level tasks: Research, Model, Recommendations, Deliverable Development,

Stakeholder Interaction, and Project Management. Research, Model, and Recommendations

describe the work that will be performed specifically to analyze the USAFRICOM PR problem

and develop recommended courses of action. Deliverable Development describes the deliverables

that will be developed as required for this Master’s capstone course. Stakeholder Interaction

includes the attendance in class to communicate progress with the course professor and peers as

well as the bi-weekly tag-ups currently established with the project sponsor, USAFRICOM.

Project Management describes the work necessary to plan and track the work completed for the

Master’s capstone project.

Figure 4 is a snapshot of The ROCKSTAR Group’s project plan as developed in MS Project.

Deliverable milestones on the top row are the due dates established by the syllabus for this

course. The second row shows the tag-up dates with USAFRICOM as the command has agreed to

bi-weekly tag-ups with the project team for continuing synchronization throughout the course.

The remaining rows of the project plan show planning dates for the tasks that will be performed

throughout the course of the USAFRICOM PR Capability and Capacity project. All planning

start and end dates are subject to change as needed per The ROCKSTAR Group’s discretion.

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Figure 6: Work Breakdown Structure

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Figure 7: Project Plan