WEAPONS, PLATFORMS, AND THE NEW ARMED SERVICES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90T00155R000500030028-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 31
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: May 2, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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WEAPONS,
PLATFORMS, AND
THE NEW ARMED
SERVICES
Seymour J. Deitchman
PROLOGUE: Advances in electronics and other fields since
have made possible the so-called smart weapons-guided wea
home on targets-as well as new systems for finding and identifying those
targets. This advanced technology is controversial, precisely because it lies
at the heart of the debates on cost-effective defense and modernization of the
armed forces.
Advocates of this advanced technology say the military is not using it
either well or filly. They claim that the new guided weapons can be fired
with greater accuracy, from longer (and thus safer) distances, than their un-
guided predecessors. Adherents of this view in the defense community and
Congress argue that the full development and deployment of guided weap-
ons and other advanced defense systems can make possible more effective
and less costly military forces. Moreover, they maintain, the quality of this
military technology can offset our disadvantage in the face of a much larger
Soviet threat, allowing the United States to substitute accurate firepower for
manpower, tanks, and aircraft.
HIGH TECHNOLOGY AND DEFENSE:
HOW LARGE A ROLE?
Weapons, Platforms, and the New Armed Services
Seymour J. Deirchman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Smart Weapons: But When?
Richard L. Garwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A Doubtful Revolution
William S. Lind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Cris Schall, Editor -
Harry Zubkoff, Chief, News Clipping & Analysis Service (SAF/AA), 695-2884
STAT
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
On the other side, the defense reform school maintains that we are de-
luding ourselves-that many of the sophisticated and expensive new systems
will simply not work as advertised on the battlefield. As a result, the military
is acquiring weapons that are too expensive, difficult to use, and prone to
failure. Equally important, they say, the promise of advanced technology has
diverted attention and funds from building up the size of our own forces and
from acquiring reliable systems that are known to work in combat.
In this article Seymour J. Deitchman of the Institute for Defense
Analyses (IDA) argues that guided weapons and electronic systems are be-
coming the real basis of military power. However, the military services con-
tinue to focus their attentions and budgets mainly on improving the
platforms-the ships, tanks, and aircraft-that carry and launch the weap-
ons. Shifting necessaryfunds from platforms to guided weapons will not
save money, as some proponents claim; nor will it be easy to overcome insti-
tutional resistance to change, Deitchman says. But unless we do so, he con-
cludes, the United States will sacrifice an opportunity to achieve an enduring
military superiority.
Seymour Deitchman is vice-president for programs at the Institute for
Defense Analyses. He received a bachelor's degree in 1944 from the College
of the City of New York and an M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from
the University of Buffalo in 1953. He conducted research in aerodynamics
and systems at the National Advisory Committee Jor Aeronautics, Bell Air-
craft Corporation, and Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory before joining IDA
in 1960. Deitchman also spent five years in the Department of Defense in
the Advanced Research Projects Agency and in the Office of the Director of
Defense Research and Engineering. He has served as a U.S. delegate to
panels of the NATO Defense Research Group, and as a consultant to the
President's Science Advisory Committee. His books include Military Power
and the Advance of Technology: General Purpose Military Forces for the
1980s and Beyond (1983), and Limited War and American Defense Policy
(1964).
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
We are in the midst of a period of revolutionary change in the
technology of the general purpose military forces-essentially all of
our military forces other than the intercontinental nuclear forces.
Over the next decade or two, those forces will be transformed
radically in their doctrines, modes of operation, and capabilities. If
we control the process of change appropriately, our forces are likely
to become the most effective in history. If we fail to face the full implications
of these changes, our forces will not be effective enough to fight in the new
ways or large enough to fight in the old ways.
The revolution in military affairs is driven by the same technological
advances that are making startling changes in the civilian world. These
advances include mainly the application of solid-state electronics to computa-
tion, sensing, guidance, communication, and control of all manner of devices
and machines. These advances also include the application of advanced
materials to structures and propulsion systems that allow aircraft to fly farther,
faster, higher, and to carry heavier loads; that allow ships to endure almost in-
definitely at sea; and that make tanks and other armored fighting vehicles far
tougher to destroy than they were even a dozen years ago.
The impact of these technological advances on military power may be
characterized rather simply. Relative to the past, it is becoming easier to
observe where enemy forces are and what they are doing, and to interfere with
their ability to observe our forces. We are also gaining the ability to fire guided
weapons that can hit targets with far higher probability than could the
unguided weapons used in the past. (Those were fired with little expectation
that individual rounds would hit-but with full expectation that the mass of
ammunition would eventually do enormous damage to enemy forces.) If fully
absorbed by the armed forces, these technological advances will permit vastly
greater "economy of force" in military operations: it will be possible to use
forces of modest size much more effectively, at points where their effective-
ness counts the most.
In the process, systems for command, control, and communication;
surveillance; and target acquisition-which used to be considered support
systems-have become as important and expensive as the ships, aircraft, and
armored fighting vehicles that have defined the military services since World
War II. Guided weapons, too, have become expensive enough to compete
with aircraft, ships, and tanks for a share of military acquisition budgets.
Stated simply, guided weapons and the associated electronic systems have
increased in military importance and cost relative to the platforms that carry
and launch them. These systems are coming, in many respects, to usurp the
platforms' claim to be the real basis of military power.
Nonetheless, there are powerful incentives to continue in the old, familiar
directions. When the President wants to signal our allies and adversaries that
he is increasing military strength in the general purpose forces, he first buys
platforms-and only if resources remain in the total budget does he buy more
effective weapons or more effective command and control systems.
In this article I will review the new military capabilities that advanced
technology makes possible, and then will examine the forces that determine
both the speed and direction in which new technology is integrated into the
When the President
wants to signal our
allies and adversaries
that he is increasing
military strength, he
first buys platforms.
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armed forces. Specifically, I will explore the pressures of international compe-
tition that push for change and the institutional biases that work against it.
And finally, I will suggest ways in which the armed forces can adapt to ensure
their continued strength in the face of increasingly capable adversaries.
The technical basis of
our military power
has been transformed
radically since World
War II.
This country came out of World War II with a strong commitment to us-
ing tactical aviation, whether land-based or seaborne, to support our interna-
tional commitments. Except for the ground forces it was necessary to retain in
Europe, first as an army of occupation and then as part of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, the tendency since World War II has been to reduce the
size of our ground forces while maintaining our tactical air and naval
strength-the latter primarily as a means of moving tactical aviation to areas
not accessible from land bases. (Although the Army was built up during both
Korea and Vietnam, it declined in size subsequent to each conflict.) Tactical
air and naval forces gave us the ability to deploy significant military power
rapidly to various parts of the world in defense of our interests and those of the
alliances we forged in the decade following World War II.
The technical basis of our military power has been transformed radically
since World War II. By the end of that war, radar and sonar were maturing,
and these capabilities were soon augmented by sensing in the infrared region.
The war also saw the beginning of guided weapons. These were subsequently
developed for uses in which targets could be distinguished from background
with relative ease (as in air-to-air, surface-to-air, and anti-ship missiles) or in
which a gunner with a command link to this weapon could keep his target in
view (as in wire-guided anti-tank missiles). Now self-contained guidance
techniques are beginning to be applied in the most difficult area-where
background clutter interferes with the sensors' ability to "understand" target
signatures, as in air-to-ground or "fire and forget" ground-to-ground weap-
ons. These efforts will form the basis of future guided-weapons capability.
Paralleling the growth of radar and infrared sensing has been the vast
increase in the diversity, flexibility, and complexity of communications and
information processing. With the sensors, these advances are the basis for
today's sophisticated command, control, communications, surveillance, and
target acquisition systems. Advances in these areas will continue to enhance
our ability to know where the enemy is and what he is doing (but not
necessarily what he intends to do). Needless to say, the development of such
capabilities has also engendered advances in electronic warfare, such as
jamming, listening, and other means of masking or exploiting electronic
signals.
The advent of jet aircraft greatly expanded the distances that could be
covered by land-based and seaborne tactical aviation and increased its fighting
power. Jet aircraft also enhanced the mobility of our strategic forces. With jet
aircraft also began the trend, now evident in all war machines from tanks and
airplanes to aircraft carriers, to consolidate "overhead" functions by aggregat-
ing weapon loads into fewer, more capable platforms. Thus, combat aircraft
(other than bombers) have grown from a gross weight of roughly 5,000 to
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
10,000 pounds in the 1950s to between 50,000 and 100,000 pounds today,
and aircraft carriers have grown from 30,000 to 90,000 tons or more. The
resulting forces are stronger overall, but the consequences of losing a single
aircraft or ship are far greater because there are fewer of them.
Other advances in propulsion led to nuclear power, which converted the
submarine navy to a true undersea fighting force that for all practical purposes
is as fast underwater as a force of surface ships and is in most circumstances
less vulnerable to detection and attack than its World War II predecessor.
