Report to Congressional Committees

United States General Accounting Office 

GAO

June 2004 MILITARY 

OPERATIONS 

Recent Campaigns 

Benefited from 

Improved 

Communications and 

Technology, but 

Barriers to Continued 

Progress Remain 

GAO-04-547 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-547.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Neal Curtin, 

(757) 552-8100, CurtinN@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-547, a report to the 

Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, 

Senate Committee on Armed Services; 

Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, 

House Committee on Armed Services 

June 2004

MILITARY OPERATIONS 

Recent Campaigns Benefited from 

Improved Communications and 

Technology, but Barriers to Continued 

Progress Remain 

Improvements in force networks and in the use of precision weapons are 

clearly primary reasons for the overwhelming combat power demonstrated 

in recent operations. However, the full extent to which operations have been 

speeded up or otherwise affected is unclear because DOD does not have 

detailed measures of these effects. Enhancements to networked operations, 

such as improved sensors and surveillance mechanisms, and more 

integrated command and control centers, have improved DOD’s ability to 

share a broad view of the battlefield and communicate quickly with all 

elements of the force—reducing the time required for analysis and decision 

making in combat operations. However, recognizing that the full impact of 

these changes is unclear, DOD is conducting a series of case studies to 

better understand the effects of networked operations. Improvements in 

force networks have also been enhanced by the use of precision-guided 

weapons and associated technologies. These improvements not only provide 

commanders with greatly increased flexibility, such as the ability to conduct 

bombing operations in poor weather and from higher and safer altitudes, but 

also increase the accuracy of bombing operations. GAO’s analysis found 

that the percentage of attacks resulting in damage or destruction to targets 

increased markedly between operations in Kosovo and those in Afghanistan. 

Notwithstanding these improvements, certain barriers inhibit continued 

progress in implementing the new strategy. Four interrelated areas stand 

out as key: 

• A lack of standardized, interoperable systems and equipment, which 

reduces effectiveness by requiring operations to be slowed to manually 

reconcile information from multiple systems and limiting access to 

needed capabilities among military services. 

• Continuing difficulties in obtaining timely, high quality analyses of 

bombing damages, which can slow ground advances and negate other 

improvements in the speed of operations. 

• The absence of a unified battlefield information system to provide 

standardized measures and baseline data on bombing effectiveness, 

which creates confusion about the success of new tactics and 

technologies, about assumptions used in battlefield simulation programs, 

and about procurement decisions. 

• The lack of high quality, realistic training to help personnel at all levels 

understand and adapt to the increased flow of information, more 

centralized management, and other changes in the operating 

environment brought about by the strategic changes. 

Recent U.S. combat operations in 

Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq 

benefited from new Department of 

Defense (DOD) strategies and 

technologies, such as 

improvements in force networks 

and increased use of precision 

weapons, designed to address 

changes in the security 

environment resulting from the 

continuing terrorist threat and the 

advent of the information age. 

Based on the authority of the 

Comptroller General, GAO 

reviewed these conflicts, with a 

focus on bombing operations, to 

gain insight into the changes being 

implemented by DOD. This report 

focuses on (1) assessing the impact 

on operational effectiveness of 

improvements in force networks 

and in the use of precision 

weapons and (2) identifying key 

barriers to continued progress. 

GAO recommends that DOD take 

steps to improve standardization of 

information used in bombing 

operations, address continuing 

problems with battle damage 

assessments, develop a unified 

battlefield information system to 

improve analyses of combat 

effectiveness, and develop realistic 

joint training to help personnel 

adapt to emerging changes to the 

operating environment. DOD 

generally agreed with the 

recommendations and stated that it 

is addressing the issues GAO raised 

in a variety of ongoing efforts. 
Page i GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 5

Improvements in Networked Forces and the Use of Precision 

Weapons Central to Increased Combat Power 10

Key Barriers Inhibit Continued Progress in Implementing the New 

Strategy 19

Conclusions 34

Recommendations for Executive Action 35

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 36

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 38 

Appendix II DOD Reconnaissance Aircraft, Precision Weapons, 

and Other Technologies Used in Recent Operations 40 

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Defense 42 

Appendix IV GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 45 

Bibliography 46 

Related GAO Products 49 

Figures 

Figure 1: The Joint Targeting Cycle 6

Figure 2: Percentage of Guided and Unguided Munitions Used in 

Recent Combat Operations 9

Figure 3: Notional Networked Operations 14

Figure 4: U.S. Central Command Battle Damage Assessment 

Manning Levels for Recent Operations 25

Contents 
Page ii GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Abbreviation 

DOD Department of Defense 

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Page 1 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

June 28, 2004 

The Honorable John W. Warner 

Chairman 

The Honorable Carl Levin 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Duncan Hunter 

Chairman 

The Honorable Ike Skelton 

Ranking Minority Member 

Committee on Armed Services 

House of Representatives 

Recent U.S. combat operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq have been 

widely regarded as an unprecedented demonstration of combat power. 

Relying predominately on air power, Operation Allied Force drove the 

forces of Slobodan Milosovic out of Kosovo in 78 days during the spring of 

1999. Operation Enduring Freedom, using a combination of air power and 

special operations forces, drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 

175 days between October 2001 and March 2002. And, most recently, the 

combination of air power and ground maneuver elements used in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom drove Sadam Hussein from power in only 43 days 

between March and May 2003. These operations have benefited from the 

fielding of new strategies and technologies developed to deal with the new 

security environment—now characterized by surprise and uncertainty as a 

result of the evolving terrorist threat, and by the need to transition from 

the industrial age into the information age. The Department of Defense’s 

(DOD) new capabilities-based strategy seeks to contend with uncertainty 

by improving DOD’s ability to act quickly and decisively across a wide 

range of combat conditions. This strategy is being enabled by moves 

toward more highly integrated force networks that combine information 

superiority and advances in technologies for surveillance, 

communications, precision weapons, and other areas to gain the 

advantage and rapidly defeat the enemy. 

On the basis of the authority of the Comptroller General, we reviewed the 

operational results of recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, 

with a focus on bombing operations, to gain insight into the strategic and 

United States General Accounting Office 

Washington, DC 20548 
Page 2 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

technological changes being implemented by DOD. This report focuses on 

(1) assessing the impact on operational effectiveness of improvements in 

force networking and in the use of precision weapons and (2) identifying 

key barriers to continued progress. We are addressing this report to you 

because we believe it will be of interest to your committees as you address 

DOD’s programs and funding. In performing our work, we reviewed DOD 

policies, procedures, and reports related to implementation of the new 

capabilities-based strategy; met with officials from throughout the 

department; conducted a detailed analysis and reliability assessment of 

bombing data; and discussed the results of our analysis with cognizant 

officials. A more thorough description of our scope and methodology is 

included in appendix I. We performed our work from April 2003 through 

March 2004 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. 

Improvements in force networking and in the use of precision weapons 

are clearly primary reasons for the overwhelming combat power 

demonstrated in recent operations. However, the full extent to which 

operations have been speeded up or otherwise affected is unclear because 

DOD does not have detailed measures of these effects. The emerging 

concept of networked operations, referred to by DOD as network-centric 

operations, involves developing communications and other linkages 

among all elements of the force to create a shared awareness of 

operations. Technological enhancements to these network-centric systems 

include improved sensors and other intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance mechanisms for observing targets on the battlefield; more 

integrated command and control centers for analyzing targeting data and 

approving attacks; and improvements in precision weapons. The improved 

ability to share a broad view of the battlefield and communicate quickly 

with all elements of the force has compressed the time required for 

analysis and decision making in bombing operations, thus increasing 

lethality. However, DOD recognizes that the full extent to which 

operations have been speeded up or otherwise affected is unclear because 

of the absence of detailed measures of these effects. As a result, DOD’s 

Office of Force Transformation is conducting a series of case studies of 

training exercises and combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to better 

understand the effects of networked operations. Advances in force 

networking have been enhanced by improvements in the use of precisionguided weapons and associated technologies, providing military 

commanders with greatly increased flexibility and accuracy in bombing 

operations. For example, the introduction of laser-guided and Global 

Positioning System-guided bombs has reduced limitations on operations 

Results in Brief 
Page 3 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

created by poor weather and visibility and allowed bombing operations to 

be conducted from higher and safer altitudes. Further, increases in the 

number of aircraft capable of delivering such weapons allow DOD to use 

old aircraft in new ways, further improving flexibility. These 

improvements are also increasing the accuracy of bombing operations. 

