Royal Army College

Lesson Overview

The lessons so far have planned communications for a task: the architecture, the spectrum, the resilience, the information, the defence, all aimed at making a force communicate well now. But a force's ability to communicate does not exist by itself; it rests on a capability, the equipment, the systems, the trained people, and the supporting stores that together let the force communicate, and that capability must be deliberately built and sustained over time, or there will be nothing to plan with. This lesson lifts the view from planning a task's communications to developing and sustaining the force's communications capability across the long term: deciding what capability the force needs, acquiring it within its means, and keeping it serviceable, current, and supported year after year. It is the planner's stewardship of the means of communication itself, the longest-horizon part of the communications planner's role.

The governing truth is that capability is built and sustained, not bought once and forgotten. A force that acquires radios and a server and imagines its communications capability is then settled will find, in a few years, that the equipment has aged, the spares are gone, the people who knew the systems have moved on, the software is unsupported, and the capability has quietly decayed to far less than it was. Capability, like the communications of a single task, decays without active sustainment, and developing it is not a one-time purchase but an ongoing stewardship: building toward what the force needs, sustaining what it has, and renewing it as it ages. And for a small, modestly resourced force, this must be done within tight means, which makes the discipline of affordable, sustainable, cooperative capability development not a luxury but the only way a small force fields real communications at all.

This is the knowledge layer. It teaches you how a force's communications capability is developed and sustained, deciding what is needed, acquiring it within means, and keeping it alive over time, so that you understand the long-term stewardship of the means of communication. The actual development and sustainment of capability is a command and staff responsibility carried out over years by those who hold it, and learned in the doing. Read this to know how capability is built and sustained; the stewardship is exercised over time.

By the end you will be able to explain why communications capability must be developed and sustained over time, decide what capability a force needs and identify the gaps, acquire capability within a small force's means, sustain capability against decay, and use standardisation and cooperation to make a small force's capability go further.

Key Terms

Capability: the whole ability of a force to communicate, comprising the equipment, systems, trained people, and supporting stores that together make communication possible.
Capability development: the deliberate building of a force's communications capability over time toward what the force needs, as opposed to planning a single task.
Capability gap: the difference between the communications capability a force needs and what it actually has, which development aims to close.
Acquisition: the obtaining of communications equipment and systems, within the force's means, to build or renew capability.
Sustainment: the keeping of a capability serviceable, current, and supported over time, against the decay that neglect brings.
Lifecycle: the span of a capability from acquisition through use and maintenance to eventual replacement, which the planner manages as a whole.
Standardisation: the use of common equipment and systems across the force, which eases training, maintenance, spares, and interoperability.
Affordability: the property of a capability being within the force's means to acquire and, crucially, to sustain, not merely to buy once.
Cooperation: the drawing on partners, shared standards, and open solutions to extend a small force's capability beyond what it could build alone.
Obsolescence: the ageing of a capability into unsupportability or ineffectiveness, which sustainment and renewal must stay ahead of.

Why capability must be developed and sustained

The ability to communicate that the earlier lessons planned with is not a given; it is a capability that must exist before any plan can use it, and that capability comprises everything that makes communication possible: the radios and servers and devices, the trained operators and NCOs and planners, the spares and batteries and stores, and the systems and software that tie them together. A communications plan, however brilliant, can deploy only the capability the force actually has, so the planner's longest-horizon responsibility is to see that the force has the capability to plan with, which means developing it deliberately over time rather than assuming it.

The reason this needs active attention is that capability decays without sustainment, steadily and predictably, exactly as a single task's communications decay without power and maintenance, but over years rather than hours. Equipment ages and wears out; spares are consumed and not replaced; the people who knew the systems move on and take their knowledge with them; software falls out of support; the whole capability, if simply used and not sustained, erodes toward unsupportability, so that a force which fielded a fine communications capability finds, some years on, that it has far less than it thought. This decay is not dramatic and so is easily ignored until it bites, which is precisely why it must be actively managed: a capability is a living thing that must be fed, maintained, and renewed, not a possession that stays as bought.

So capability development is an ongoing stewardship, not a one-time act. It is the continuous business of building toward what the force needs, sustaining what it has against decay, and renewing it as it ages, over the whole lifecycle of each capability from acquisition to replacement. The planner, or the staff who hold this responsibility, treats the force's communications capability as something to be developed and tended across years, with an eye always on the gap between what the force needs and what it has, the serviceability of what it holds, and the approaching obsolescence of what is ageing. This long view, beyond any single task, is what ensures there is always a real capability for the task planners to use.

Deciding what capability the force needs

Capability development begins not with buying equipment but with deciding what capability the force actually needs, because capability acquired without a clear need is waste, and a small force can least afford waste. The need is derived from what the force must be able to do: the tasks it must communicate for, the distances and conditions it must cover, the resilience and security it requires, the interoperability it needs with civil agencies and partners. From this comes a clear statement of the communications capability the force should have, against which its actual capability can be measured, and the difference is the capability gap, the shortfall that development aims to close.