Solid rockets and small jet engines have increased the range of guided missiles,
which may now cover distances of hundreds of miles when surface-launched
over the battlefield, tens to thousands of miles when air launched, and, of
course, intercontinental distances in strategic warfare.
The same advances in electronics that have led to remote sensing and
guidance also permit remote control of aircraft. Equipped with sensors and
munitions, remotely piloted vehicles can replace manned aircraft in danger-
ous environments. Spacecraft now support many auxiliary military functions,
including observation, surveillance, communication, and navigation.
Finally, the advances in guidance for weapons designed to attack targets
on the ground will make possible missiles equipped with specialized and
effective conventional explosive munitions. These may include terminally
guided submunitions that can seek and destroy vehicles, small bombs that can
penetrate and heave up large areas of concrete runways, ansi small mines that
can be scattered to greatly complicate operations on airfields or on battlefields.
In the future multiple munitions of this kind could be incorporated into
ballistic missiles, making them economical and effective for conventional
warfare. (Heretofore, ballistic missiles have been used mainly for nuclear and
chemical warfare.) These advanced guided warheads could also be incorpo-
rated into air-launched missiles having longer ranges than those that exist
today. These missiles would permit the launching aircraft to stand away from
heavy defenses in the immediate target areas while the missiles attack the
targets.
All these advances will continue to have profound implications for the
capabilities of military forces and how they fight. The improvements in
sensing, electronic warfare, and command, control, and communications
bring the "information war" to the forefront. The attempt to gain an
information advantage by observing the other side's forces and activities while
denying them such information about one's own forces becomes a primary
rather than an ancillary part of direct conflict. Because the numbers of fighting
units in the West's armies and air forces have declined, it is essential that the
fewer and smaller units be able to move fast to bring military power to bear in
the right place at the right time. The information advantage can make this
possible. However, the growing costs of information gathering and of guided
weaponry heighten the need to integrate the military forces beyond the degree
necessary even two decades ago. The field commander must orchestrate the
operations of land, air, and sea forces, without being hampered by incompati-
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Ultimately, the
weapons and other
electronic systems,
rather than the
launching systems,
define the fight.
SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
ble systems that inhibit the effective and timely coordination of the forces'
activities. Moreover, the services can use compatible systems, since the same
basic technology finds and attacks targets and controls forces in much the
same way whether it is used by air, land, or sea forces.
The growing use of guided weapons by both sides, together with en-
hanced target acquisition abilities, increases the rate of attrition of force
units-aircraft, tanks, ships, cannon, and so forth. Thus, to extend their
combat lifetimes, aircraft, ships, or tanks will have to "stand off" from well-
defended targets by using longer-range missiles. The use of these missiles
increases the complexity and cost of systems needed to find, identify, and
locate targets, and to coordinate combat activity.
Ultimately, the weapons and other electronic systems, rather than the
launching systems, define the fight. Aircraft and even tanks do not need
sophistication to carry the target acquisition systems and to deliver the long-
range weapons; they need it only to keep from being destroyed by the other
side. If standoff guided missiles can keep platforms out of enemy reach, the
platforms' sophistication becomes far less important. As the costs of the
"target engagement" systems increase, they compete with platforms for
available funds, raising the question of how much capability must be built
into the platform when the weapon and electronic systems do most of the
work.
New platforms can increase the mobility and survivability of weapon
systems. But with the advances in weapons, the platforms that deliver them do
not have to be replaced as often as in the past. When we do renew them, we
can take advantage of new technical opportunities, such as vertical takeoff
and landing for aircraft. In addition, advanced weapons technology allows
older platforms to be used in new ways. For example, an aircraft like the F-4,
originally designed to shoot down the enemy or drop bombs at close range,
can be given the ability to shoot at targets from much longer range by using
on-board improved radar and missiles, and by having an airborne radar
system, such as AWACS, guide it to its missile launch points. The useful life of
the F-4, which has become obsolescent, would be extended, perhaps for a long
time. Cruise missiles that can travel 200 or 300 miles to attack bridges,
airfields, and other fixed targets can be launched by transport or patrol aircraft
as well as by the bombers or fighter-bombers used now. Similarly, since the
performance of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles is indifferent to what type
of aircraft and which service launches them, patrol aircraft, bombers, and
interceptors could be used to protect aircraft carriers at sea. Thus, carriers
would not be diverted from their attack missions by the need to protect
themselves.
To appreciate the impact of these technological changes on the general
purpose forces, we might note that a U.S. armored division or tactical fighter
wing today can destroy up to 10 times as many targets in similar opposing for-
mations as could their counterparts of the Korean War era-depending, of
course, on the terrain, weather, and opposition. With modern sealift and
airlift, using such carriers as the C-5 cargo plane, the first divisions and fighter
wings can now deploy from their bases in the United States to Europe, the
Middle East, or the Far East in one-half to one-quarter of the time that it took
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
to bring effective forces to bear in the Pusan perimeter at the outset of the Ko-
rean War.
Full deployment and integration of the emerging weapons and tools of
warfare into the armed forces would have similar or greater effects on combat
power over the next decade or two. The gains in fighting power would mean
that smaller forces could establish an even more effective combat presence at
distant sites in even shorter times than are possible today.
Until recently, the military gains were derived mainly from advances in
platform technology, such as advanced aircraft, ships, and armored fighting
vehicles (with an assist from some areas of weaponry and from surveillance
and command and control systems). By contrast, the greatest military gains of
the future will come from guided weapons and electronic systems for sensing,
PLATFORMS (Aircraft, Ships, Fighting Vehicles)
AH-64 Attack Helicopter (Army)
F-14 Fighter/Interceptor (Navy)
F-15 Fighter (Air Force)
F-16 Fighter (Air Force)
F/A-18 Fighter/Attack (Navy)
AV-8B Vertical Takeoff Attack (Marine Corps)
CG-47 Fleet Air Defense (AEGIS) Cruiser
DDG-51 General Purpose Destroyer
M-1 Tank
M-2/M-3 Armored Fighting Vehicle
$ 7.2 Billion
$42.9
$39.1
$44.0
$32.2
$ 9.4
$25.0
$11.1
$17.2
$ 9.9
TABLE 1:
MAJOR PLATFORMS,
WEAPONS, AND
COMBAT SUPPORT
SYSTEMS AND THEIR
TOTAL ACQUISITION
COSTS*
WEAPONS (Guided)
COPPERHEAD Guided Artillery Shell (Army) $ 1.6
HELLFIRE Anti-Tank Missile (Army) $ 2.3
HARPOON Anti-Ship Missile (Navy) $ 4.9
HARM Anti-SAM Radiation-Seeking Missile (Navy, Air Force) $ 5.7
AMRAAM Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (Air Force, Navy) $ 8.3
MAVERICK Infrared Air-to-Ground Anti-Armor Missile (Air Force) $ 4.9
PAVEWAY-II Laser-Guided Bomb (Air Force) $ 1.8
TOMAHAWK Long Range Conventional Cruise Missile (Navy) $11.3
COMBAT SUPPORT SYSTEMS (includes carrying vehicles where appropriate)
AWACS Airborne Warning and Control System
(Air Force)
$ 7.6
EF-1 11 A Airborne Electronic Warfare System
(Air Force)
$ 1.9
KC-10A Tanker Aircraft
(Air Force)
$ 4.4
JTIDS Joint Tactical Information Distribution System
(Tri-Service)
$ 4.4
NAVSTAR Satellite Navigation System
(General Use)
$ 2.5
'Corrected to FY 1985 dollars, billions. Includes development and procurement costs and total
planned numbers in acquisition.
Source: Department of Defense Selected Acquisition Reports to Congress, Dec. 31, 1983 (most
recent). Data compiled by J. Stahl, Institute for Defense Analyses.
information processing, communication, and control. (In inversion of earlier
developments, however, advances in platform technology will be helpful in
enhancing the utility of the weapon systems.) As long as most of our efforts
were concentrated on improving platforms, our European allies and the
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
Soviet Union have been able to keep pace with U.S. capabilities. However, the
United States has a much more commanding lead in electronics over both its
friendly competitors and its adversaries than it has in platform technologies.
We should therefore be able to achieve a technical military superiority in the
future greater than we ever have, and to sustain it over a longer time.
However, as a nation we have not yet decided whether to shift enough
emphasis from the platforms to the weapons to achieve the full potential of
the new technology. By giving priority to the new platforms and then trying to
augment the remaining resources for acquiring weapons and electronic
systems, we are supporting neither weapons nor platforms as well or as fully as
we might. If we make the wrong choices (as judged by history, not by
contemporary critics), we will have sacrificed a potentially long period of
qualitative dominance in military capability.
However, we as a
nation have not yet
decided whether to
shift enough emphasis
from the platforms to
the weapons to
achieve the full
potential of the new
technology.