Our analysis found that the percentage of attacks resulting in damage or 

destruction to fixed and mobile targets increased markedly between 

operations in Kosovo and those in Afghanistan. 

Despite such improvements, DOD officials and reports identified a variety 

of barriers inhibiting continued progress in implementing the new 

strategy. Four interrelated areas stood out as key to continued progress. 

• Lack of standardized, interoperable systems and equipment. This is 

a long-standing problem in DOD that reduces effectiveness by requiring 

operations to be slowed as time must be taken to manually reconcile 

information from one operating system into forms usable by other 

systems, or by limiting access to communications or other needed 

capabilities because equipment from one service cannot interact with 

equipment used by another for the same purpose. For example, DOD has 

not standardized procedures used in basic operations, such as reporting 

on the results of bombing missions. As a result, each service and unified 

command must develop its own procedures, with no system to ensure 

standardization. During operations in Afghanistan, the Central Command 

received mission reports using at least 23 different formats—requiring 

time-consuming manual deconfliction. The Joint Forces Command also 

reported that operations in Iraq were beset by a lack of commonly 

understood operational-level standards for evaluating the effect of attacks. 

The integration of information was undermined by groups adopting their 

own standards and formats, resulting in difficulties in translating 

information and coming to a mutual understanding. We have also 

reported1

 on problems with standardization and interoperability. DOD 

understands that the lack of standardization fundamentally hampers 

attempts to improve networking and joint operations, and it has been 

trying to address various aspects of the problem. However, previous 

reforms have been undermined by parochial allegiances to the services 

and other problems that continue to exist. 

 1

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Acquisitions: Steps Needed to Ensure 

Interoperability of Systems That Process Intelligence Data, GAO-03-329 (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 31, 2003) and Military Readiness: Lingering Training and Equipment Issues 

Hamper Air Support of Ground Forces, GAO-03-505 (Washington, D.C.: May 2, 2003). 
Page 4 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

• Difficulties in obtaining timely, high quality assessments of the 

effects of bombing operations. Battle damage assessments are an 

increasingly critical component of combat operations. Slow or inaccurate 

assessments can negate improvements in the speed of operations, create 

uncertainty about the battlefield situation and slow ground advances, and 

ultimately increase the risk of death or injury to ground troops. However, 

lessons learned reports on operations in Iraq—similar to earlier 

operations—found that battle damage assessments could not keep up with 

the pace of operations and failed to provide the information needed for 

operational decisions. These problems are due to several factors. First, 

advances in network-centric operations and precision weapons have 

increased the speed at which targets are generated and attacked. At the 

same time, the lack of an occupational specialty for damage assessments 

and other problems result in shortages of trained analysts when resources 

need to be surged during combat operations, resulting in the need to rely 

upon on-the-job training of personnel from other areas. Moreover, 

according to officials, DOD does not have a comprehensive system to 

track personnel who have received training, further exacerbating the 

problem. The Joint Forces Command has called for recognition of this 

problem as a major obstacle to operations requiring a variety of changes to 

resolve. 

• Absence of unified data to measure combat effectiveness and plan 

for the future. Advances in the accuracy of bombing operations have 

raised expectations for more efficiency and effectiveness in combat 

operations. Instead of traditional operations where multiple sorties and 

multiple bombs were required to destroy one target objective, some DOD 

officials now believe one bomb per target and multiple targets on one 

sortie should be the norm. However, confirmation of such expectations is 

difficult because DOD does not have a unified battlefield information 

system to provide standardized, baseline data on the effectiveness of 

bombing operations. Currently, the services and the unified commands 

maintain their own databases. As a result, the services create databases to 

measure different aspects of operations, and measures of key operational 

data elements—such as attacks needed to destroy a target, effects of 

operations, and basic targeting characteristics—are defined differently. 

The absence of a baseline system to bridge these differences and provide 

information about actual bombing operations effectiveness creates 

confusion about the success of new tactics and technologies and about the 

assumptions used in battlefield simulation programs. The lack of such a 

unifying system also makes it difficult to make procurement decisions for 

weapons required for operations and calculate DOD’s return on 

investment from the new technologies. 

• Lack of realistic training to help understand and adapt to changing 

command and control environment. DOD officials also cited the need 
Page 5 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

for high quality, realistic training to help personnel at all levels understand 

and adapt to changes in the operating environment brought about by the 

move to a networked force using advanced technologies. For example, 

officials noted that large increases in the pace of operations and the 

volume of information associated with more integrated force networks 

have overwhelmed commanders and other personnel at times. Further, 

increased networking and other changes have fostered a more centralized 

style of management, with senior leaders increasingly involved in 

operations. At the same time, network-centric operating concepts are 

distributing information to lower and lower organizational levels, raising 

the potential for increased autonomy for small units and individual 

soldiers. However, training has not kept pace with these changes. For 

example, the Joint Forces Command reported that the lack of realistic 

training undermined intelligence and surveillance management and other 

operational-level capabilities during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Consistent 

with DOD’s basic tenet that a force must train as it will fight, DOD officials 

called for improved training to match the scale and tempo of actual 

operations. Similarly, the Defense Science Board reported that the 

changing operating environment will have unintended consequences that 

will require personnel to adapt to increasing cognitive demands at even 

the most junior levels. However, according to the Board, current training 

is not adequate to prepare DOD personnel to cope with these demands. 

To ensure that these problems do not continue to inhibit realization of the 

full promise of DOD’s strategy, we are recommending that DOD take steps 

to provide more standardized operating information for use during joint 

combat operations, formulate a plan to address problems with battlefield 

damage assessments, develop a unified battlefield information system to 

improve assessments of combat effectiveness, and develop realistic joint 

training to help commanders and personnel adapt to the changing 

operating environment. In comments on a draft of this report, DOD 

generally agreed with our recommendations and stated that it is 

addressing the issues we raised in a variety of ongoing efforts. 

The close integration and coordination of ground combat forces and 

bombing operations is essential to the exercise of lethal combat power on 

the modern battlefield. As depicted in figure 1, military doctrine2

 describes 

targeting in terms of a cyclical process composed of six basic phases. 

 2

 U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-60: Joint Doctrine for Targeting 

(Washington, D.C., Jan. 17, 2002). 

Background 
Page 6 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

During this process, the joint force commander identifies the objectives 

for military operations in support of the national objectives for the conflict 

and any key limitations on operations—such as procedures for limiting 

civilian collateral damage. The commander’s guidance then drives the 

subsequent phases of the targeting cycle to include identifying and 

analyzing potential targets and resources available to attack them, 

obtaining formal permission for the strike, executing the strike, and then 

assessing strike effectiveness and any need to reattack. 

