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Document Published Aerospace Power Journal - Fall 2000
2d Lt David Ortiz, USAF*
*Lieutenant Ortiz has completed his assignment with the 552d Training Squadron at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and is awaiting classification.
TODAY'S AIR FORCE is smaller than the service of yesterday, but few people would doubt that it has a much greater ability to prosecute an air war—projecting more power, faster, with increased survivability. This is due in part to our abundance of real-time battlefield intelligence and platforms from which to collect that intelligence. With this overwhelming ability to collect information comes disagreement on the best way to employ our intelligence collection and airborne early warning (AEW) platforms. This article offers another view on how to better employ proven AEW platforms and relatively new assets in the Air Force inventory, namely our unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
Recently, my class for airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft air-weapons officers received a briefing on today’s UAV fleet and its employment. I had listened to lectures on UAVs before, but this time I was more cognizant of the employment considerations of high-value airborne assets (HVAA) such as the E-3 AWACS; E-8 joint surveillance, target attack radar system (JSTARS); and Rivet Joint aircraft. The instructors talked about UAV systems such as the Predator and Global Hawk, stressing their many capabilities for collecting battlefield data. I wondered what we AWACS crew members could do with this collected data to enhance our tactical situational awareness. I was shocked to find out that the answer was not much at all. Since aircraft in the UAV fleet are designed for target tracking, communications relay, electronic intelligence, and search and rescue, why could they not coordinate the collection of information and share it with their larger, manned counterparts?
To explore this question further, I considered an idea from the early 1990s TV show Sea Quest. In this short-lived program, a large submarine vessel, the Sea Quest, received assistance in its day-to-day operations from “whiskers”—small, unmanned vehicles that extended the eyes and ears of the parent vessel. They lived up to their name by providing the fictional ship with constant data, helping it see around corners, cross-check shipborne sensors, and employ ordnance, thus making themselves essential to mission accomplishment. This concept of hardware symbiosis could teach the military a great deal. Indeed, the Navy already has learned from it: in 1996 the USS Chicago tested a whisker system via an ultrahigh-frequency satellite-communications link.1 The only difference was that it used airborne whiskers—specifically, a Predator UAV aircraft linked to the submarine, giving it detailed imagery one hundred nautical miles deep into enemy territory. The system could also highlight information on surface targets and movements of enemy ships.2 In a sense, the link provided a 15,000-foot periscope for the Chicago.
Putting all this together, I asked myself whether the Air Force could exploit this concept that already has real-world support. Could we use a set of two or three dedicated UAVs to enhance the mission employment of today’s AEW platforms? Can an idea from a futuristic Navy be applied to today’s Air Force? Given the varied capabilities of UAVs, I think the Air Force can enhance the mission at hand.
To further prove my point, I looked to the Red Flag range at Nellis AFB, Nevada, for ideas that would integrate AEW and UAV platforms in a combat/collection relationship. This range offers sporadic mountains, with valleys spanning the distance between them. The shadows of these ridges provide perfect hiding places for relay stations, troop convoys, and antiaircraft positions. Knowledge of their location is essential for avoidance and targeting by friendly forces; although our AEW platforms were specifically designed to detect such enemy emissions, restraints on those platforms do not always allow this. Sometimes we may miss coverage due to a shortage of aircraft, and sometimes other mission requirements demand orbits that do not optimize our collection capabilities. Oftentimes the answer is not more aircraft because the platforms cannot fly close enough to the forward edge of the battle area or over sensitive areas to retrieve this information.
Furthermore, because the E-3 has many capabilities, it carries a varied crew with differing needs in orbit. For example, the weapons section most likely would prefer an orbit oriented perpendicularly to the threat axis to take full advantage of onboard sensors providing information on enemy fighters heading in their direction. However, concerns over air defense assets, which might find the mountain valleys excellent places to wait in ambush for our aircraft, may dictate a different orbit—one that conforms to the terrain rather than the threat in order to detect emissions. AEW platforms continually make these trade-offs between support for the military mission and limits imposed by physics and geography. (They also practice risk management by not placing such an HVAA too close to the threat.) Such compromise invariably degrades collection, detection, and identification.
To counter these problems, the Air Force could employ an AEW/UAV combat-cooperation program so that the larger AEW platforms could conduct some of their mission taskings from afar, freed from dangerous line-of-sight problems by using UAV augmentation. Just think, a Rivet Joint and E-3 could support an East-West war on the Nellis range, while dedicated scout UAVs patrol the valleys between the mountain ranges (which run predominantly north-south). Ground or airborne emitters that previously would have gone unnoticed could now be identified and reported, and emissions from threats in known locations might be detected much faster. UAVs could also provide earlier detection and tracking of low-flying aircraft traversing these ridges, keeping the E-3 updated via datalink. In a signals-intelligence role, UAVs could triangulate faster, and in a search-and-rescue or optical-collection role, they could use real-time video imaging and spot cameras to help the JSTARS get a closer look at troop advancements, downed airmen, enemy vehicles, or bunkers. Real-time battlefield identification could become more accurate and expedient, giving field commanders an added tool on the battlefield. The objective here is to create a highly adaptable system that would help minimize line-of-sight and orbit restrictions—the possibilities are virtually endless. Experts in the two communities could communicate and determine what different types of UAVs would best supplement their HVAA counterparts, whether E-3, Rivet Joint, JSTARS, Compass Call, and so forth—the list goes on.
But we cannot realize such an increase in capabilities without overcoming some associated problems. The remainder of this article mentions three of them and offers possible solutions to some of these very complex issues.
First in everyone’s mind is money. How can we justify the cost of fielding new UAVs and integrating them with existing platforms? Well, if we implement a UAV/HVAA program, the increase in capability may result in a drop in HVAA deployments. Also, even though development costs can be significant, the Air Force and members of the private sector are currently testing more than 32 UAV/drone aircraft for future use.3 Those UAV programs already under way represent such a variety of capabilities that we may be able to identify and tailor a UAV to meet our requirements, resulting in a lower research-and-development budget than one might expect.
A second problem involves space on the HVAA platforms. AEW aircraft are already packed with equipment and personnel. Although I am less knowledgeable about the crew complement and space on other airframes, I do know that the crew complement of an E-3 is much like that on any other aircraft: it depends upon the mission of the day. To solve the space problem, I offer that we could tailor UAV control equipment to the mission consoles already available on the jets.
Finally, training would pose a challenge. I recommend that we test a potential AEW/UAV combat relationship at Nellis—and do it soon, rather than under the pressure of some future conflict. The concept isn’t too far-fetched because the Predator is already scheduled to begin exercises at the Red Flag range. In fact, the Air Force’s 11th and 15th Reconnaissance Squadrons, stationed at Nellis, already fly the Predator UAV system. They would be the real experts on how best to integrate UAVs with larger AEW platforms.
I hope this idea or similar ones find merit in the minds of today’s planners. The concept could have a wide-ranging effect on deployments, intelligence collection, combat search and rescue, and myriad other problems facing the United States Air Force.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Notes
1. Don Herskovitz, “Sampling of Unmanned Aerial and Remotely Piloted Vehicles,” Journal of Electronic Defense 21, no. 5 (May 1998): 62.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
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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