The adaptation of the armed forces to technological change is condi-
tioned by a number of factors. International competition presses for change;
cost restrains it; and institutional factors in the armed forces and society at
large channel it in certain directions or inhibit it altogether.
The most important external factor is the increasing military power of the
Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has developed its military forces differently
from ours. As a land power with central lines of communication, the Soviets
have relied heavily on large ground forces. Since modern ground forces are
built around tanks and other armored vehicles, Soviet and Warsaw Pact
holdings of such equipment have come to outnumber ours and those of our
NATO allies by a factor of three, four, or more, making it appear increasingly
difficult to defend Western Europe without resorting to nuclear weapons.'
Knowing the power of Western tactical air forces, the Soviets have built a
system of mobile air defenses, including interceptor aircraft and surface-to-air
missiles. While individually inferior to similar Western systems, the Soviet
interceptor aircraft and surface-to-air missiles exist in sufficient number to
constitute an increasingly powerful defense against tactical aviation. This is
threatening to the West, as tactical aviation is a major element of NATO's
ability to respond to an attack by Soviet armored forces. Finally, facing a large
surface navy with effective defenses against aircraft, close-in ships, and
submarines, the Soviet Union took the lead in building a large variety of cruise
missiles to attack that navy. The United States and NATO countries are only
now beginning to deploy significant numbers of anti-ship missiles, in response
to the buildup of the Soviet surface navy.
The Soviets also rely much more than the West on ballistic missiles-
both nuclear and conventionally armed tactical ones-for battlefield use. This
results in part from doctrines that treat nuclear and conventional weapons in
a much more integrated fashion than we do. As noted earlier, the economics
of ballistic missiles for conventional warfare may come to look quite different
to the United States and its allies as specialized and guided submunitions for
such missiles become effective and practical. Until that happens, however, the
missiles give the Soviet Union a certain advantage because they are harder to
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defend against than aircraft alone would be.
Given the growth of Soviet military capabilities, the United States must
enhance its own forces if they are to retain their deterrent value. Basically,
deterrence in the general purpose forces implies the ability to fight opposing
forces and win. However, the United States and its allies have come to rely
heavily on the politics of deterrence in building their military forces. In other
words, there has been a blurring of the boundary between how much
conventional military force it takes to "win" a war and how much it takes to
simply discourage an attack. Thus, "how much is enough" has become more
a matter of political than military judgment. This politics of deterrence
encourages a reluctance to come to terms with the cost of effective conven-
tional war-fighting capabilities, since force sizes can be adjusted to desirable
budgets and rationalized by notions of deterrence that cannot be tested.
Soviet military strength is not the only factor driving the advance of
military technology. The growth and importance of the defense industry in
the economies of the United States and its major European allies has
translated into de facto economic rivalry, despite the urge to cooperate. The
undesirable effects of this competition are seen in the inefficiencies of
procurement and operation within the Atlantic alliance-for example, redun-
dant acquisitions of tanks or fighter aircraft, the inability of one country's
support systems to service those of another, or unwarranted duplication of
logistics lines and facilities. Of much greater concern, however, is the increas-
ing spiral of sales of sophisticated technology to Third World countries, which
this economic competition with our allies encourages.
The transfer of modern weaponry to the Third World enables the Soviet
Union to gain access to our advanced technology more easily. Also, the
industrialized nations must be more circumspect in advancing and protecting
their interests in the Third World-even aside from possible Soviet interven-
tion-than was the case in the days immediately after World War II. And as
advanced military technology spreads to our potential adversaries, the United
States must increase the rate of its own technological advance.
Cost, however, will restrict that rate of advance. The costs of military
technology do not depend on military factors alone. They are also affected by
the growing application of advanced technology, especially solid-state elec-
tronics, in the commercial sectors of the United States, Europe, and the Far
East. For example, in the early 1960s the military constituted virtually the
entire market for such electronic circuitry in the United States, yet by the mid-
1970s defense applications accounted for only about 10 percent of that
market. Similarly, the use of advanced computers for such things as industrial
design and management is progressing faster in the civilian sector than in the
defense sector. As a result, the design and production of electronic devices and
systems cost more in the defense sector than in the civilian, reflecting the need
to produce specialized circuits in the thousands instead of the millions, to use
specialized production facilities, and to pay the overhead resulting from
smaller production runs that require special attention in manufacture and
quality control. Although the declining importance of the defense market has
not prevented the military from advancing its electronic systems capabilities,
it has considerably raised the price of doing so. Similar cost penalties exist in
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other areas, such as advanced materials.
Some of the interactions between the economics and politics of the
weapon system acquisition process must also be recognized. To control the
high cost of defense, Congress desires (correctly, in principle) that weapon
systems be acquired within the competitive industrial system. On the other
hand, costs induced by the very process of competition can negate the
anticipated savings. These costs are created by the demand for duplication of
major system prototypes, such as the two separate models of the lightweight
fighters destined to become the F- 16, and later, the F- 18. Competition in the
procurement process also entails considerable duplication of startup invest-
ments, which can only be recovered if enough quantities of weapons are
bought so that the savings resulting from lower unit prices offset the added
costs of competition. Not all system acquisitions are large enough to effect
such compensation, however, which means that competitive acquisitions can
become more expensive than their advocates desire.
Congress has also mandated that as a condition of acceptability, all
systems must be tested and demonstrated to work in an operational, or real-
world, environment. Although such a requirement cannot be argued with, it
adds to the total cost of a system and the time to field it. Moreover, the trend
toward greater use of warranties for military equipment, also mandated by
Congress as a means of controlling costs, can increase costs as well as lower
them, because companies compensate for their inability to control the
conditions of maintenance and repair by adding warranty charges into their
equipment prices.
Finally, the logistics requirements to support modern equipment, with its
high proportion of electronic components, are changing rapidly. Defense
systems based on large-scale integrated circuitry require built-in diagnostic
and test equipment simply to ascertain the cause of a failure. Beyond that,
these systems cannot be repaired, in the sense of fixing components or
replacing subordinate parts like vacuum tubes, as was done two decades or so
ago. Rather, entire assemblies must be discarded and replaced. As a result, the
flow of spare assemblies from factory to user is in some cases replacing the use
of large inventories of spare parts in intermediate depots. In addition, the
entire logistics system must be computer controlled. While these changes may
make maintenance easier overall, they can also increase its costs. (Electronic
equipment in the solid-state age is, however, generally becoming far more
reliable than it used to be in the vacuum-tube age.) At this stage, the methods
and machinery of the logistics system have yet to adapt to the new require-
ments posed by advanced technology.
These are only some of the factors that influence cost, in addition to the
basic expense of developing and buying very advanced and often experimen-
tal technology in military systems. Despite all the efforts to control costs, there
is a level below which they cannot be pressed if the military systems are to be
able to meet the opposition. In this environment, institutional constraints on
how the military budgets are spent can play a dominant role in determining
the shape and evolution of the armed forces.
The patterns of development of military technology are affected by the
industrial and the research and development communities that have grown to
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
help acquire that technology. Whatever the extent to which technological
advance in the military is "threat driven," it is also influenced by the need to
maintain a stable manufacturing and R&D capability in the industrial sector.
In practice, this means that while one generation of military equipment is
being acquired and distributed through the armed forces, the defense estab-
lishment starts planning and working on the next generation.
To say this is not to be pejorative about the "military-industrial com-
plex." The symbiotic relationship between the creators of military capability
and the users of that capability must continue if our military forces are to
remain ahead. On the other hand, several decades of such a relationship have
created industrial patterns in the United States that are very difficult to
change. For example, about twice as many technical people-engineers and
scientists-are employed in the aircraft industry as are employed in the
electronics and weapons industries. If enough effort were shifted from aircraft
manufacture to the manufacture of weapons and electronics to change the
weapon/platform balance, major changes in the defense industry would be
necessary. To reverse the employment ratio, for example, would entail closing
some aircraft factories and opening new missile and electronics plants, with
attendant retraining of production workers and shifts of technical skills in the
engineering staffs of the companies. Such changes cannot be undertaken
lightly: they are difficult to effect, difficult to reverse once implemented, and
entail large material and human costs.
Such factors lead to a certain stability in our military services. They have
developed career patterns for which there are strong constituencies. This tends
to make for forces that, while they do not necessarily support the status quo,
channel technological change in particular directions-namely, a preference
for the improvement and renewal of the platforms that support the institu-
tional basis of the armed forces, rather than for large-scale acquisition of new
kinds of weaponry and new kinds of electronic systems to make that
weaponry as effective as possible. This stability is reflected in the funding
patterns shown in Figures 1, 2, and 3.2
Clearly, international politics, the national and international economic
system, and society's institutional patterns exert different pressures on the
potential rate and direction of technological change in the armed forces. If the
new capabilities in the offing were advanced at the greatest possible rate, the
roles of platforms would become secondary. They would have the tasks of
carrying and launching the machinery that really does the military job.