Figure 1: The Joint Targeting Cycle 

The success of this process is highly dependent on the speed and quality of 

interaction among the people and systems conducting the various 

activities at each phase. Trained ground control personnel must interact 

quickly and covertly with manned and unmanned aircraft, electronic 

sensors and space-based satellite imagery systems, or other intelligence, 
Page 7 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

surveillance, and reconnaissance mechanisms to spot the target and 

accurately mark its location. Accuracy depends upon the ability of the 

ground personnel to locate themselves, the target, and any friendly forces 

nearby and accurately judge the distance between each. These elements 

must be able to communicate the targeting information to command and 

control centers that coordinate the actions of a variety of analysts and 

others who assess the situation, plan the strike, communicate the 

information back to the ground personnel, and analyze the effectiveness of 

the attack. 

DOD is working to improve the interaction of these elements by using 

network-centric operating concepts. The term “network-centric” is used to 

describe a broad class of approaches to military operations that are 

enabled by networking the force. DOD’s approach involves developing the 

sensors and other technologies to provide pervasive oversight of the 

battlefield, and then linking them to all elements of the war-fighting force 

through communications and other technologies. This allows the various 

elements of the force to develop a shared situation awareness, a shared 

knowledge and understanding of commanders’ intent, and the ability to 

rapidly process and analyze information. The belief is that these 

capabilities will increase combat power by better synchronization of 

weapons effects in the battle space and greater speed in command 

decision making. This strategic change is being accompanied by an array 

of changes to doctrine, tactics, organization, and training to integrate the 

network-centric concept into DOD’s culture. 

Advances in networking the force are being complemented by advances in 

precision weapons.3

 Precision-guided weapons provide precise control of 

bombs through the use of electrical equipment that help guide the weapon 

in flight. These capabilities provide an advantage in accuracy over 

conventional weapons that do not have the ability to adjust their trajectory 

while in flight. The transition from unguided to guided weapons has 

accelerated rapidly since Operation Desert Storm in 1991 where unguided 

weapons were the norm. For example, as shown in figure 2, only about 

8 percent of the weapons used during Operation Desert Storm were 

guided, while this number increased to about 68 percent in Operation Iraqi 

Freedom. 

 3

 In this report, the terms weapons, bombs, and munitions are used interchangeably. 
Page 8 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq provided a variety of 

conditions for the development of these network-centric approaches. For 

example, operations in Kosovo were conducted primarily by air over 

rugged and undeveloped mountainous terrain. There were no direct 

attacks by large massed ground forces, and the cover of forests and 

villages allowed enemy forces to easily conceal their location. Similarly, 

Afghanistan’s rugged and mountainous terrain and large number of caves 

and bunkers also provided numerous opportunities to conceal Taliban and 

al Qaeda forces. Light infantry and special operations forces were the 

primary U.S. forces on the ground, with aircraft as their sole means of fire 

support. In contrast, the terrain in Iraq is characterized by mostly broad 

plains with mountainous regions along the borders and a largely desert 

climate posing threats from dust and sand storms. Initial operations pitted 

large massed forces against one another in more traditional ways of 

fighting. However, the conduct of U.S. operations also relied heavily on 

small, dispersed groups of special operations forces operating on 

battlefields with no clear front and rear lines, as enemy forces blended in 

and out of urban populations. 
Page 9 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Figure 2: Percentage of Guided and Unguided Munitions Used in Recent Combat 

Operations 

With the exception of Kosovo, these conflicts were also characterized 

largely by pronounced U.S. air superiority, with little threat from enemy 

air defenses. During Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, enemy 

air defenses were so limited that U.S. forces were able to win near total air 

supremacy early in the war. Similarly, air superiority was not a concern 

during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Prior to the conflict, military forces had 

been working to set the conditions for air dominance through more than 

3 years of bombing. During Operation Allied Force in Kosovo, however, 

there were significant concerns about enemy air defense systems, causing 

bombing operations to be carried out at high altitudes to avoid the threat. 

Moreover, access to overseas bases was problematic in all three of these 

operations, straining logistical support systems and complicating military 

operations. For example, this lack of forward air basing infrastructure 

within effective fighter range of land-locked Afghanistan required U.S. 
Page 10 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

forces to rely primarily on carrier-based aircraft to provide strike power 

during the operations. These operations were also conducted in an 

environment of pronounced concerns about limiting collateral damage to 

civilian populations and infrastructure. Adversaries attempted to exploit 

collateral damage in an effort to gain public sympathy for their cause and 

cast a negative light on U.S. operations. U.S. forces adjusted the target 

selection and approval process to minimize collateral damages, calling on 

senior leaders to approve target selection in some cases. However, 

attempts to minimize collateral damages can also create tension with 

military objectives and complicate bombing operations. 

DOD officials cite improvements in networking the force and in the use of 

precision weapons as primary reasons for the overwhelming combat 

power demonstrated in recent operations. Network-centric operating 

concepts, particularly in surveillance and command and control systems, 

have created unprecedented battlefield situation awareness for 

commanders and their forces, yet the full extent to which operations have 

been affected is unclear. Technologies enhancing the use of precisionguided weapons have also provided military commanders with increased 

flexibility and accuracy in bombing operations. 

Network-centric operating concepts have improved battlefield situation 

awareness for commanders and their forces. DOD has indicated that 

technological improvements in information-gathering systems allow 

commanders an unprecedented view of the battlefield. Such 

improvements provide for greater shared situation awareness, which, in 

turn, speeds command and control. However, while it appears that 

enhanced networking has speeded operations, the full impact on 

operations is unclear because of the absence of detailed measures of their 

effects. 

DOD officials and reports cite a variety of technological and other 

improvements in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

mechanisms as basic to the unprecedented ability of commanders and 

forces to observe and monitor the battlefield. For example, surveillance 

aircraft orbiting the battlefield—such as the E-3 Sentry airborne warning 

and control system (for detecting enemy air and naval activities and 

directing friendly fighters), the RC-135 and EP-3 aircraft (for locating 

enemy radar and other electronic emissions), the E-8C Joint Surveillance 

Target Attack Radar System (for detecting enemy ground activity), and the 

U-2 (for high altitude, wide-area surveillance)—have been outfitted with 

Improvements in 

Networked Forces 

and the Use of 

Precision Weapons 

Central to Increased 

Combat Power 

Networked Surveillance 

and Command and Control 

Systems Create Improved 

Situation Awareness 

Improvements to InformationGathering Systems Allow for 

Unprecedented Ability to 

Monitor Battlefield 
Page 11 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

smaller, lower cost, and higher quality sensors and radars, improving their 

ability to detect the enemy and provide high resolution imagery of the 

battlefield. Another key is the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, 

such as the Predator and the Global Hawk used extensively in Afghanistan 

and Iraq. These aircraft carry cameras, sensors, or even weapons and are 

used to constantly circle over the battlefield and provide continuous live 

surveillance of the enemy without risk to human pilots. The Predator is 

remotely piloted by operators on the ground, while the Global Hawk is 

self-piloted, controlled by a preprogrammed onboard computer that 

controls the aircraft from takeoff to landing. 

These systems interact with ground personnel, such as special operations 

forces or specially trained combat controllers, to locate and precisely 

mark targets and assess bombing results. Technological advances now 

enable these controllers to identify a target and determine its precise 

location by using laser designators, which may be connected to a handheld Global Positioning System receiver. Reports have cited the use of 

these technologies interacting with aircraft flying at high altitudes to avoid 

enemy air defenses, combined with new tactics for integrating special 

operations forces with conventional units, as a breakthrough capability. 

During Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, special forces teams 

used these technologies linked to piloted aircraft or unmanned Predator 

drones—providing live battlefield video directly to nearby AC-130 gun 

ships—to attack small groups of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters and other 

fleeting targets. The Joint Forces Command report4

 on missions conducted 

during Operation Iraqi Freedom also cited the capabilities provided by 

these advances. 

