BATTLEFIELD DIGITAL FORENSICS

Modern cyber‑physical warfare environments increasingly rely on digital infrastructure and portable computing systems. Captured digital devices often contain intelligence artefacts such as communication logs, operational plans, and network configurations. Traditional digital forensic procedures, however, are designed primarily for laboratory environments and do not adequately address battlefield operational constraints. This study proposes a Battlefield Digital Forensics Doctrine (BDFD) that integrates portable forensic architecture, triage‑based prioritization, and an operational efficiency model to enable tactical digital evidence acquisition. Experimental evaluation using portable forensic systems demonstrates that lightweight command‑line acquisition tools provide superior resilience under environmental stress and power disruption. The evaluation was conducted using a 1 TB experimental dataset simulating operational digital artifacts, including documents, system logs, configuration files, and multimedia data. The proposed framework supports rapid intelligence extraction while preserving digital evidence integrity. Experimental evaluation using a 1 TB dataset shows that command-line acquisition tools achieved up to 12–18% faster imaging performance compared with GUI-based tools under simulated battlefield conditions.