However, as Figures 1-3 show, most of our military budgets and most of our
armed forces' attentions have been concentrated on developing expensive
new platforms. The new platforms with their subsystems will offer some of the
new capability to know where the enemy is, to acquire targets, and to shoot at
those targets. But they will do so at great expense if they do not use the new
weaponry to the fullest.
We have focused on resistance to a change that results from costs and
institutional constraints in the armed forces and society. Yet there is also
ample technical reason to be conservative about change. The new systems do
entail risks. They are subject to countermeasures, and under some conditions
they will not work as well as the old, familiar kinds of systems. The new
Srch changes must
not be undertaken
lightly: they are
difficult to effect,
difficult to reverse
once implemented,
and entail large
material and human
costs.
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systems rely more on technology to do things that people traditionally have
done. Therefore, these systems may be more subject to total failure because
they lack human adaptability and the ability to improvise. The new systems
represent elegance, not mass-and in war, elegance is often very difficult to
achieve or to maintain.
FIGURE 1:
ALLOCATION OF
EXPENDITURES TO
GUIDED WEAPONS
AND PLATFORMS
Key:
1M Guided Weapons (missiles)
~ Platforms (aircraft)
Three views have developed about the best way to manage technological
change in the armed forces. The first says we should buy the most advanced
platforms that we can, those best able to withstand the "threat"-that is, best
able to deal with similar systems of potential adversaries. And, according to
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
AIR FORCE
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
Expenditures (billions of dollars)
Source: Institute for Defense Analyses, from Department of Defense data. Total obligational
authority, 1984-88 projected.
that view, we should augment the advanced platforms with very sophisticated
weapons and supporting systems, to the extent that defense budget levels
permit and that military tasks demand. This view is espoused by the military
services and is essentially the approach followed today.
The second view argues that since the new guided weapons will be highly
effective, platforms need never be improved at all. Thus, by not buying as
many platforms and not spending precious research and development money
on improving their capability (and thereby running up their costs), it will be
possible to reduce both forces and defense budgets quite drastically. In effect,
this view says that the new guided weaponry and its auxiliaries will enable us
to fight and win wars "on the cheap." This view was articulated in perhaps its
most extreme form in an article by Paul F. Walker in Scientific American in
August 1981.3
The third view, advanced by the "defense reform" community, essen-
tially says that military technology has become too costly, that the new
equipment is too difficult to use and to maintain, and that it will not work
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
when the armed forces do use it. These reform views can be found in James
Fallows' National Defense, and are subscribed to by Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.)
and many others.4 They argue that technology for its own sake has been
allowed to dominate weapon system design. In our search for quality, they
say, we have run up the costs of weapon systems and have thus lost the ability
to acquire them in sufficient quantity-and we have failed to achieve the
desired quality as well. By backing away from the most advanced technology,
they say, we can make weapons simpler, cheaper, and easier to use and
thereby make our general purpose forces larger and sturdier.
None of the three proposals provides a workable solution to the problems
the military services face in adapting to the advances in military technology.
The first-continued concentration on improving platforms, while adding
976
978
980
9882
1984
986
?988
8
Source: Institute for Defense Analyses, from, Department of Defense data. Total obligational
authority, 1984-88 projected.
new weapon and support systems when budgets allow-is very costly. Within
"affordable" defense budgets, the forces that can be acquired therefore
continue to shrink. By contrast, the Soviet Union, which can exact much
greater privation from its population than is possible in the open societies of
the West, can maintain the size of its armed forces. Thus, although our
military systems may be individually far superior to those of the Soviet Union,
the greater weight of force that the Soviets can bring to bear may enable that
nation to overcome the West's most advanced technology.
In addition, our overconcentration on platforms, at the expense of
modern weaponry, has created a paradoxical situation: we spend enormous
sums and demonstrate remarkable abilities to move forces rapidly over very
long distances, without having effective combat capability at the end of the
line. Our combat capability suffers both because our forces are shrinking and
because their weapon and target acquisition systems have not been improved
to the greatest degree possible. For example, despite occasional illustrations of
extremely accurate bombing (such as the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor
FIGURE 2:
ALLOCATION OF
EXPENDITURES TO
GUIDED WEAPONS
AND PLATFORMS
Key:
pM"*' Guided Weapons (missiles)
Platforms'
includes aircraft, armored vehicles,
and some associated conventional
weapons.
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FIGURE 3:
ALLOCATION OF
EXPENDITURES TO
GUIDED WEAPONS
AND PLATFORMS
Key:
Guided Weapons (missiles)
Platforms (ships and aircraft)
SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
by the Israeli air force) unguided bombs are, in the main, far less accurate and
therefore less effective than guided weapons. Similar performance differences
characterize artillery and other weapons. Thus, to be as effective as guided
weapons, unguided weapons must be used in more sustained and repetitive
attacks. If forces are reduced by budget constraints, as happens when we
concentrate on platforms, they are less capable of delivering such attacks, and
they are excessively penalized by combat losses.
The problem with the second approach-total concentration on guided
weapons-is that the anticipated savings will simply not be there. Military
forces equipped with guided weapons will be just as costly as forces equipped
with improved platforms, once the costs of all the supporting systems needed
to deploy the guided weapons on the battlefield and to overcome the effects of
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52
Expenditures (billions of dollars)
Source: Institute for Defense Analyses, from Department of Defense data. Total obligational
authority, 1984-88 projected.
countermeasures and the "dirty" conditions of combat are considered. The
allocation of funds will be different, but the level of funds required will not..
For example, advocates of the second approach often say that a guided missile
costing a few thousand dollars can destroy a tank costing $1 million or $2 mil-
lion. The comparison is spurious. By the time a guided anti-tank weapon is
aimed and fired at its target, it costs just about as much as the target, given the
vehicle that must carry the guided missile and gunner (in an environment
protected from small-arms and artillery fire) and the target acquisition and
command and control systems that must integrate the missile into the anti-
armor force. This is true in all areas when guided weaponry and its auxiliary
systems are substituted for very advanced platforms.
Nor will the third approach (slowing down our participation in the
military technological revolution) work. First, the resulting forces would be
less capable than they could and must be; and second, there would be no
savings on manpower, which is the most expensive single component of the
armed forces. In addition, our society clearly wishes to limit the amount of
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manpower in the armed forces. This nation has not been willing to maintain
forces as large as those of the Soviet Union. In fact, in the 1960s and early
1970s, all NATO forces combined had only slightly more than half as many
personnel per thousand of population in the armed forces as the Soviet
Union, and that fraction has been declining since.' Thus, the hope that we
could exchange very high-quality (but possibly unreliable) systems for a larger
quantity of simpler and more reliable systems-the quality/quantity issue
that is at the heart of the defense reform debate-is misleading. It would not
work as advertised in the United States.
It is also well to note, however, some of the criticisms of the weapons ac-
quisition process. For example, the accusation that systems tend to be gold
plated by excessive performance requirements, which add unnecessarily to
cost, complexity, and acquisition time, cannot be entirely dismissed. Nor can
charges that waste, fraud, and abuse in the acquisition process greatly reduce
the efficiency and effectiveness of the armed forces in particular cases. We
must work diligently to reduce such mismanagement to the greatest extent
possible. However, we should also remember that such mismanagement is
characteristic of any human endeavor, not just that Of the defense sector; nor
is the defense sector more subject to it than others. Moreover, these problems
would plague the acquisition and operation of the armed forces under any of
the three philosophies described above.
Clearly, our defense structure and our military forces will have to change
if they are to come to terms with the new conditions being imposed on them
both by the advances in technology and by the pressures for change in the out-
side world. In the remainder of this article, I will suggest some steps that might
be taken to ensure that we have the most effective military capability in the
coming decades.
First, to reduce their vulnerability to enemy counteraction, the technical
characteristics of the military forces must change. They must begin to rely on
a combination of long-standoff missilery and other technological means, such
as far more extensive application of electronic warfare in all its aspects, to
prevent their platforms from being destroyed. As military forces evolve in this
direction, many of the advanced platforms now being planned may prove to
be less necessary and desirable than is currently believed, because the main
combat load will have been shifted from the platforms to the standoff guided
weapons and related systems. And as the military forces increase their use of
electronic warfare, their equipment, tactics, doctrines, and means of weapon
delivery will have to change. Specifically, more explicit and sustained atten-
tion will have to be devoted to the integrated acquisition and use of the
electronic warfare systems and guided weapons. In this situation, the new
systems will compete with the platforms for resources, and difficult choices
will have to be made. Moreover, the need for improved effectiveness at the
"point," where a force performs its mission, makes essential the extensive
adoption of guided weaponry and its major associated systems for command
and control and for target acquisition.