DOD officials indicate that the improved ability to share a broad view of 

the battlefield and communicate quickly with all elements of the force has 

compressed the time required for analysis and decision making in 

bombing operations, increasing lethality significantly. Before an actual 

strike may begin, information on potential targets generally must be 

routed through command and control centers where the target 

information is analyzed; information is exchanged between a myriad of 

commanders, analysts, and other elements of the force; and final approval 

for the strike is granted. The ability to network these elements and rapidly 

exchange information during this process—central to combat 

 4

 U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Forces Command, Joint Lessons Learned: Operation 

Iraqi Freedom Major Combat Operations (Norfolk, Virginia: Mar. 1, 2004). 

Shared Situation Awareness 

Speeds Command and Control 
Page 12 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

effectiveness—-is enabled by improvements in computing power, digital 

communications, and satellite data links in recent years. For example, 

increases in computing power have enabled the networking of computers 

from a multitude of personnel and locations, with near instantaneous 

exchange of information through techniques such as file sharing, video 

conferencing, and e-mailing. These capabilities are enhanced by digital 

communications, which can be faster and more accurate than voice 

communication. For example, digital systems allow a ground controller to 

input the coordinates and other information needed for an attack into a 

computer and transmit this information instantly to computers on board 

an aircraft or at command and control centers. 

The ability to rapidly exchange information generated by these networks 

has some limitations. For example, the Defense Science Board recently 

reported5

 that despite the successes in Afghanistan, there were difficulties 

in passing coordinates from ground personnel to aircraft overhead due to 

the unreliability and limited range of secure communications and the 

absence of digital communications systems. As a result, instead of 

instantaneously transmitting targeting information across digital systems, 

ground controllers were required to pass Global Positioning System 

coordinates by voice radio to aircrews. Aircrews then had to write the 

coordinates on boards held on their knees, and then read them back for 

confirmation. Once confirmed, aircrews needed to load the coordinates by 

hand into the weapons, a process requiring as many as 51 computer 

keystrokes and subject to error. 

The ability to rapidly exchange information generated by these networks 

is also dependent upon satellite data links and availability of bandwidth. 

Bandwidth is a term used to describe the rate at which information moves 

from one electronic device to another—usually expressed in terms of bits 

per second—-over phone lines, fiber optic cable, or wireless 

telecommunications systems. Increases in this capacity have enabled the 

rapid exchange of large visual and data files, giving commanders 

increasing access to more real-time surveillance, intelligence, and 

targeting information than in previous conflicts. For example, according to 

the Joint Forces Command, U.S. forces in Iraq had access to 42 times the 

bandwidth available in Desert Storm. However, despite this improvement 

 5

 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Science Board Task Force on Operation Enduring 

Freedom Lessons Learned, Precision Targeting and Joint Close Air Support (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 25, 2003). 
Page 13 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

the Army and others have experienced continuing shortages in the 

availability of bandwidth.6

Despite some limitations, technological advances have also made it 

possible to manage conflicts from command centers located far away from 

the battlefield, using so-called reach back techniques, where some 

commanders, analysts, and other support personnel remain at home 

stations and communicate with commanders at the battlefield using the 

networks described above. For example, during Operation Allied Force in 

Kosovo the center used to direct air operations was located in Vicenza, 

Italy. Images from Predator aircraft located over the battlefield in Kosovo 

were transmitted by satellite communications to a ground station in 

England, then by fiber optic cable to a facility in the United States for 

analysis. The information was then transmitted to the District of Colombia 

area, where it was up-linked to a satellite and transmitted back to 

controllers aboard an airborne command and control aircraft in Kosovo. 

The information was then provided to controllers, who provided the 

information to aircraft poised to strike the targets (see fig. 3). 

 6

 Congressional Budget Office, The Army’s Bandwidth Bottleneck (Washington, D.C.: 

August 2003). 
Page 14 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Figure 3: Notional Networked Operations 

The reach back technique not only provides for more centralized control 

of operations but also provides the opportunity for savings in logistical 

support requirements. For example, in previous conflicts, command 

centers—comprised of perhaps 1,500-2,000 commanders, analysts, and 

others, and the equipment needed to do their jobs—had to be transported 

into the war zone. This requirement created major demands on 

transportation and other support elements during the early phases of an 

operation and reduced the air and sealift available to move soldiers and 

supplies. Now, networking permits commanders at the battlefield to reach 

back to analysts and other staff located thousands of miles away for 

guidance and support. During operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the joint 

forces commander remained at U.S. Central Command headquarters in 

Tampa, Florida, while air operations were directed from centers in Saudi 

Arabia and Qatar. Electronic map displays at these locations provided near 
Page 15 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

continuous tracking of ground, air, and naval units, with Predator drones 

and other aircraft feeding live video imagery from the battlefield. 

While it seems clear that networking has speeded operations, the full 

impact on operations is unclear because of the absence of detailed 

measures of their effects. For example, U.S. Central Command officials 

told us that while the targeting process was slowed by requirements for 

additional command approvals for some targets, they believed that overall, 

the targeting process was more efficient during Operation Iraqi Freedom 

than previous conflicts. However, statistics were not maintained by the 

Central Command to measure this improvement. 

Several experiments and exercises provide some information on this issue. 

For example, according to a recent DOD report7

 to Congress, an Army 

exercise in 1997 using computer simulation to determine the war-fighting 

effectiveness of a digitized division-sized force found that the time 

required to process calls for fire was reduced from 3 minutes to 

30 seconds and that the planning time for attacks at the company level was 

cut from 40 to 20 minutes. Similarly, a 1998 experiment involving 

networked Army helicopter units and a range of Navy and Marine units to 

counter a simulated attack by North Korean special operations boats 

found that the average decision time was reduced from 43 to 23 minutes 

and that shooter effectiveness measured in kills per shot was increased by 

50 percent. DOD also reported that a special Air Force project in the mid1990s found that F15-C fighter aircraft networked with digital 

communication packages increased their success rate in air-to-air combat 

exercises by more than 150 percent over aircraft equipped with voice only 

communications. The increase was attributed to the benefits of shared 

situation awareness provided by the digital networks. According to DOD’s 

report, pilots with voice only communications can only see enemy aircraft 

in the radar zone directly in front of their aircraft, and they cannot see 

supporting friendly aircraft to their rear. To attack enemy aircraft, the 

voice only aircraft must hold verbal conversations with supporting aircraft 

to understand the entire combat picture and develop a coordinated attack 

plan. However, fighter aircraft networked with digital communications are 

able to see the entire picture of enemy and friendly support aircraft 

locations on their screens without the need for time-consuming 

conversations. According to the report, this shared mental picture of the 

 7

 U.S. Department of Defense, Network Centric Warfare, Department of Defense Report to 

Congress (Washington, D.C.: July 27, 2001). 

Full Impact of Networking Is 

Unclear 
Page 16 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

battlefield reduces the cognitive load on the pilots, enabling them to 

concentrate more on the battle, react quicker, and make synchronized, 

mutually reinforcing decisions with their supporting aircraft. 

These examples provide illustrations of the potential effects of networkcentric operations. However, DOD’s report acknowledges that evidence of 

its full impact is limited and often scattered, rather than focused and 

systematic. Having a fuller, more precise understanding of the effects of 

network-centric operations is important because of its potential impact on 

issues such as the ability to model the speed of combat operations and the 

resources needed to support them. An official from DOD’s Office of Force 

Transformation told us that the office is conducting a series of case 

studies of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and exercises at the National 

Training Center and elsewhere to better understand these effects. 

The development of technologies such as laser-guided and Global 

Positioning System-guided precision weapons has provided military 

commanders with increased flexibility and accuracy in bombing 

operations, making them increasingly lethal. 

