Royal Navy extends Systematic MTF contract for five years

Systematic specialists continue to work at the heart of military messaging software.

Aarhus, 12 May 2025. The UK’s Royal Navy (RN) has awarded Systematic a five-year extension for the ongoing support for leadership of the development of Message Text Formats (MTFs) and production of the NATO Message Catalogue (APP-11). The 407 message formats in the latest edition of the catalogue cover the full spectrum of warfare from strategic, through mission tasking, CBRN warning and reporting, right down to individual units making routine logistics requests. The format makes them suitable for use in narrow bandwidth and satellite-denied environments, while still allowing human and computer processing.

The RN’s Navy Digital team are the designated custodian of APP-11 on behalf of NATO. As Custodian, the RN is responsible for producing the catalogue which is distributed to every operational unit in the alliance. Contracting Systematic allows the RN to discharge this responsibility with confidence.

In addition to the production of APP-11, under the contract, Systematic helps to represent the UK and RN at NATO Working Groups. These working groups are responsible for developing and updating MTFs in support of the many NATO publications that require textual information to be shared. An increasing number of MTFs from APP-11 are required in Federated Mission Networking (FMN) spiral specifications to share information between the multitude of loose coupled command-and-control systems in the battlespace, as well as collaborate with NATO and non-NATO partners during joint and coalition operations.

Introduction of new APP-11 standards

“This contract comes at an exciting time with the promulgation of APP-11(E)(1) at the end of last year and new versions of the catalogue scheduled annually from now on,” says Kevin Smith, Senior Consultant for Defence at Systematic.

“Like the modern battlespace, MTFs are continuing to evolve, while supporting the continual update of the operational payload, Systematic is excited to be involved in the development of the next generation of the rules used to generate the message templates (ADatP-03). These will include updating the XML to the latest NATO naming and design rules, the introduction of a JSON variant of the messages and integration with the Cross Community of Interest Semantic Reference Model (CXCSRM).” Smith added.

According to Smith, while many information exchange formats are solely reliant on XML, the simplicity of the // version for MTFs is sometimes considered as antiquated. However, this format is highly effective in a Command and Control, Degraded or Denied Environments (C2D2E) ensuring that vital information can be delivered in the most challenging conditions. On receipt, these messages can be converted into the XML-MTF equivalent with no loss of information simplifying data mapping. This unique ability is where the power of APP-11 and MTFs lie and help to underpin the key functions of the modern digitalised battlespace. In less challenging environments, messages can be passed as native XML-MTF instances - standards that are XML only are general reliant on IP base bearers which may not be available in C2D2E.

“Systematic has been supporting the UK and RN in this capacity for 20 years. By the time the new contract ends, we will have supported the RN for 25 years, helping them to maintain interoperability and communications in the some of the most complex and challenging environments. This goes to show how robust the MTF standard is,” says Jim Munt, Business Development Manager for Systematic Defence.

About the IRIS Suite

Systematic’s IRIS Suite of products sits at the core of the MTF technology with through-life support. Systematic products have been used by NATO for over 30 years to maintain MTFs, NATO HQ are currently using IRIS Standards Management (ISM) to ensure that all message templates are constructed to the highest quality standards. IRIS Forms is a world-leading, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product used by many nations in their command-and-control (C2) and military message handling systems (MMHS) for working with formatted messages. IRIS simplifies orders, forms, reports, and messaging, ensuring correct and consistent data, and helps to reduce time and personnel costs through automation.

To find out more about APP-11 and MTF, click here.