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If acquisition of one
or more platforms
were stretched out or
even forgone,
resources would be
freed to acquire more
of the systems on the
cutting edge of
military technology.
SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
Where can the resources be found to implement such changes? Typically,
platforms-that is, ships, aircraft, and to some extent major ground-force
systems like tanks and fighting vehicles-have total acquisition costs that are
greater by factors of five to seven than the typical costs of major missile
systems and their auxiliary systems.6 For example, the total acquisition of the
Infrared Maverick air-launched anti-tank missile, considered an expensive
system, will cost about $5 billion for several tens of thousands of missiles. The
F/A-18 Navy aircraft acquisition will cost about $32 billion. Obviously, if
acquisition of one or more platforms were stretched out or even forgone,
resources would be freed to acquire more of the systems that are at the cutting
edge of military technology.
Second, we must change our procedures for acquiring and supporting
systems, thereby reducing the costs of these cutting-edge systems. For exam-
ple, we could plan ahead for total acquisitions of tens or hundreds of
thousands of missiles, once they have been shown to work effectively, instead
of acquiring a few hundred year by year for an indefinite period. Given our ex-
isting acquisition procedures for weapon systems (and this applies to plat-
forms as well), no industrial firm can build the large-scale manufacturing
facilities and tooling appropriate to the size of the ultimate purchase, because
they have no assurance that such investments will pay off. In addition,
because the incentives for cost reduction inherent in mass production are
usually absent, the incentive for efficient designs does not exist either.
Inefficient technical designs that in turn induce manufacturing inefficiencies
also carry costs. As a result of such factors, when binocular-quality optics and
home-computer-quality circuits are used in a guided weapon, the weapon
parts cost an order of magnitude more than their counterparts in civilian
assemblies.
Finally, we can reduce costs by changing the logistics system. This would
include ensuring that adequate spare parts are provided and that maintenance
methods are modernized. We could adapt some civilian practices to the
support of military technology. For example, civilian firms could perform
important maintenance in all areas except the immediate battlefield, thereby
reducing the military's reliance on large, vulnerable depots for maintenance
operations. While this approach would entail certain risks, such as strikes that
might interfere with the provision of spare parts, these could probably be
mitigated by various economic and legal measures.
Third, the services should undertake much more joint and cooperative
system acquisition and utilization. The services cannot continue to go their
separate ways, with overlapping system requirements and developments or
with incompatible "interfaces" that can only be remedied in the field at great
expense (such as command and control systems that cannot exchange data).
Nor can they continue with redundant major system acquisitions justified to
meet special requirements that each service claims are unique to its own
operations and missions. The resources for these luxuries of service indepen-
dence simply do not exist today. Furthermore, in the purely military sense we
cannot afford the loose connections among the services that these practices
encourage, because economy of force requires integration of the systems of
warfare at all levels in the field.
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
Fourth, we must solve the problems that arise from competition with our
allies in arms sales. As already mentioned, this competition encourages sales
of advanced weaponry to the unstable Third World, making it-and therefore
the entire world-a more dangerous place to live. The conflicts that have
erupted into open warfare dozens of times since World War II have all
occurred in the Third World, where local rivalries and clashes of major powers
over resources and political dominance make armed conflict a high risk. The
industrialized world must recognize that it is making these conflicts more
difficult and dangerous for itself by arming the quarreling factions.
Finally, we must reexamine how we use manpower and womanpower in
the armed forces. The arguments about women and the draft, for example,
often raise the question of whether women should engage in combat. How-
ever, whether women are involved in depot maintenance; in operating air
defense systems around cities, airfields, or major bases; or in ferrying airplanes
into a theater of war as they did in World War II, modern warfare is such that
they will be exposed to combat. The wider use of electronics means that
combat systems will be distributed in rear as well as forward areas. It also
means that physical strength will become important mainly at the point where
opposing troops are in contact-and such involvement may be a far smaller
part of a total military conflict in the future than in the past.
The pool of personnel able to handle sophisticated equipment must be
enlarged-and personnel and their training are expensive. The other alterna-
tive is to slow the pace at which sophisticated equipment is adopted so that less
capable personnel can handle the systems. In the long run, this will lead to less
capable armed forces.
Attempting to slow the pace of technological advance in our armed forces
will leave us with military capability inferior to that of our opponents, and will
leave us unable to lead our allies in our collective defense. Clearly, technologi-
cal change in the armed forces will and must come; the critical question is how
well we manage that change. If we fail to take full advantage of the new
capabilities, if we fail to exploit our genuine lead in electronics, we will
sacrifice an opportunity for an enduring military superiority. ^
NOTES:
1. Discussed at length in chapter 8 of my book, Military Power and the Advance ofTechnology General
Purpose Mi/itan' Forces.for the 1980s and Beyond (Boulder, Colo.: Wesiview Press, 1983).
2. Adapted from Military Power and the Advance of Technology, chapter 11.
3. Paul F. Walker, "Precision-Guided Weapons," Scientific American Vol. 245, No. 2 (August 1981).
4. James Fallows, National Defense (New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1981).
5. Data from the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms
Transfers (annual publication series).
6. See, for example, table T-6 of my article "The Future of Tactical Air Power in Land Warfare,"
Astronautics and Aeronautics Vol. 18, No. 7/8 (July/August 1980).
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
SMART WEAPONS:
BUT WHEN?
Richard L. Garwin
PROLOGUE: The application of modern technology to warfare may be
easier than Seymour Deitchman suggests, writes Richard L. Garwin. He il-
lustrates with three examples how certain existing technologies might be in-
troduced: using guided weapons to provide theater-wide accurate artillery
fire, using advanced surveillance systems to mount an effective theater air
defense, and using modern electronics to control the arming of hand-held
anti-tank weapons so that they can be safely distributed among militia
forces.
The key to the introduction of new weapons systems in the face of insti-
tutional and other barriers, Garwin argues, is to field a "vertical slice" of ca-
pability so that all elements of the system can be evaluated as to
performance and cost and can be demonstrated in large field trials.
Richard L. Garwin, who has been a consultant to the U.S. government
on military technology and arms control, received his B.S. from Case Insti-
tute of Technology in 1947 and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of
Chicago in 1949. He joined IBM in 1952 and is currently IBM fellow at the
Thomas J. Watson Research Center, adjunct professor of physics at Colum-
bia University, Andrew D. White professor-at-large at Cornell University,
and adjunct research fellow at the Center for Science and International Af-
fairs, Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University. He has pub-
lished about 100 papers and is the coauthor of Nuclear Weapons and
World Politics, Nuclear Power Issues and Choices, Energy-The Next
Twenty Years, and Science Advice to the President.
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
Seymour Deitchman paints a dismal picture of our choices in applying
available technology to improve the capabilities of our military forces.
(p. 83) Potential vulnerabilities, institutional rigidity, and the prospect
that a massive shift in employment would follow a rational reallocation
of funds to platforms, weapons, sensors, and manpower are all cited as
barriers to the application of technology to conventional warfare.
These impediments exist, and the internal incentives are currently
insufficient to overcome them. Nevertheless, if we are concerned with our
military capability-or with the cost of achieving it-technology can provide
greater effectiveness for our defense dollar.
In this article I describe three applications (out of many) of existing
technology that could contribute significantly to the effectiveness of our
military forces. After sketching these three examples of opportunities to apply
technology to particular combat missions, I suggest how we might introduce
these new capabilities into our armed forces.
As Deitchman indicates, military procurement is now a small part of the
total market for advanced microelectronics. The military have much to gain
by adopting off-the-shelf civilian technology, as was demonstrated in the late
1960s when an enterprising Navy commander in Vietnam installed Sony TV
sets in his F-4 aircraft to provide more effective and reliable video displays.
Many systems similar to those discussed below were proposed by the
Military Aircraft Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee during
the 1960s. Elements of these systems were introduced during the Vietnam
War in connection with efforts to halt North Vietnamese infiltration into
Laos, and more recently by Israeli forces in Lebanon (where, for example, the
Israelis have used small radio-controlled drone aircraft equipped with televi-
sion for battlefield surveillance).
The first example is Theater-Range, Accurate Artillery. The 5-to-25-
kilometer (km) range of modern artillery imposes a significant logistics and
manpower burden on armed forces. Guns, ammunition, and crews must be
deployed within range of their targets and within range of the line separating
friendly and enemy forces. But much artillery is not productively used
because the enemy is advancing elsewhere and there are thus no rewarding
targets. Artillery of the 300-to-500-km range (at the same price) would, of
course, be preferable, since the fire could be massed from hundreds of
kilometers away onto an enemy salient. Guided weapons allow such massing
of fire without any loss of accuracy induced by the vastly increased range, and
the cost of a guided artillery shell depends little upon its range.