Precision weapons reduce limitations created by poor weather and 

visibility, enable bombing operations from higher and safer altitudes, and 

allow aircraft to be used in new ways. For example, bombing operations 

have always faced limitations due to targets being obscured by bad 

weather or other limitations on visibility. Traditionally, the process of 

locating and marking a target was dependent on the controllers’ ability to 

see the target, judge distances, and accurately find coordinates using 

paper maps. Targeting objectives were marked using smoke grenades, 

flares, or other such techniques. However, Global Positioning Systemguided bombs help reduce these limitations by providing an all-weather 

delivery capability enabled by satellite-aided navigation. The system is a 

constellation of 24 orbiting satellites emitting continuous navigation 

signals that handheld receivers on the ground can translate into time, 

location, and velocity of targets. Time can be calculated to within a 

fraction of a second, location to within 100 feet, and velocity within less 

than a mile per hour. According to DOD officials, laser-guided bombs—

which follow a narrow beam of pulsed energy trained on a target by 

aircraft or operators on the ground—are more precise than Global 

Positioning System-guided bombs, and have a capability for attacks on 

moving targets that Global Positioning System-guided bombs do not. 

However, laser-guided bombs are subject to limitations presented by rain, 

Precision Weapons 

Increase Flexibility and 

Accuracy 

Precision Weapons Provide 

Increased Flexibility 
Page 17 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

clouds, or other visibility conditions since there must be a clear line of 

sight between the laser designator and the target. 

From Operation Allied Force to Operation Enduring Freedom, DOD 

increased the use of Global Positioning System-guided bombs by about 

45 percent and decreased the use of laser-guided bombs by about 

32 percent. Conversely, between Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi 

Freedom, DOD decreased the use of Global Positioning System-guided 

bombs by about 13 percent and increased the use of laser-guided bombs 

by about 10 percent. DOD officials stated that there is a need for both 

laser-guided and Global Positioning System-guided bombs in today’s 

environment and that the use depends on such factors as nature of the 

target being struck, theater of operations, weather conditions, availability, 

and cost. Frequently used guided munitions such as the Global Positioning 

System Guided Bomb Unit 31 have a unit cost of about $21,100 to $28,400, 

depending on the version used, while laser-guided bombs such as the 

Guided Bomb Units 10/12/16 have unit costs ranging from $14,600 to 

$23,000. Unguided bombs such as the 500-pound MK-82 and 1,000-pound 

MK-83 have unit costs ranging from about $2,000 to $8,700. 

The use of such precision-guided weapons has also made it possible for 

bombing operations to be conducted from higher altitudes. This tactic 

helps limit the threat to pilots and aircraft from air defense systems and 

ground fire, and provides Global Positioning System-guided bombs with 

more time to acquire and guide on the satellite signals. In Kosovo, where 

air defense systems posed a significant threat to U.S. forces, pilots 

conducted bombing missions at an altitude that was beyond the effective 

reach of the Serbian enemy air defense systems. According to DOD 

officials, they have continued to use this tactic in Afghanistan and Iraq 

because of its effectiveness. In addition to high altitude operations, Global 

Positioning System-guided weapons, such as the joint direct attack 

munition used extensively in Iraq, can also be launched miles away from a 

target. The operator can essentially launch the weapon and proceed on to 

the next target, relying on the navigation system to guide the weapon to 

impact. While conducting bombing operations from high altitudes is much 

safer for pilots and aircraft, it also becomes more difficult to properly 

identify and distinguish certain targets, particularly when the enemy 

employs denial and deception tactics. For example, during Operation 

Allied Force, Serbian forces made tank decoys out of milk cartons and 

artillery pieces out of stovepipes. 

DOD has also increased the numbers of aircraft capable of delivering 

precision-guided munitions, allowing military planners to use aircraft in 
Page 18 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

new and different ways. According to a recent report, only about 

20 percent of U.S. aircraft were equipped with the ability to put a laserguided bomb on the target during the first Gulf War. However, nearly 

every combat aircraft was capable of employing precision-guided 

munitions during Operation Iraqi Freedom.8

 Bombers such as B-2s are now 

capable of delivering large payloads of weapons in a single strike, 

providing more flexibility in weapons availability. These capabilities 

increase the ability to deliver more precision-guided weapons during each 

flight. Moreover, they also increase operational effectiveness by allowing 

the military to reduce flights by planning to strike multiple targets during 

each flight, as opposed to the traditional approach of carrying out multiple 

flights to attack one target. 

Our analysis found that advances in precision weapons have improved the 

accuracy of bombing operations. For example, we compared data on 

bombing operations in Afghanistan maintained by the U.S. Central 

Command with data on operations in Kosovo from our classified report on 

Operation Allied Force. This analysis found that the percentage of attacks 

resulting in damage or destruction to fixed targets increased by 

12 percentage points from Kosovo to Afghanistan. Further, the percentage 

of attacks resulting in damage or destruction to mobile targets increased 

by 21 percentage points. DOD officials agreed that bombing accuracy 

improved, and classified analyses conducted by both the Air Force and the 

Navy support that conclusion. According to DOD officials, there is no 

similar analysis of the accuracy of bombing operations during Operation 

Iraqi Freedom. 

While DOD officials agreed that precision-guided weapons have increased 

the accuracy of bombing operations, they stated that it is important to 

note that such improvements may also be influenced by other factors. For 

example, differences in terrain, the relative numbers of fixed versus 

mobile targets (which are harder to hit), and commanders’ guidance on 

collateral damage can all influence the accuracy of bombing operations. In 

addition, the experience and the training that military forces gained by 

near continuous combat operations since the beginning of Operation 

Allied Force in 1999 may also influence bombing accuracy. Such factors 

must be considered when interpreting bombing statistics. 

 8

 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First Blush 

Assessment (Washington, D.C.: 2003). 

Precision Weapons Improve 

Accuracy 
Page 19 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Despite the improvements brought about by advances in networking and 

precision weapons, DOD has identified a variety of barriers undermining 

continued progress in implementing the new capabilities-based strategy. 

For example, concerns were raised about shortages of digital 

communications, commercial satellite capacity and bandwidth, and other 

equipment. However, four interrelated areas stood out as key barriers to 

continued progress: (1) the lack of standardized, interoperable systems 

and equipment; (2) DOD’s continuing difficulty in obtaining timely, high 

quality assessments of the effects of bombing operations; (3) the absence 

of a unified battlefield data collection system to provide standardized 

measures and baseline data on the efficiency and effectiveness of bombing 

operations; and (4) the lack of high quality, realistic training to help 

personnel at all levels understand and adapt to changes in the operating 

environment brought about by the move to a highly networked force using 

advanced technologies. 

The lack of standardized, interoperable systems and equipment during 

joint operations was one of the most frequently reported problems we 

found during our review. According to DOD officials and reports, this longstanding problem undermines many operating systems at DOD, including 

systems used to provide shared situation awareness of the battlefield, 

battle management command and control, and damage assessments of the 

effects of bombing operations. For example, officials from the Joint 

Forces and Special Operations Commands told us that during Operation 

Iraqi Freedom, ground forces arrived in theater with several different, noninteroperable Blue Force Tracking systems. Blue Force Tracking systems 

are devices carried by friendly ground units and vehicles that continuously 

or periodically transmit their locations to a central database, allowing their 

locations to be displayed on computer screens. Since there is no joint 

standard for such tracking systems, the joint force commander is 

responsible for resolving the interoperability problems created by the use 

of disparate systems. To provide a common picture of the location of 

ground forces using these systems, commanders had to develop a number 

of creative solutions to bridge the differences between them and integrate 

them into a coherent system—requiring considerable time and effort. 

