The Order of Battle ontology provides a comprehensive schema for representing military forces, equipment, facilities, and their operational status to provide a foundation for situational awareness and force analysis.
Modeled as a distinct domain within the Defense OSDK, ontology types within Order of Battle represent key components of the force disposition process as defined by its component interfaces. Interface link type constraints define the object-to-object relationship across object types that implement an Order of Battle interface.
Order of Battle models organizational hierarchies using a pattern of intermediary relationship interfaces connected through interface link type constraints. At a high level, the pattern works as follows:
Organization Hierarchy represents a named, temporally bounded collection of organizational relationships, such as a task organization effective during a specific operation.Organization Hierarchy Node Relationship is an intermediary interface that captures a single parent-child relationship between two organizations within a hierarchy, along with temporal validity.Organization Hierarchy Node Relationship Type classifies the nature of that relationship, such as Organic, Assigned, OPCON, or TACON.Interface link type constraints wire these interfaces together: each node relationship links to exactly one parent organization, one child organization, one hierarchy, and one relationship type. When an object type implements the Organization interface, its concrete link types fulfill these constraints, enabling hierarchy traversal through the interface.
Unit-specific interfaces, such as Unit Hierarchy and Unit Hierarchy Node Relationship, in the Order of Battle domain constrain participation to units only. This intentional separation ensures unit-only hierarchies remain type-safe, meaning a non-unit organization cannot be inserted into a unit hierarchy, while still allowing units to participate in broader organization hierarchies through their extension of the Organization interface. Review the existing interface link type constraints documentation to learn more about how these constraints enable abstract relationship modeling across implementing object types.
Learn more about how to develop with Order of Battle interfaces as your API layer.