To use guided weapons with theater range (300 to 500 km) requires a
surveillance system capable of finding rewarding targets. It is possible to use
the same ground- or air-based forward observers that direct existing short-
range artillery fire. The modifications required to link these observers to a
theater-wide artillery system are more organizational than technological since
the existing communications network could easily be linked to a theater fire-
control headquarters. Thus, available resources could be used more effectively
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Helicopters provide
agile platforms for
phased array
antennas that make it
difficult to jam
communications
relayed from
surveillance aircraft
to ground units.
SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
than by assigning individual artillery pieces to individual companies or
battalions deployed on a front line hundreds of kilometers long.
Substantial elements of a real-time, theater surveillance system covering
a region some 1,000 km across already exist. These elements would have to be
supplemented by a robust theater communications system. As indicated,
surveillance can be carried out in part by forward observers on the ground and
in part by small drone aircraft, equipped with television cameras or other
sensors, that are able to obtain precise knowledge of the target position. Once
a target is identified and located, attacking weapons can be guided to the target
by using a navigation grid common to the sensors and to the weapon.
The necessary communication system can be provided in large part by
phased-array antennas carried aloft by helicopters at an altitude of some 5 km,
which scan like a radar to provide encrypted commands to the surveillance
drones. This line-of-sight communications system would be capable of nar-
row-beam, high-power (time-shared) transmission for receiving television
pictures rapidly from a drone that requested communications service. The
helicopters provide agile platforms for phased-array antennas that make it
difficult for an opponent to jam communications relayed from surveillance
aircraft to ground units.
Surveillance drones must be inexpensive (perhaps a few thousand dollars
apiece), preferably costing less than the systems required to shoot them down.
Flooding the battlefield with uninstrumented decoy drones would help
improve the cost-exchange ratio by overloading enemy defenses. It will often
be necessary to operate the drones at low altitude to remain below cloud
cover, and battlefield dust and smoke will degrade their capability.
The artillery in this theater-range system would consist not of traditional
tubes but of conventionally armed ballistic (or cruise) missiles, either ground-
launched or ship-launched. For a range of some 500 km, ballistic missiles can
be cheap and can have a short response time, an important factor when
attacking mobile targets. The ground-launched missiles would be stored in
individual concrete silos at airfields and would emerge from their silos under
radio control. Missiles could also be launched from military cargo ships
offshore, with the communications relay system providing flight and target
information to the missiles during their early boost phase.
Using a typical solid rocket fuel for tactical missiles, a 100-kilogram (kg)
payload requires an initial mass of 270 kg to propel the warhead 500 km. The
payload could include a guidance and maneuvering system weighing 20 kg
and an explosive warhead of 80 kg. In fact, a missile of any size could propel
0.37 of its initial mass to a range of 500 km in approximately 315 seconds with
a single-stage rocket containing a propellant with an exhaust velocity of 2.24
km per second. The missile, provided with rough azimuth and range, would
rise vertically from its silo, pitch over, terminate thrust, and separate the
reentry vehicle that would then follow a ballistic path above the atmosphere to
reentry. Without a guidance and maneuvering system, the warhead on
atmospheric reentry would not land close enough to the intended target.
A satellite Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver in each missile
would relay data to the elevated antenna, which would provide computation
services for all missiles in flight at any one time. As the missile neared the ter-
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
minal area and small maneuvering fins were deployed, greater communica-
tions and computation services would be allocated by the theater
communications system to command the missile to the predetermined
location of its intended target, with an error of 15 meters or less. Similar GPS
receivers on the drone surveillance systems, together with modest inertial
instruments supporting the television camera and laser range finder, would
provide accurate information as to locations of targets on the ground.
Missiles could deliver munitions of either 100 kg or 1,000 kg size. If the
system were widely deployed, a broader range of payloads would be more
economical. Several types of warheads would be stocked-bomblets for
attacking troops, high-explosives for tanks, and strike-mines for emplacement
in the path of an advancing column. A 1,000-kg, high-explosive, penetrating
warhead would be used to attack bridges and structures.
Munitions would be delivered to the vicinity of moving targets, with
knowledge of target positions continuously updated by surveillance drones.
By remotely controlled maneuvers in the terminal area, the munitions could
then be made to strike the moving target. Surveillance drones could also
designate targets with lasers detected by a homing system in the missile
warhead like that which has been available since the late 1960s in the laser-
-guided bomb.
The second example is Theater Air Defense. In the U.S. armed forces,
defense against enemy aircraft is performed primarily by Air Force interceptor
aircraft armed with homing missiles and guns, or by surface-to-air missiles
(SAMs) directed by ground radars and under the control of the Army. In
general, the interceptors or SAMs are called up by the overall theater air-
defense system, which relies on ground-based search radars and advanced
aircraft such as the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) that can
track aircraft-size targets moving over the ground even when the AWACS is
flying at jet speeds.
The ground-based radars and AWACS provide early warning of enemy
aircraft adequate for directing missile-site radars or fighter interceptor radars
to lock onto the individual targets. Advanced missile-site radars such as
PATRIOT have a track-while-scan capability that permits them to track
dozens of aircraft and missiles while continuing to scan for additional enemy
aircraft. The technological virtuosity embodied in the AWACS results in an
aircraft costing some $100 million-a prime target for enemy attack during
wartime. Furthermore, the interceptor aircraft cost from $15 million to $30
million each, and carry missiles costing $100,000 to $1 million apiece with
ranges of a few miles to a hundred miles or more.
One major problem to be overcome in mounting an effective air defense
is to distinguish between friend and foe. The presence in the defended air
space of friendly fighter and interceptor aircraft greatly inhibits the utility of
long-range missiles launched either from aircraft or from the ground. An
effective Identification Friend or Foe system (IFF) is a necessity, but such a
system has not yet been provided even for North Atlantic Treaty Organization
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
The struggle for air
superiority, contrary
to popular
conception, is largely
a question of which
side can destroy the
airfields of the other
side first.
(NATO) forces in Europe.
Because our high-performance aircraft (including air-defense aircraft) are
based on airfields, our air defense is dependent on the survival of those
airfields. Thus, the struggle for air superiority, contrary to popular conception,
is largely a question of which side can destroy the airfields of the other side
first.
The task of theater air defense is best performed by long-range SAMs that
are responsive to an air-defense information system fed with information
from ground-based and elevated radars. The elevated radars would be phased-
array radars held aloft at altitudes of 5 to 15 km by helicopters or balloons and
capable of separating the radar signals of even small, slow aircraft from
ground clutter by Doppler filtering. After identification of an enemy aircraft, a
SAM would be launched by radio command and boosted to a speed of some
2.2 km per second (Mach 7) on a ballistic trajectory to reach a target 500 km
away in 5 minutes. As it approached the predicted position of the target, the
SAM warhead would deploy small aerodynamic surfaces required for high-
performance maneuvering within the atmosphere, and would home on the
enemy aircraft.
The primary homing method would employ the modern analog of the
so-called semi-active, continuous-wave homing scheme, whereby a beam of
microwave energy would be projected from the airborne radars in the direction
of the enemy aircraft. That portion of microwave energy reflected from the
aircraft and received by the missile warhead would serve as a beacon; a set of
microwave detectors in the missile would provide steering signals to the
warhead guidance system.
The rotating radar antenna of the AWACS and its signal-processing
electronics enable it to see moving targets against the ground. These electron-
ics filter out the very large signals returned from the ground (so-called ground
clutter) from the signals returned from moving objects. Thus, the AWACS
can see aircraft without interference in most directions if the aircraft are
moving with sufficient speed over the ground toward or away from the
AWACS. The speed that makes a jet aircraft so productive for transporting
people and cargo is thus a disadvantage in the radar surveillance role. A
stationary elevated antenna is far simpler and less costly for the task of
distinguishing moving targets from ground clutter.
In 1970 the Air Force conducted trials of a transportable Army radar
suspended from a helicopter and achieved very good moving-target detection.
No data processing was done in the helicopter, the raw radar signals being
transmitted by data link to the ground and incorporated into the ground-air
information net as if they had originated at a ground radar station. It may be
that this very successful demonstration was not followed by deployment of a
perfected system because the Air Force was committed to an autonomous
radar aircraft providing both detection and command and control.
Ordinary helicopters can fly at an altitude of about 5 km, half that of jet
aircraft, thereby limiting their radar horizon to about 250 km, some 70
percent of that for the AWACS. Helicopters designed and equipped for high-
altitude hover would remove this performance penalty. Balloons have also
been used to support radars for more than a decade in Florida (providing
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
surveillance of Cuba) and in the Middle East, operating easily at a 15-km
altitude with a radar horizon of 430 km. However, multiple, shorter-range,
and cheaper elevated radars may offer less inviting targets for enemy attack
and therefore may be more cost effective than a single, sophisticated antenna
operating at an altitude of 15 km.