DOD officials also told us that the use of differing formats for processing 

information creates similar problems. For example, each service and 

unified command have their own instructions for performing operations 

Key Barriers Inhibit 

Continued Progress in 

Implementing the 

New Strategy 

Problems in 

Standardization and 

Interoperability Slow 

Operations and Reduce 

Effectiveness 
Page 20 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

such as reporting on the results of bombing missions. A recent DOD report 

found that during joint operations in Afghanistan, the Central Command 

received mission reports using at least 23 different formats.9

 This created 

difficulty in receiving messages and required time-consuming manual data 

manipulation and entry. Operations in Iraq also faced similar problems. 

According to the Joint Forces Command report on Iraqi Freedom, the 

process of evaluating the effects of attacks in Iraq was beset by a lack of 

commonly understood operational level standards. Integration of 

information was undermined by groups adopting their own standards and 

reporting formats, resulting in difficulties in translating information and 

coming to a mutual understanding because they were not able to make 

specific comparisons between formats or to a common format. DOD has 

published a number of joint publications to help standardize operations in 

the joint environment. These publications provide general terms of 

reference and descriptions of processes, such as the targeting process, for 

use by personnel from the various services while operating in the joint 

environment. However, according to DOD officials, these publications do 

not provide enough detailed guidance, such as standardized formats for 

reporting mission results, for the actual conduct of operations. As a result, 

each unified command must develop its own implementing procedures, 

with no system to ensure standardization among the commands. Further, 

according to DOD officials, when the pace of operations increases to high 

levels, there is a tendency for personnel to revert to using their own 

familiar service procedures. 

We have also reported that a variety of equipment—such as 

reconnaissance aircraft, satellites, ground-based stations processing 

intelligence data, ground targeting equipment, and digital transmission 

systems used to transmit information between airborne and ground 

personnel—is not interoperable across the services. Similar to the 

examples cited above, the inability of these systems to operate effectively 

together can limit access to communications and other needed capabilities 

and confuse and slow targeting activities as less efficient alternatives must 

be used to achieve the mission. 

DOD recognizes that improved interoperability and standardization are 

central to the transformation of its forces, and is attempting to address the 

problem. However, the problem is complex and difficult to resolve 

 9

U.S. Department of Defense, Joint Battle Damage Assessment Joint Test and Evaluation, 

Operation Enduring Freedom Test Report (Washington, D.C.: December 2002). 
Page 21 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

because military operations and acquisition systems have traditionally 

focused on the services and the specific weapons platforms needed for 

their specific missions—not on joint operations with interoperable 

systems and equipment. DOD’s budget is organized by service and defense 

agencies, as we and the Defense Science Board recently reported in 

separate publications.10 Therefore, the process of defining and acquiring 

the right capabilities is dominated by the services and defense agencies. 

Joint force commanders’ views are considered in this process, but they 

have a difficult time competing with individual service interests that 

control the process. As a result, the acquisition of systems and equipment 

often fails to consider joint mission requirements and solutions, and there 

is no guarantee that fielded systems will operate effectively together. 

DOD is addressing the need for more interoperability and standardization 

in several ways. For example, DOD’s April 2003 Transformation Planning 

Guidance requires the commander of the Joint Forces Command to 

develop a plan to address DOD’s interoperability priorities. These 

priorities include such efforts as development of a common operational 

picture for joint forces; improved intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance capabilities; improvements to selected targeting linkages; 

and improved reach back capabilities. The planning guidance also requires 

the services and the Joint Forces Command to develop plans for achieving 

the desired transformational capabilities, including an identification of the 

initiatives taken to improve interoperability. DOD is also attempting to 

reform the acquisition process to align it with a new capabilities-based 

resource allocation process built around joint operating concepts. Instead 

of building plans, operations, and doctrine around individual service 

systems, DOD is attempting to explicitly link acquisition strategy to joint 

concepts to provide integrated, interoperable joint war-fighting 

capabilities. For example, in June 2003, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff issued Instruction 3170.01 that established the Joint Capabilities 

Integration and Development System. This system provides new guidelines 

and procedures for joint staff to review proposed acquisitions for their 

contribution to joint war-fighting needs. 

DOD is also developing the Global Information Grid to act as the 

organizing framework for network-centric operations and help ensure 

 10U.S. General Accounting Office, Major Management Challenges and Program RisksDepartment of Defense, GAO-03-98 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003) and U.S. Department 

of Defense, Defense Science Board, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on 

Enabling Joint Force Capabilities (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 14, 2003). 
Page 22 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

interoperability in information operations throughout DOD. Begun in the 

late 1990s, this effort seeks to integrate the information processing, 

storing, disseminating, and managing capabilities—as well as the 

associated personnel and processes—throughout DOD into an integrated 

network. DOD’s Chief Information Officer has described this network as a 

private military version of the World Wide Web. The effort includes 

programs to develop the policies and guidance needed to implement 

network-centric concepts across DOD, as well as programs to provide the 

technological improvements needed for the success of network-centric 

operations. Parts of this effort, such as policy and procedural guidance, 

bandwidth expansion, and improvements to reach back capabilities, have 

begun or are in place. For example, definitions of requirements for 

interoperable information technology that are used in developing the 

Global Information Grid are cited as the authoritative guidance in the 

requirements determination and acquisition areas—including the Joint 

Capabilities Integration and Development System discussed previously. 

However, according to officials involved in the effort, development of the 

grid is still in its early stages and is planned to continue to the year 2010 

and beyond. 

While DOD appears committed to improving interoperability, DOD 

officials state that such reforms require difficult cultural changes to fully 

succeed. However, we previously reported that various problems have 

undermined past reforms, including cultural resistance to change, stovepiped operations, difficulties in sustaining top management commitment 

(the average tenure of top political appointees is only 1.7 years), and other 

problems that continue to exist today.11 For example, in November 1997, 

DOD announced the establishment of the Defense Reform Initiative, which 

was a major effort to modernize DOD’s business processes and ignite a 

“revolution” in business affairs at DOD. The initiative was overseen by the 

Defense Management Council composed of senior defense leaders 

reporting to the Secretary of Defense. However, by July 2000, we 

reported12 that the initiative was not meeting its time frames and goals in a 

number of areas. We concluded that the most notable barrier was the 

difficulty in overcoming institutional resistance to change in an 

organization as large and complex as DOD. Moreover, the effectiveness of 

the Defense Management Council was impaired because members were 

 11 See GAO-03-98. 

12U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Management: Actions Needed to Sustain 

Reform Initiatives and Achieve Greater Results, GAO/NSIAD-00-72 (Washington, D.C.: 

July 25, 2000). 
Page 23 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

not able to put aside their particular services’ or agencies’ interests to 

focus on departmentwide approaches. 

Similarly, cultural impediments to change were also illustrated in our 

March 2003 report on ground-based systems for processing intelligence 

data.13 In that report, we stated that DOD’s system for certifying their 

interoperability was not working effectively. In 1998, DOD began a 

program to reduce the number of ground-based systems that process 

intelligence data from various sensors and ensure that the remaining 

sensors are interoperable with other DOD systems. DOD requires that 

such information systems be certified, and to help enforce the certification 

process, the department set up a review panel to periodically review such 

systems and place those with interoperability problems on a “watch list.” 

However, 5 years after the program was started, we reported that only 2 of 

26 systems in the program had been certified and, despite this problem, 

the systems had not been placed on the watch list. DOD officials cited a 

number of reasons for the noncompliance, including that military services 

sometimes allow service-unique requirements to take precedence over 

joint interoperability requirements. DOD strongly agreed with our 

recommendations to take several steps necessary to enforce its 

certification process. 

DOD’s difficulty in obtaining timely, high quality assessments of the effects 

of bombing operations continues to be a difficult problem to overcome. 

Problems with battle damage assessments have been repeatedly identified 

since at least Operation Desert Storm in 1991. DOD has taken some steps 

to address these problems, but they continue to reoccur. As a result, some 

DOD officials have called for approaching battle damage assessments in 

different ways. 