Identifying the gap honestly is the discipline here, and it cuts both ways. A force may have less than it needs, a genuine gap in range, in resilience, in a capability the task demands, which development should close. But a force, even a small one, may also be tempted to acquire more or fancier than it needs, chasing capability for its own sake, the impressive system that no real need requires, which wastes the limited means on capability that will sit unused and unsustained. The disciplined planner measures the capability against the need, acquiring to close real gaps and resisting the acquisition of capability the force does not actually require, because for a small force every resource spent on unneeded capability is a resource denied to a real need or to sustainment. The need defines the capability; the gap between need and holding defines what to develop; and honesty about both keeps the development aimed at what the force truly requires.

This need-driven discipline connects to the wider defence-capability thinking of the small-state courses (PME 510): a small force builds capability by clear-eyed analysis of what it needs and affordable, sustainable means to meet it, not by imitating the capabilities of larger forces or acquiring the latest thing. The communications planner applies that thinking to communications specifically, deciding the force's real communications need and developing toward it deliberately, which is the foundation on which all the acquisition and sustainment rests.

Acquiring capability within means

Closing a capability gap means acquiring equipment and systems, and for a small, modestly resourced force the governing constraint on acquisition is affordability, understood properly: not merely what the force can afford to buy, but what it can afford to sustain. A capability the force can buy but cannot keep running, for want of spares, support, training, or money to maintain it, is a false economy that will decay into uselessness, so the planner judges affordability across the whole lifecycle, asking not "can we buy this?" but "can we buy, run, maintain, support, and eventually replace this within our means?" A modest capability that the force can fully sustain is worth far more than an ambitious one it can only buy, which is the same lesson the small-force design course taught: deliverability and sustainability are design criteria, not afterthoughts.

Two further disciplines stretch a small force's acquisition. Standardisation, using common equipment and systems across the force rather than a miscellany, eases everything downstream: training is simpler when everyone uses the same sets, maintenance and spares are simpler when there is one type to support, and interoperability is easier when the force's own parts use compatible kit. The miscellaneous force, with a different radio in every detachment, multiplies its training, maintenance, and spares burden and undermines its own interoperability, so the planner standardises where they can, accepting common, good-enough equipment over a diversity of individually-better but collectively-unsustainable kit. Cooperation stretches the means further still: drawing on partners, shared standards, and open solutions lets a small force field capability it could never develop alone. This Army's own use of open systems, the open-source Team Awareness Kit and the licence-free Meshtastic mesh, is exactly this discipline in action: capable, sustainable communications built on shared, open foundations rather than on expensive bespoke systems a small force could not afford or sustain. The planner who acquires affordably across the lifecycle, standardises, and cooperates fields, from modest means, a capability that punches above the force's size.

   ACQUIRING CAPABILITY IN A SMALL FORCE  (modest means, real capability)

   AFFORDABILITY    judge across the WHOLE LIFECYCLE: not "can we buy it?"
   (across lifecycle) but "can we buy, RUN, MAINTAIN, SUPPORT, and REPLACE
                     it within our means?" A modest capability fully
                     sustained beats an ambitious one only bought.
   STANDARDISATION  common equipment across the force -> simpler training,
                     maintenance, spares, and interoperability (vs a
                     miscellany that multiplies the burden)
   COOPERATION      partners, shared standards, OPEN solutions field
                     capability a small force couldn't build alone
                     ......... e.g. open-source TAK + licence-free Meshtastic

   The need defines the capability; affordability-to-SUSTAIN keeps it real.

Sustaining capability against decay

Acquiring a capability is the beginning; sustaining it is the longer and harder task, because a capability not actively sustained decays, and the planner's stewardship is largely the ongoing work of keeping the force's communications capability serviceable, current, and supported over its lifecycle. Sustainment of capability is the force-level, long-term counterpart of the detachment sustainment the NCO course taught: where the NCO sustains a detachment's communications through a task, the planner sustains the force's capability through the years, and the principles scale up.

Sustainment has several strands. Maintenance and serviceability must be kept up across the force's communications equipment over its life, so the kit does not age into unreliability, which requires the spares, the maintenance routines, and the technical support to keep equipment serviceable, planned and resourced over the lifecycle, not just at purchase. Spares and stores must be replenished as they are consumed, so the force does not run down its holdings to nothing, which is the signals logistics of the NCO course raised to a standing, force-level supply. People must be sustained as a capability: the operators, NCOs, and planners trained and retrained as members come and go, so that the human capability, which decays fastest as trained people move on, is continually renewed, which is exactly why the training pipeline of the Signals speciality exists. And currency must be maintained against obsolescence: software kept supported, systems updated, and ageing capability renewed or replaced before it fails or becomes unsupportable, so the planner watches the lifecycle and plans renewal ahead of the decay rather than after it.

