Battle dimension defines the primary mission area for the operational object within the battlespace. An object can have a mission area above the Earth's surface (i.e., in the air or outer space), on it, or below it. If the mission area of an object is on the surface, it can be either on land or sea. The subsurface dimension concerns those objects whose mission area is below the sea surface (e.g., submarines and sea mines). Some cases require adjudication; for example, an Army or Marine helicopter unit is a manoeuvring unit (i.e., a unit whose ground support assets are included) and is thus represented in the land dimension. Likewise, a landing craft whose primary mission is ferrying personnel or equipment to and from shore is a maritime unit and is represented in the sea surface dimension. A landing craft whose primary mission is to fight on land, on the other hand, is a ground asset and is represented in the land dimension.
Closed frames are used to denote the land and sea surface dimensions, frames open at the bottom denote the air/space dimension, and frames open at the top denote the subsurface dimension.
| Air and Space | Ground | Sea surface | Subsurface |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friend | |||
| Neutral | |||
| Hostile | |||
| Unknown | |||
An unknown battle dimension is possible; for example, some electronic warfare signatures (e.g., radar systems) are common to several battle dimensions and would therefore be assigned an "Unknown" battle dimension until further discrimination becomes possible.
The full set of battle dimensions is:
- Space (P)
- Air (A)
- Ground (G)
- Sea Surface (S)
- Sea Subsurface (U)
- SOF (F)
- Other (X)
- Unknown (Z)
The letter in parentheses is used by the Symbol identification coding (SIDC) scheme —strings of 15 characters used to transmit symbols.
The Space and Air battle dimensions share a single frame shape. In the Ground battle dimension, two different frames are used for the Friendly (and Assumed Friendly) affiliations in order to distinguish between units and equipment. The SOF (Special Operations Forces) are assigned their own battle dimension because they typically can operate across several domains (air, ground, sea surface and subsurface) in the course of a single mission; the frames are the same as for the Ground (unit) battle dimension. The Other battle dimension, finally, seems to be reserved for future use (there are no instances of its use as of 2525B Change 1).
Read more about this topic: NATO Military Symbols For Land Based Systems
Famous quotes containing the words battle and/or dimension:
“The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, change which suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“By intervening in the Vietnamese struggle the United States was attempting to fit its global strategies into a world of hillocks and hamlets, to reduce its majestic concerns for the containment of communism and the security of the Free World to a dimension where governments rose and fell as a result of arguments between two colonels’ wives.”
—Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)