Reports from DOD and others have identified repeated difficulties in 

conducting battle damage assessments in operations in Iraq, as well as 

other operations dating back at least to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. 

Battle damage assessments are a critical component of combat operations. 

Slow or inaccurate assessments can result in inefficient use of forces and 

weapons, as targets must be struck repeatedly—-but sometimes 

unnecessarily—to ensure their elimination as a threat. Inadequate damage 

assessments also slow ground advances, as units and individuals face 

 13 See GAO-03-329.

Timely Understanding of 

Battle Damages Remains a 

Difficult Problem 

Battle Damage Assessments 

Cannot Match Pace of 

Operations 
Page 24 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

uncertainty about enemy capabilities, which can ultimately increase their 

risk of death or injury since they may have to close with the enemy to 

understand the conditions ahead of them. However, DOD reported that 

battle damage assessments during operations in Iraq could not keep up 

with the pace of operations and failed to provide the information needed 

for operational decisions. Reports on operations in Afghanistan also 

identified similar problems during Operation Enduring Freedom. Our 

report on Operation Desert Storm14 found that battle damage assessments 

during that conflict were neither as timely nor as complete as planners had 

assumed they would be. Battle damage assessments were performed on 

only 41 percent of the strategic targets in our analysis, resulting in 

potentially unnecessary additional strikes to increase the probability that 

target objectives would be met. 

The inability of damage assessment resources to keep up with the pace of 

modern battlefield operations is due to several factors. According to DOD 

officials, advances in network-centric operations and precision weapons 

have increased the speed at which targets are generated and attacked. At 

the same time, however, DOD does not have an occupational specialty for 

battle damage analysts. This results in shortages of trained analysts when 

resources are surged during operations, leaving unified commands to rely 

on untrained and inexperienced personnel brought in from other areas and 

trained on the job. For example, during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, 

the Central Command experienced requirements for large manning 

increases in its battle damage assessment capability. While the command 

was ultimately able to increase its staff of analysts to about 60 (see fig. 4), 

this was only a fraction of the estimated requirement. Typically, the 

Central Command has about three to five full-time personnel assigned to 

its battle damage assessment group. 

 14 U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air 

Campaign, GAO/NSIAD-97-134 (Washington, D.C.: June 12, 1997). 
Page 25 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Figure 4: U.S. Central Command Battle Damage Assessment Manning Levels for Recent Operations 

Note: The time frames indicated as Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom 

designate periods of major combat operations. 

Moreover, according to Central Command officials, even when they 

obtained personnel they were often untrained. Operations were further 

slowed, as these personnel were required to receive on-the-job training. 

Battle damage assessment training is available at both the service and joint 

levels. However, according to DOD officials, the absence of a formal 

occupational specialty for battle damage assessment means there is little 

incentive for personnel to seek the training. Further, even if trained, 

analysts are required to use the instructions of the unified command in 

charge of operations during actual conflicts. DOD officials told us that 

there is no requirement for these instructions to be standardized, making it 

more difficult for personnel from the services to quickly adapt to 

operations. Finally, according to officials, DOD does not have a 

comprehensive system to track personnel who have received battle 

damage assessment training, further exacerbating problems in quickly 

locating trained analysts during surge situations. 
Page 26 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

In recognition of the continuing problems associated with battle damage 

assessments, DOD has taken some steps to address these problems. 

However, these attempts have been somewhat limited. For example, DOD 

established the Joint Battle Damage Assessment Joint Test and Evaluation 

program in August 2000 to investigate solutions to battle damage 

assessment process problems. The program was focused on assessment 

processes used by U.S. forces in Korea, but it also analyzed processes used 

in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Program officials 

developed a variety of enhancements that could improve the battle 

damage assessment process. For example, program officials developed 

improvements to the processes used in Korea to standardize disparate 

systems and speed the flow of information between analysis and command 

centers. To help address analyst training problems, they developed a 

compact disc-based course to provide quick training for untrained 

personnel assigned to fill shortages of analysts during conflicts. Further, 

they also developed an agreement with a reserve organization to develop a 

core of trained battle damage assessment analysts and to have those 

personnel available to meet surge requirements for the Korean command. 

However, according to program officials, acceptance of such approaches 

is voluntary within DOD, and many have not been implemented outside 

Korea. They are trying to gain additional support for adoption of their 

enhancements. Program operations will be discontinued and a final report 

issued by December 2004. In addition to this program, DOD officials told 

us that a Combat Assessment Working Group was recently established at 

the Joint Staff to discuss ways to address problems with the battle damage 

assessment process. However, the group had not developed formal 

recommendations at the completion of our audit work in March 2004. 

Some DOD officials have called for more effort to be focused on assessing 

battle damages from an “effects-based” framework. The effects-based 

operational concept calls for an increased emphasis on conducting 

military operations and assessing their effects, in terms of the military and 

nonmilitary effects sought—rather than in terms of simply the destruction 

of a given target or an adversary. According to a recent Defense Science 

Board report,15 the emergence of this concept has been influenced by the 

opportunity provided by precision weapons, shared situation awareness, 

and other advances enabling the precise use of force, as well as the needs 

 15 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Science Board, Report of the Defense Science 

Board Task Force on Discriminate Use of Force (Washington, D.C.: July 28, 2003). 

Attempts to Address the Battle 

Damage Assessment Problem 

Have Been Limited 

Officials Call for Different 

Approaches to Assessing Battle 

Damage 
Page 27 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

presented by the nature of current military campaigns. Operations from 

Kosovo to Iraq have been characterized by tension among multiple 

strategic and operational objectives: destroy enemy infantry and air 

defenses and drive the current regime from power, but do not injure 

civilians or damage necessary infrastructure. 

The use of an effects-based battle damage assessment approach would 

mean that instead of the traditional focus only on damage or destruction 

of a target, battle damage assessments should also attempt to determine 

whether command objectives are being met by other influences in the 

battlefield. For example, initial bombing attacks on nearby targets may 

persuade enemy troops to abandon a target facility, eliminating the need 

to bomb the target facility at all. According to the Joint Forces Command’s 

report on Iraqi Freedom, commanders in Iraq attempted to use an effectsbased approach to analyze military operations. However, when the speed 

of operations exceeded their capability to analyze and assess how actions 

were changing the Iraqi system, they reverted to the traditional focus on 

simple attrition measures. Coalition forces reverted to counting specific 

numbers of targets destroyed to determine combat progress, rather than 

evaluating the broader effect created on the enemy. The command has 

called for recognition of problems with battle damage assessments as a 

major obstacle to effects-based operations, requiring a variety of changes 

to resolve. 

DOD officials also told us that the traditional focus on damage and 

destruction results in leaders relying too much on visual imagery to assess 

battle damages. This problem can cause leaders to delay battlefield 

progress until full visual confirmation of the desired affect is confirmed. 

According to these officials, given the increasingly reliable nature of 

precision weapons, it may be possible in some cases to rely on predicted 

or probabilistic effects, rather than full visual confirmation. 

DOD does not have a unified battlefield data collection system to provide 

standardized measures and baseline data on the efficiency and 

effectiveness of bombing operations. According to DOD officials, the 

current system for collecting operational data is for the services and the 

unified commands to maintain their own databases, which are often quite 

extensive. Precisely how data is defined, gathered, and analyzed is at the 

discretion of each individual component and addresses specific needs. 

These unique requirements lead to different purposes for conducting 

analyses, different data collection approaches, and different definitions of 

key data elements. 