The thread through all of it is that sustainment must be planned and resourced from the start, as part of acquiring the capability, not improvised when the capability begins to fail. The force that buys a capability and budgets nothing for its sustainment has bought a declining asset; the one that plans the maintenance, the spares, the training renewal, and the eventual replacement as part of the capability's lifecycle keeps it alive. This is why affordability was judged across the lifecycle: the sustainment is much of the lifecycle cost and effort, and a capability is only real if its sustainment is real. The planner who sustains the force's communications capability, maintaining the kit, replenishing the stores, renewing the people, and staying ahead of obsolescence, ensures that the capability the task planners draw on is actually there, year after year, which is the whole point of developing it.

In Practice: Building a Capability That Lasts

A communications planner of the Royal Kaharagian Army is responsible not only for a task's communications but for developing and sustaining the force's communications capability over the years. A weak planner buys equipment to meet an immediate need and gives no thought to sustaining it, and the capability decays within a few years to far less than was bought, the kit aged, the spares gone, the trained people moved on. The College's planner stewards the capability across its lifecycle.

She starts from the need, deriving from what the force must do, the tasks, distances, resilience, and interoperability it requires, a clear statement of the communications capability the force should have, and measures the actual capability against it to find the real gaps, resisting equally the temptation to leave a genuine gap and the temptation to acquire impressive capability no real need requires. She acquires to close the real gaps within means, judging affordability across the whole lifecycle, what the force can buy, run, maintain, support, and replace, not merely buy, and choosing a modest capability fully sustained over an ambitious one only afforded once. She standardises on common equipment to ease training, maintenance, and spares, and she cooperates, drawing on shared standards and open solutions, the open-source TAK and the licence-free mesh, to field capability the small force could never build alone.

Above all she plans the sustainment from the start: the maintenance and spares to keep the kit serviceable over its life, the standing logistics to replenish stores, the training pipeline to renew the operators and NCOs as members come and go, and the watch on obsolescence to renew ageing capability before it fails. Because she budgeted and planned the sustainment as part of the capability, not as an afterthought, the capability does not decay into uselessness but stays alive, serviceable, current, and supported, year after year. So when task planners come to plan a task's communications, there is a real, sustained capability for them to use, which there is only because someone stewarded it over the long horizon. That stewardship, building toward the need and sustaining against decay within modest means, is what developing a force's communications capability means.

Check Your Understanding

Explain why a force's communications rest on a capability that must be developed and sustained over time, and why "capability decays without sustainment." Why is capability development an ongoing stewardship rather than a one-time purchase?
Describe how a planner decides what capability the force needs and identifies the gap, and why honesty about the gap cuts both ways (neither leaving a real gap nor acquiring more than is needed). How does this connect to small-state capability thinking?
Explain how capability is acquired within means (affordability judged across the whole lifecycle, standardisation, cooperation and open solutions) and sustained against decay (maintenance, spares, renewing trained people, and staying ahead of obsolescence). Why must sustainment be planned from the start?

Reflection (write a short paragraph): This lesson argues that a capability the force can buy but cannot sustain is a false economy, and that affordability must be judged across the whole lifecycle, not just at purchase. Why is it tempting to acquire an impressive capability the force cannot really sustain, and what does that cost a few years on? Then think about this Army's use of open-source TAK and the licence-free mesh: how does building on shared, open foundations let a small, modestly resourced force field real communications capability, and what does that suggest about how a small force should think about capability compared with a large one?

Summary

A force's communications rest on a capability, the equipment, systems, trained people, and stores that make communication possible, which must be deliberately developed and sustained over time, because a plan can only deploy the capability the force has. Capability decays without sustainment (kit ages, spares run out, trained people move on, software falls out of support), so development is an ongoing stewardship across the lifecycle, not a one-time purchase.
Development begins by deciding what capability the force needs (from its tasks, distances, resilience, security, and interoperability) and identifying the gap honestly, neither leaving a real shortfall nor acquiring more or fancier than the need requires, in line with small-state capability thinking (PME 510).
Acquire within means, judging affordability across the whole lifecycle (can the force buy, run, maintain, support, and replace it, not just buy it, a modest sustained capability beating an ambitious unsustained one), and stretch the means by standardisation (common equipment eases training, maintenance, spares, interoperability) and cooperation (partners, shared standards, open solutions like open-source TAK and the licence-free mesh).
Sustain against decay: keep maintenance and serviceability up, replenish spares and stores, renew trained people as members come and go (the human capability decays fastest), and stay ahead of obsolescence by renewing ageing capability before it fails. Sustainment is planned and resourced from the start, because it is much of the lifecycle cost and a capability is only real if its sustainment is real.
This is the knowledge layer; developing and sustaining capability is a command and staff responsibility exercised over years. This lesson scales the detachment sustainment of SIG 310 to the force, applies the small-force design and capability thinking of TRG 410 and PME 510, connects to the LOG speciality, and provides the real capability that the task planning of the whole course depends on.

Communications Capability Development and Sustainment