The 1970 Air Force trials were conducted with a continuously rotating
radar antenna, the type presently used by the AWACS. While it is not yet
possible to fit the AWACS with an electronically scanned, phased-array
antenna, such an antenna could be used on a hovering helicopter or balloon.
It would then give the helicopter the ability to track enemy aircraft continu-
ously and accurately (as well as to provide the IFF function) and thus to serve
as a highly capable, difficult-to-jam, elevated, command and receiving relay
antenna for missiles launched at enemy aircraft. The anti jam capability
comes from the unpredictable time at which the antenna is commanded to
"look" at the missile, the narrow beamwidth, the high available power, and
the wide bandwidth for such a direct line-of-sight link.
Effective defense cannot be mounted without an overall Air Defense
Information System (ADIS). This system currently consists of the radars, the
communication links, and the personnel, computers, and procedures for
assigning interceptors to targets. By adding to these elements the radar
information from the elevated antenna and the availability"of a ballistic-flight,
aerodynamically maneuvered, semi-active SAM of 500-km range, it should
be possible to achieve theater air defense at lower cost than that obtained by
dispersing short-range SAMs throughout the theater. This system also reduces
the cost and vulnerabilities associated with manned interceptor aircraft and in
large part removes these aircraft from friendly airspace to allow freer use of
SAMs.
As with theater-range artillery, it is necessary, of course, to provide a
robust communication and control system. Thus, there must be backup
radars and helicopters (or balloons); multiple control centers, including
replicated underground shelters and vans; properly placed communication
antennas at some distance from the centers so as to avoid the possibility of en-
emy weapons destroying the centers by homing on the communication signal;
and the like. A system on which the effectiveness of NATO forces depends in
wartime cannot be configured as a chain of communications links but must
have the characteristics of a network, even though it may be preferable to have
only a single link operating at one time.
The elevated line-of-sight antenna called for in our discussion of theater-
range artillery is provided by the electronically steered antenna of the air-
defense system just described, so that air defense and artillery can share the
same communications system. The military is traditionally fearful that joint-
use systems (whether used for different functions in the same service or, even
worse, shared by the Air Force and Army) will be unavailable at a critical
time. This problem can be resolved by providing the redundancy and
overcapacity that has long characterized the U.S. commercial telephone
system.
Of course, this is just a sketch of the concept. The modern analog of semi-
active, continuous-wave homing is far more robust than the traditional
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system, since the wide-bandwidth coded pulses from the electronically steered
radar can provide much anti jam margin against attempts to deceive the
warhead guidance system. The warhead could have the usual home-on-jam
capability, and the overall system could be upgraded to meet more sophisti-
cated threats.
The vulnerability of
tank-fighting
infantry can be
reduced by a system
that uses an optical
or electronics
periscope to allow
firing from cover.
The third example is Distribution of Controllable Anti-Tank Weapons.
There are far more people on the modern battlefield than tanks, and in the
end NATO's defense of Western Europe could rely heavily on militia and
reservists. Some of these citizen soldiers will be armed with modern versions
of the hand-held World War II bazooka, which, like the post-war Soviet
RPG-7, will do a good job of killing a tank if it scores a hit from an
appropriate direction. One has the choice of firing an unguided weapon from
close range or of increasing the complexity and cost of the weapon by
providing it with a sophisticated guidance system that will enable it to be fired
from longer range.
A primary problem in the use of hand-held anti-tank weapons is that the
soldier launching the weapon is vulnerable to hostile fire from the targeted
tank during the flight of the (subsonic) rocket and is exposed to suppressive ar-
tillery fire covering the tank attack. Anti-personnel shrapnel is harmless to
tanks but can be effective against foot soldiers lying in wait for opportunities
to launch anti-tank rockets. The vulnerability of tank-fighting infantry can be
reduced by a system that uses an optical or electronic periscope to allow firing
from cover and that allows the rocket weapon to be positioned some tens of
meters away from the person launching the weapon. The introduction of such
improved weapons into our defensive forces should receive high priority.
Unfortunately, such anti-tank weapons would be highly potent in insur-
rections or in criminal activities. For this reason they are unlikely to be widely
distributed among militia. But modern civilian electronics now make it
feasible to extend to these hand-held anti-tank weapons the permissive-action
link (PAL) concept introduced by the United States in the early 1960s to
prevent the unauthorized use of U.S. strategic and theater nuclear weapons,
and thus to allow a more effective deployment of nuclear weapons. The
original PAL was an electromechanical combination lock that ensured the
disablement of the firing circuit to the nuclear weapon unless the proper
combination had been entered into the weapon itself. The electronics are so
closely integrated with the explosive warhead and the firing system that a
proper launch or warhead explosion cannot be obtained without the code.
It is now possible to have the flexibility of releasing a large subset of
weapons at once by means of a master key combination or by releasing
weapons separately with individual keys. Weapons can also be released for a
short time only, after which the temporary key would no longer work and the
weapon would become dormant. If such weapons fell into unauthorized
hands, their explosives could be extracted; but there are easier ways to obtain
such supplies. If necessary, the PAL concept could also be extended to
discourage removal of explosive charges.
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These are only three examples of weapons systems that fit many of the re-
quirements-reduced vulnerability, cooperative operations, and consider-
ations of cost and staffing-set forth by Deitchman for the efficient use of
modern technology. Elements of each system could be procured by the tens or
even hundreds of thousands. They require no exotic materials or extensive
training of personnel. Yet they have not been deployed.
None of these concepts, of course, fits the existing military structure, and
each would compete with some traditional way of accomplishing a defense
mission. How, then, could our military establishment decide to change to a
new and untried system? The answer is, it could not.
The key to the successful introduction of new systems is not to insist on
agreement for a drastic overall change. It is preferable to develop and field a
"vertical slice" of capability, containing all elements of the new system. If it
were decided to introduce only theater-range, ground-to-ground missiles to
supplement traditional artillery, they would have to be integrated into the
existing fire-support system. Existing communications are inadequate, and
the costs would be enormous. On the other hand, by developing and
demonstrating as a unit the elements required for the entire theater-range
missile system, the number of troublesome external interfaces can be held to a
minimum-thus the term "vertical slice."
The technology for each new weapons system could (and should) be
developed, perfected, and tested by a single prime contractor-either a
commercial firm or one of the major national laboratories. Using functional
prototype hardware, the new capability could be evaluated for performance
and potential cost. It could then be purchased and introduced to serve a
battalion or division and demonstrated in large field trials.
It is erroneous to assume that sophisticated military technology is
invariably expensive and unreliable and that it imposes major new require-
ments for staffing and training. This misperception results from deploying
technology that has not been proved in the field and has not been tested by
several generations of prototype use. If a newly proposed and tested system is
not greatly superior to existing systems, it should not advance beyond the
prototype stage into production and deployment.
With adequate attention to requirements for thorough development,
testing, and evaluation-and with a resolve to reject inadequate systems so that
perhaps only one-third of those tested are ultimately deployed-there is every
reason to expect that existing and new technology can be applied to improve
the capabilities of our conventional military forces and to lower their cost. ^
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
A DOUBTFUL
REVOLUTION
William S. Lind
PROLOGUE: In his comment William S. Lind questions the validity of
Seymour Deitchman's underlying premise: that the modern world is in the
grip of a general technological revolution and that this revolution will have a
profound impact on conventional warfare. Lind doubts the battlefield utility
of many new-technology weapons, noting the questionable effectiveness of
guided anti-tank missiles under combat conditions.
The military reformers, he argues, do not refuse to make use of ad-
vanced technology but rather are insisting that it be applied in militarily ap-
propriate ways. Technology should be used to meet actual combat needs, he
writes, and not to fulfill the ambitious dreams of technologists.
William S. Lind received his A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1969
and his M.A. from Princeton University in 1971. He has worked as a legis-
lative aide on defense matters since 1973, first for Senator Robert Taft, Jr.
(R-Ohio), and since 1977 for Senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.). Lind is the au-
thor of the Maneuver Warfare Handbook (to be published early this year),
and is currently coauthoring a book with Senator Hart on military reform.
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
eymour Deitchman's article (p. 83) reflects two assumptions: first, that
we are in the midst of a general technological revolution, and second,
that this technological revolution will have enormous effects on war-
fare. Both of these assumptions are open to question.
Let me comment first on the second assumption. Deitchman's
assertion that we are in the midst of a period of revolutionary change in
military technology and that this will have a profound impact on conven-
tional warfare is unsupported by observable military experience.
Deitchman argues, for example, that "We are ... gaining the ability to
fire guided weapons at the enemy that hit targets with far higher probability
than the unguided weapons that were used in the past." This statement is
wrong on several counts.
Consider one highly touted family of guided weapons, the guided anti-
tank missiles such as TOW, Dragon, Sagger, Milan, and HOT. In theory,
these weapons have very high probabilities of kill-much higher than those of
classic anti-tank cannon. In controlled peacetime tests on the proving ground,
they have sometimes demonstrated these high probabilities of kill, even
though the most recent peacetime firings have produced fewer than one hit
out of each three shots.
