Where Is He

Are we putting the right kinds of resources on the line to locate the enemy? Are we forced too many times to use a steamroller to kill an ant? Acknowledgment of a simple truth may help us make the answers to both questions more logical.

Our commanders in Southeast Asia, particularly in South Vietnam, continue to encounter relatively severe gaps in tactical information and targeting. Any apologist for the U.S. reconnaissance-intelligence system who denies this assertion-be he Air Force, Navy, Marine, or Army-tends to be kidding himself. This gap continues despite many spectacular improvements of the last year or two. The gap also hurts the rest of us in the pocketbook every time our strike forces exercise the steamroller to get the ant. Finally, in far too many instances, our forces, ground and air, become aware of the enemy forces only with the shock and fury of a fatal ambush or a surprise attack.

During the past two years substantially increased technical and fiscal resources have been committed to enhance the Air Force's ability to ferret out, measure, and track enemy forces operating in the Southeast Asia (SEA) environment. But are our abilities to precisely identify and define aiming points that are meaningful to our fire-control systems keeping up with target intelligence gathering systems?

The Air Force's TACRISE (Tactical Reconnaissance-Intelligence System Enhancement) conference at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, in the spring of 1966 gave the USAF program a big boost. The other services too have applied greatly increased intellectual and material effort to these same problems. The Army' TARS 1970-75 study now in progress at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and associated hardware efforts define and respond to the Army's information needs. The Navy's TRIM program is backed up by intensive study and definition of means to acquire land warfare intelligence and aiming points.

Today airborne sensing and reporting devices are relied upon to respond to an ever increasing share of U.S. combat forces' information and targeting needs in SEA. However, the haunting question remains: Are we putting enough into the effort? It may well be that we can and should do more in the Air Force in the context of the cost of the alternatives.

I would like to dust off an old equation. Its logic is often overshadowed by massive statistics on missions, sorties, tonnages, and kills. It is that the ratio of the weight of military effort required to destroy two similar surface targets with conventional weapons is about inversely proportional to the square of the ratio of the accuracy with which aiming points for the two targets can be acquired by attacking forces. In other words, in its simplest form:

Figure 1. Mathematical Equation. The ratio of the weight of military effort required to destroy two similar surface targets with conventional weapons is about inversely proportional to the square of the ratio of the accuracy with which aiming points for the two targets can be acquired by attacking forces.

where W is the weight of attack required for equivalent levels of destruction of targets a and b;

A is the linear accuracy or distance between the location of the ideal aiming point for each target and the location of the actually designated aiming point; and

K is a constant which applies to target characteristics.

For example, if we can mark and/or acquire the location of the center of gravity of point target a within 100 yards and if we can mark or designate the location of target b with an accuracy of 200 yards for high-explosive weapons, it will take roughly four times the effort to achieve the same degree or certainty of destruction on target b as it will for target a.

The principle may also be stated: "The relative weights of effort required to destroy each of two like targets is inversely proportional to the square of the ratio of the distances from the actual targets to the designated aiming points." Again, if target a's aiming point is accurate to 100 yards and b's to 1000 yards and the two targets are equivalent, it takes about 100 times as much effort to kill b as it does to kill a!

This straightforward formula for point targets is modified somewhat when applied to linear and area targets; however, the principle still governs.

How often and for how long must we continue to use a case of dynamite to kill a cottontail in the brier patch when the state of the art could soon permit us to use a .22 ever more frequently?

Major General Milton B. Adams (USMA) is Chief of Staff, Pacific Air Forces. After flying training in 1940, he served with the 22d Pursuit Squadron and commanded the 328th Fighter Group; in the Pacific Theater 1943-45 he commanded the 18th Fighter Group and flew 275 combat missions. Other assignments have been as Advisor to the Iranian Air Force; faculty member, Air University; Commander, Basic Jet Flying School and Advance School for Tactical Fighter Pilots; at Hq USAF, 1959-62, including 18 months as Director of Systems Acquisitions, DCS/S&L; as ACS/Plans, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, 1962-65; Commander, USAF Tactical Air Reconnaissance Center; Deputy Director for Forces, Defense Communications Planning Group; and Commander, Headquarters command. He is a graduate of Air War College and National War College.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Where Is He?