Air University Review, November-December 1977
implications and exploitable opportunities
James Digby
IN RECENT years an unusually large number of technical developments have been put to practical use in new weapon systems. Some of these developments promise to make the more traditional weapons (which are often less cost effective and quite vulnerable) obsolete. The combined effect of a number of these developments is sufficient to cause some senior officials to use words like "revolutionary" to describe what is happening. It is my own view that most of the changes that could be called "revolutionary" are potential changes not yet realized.
There is a variety of advances in weapon technology, new kinds of tank armor, new submarine hull designs, automated test equipment, to name just a few. The Economist (London), which had been rather excited over the prospects for precision-guided weapons eight months earlier, in a recent article selected six other developments "which may bring about equally radical changes in the way wars are fought." My summary preserves many of the Economist’s adjectives, from the articles 1 which made these points:
1. High-energy lasers. Although a laser beam takes a lot of energy to generate, it loses relatively little along the way to the target, so it can destroy things at a distance. It has long range, simple fire-control apparatus, easy "ammunition" supply, and nearly zero time -of-flight--thus easing the task of shooting down ballistic missiles or satellites.
2. Seeing in the dark. Night will soon favor the side with the better equipment and better night tactics.
3. Artillery locators. Guns will have to hit their targets with their first or second shot because after that they will be scrambling to avoid getting clobbered themselves. Massed artillery and barrages may soon be a thing of the past.
4. Tank armor. Shaped-charge warheads will no longer be so effective, and the new lightweight antitank weapons may be ineffective--except that the Russians now have 40,000 tanks with the old armor and would be hard-pressed to replace them.
5. Remotely piloted vehicles. These are cheaper than manned aircraft, can fly higher and longer, and maneuver more tightly-all in a smaller package, which makes them harder to detect and shoot down. Next, they will be able to see better than a man, and by the end of the century they will replace most manned aircraft.
6. Small submarines. Minisubmarines will soon be far enough advanced for small counties to possess, their size making them hard to detect, yet able to carry one or two weapons-such as cruise missiles-that could have remarkable accuracy and telling effect.
By including this summary I do not mean to endorse The Economist's views without reservation. I think they have overestimated the rapidity with which some of these ideas will be at hand, but their listing calls attention to three points:
Nonetheless, much more thought needs to be given to the implications of precision guided munitions (PGMs) and remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs).
A PGM can be defined as a guided munition whose probability of making a direct hit on its target at full range (when unopposed) is greater than half. According to the type of PGM, the target may be a tank, ship, radar, bridge, airplane, or other concentration of military value. 2 This definition includes a wide variety of weapons, with the term "munitions" indicating that they are designed to impact on their target. Thus the increasingly important category of cruise missiles is included.
PGMs overlap with RPVs, many of which are designed to be recoverable and are used primarily to carry reconnaissance equipment or devices such as laser designators. Others, designed to impact at the target, qualify as PGMs. An RPV may be defined as a vehicle that is piloted from a remote location by a person who has available much of the same piloting information he would have if he were on board. Some people are considering RPV techniques for tanks, submarines, or other vehicles, but in its most common use the term refers to aircraft.
technical bases of PGMs
Three technological advances have greatly facilitated the development of the new precision on-guided munitions:
Perhaps the main thing to say about PGMs -if they are used under the conditions for which they were designed-is contained in the following statement:
Accuracy is no longer a strong function of rang; if a target can be acquired and followed during the required aiming process, it can usually be hit. For many targets, hitting is equivalent to destroying. 3
drawbacks of near-future PGMs
This statement also gives some clues as to what might go wrong. For example, actual experience in the 1973 war in the Middle East showed that acquiring targets and then recognizing which were hostile and important was a very difficult job. That war also showed I that it was possible to evade relatively slow PGMs, like the Soviet-supplied Sagger antitank missile, during their 15 to 25 seconds I of flight. Israeli defenders learned quickly to take Sagger crews under fire during the time they were guiding their missiles. Sometimes, relatively simple measures will serve to conceal the targets. Finally, it can be noted that there are a number of ways of interfering with the seeing process. For some of the earlier missiles that use visual sighting, darkness, battlefield smoke, or ground fog may prevent sighting. (Later systems using long-wave infrared will expand considerably the conditions where seeing will be possible.)