Results in combat, however, are very different. In the 1973 Mideast War,
-the Arabs fired more than 80 Saggers for each Israeli tank killed by one of
these Soviet-built missiles. Moreover, a simulation conducted by the U.S.
Army at Fort Leavenworth indicated that for each tank killed by a Dragon (a
U.S. weapon), the tanks would kill seven Dragon crews. Why? There are few
long-range shots in combat because of problems presented by terrain,
weather, smoke, dust, and enemy tactics. In simulations based on European
and Israeli terrain conditions, half the engagements were at distances of less
than 500 meters. Most of the time, the missile gunner's firing position is
within range of some hostile tank's machine guns. Unlike an anti-tank
cannon shell, the missile has a relatively long flight time-long enough for the
tanks to lay down heavy machine-gun fire on the firing position while the
missile is still in flight. Even if the missile gunner is not killed, his aim is likely
to be thrown off.
In other cases some of the new-technology weapons may be more
accurate-laser-guided bombs, for example, may be more accurate than
regular iron bombs. The greater accuracy, however, may be meaningless. If an
attempt is made to use these weapons against moving targets on or near the
battlefield, the problem of target identification can render them unusable. By
the time an aircraft is close enough to identify its target as friend or foe, it
could strike more accurately with an unguided weapon, such as the 30-
millimeter cannon on the A-10, a U.S. close-support plane. Furthermore, at
such close quarters an anti-tank missile may be useless because the target is
within the missile's minimum launch range.
Guided weapons may sometimes be more effective than unguided
weapons against such fixed targets as bridges, rail lines, and airfields, at least so
long as these are uncamouflaged and undefended. But the Vietnam War
suggests that even a Third World country has sufficient redundancy and
rerouting and repair capability to keep its front-line forces effective in the face
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The implication of
dependence on high-
technology logistics
systems is a return to
eighteenth-century
warfare.
of deep interdiction air attacks against fixed targets, no matter whether
missiles or iron bombs are used.
Similar real-world problems exist with fighter aircraft, another weapons
platform that advocates of complex technology often use to advance their
claims. According to Deitchman, "An aircraft like the F-4, originally designed
to shoot down the enemy or drop bombs on him at close range, can be given
the ability to shoot at targets from much longer range by using on-board
improved radar and missiles... " Deitchman is wrong. The F-4 was designed
solely as a nonmaneuvering interceptor, equipped with guided missiles, and
the Department of Defense (DOD) tried to use it in this mode. Having great
faith in the Sparrow radar-guided air-to-air missile, DOD ordered the first
four models of the F-4 to be built without guns. When these aircraft were sent
into combat during the Vietnam War, the result was disastrous. Because it was
relatively easy to evade, the Sparrow proved to have a kill probability of only
0.08. Air combat remained centered on dogfighting, in which guns and simple
heat-seeking missiles were dominant. Rapid-firing guns were quickly installed
on the F-4s.
Deitchman touches on the unfortunate logistical implications of com-
plex weapons technology. As he notes: "Defense systems based on large-scale
integrated circuitry require built-in diagnostic and test equipment simply to
ascertain the cause of a failure. Beyond that, these systems cannot be repaired
... entire assemblies must be discarded and replaced ... the entire logistics
system must be computer controlled."
Consider the effect on, say, a tank battalion that uses such systems. In
tank warfare, operational mobility is very important. A commander must be
able to move a tank battalion 100 kilometers very rapidly to take advantage of
a gap in the enemy's dispositions, then thrust through the gap into the
enemy's unprotected rear area. How are all the backup computers and
microcircuit assemblies to be moved with the tanks? What happens if they are
left behind? The implication of dependence on high-technology logistics
systems is a return to eighteenth-century warfare, in which armies could not
move far from their central storage depots. Such a reversion, in turn, could
mean forgoing maneuver opportunities and being forced into attrition war-
fare.
Deitchman notes in his discussion the risks the new systems entail: "The
new systems rely more on technology to do things that people traditionally
have done. Therefore, they may be more subject to total failure because they
lack human adaptability and the ability to improvise." This is quite true and
its implication is profound: the new systems contradict the nature of combat.
Combat is characterized above all by uncertainty and rapid change. Adolf von
Schell, a German army captain in World War I, put it very well in his excellent
book Battle Leadership: "Every soldier should know that war is kaleidoscopic,
replete with constantly changing, unexpected, confusing situations. Its prob-
lems cannot be solved by mathematical formulae or set rules." Every weapons
designer should know the same thing, or the weapons he designs will not be
suitable for combat.
This argument about the kaleidoscopic confusion of battle has been
advanced repeatedly by military reformers. Deitchman dismisses them, and
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SPECIAL EDITION -- 2 MAY 1985
he does so while inaccurately portraying their views. He says the reformers
favor "slowing down our participation in the military technological revolu-
tion." In fact, the reformers favor the use of advanced technology, but insist
that it be applied in militarily appropriate ways, andthat it simplify, not make
more complex, the soldier's task.
Again, fighter aircraft offer a good example. For shooting down other
aircraft, most military reformers favor a lightweight, highly maneuverable
fighter-an aircraft designed for dogfighting. It would be considerably less
expensive than current fighters and therefore affordable in greater numbers.
In addition, because dogfighting continues to dominate air combat, it would
also be a better fighter on a one-for-one basis than any the United States is cur-
rently buying. It would use advanced technology-that is, brilliantly simpli-
fied advanced technology-in the form of extensive passive electronics and an
airframe and engine designed for supersonic cruising. It would also carry
advanced-technology weapons in the form of new models of the Sidewinder
infrared air-to-air missile and a new, passive, radar-homing, air-to-air missile.
In contrast to current practice, technology would be used to meet combat-
based requirements rather than technologists' dreams, and the design of
advanced-technology components would be simple and robust enough for the
battlefield, not just the laboratory.
I wish to make two further points about Deitchman's claim of a military
technological revolution. My first point is that the term revolution should not
be trivialized. It should be used to mean a dialectically qualitative change in
the art of war. If employed, nuclear weapons could bring about such a change.
It is not evident, however, that there has been a dialectically qualitative change
in conventional warfare since World War II.
Such changes are in fact very rare. The nineteenth century saw one when
the rifled musket invalidated the frontal tactical offensive, which was standard
in land warfare. World War I produced two: the reversal of the operational
mobility advantage to favor the defender, and the restoration of the tactical
offensive through so-called von Hutier infiltration tactics. In World War II the
operational offensive was restored to dominance when von Hutier tactics
were combined with tanks and truck-mobile infantry in the Blitzkrieg.
Neither Deitchman nor his confreres have made a convincing case that there
has been a similarly dramatic qualitative change since the Blitzkrieg.
My second point is that weapons cannot be regarded in isolation. They
function within a matrix made up of technology, unit cohesion, and tactics.
Each of these elements must be conceived correctly for a military system to
succeed, and their interaction must reinforce qualities that are militarily
positive. Truly successful military forces have been those that have integrated
all three elements to form what has been called a self-reinforcing tactical
system.' Looking at technology in isolation is a prescription for failure to
create a self-reinforcing tactical system, or for the breakdown of an existing
one.
Deitchman's other underlying assumption-that we are in the midst of a
general technological revolution-is also less than self-evident. Comparing
the period from 1955 to 1985 with, for example, the period from 1900 to
1930, it can be argued that socially significant technological change is
The reformers favor
the use of advanced
technology, but insist
that it be applied in
militarily appropriate
ways.
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occurring more slowly today than it was then. The first 30 years of this century
saw the invention or significant proliferation of the automobile, the airplane,
the telephone, and the radio, all of which had profound social and cultural ef-
fects. In marked contrast, the last 30 years have seen neither the invention nor
the significant proliferation of technologies that have qualitatively changed
sociocultural patterns (with the possible exception of the proliferation of
television).
Of course, there have been dialectically quantitative changes-the sub-
stitution of the computer for the adding machine and the card file, for
example. There also have been qualitative social changes proceeding from
nontechnological factors, such as the social effects of the decline in U.S.
industrial competitiveness. But the notion that this is an era of technologically
driven revolution should not be accepted uncritically. Perhaps it has been so
widely accepted because, in broader matters as well as in the military art, we
have been so busy looking at the latest technology that we have neglected to
look at history, human behavior, cultural change, and the development of
nontechnological ideas. Yet in the final analysis, these are usually more
important. ^
NOTES:
1. John F. Guilmartin and Daniel W. Jacobowitz. "Technology. Primary Group Cohesion, and Tactics
as Determinants of Success in Weapon System Design: A Historical Analysis of an Interactive
Process," unpublished (1984).
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HIM
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