Military Geographical Information System (MGIS)

The layer of Geographical Information System

Murshardin (2001) in his paper titled "Impact of Information Technology and Information Warfare on Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF)" has emphasized the importance of Information and Communication Technology (lCT) in Revolution of Military Affair (RMA) for future warfare. Computer and electronic devices may become dangerous weapon in the future warfare. Therefore, information that includes geospatial and attribute will play a key role in any future operation.

The old Military Geographic Information system

Military Geospatial Information (MGI) provides information of our world to enable Military Geographic Information System (MGIS) extracting knowledge for specific strategies and planning purposes (Australian Defence Organisation, 2000). The MGI plays a very important role in military operation. Its importance is almost as critical as the importance of logistic supports such as ammunition, ration, petrol and water, which can affect the success of military operation. According to Major Zambri (2002) in his “Development of Terrain Analysis Database Using Military Geographic Information System”, Sun Tzu (500 B.C.) has explained the importance of terrain or MGI for total victory of military operation other than knowing own and enemy forces capabilities (Giles, 2001).

The need of MGI is even more so for the present and future condition of warfare due to the expansion of operation areas, increased mobility and also rapid changes have occurred in the technology that supports the modem warfare. In contrast to these increases, the time available to respond to problems has decreased.

At present, topographic maps at the scale of 1 :50,000 are widely used by military community and they have been familiar with the graphics and map symbologies represented on the topographic map (Zambri, 2002). However, these elements cannot provide tactical information about certain features. For example, the road element portrayed on the topographic map does not have tactical information such as the width and type of construction material. This limits the use of topographic map for tactical planning purposes. Tactical information of features that are significant to military operation is usually stored in Terrain Analysis (TA) database (Zambri, 2002). The TA database comprises several layers namely slope, vegetation, soil, transportation, surface drainage and obstacle. The TA database at the scale of 1:50,000 is part of the MGI databases that is useful for planning tactical operation (Zambri, 2002). Technology of MGIS has enabled the management of tactical information in TA database be implemented digitally and effectively. For instance, 1 Topo Survey Squadron of Australia Defence Forces (ADF) and 42 Survey Regiment of United Kingdom Defence Forces have utilized MGIS for collecting, managing and utilizing their TA database to produce various products of Tactical Decision Aid (TDA) and Rapid Mapping Support (RMS) (Abdul Rahman, 1997 ; Flegg,2002).

   The Information and Communication Technology (lCT) that includes military geospatial information will play a key role in the Revolution of Military Affair (RMA) for future warfare. The Terrain Analysis (TA) database is one of the military geospatial information that needs to be established in the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) in order to enable various Military Geographic Information System (MGIS) to perform analyses and produce Tactical Decision Aids (TDA) products.