Thus, the benefits of increasingly using PGMs and RPV s will be treated here as potential values, not as statements about a weapon revolution that is already here.
potential benefits of PGMs
First, it appears that PGMs and RPVs could substantially increase their users' tactical capabilities. Under best operating conditions, this is probably true. However, as mentioned, there are a number of ways to counter the new guidance systems, though many of these problems can be overcome by resorting to nonvisual-spectrum guidance systems. Now the United States seems to have the advantage over the Soviets in longwave infrared systems and millimeter-wave systems, for example, and we seem far ahead in air-launched PGMs. However, the Soviets apparently have exploited the visually guided ground-based PGMs more efficiently, and they have been especially adept in exploiting antitank weapons.
The second point is that PGMs can be concealed in small units with great firepower potential. U.S. doctrine often runs directly counter to realizing this potential. The Army puts highest priority on developing the Big Five, all large, expensive systems.4 The Air Force has put high priority on large, multipurpose penetrating aircraft as well as an airborne warning system that concentrates great value in a single aircraft. And the Navy is building expensive, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and strike cruisers, both extremely high-value targets. The Soviets, however, are typically building large numbers of smaller vehicles. (One resulting problem is the difficulty of coordinating these dispersed units in a combat situation; the Soviets compensate by using standing procedures to a greater extent than we do.)
The third potential value of PGMs is that the offense will particularly profit from future, longer-range PGMs. This capability will require the development of new and appropriate tactics. Unfortunately, the United States, which has made greater technical progress, is not matching this potential capability with the necessary improvements in its reconnaissance abilities, particularly over the ocean. At the same time, the American services seem reluctant to design appropriate tactics, especially for the projection of air and naval power to utilize this emerging capability.
Fourth, PGMs are light and mobile, so they can be moved laterally or from a reserve and brought to bear in areas of greatest defensive need. In other words, they can reduce the requirement static defense emplacements. Again, U.S. doctrine has not yet reflected this PGM capability with respect to land warfare and tactics for lateral deployment. Neither are there adequate command control networks available to exercise this capability. If it is a assumed that the Soviets will be on the offense, this type of exploitation is less relevant from their perspective.
Fifth, since most PGMs and RPVs are both mobile and the units easily divisible, this facilitates a greater centralization of resources before combat use. This is especially important because it is essential that the United States be able to call on all its assets in any confrontation with the Soviets. At present, the United States is probably quite far from having a suitable coordinated plan under which all three services would work together in a deployed mobile force. Potentially, though, the U.S. advantage in data processing systems would be most beneficial in monitoring, deploying, and controlling forces that consist of many independently mobile small units. This is one area that the United States should exploit to the fullest.
Sixth, PGMs and RPVs can be used most effectively if the tables of organization and equipment (TO&Es) are redesigned to exploit the new capabilities. PGMs are somewhat indifferent to the kind of platform that fires them, and their full exploitation might suggest changes in the traditional service role and mission assignments. It will not necessarily be best to use sea-based platforms to launch antiship missiles or air-launched missiles to attack airfields. To date, United States TO&Es have not reflected the new possibilities with any substantial degree of change. The Soviets, however, have made a major change in their tactical doctrine in the employment of missile-armed BMPs; 5 this implies a significant alteration in combat tactics to emphasize the use of PGMs. To the American advantage, Soviet military practices have traditionally discouraged tactical flexibility whereas U.S. doctrine encourages substantial tactical independence (within broad guidelines) for its junior commanders.
Seventh, PGMs and RPVs can be inexpensive to produce and maintain. (This need not be universally true; Condor is an example of a high-performance but expensive system.) This potential might not be realized unless priority efforts are directed toward keeping PGM costs as low as possible so that large numbers of them can be procured.
Eighth, more and more, weapon systems can be designed independently of weapon platforms, enabling each to be modernized separately, with consequent savings. Currently, most funds for U.S. weapon systems are going into tightly integrated penetrating weapon systems. Modularity has been a goal of design engineers for many years, but it is honored more in theory than in practice. Modern U.S. technology increasingly facilitates modular design, a trend that would do much to improve performance and cost goals.
THE FULL exploitation of PGMs must rely on a supporting structure, from improved reconnaissance and target acquisition capabilities to command structures to lateral transport to a logistics network for replenishment, if they are going to operate in their most effective mode. They should be embedded in combined arms tactics. Although some of these supporting components appear to be well suited to U.S. capabilities, we have yet to integrate them into a planned battle system.
Moreover, exploitation of precision weaponry require more than technological excellence: political factors are important, too. From the political viewpoint, perhaps the most important new capability is that precision weaponary offers great precision in the physical damage inflicted on the enemy, thus permitting a more exact convergence between politic decision-making and military action. This makes for a better chance of securing political objectives without the danger of escalation due to misunderstood military actions. Other political issues may be raised by the great mobility possible with PGMs.
PGM technology raises a number of arms control issues, also. Their small size and potential for concealment undermine "national technical means of verification." (Consider, for example, the frequently discussed problem of seeing and estimating the properties of cruise missiles.) Furthermore, since their performance is not particularly range-dependent, they blur the distinction between "strategic" and "tactical" forces as well as between "forward-based systems" and home-based forces. Finally, their effect on arms transfers warrants careful examination. 6
I have mentioned enough potential changes--many of them of great importance to the two superpowers--to indicate that exploiting these potentials may make much difference both in the long-term military competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and in the ability of small powers to possess effective military forces. Many of the weapons mentioned earlier, as well as PGMs, are well adapted to being used in small packets. Some writers have compared them to the Colt revolver, the equalizer of the old West. The small power would need to be able to deal with relatively advanced technical systems, though. As to the Russians, they now seem to be adapting more flexibly than we are, with large production runs of small missile boats, mobile air defense systems, and the well-armed BMP mechanized fighting vehicle. But their great numbers of tanks with old-style armor and reliance on massive artillery barrages might be made obsolete. For the past forty years we have counted on superior technology to outweigh sheer numbers. While we clearly need numbers as well as technique, it seems that we are in a period of both peril--if we are stodgy--and opportunity--if we are nimble.
Rand Corporation
Notes
1. The Economist, December 4, 1974, pp. 100-101. The points made here are summarized, not quoted directly.
2. This definition is slightly modified from the one I give in Adelphi Paper No. 118, Precision-Guided Weapons, The International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), Summer 1915.
3. Slightly modified from my previously cited monograph, Precision-Guided Weapons, p. 4.
4. The Big Five include the Patriot antiaircraft missile, the XM-1 tank, the AAH armed helicopter, the MICV armored fighting vehicle, and the UTTAS transport helicopter.
5. The BMP is a modern, heavily armed mechanized fighting vehicle. Its employment in special regiments is described by John Erickson in "Trends in the Soviet Combined-Arms Concept," Strategic Review, Winter 1911, pp. 38-53.
6. For more on these topics see "New Technology and Control of Conventional Arms: Some Common Ground," by S. J. Dudzinsky, Jr., and James Digby, in International Security, vol. I, no. 4, Spring 1977.
Contributor
James Digby (M.A., Stanford University) is a senior staff member at the Rand Corporation and Executive Director of the California Seminar on Arms Control and Foreign Policy. During World War II he served as a radar officer in a troop carrier group of the Ninth Air Force during the Normandy invasion and in several technical assignments. At Rand since 1949, he has analyzed air defense systems, assisted in the development of strategic ideas, and managed various international programs. He is a director of the European - American Institute for Security Research.
Disclaimer
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.
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