Absence of a Unified 

Battlefield Information 

System Confuses Measures 

of Effectiveness 
Page 28 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

For example, to better understand the impact of the tactical and 

technological changes on the efficiency and effectiveness of bombing 

operations, we analyzed the number of attacks and bombs required to 

damage or destroy a given target for operations in Kosovo and 

Afghanistan. A number of DOD officials told us that advances in the 

accuracy of bombing operations have raised the expectation that fewer 

attacks and bombs are now required to damage or destroy targets. Instead 

of traditional operations—where multiple sorties and multiple bombs 

were required to destroy one target—some officials now believe one bomb 

per target and multiple targets on one sortie should be the norm. The 

results of our analyses tended to support the idea that it took fewer 

attacks to damage or destroy targets in Afghanistan than in Kosovo. 

However, we could not gain agreement from the services on the results of 

these analyses because each had its own system for measuring operations, 

and the measures also differed from the ones used in our analysis. 

The question of how many attacks are required to damage or destroy a 

target is basic to understanding battlefield effectiveness; however, we 

found no consistency among the services and the unified commands as to 

which of several basic measures should be used. Some group information 

about attacks based on “sorties”—defined as the takeoff and landing of 

one aircraft, during which one or more aim points16 may be attacked. 

Others do not attempt to group information based on sorties, making 

comparisons of information between databases difficult and confusing. 

For example, because the Central Command was in charge of operations 

in Afghanistan, we used its database to analyze bombing operations during 

Operation Enduring Freedom and compare those with the results of our 

classified review of Kosovo bombing operations. The Central Command’s 

database provides information about aircraft attacks and damages to aim 

points, since it is focused primarily on assessing battle damages. However, 

it does not provide the information needed to analyze by sortie, since it 

does not identify activities that took place between a given takeoff and 

landing. To compare the Central Command’s data with our data on 

Kosovo, we grouped the information on the basis of attacks. An attack was 

defined as each time that a single aircraft dropped one or more weapons 

on any single aim point. Based on this definition, our analysis found that it 

took fewer attacks to damage or destroy both fixed and mobile targets 

during operations in Afghanistan than during operations in Kosovo. 

 16 A precise point on a target that is assigned for weapon impact. 

Different Approaches Used to 

Measure the Number of Attacks 

Needed to Destroy Targets 
Page 29 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Similar comparisons could not be made with the Air Force’s and Navy’s 

databases on Operation Enduring Freedom because their data are not 

maintained based on this definition of an attack. Both services list data by 

aircraft sortie. More specifically, each record in the Air Force’s database 

corresponds to one delivery of a specific weapon type against an aim 

point, with each weapon delivery linked to a particular sortie and mission 

in the air tasking order. For the Navy’s analysis, which describes the 

percentage of sorties that dropped weapons, each sortie can have one or 

multiple attacks, defined as one run at a given target. Because both the Air 

Force’s and the Navy’s analyses are primarily assessments of weapons and 

not intended to measure battle damage information, the main focus is 

assessing data for and based on specific weapon drops. As a result, they 

contain no analysis that links the relationship between the number of 

sorties flown and the corresponding damage. 

A second basic element of effectiveness is whether or not bombing actions 

resulted in the desired effects. The services and the Central Command also 

differed in their approaches to measuring this element, further 

complicating analysis. The Central Command’s database provides 

information on effects based on battle damage assessments, since 

measuring battle damage is the primary responsibility of the unified 

commands. However, the service databases are geared toward measuring 

the performance of specific systems. 

The Air Force, for example, primarily focused its analysis of operations in 

Afghanistan on a munitions effectiveness assessment. This analysis 

measures the actual success of individual weapons against predicted 

results and does not address battle damage assessments. The analysis 

measures whether the bomb landed outside an area around the target 

within which the bomb was predicted to hit, known as the circular error 

probable. Air Force officials stated that it is possible for a weapon to be 

scored a miss for Air Force munitions effectiveness assessment purposes, 

but still cause significant damage to a target. According to the Air Force’s 

analysis, the vast majority of munitions employed in Operation Enduring 

Freedom performed significantly better than expected. This could mean 

that the Air Force can adjust its planning and modeling assumptions to 

lower the number of sorties expected to be required to destroy a target. 

Similar to the Air Force’s analysis, the Navy measured effects based on 

weapon hit rates. However, the Navy’s analysis assessed what fraction of 

Navy bombs that were dropped impacted the intended target and had a 

high order detonation, determined primarily by reviewing weapons system 

videos. According to officials, if a weapon hit the target and had a high 

Effects Also Measured 

Differently 
Page 30 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

order detonation, it was counted as a successful hit for analysis purposes. 

The Navy’s analysis did not measure whether a weapon fell within the 

planned circular error probable, nor did it measure battle damages. 

The services and the U.S. Central Command also differ in their treatment 

of the basic question of how to define a target as fixed or mobile. This 

distinction is important to considerations of effectiveness because it is 

much harder to hit mobile than fixed targets. Moreover, mobile targets 

may be becoming more numerous as adversaries attempt to use mobility 

to avoid the effectiveness of precision weapons. Inconsistent definitions of 

fixed and mobile targets result in different classifications of like targets 

and disagreement among officials when attempting to measure the relative 

effectiveness of bombing attacks against mobile and fixed targets. 

The Navy’s analysis, for example, classifies mobile targets as “mobile” and 

“moving.” According to the analysis, mobile targets are those that can 

move between the time of launch and the time of impact, such as vehicles 

and aircraft. Moving targets are those that are actually moving when they 

are hit. Classification results are determined by a direct review of weapon 

system video or documentation in mission reports. Unlike the analysis, the 

Central Command’s database classifies all targets capable of moving as 

mobile whether they are moving at the time of attack or not. The 

classification of moving is not used because such information is more 

detailed than is needed for battle damage assessment purposes. 

In contrast, the Air Force’s database does not classify targets as fixed or 

mobile. The database provides a description of the desired aim point, such 

as the center of a runway or troops, but leaves it up to the user to define 

which are mobile and which are fixed. There is a field for moving targets 

in the database, but according to Air Force officials, very few records have 

an entry in this field. Targets are only classified as moving when there is 

available weapon system video to confirm that the target was moving at 

the time the weapon was dropped. As a result of these differences, an 

attack on a truck that is moving at the time of an attack would be 

classified as mobile by the Central Command, as moving by Navy officials, 

and as either mobile or moving to Air Force officials, depending on the 

availability of weapon system video. 

Fixed targets are also classified differently in some cases. For example, 

according to Navy officials, there are several types of fixed targets. Troops 

are classified as a fixed, area target because individual troops are not 

targeted with aircraft but rather as an area occupied by troops. However, 

buildings are classified as fixed, point targets where there is a specific 

Basic Target Characteristics 

Defined Differently 
Page 31 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

place to hit. In contrast, the Central Command classifies fixed targets only 

as those that are not able to move, such as buildings. 

The absence of a baseline system to bridge definitional and other 

differences and provide clear, consistent information about actual 

bombing effectiveness creates confusion in several areas. For example, 

this confusion was graphically illustrated when we provided the results of 

our analyses to the services. The results tended to support the idea that it 

took fewer attacks to damage or destroy targets in Afghanistan than in 

Kosovo. However, we could not gain agreement from the services on the 

results because our analyses were based on Central Command data that 

differed from that in their own systems, as previously discussed. Similar 

confusion occurred over the results of our March 2002 classified analysis 

of bombing operations in Kosovo. DOD did not concur with our use of the 

Air Force’s Mission Analysis Tracking and Tabulation System database to 

analyze bombing operations, stating that no single database is completely 

accurate and contains all information needed for the analysis. However, 

that database was the most comprehensive available, developed 

specifically as a primary database for tracking airframe and weapon 

effectiveness during Operation Allied Force, and was used by DOD as the 

basis for its January 2000 report to Congress on operations in Kosovo. 

DOD cannot clearly resolve such confusion until baseline definitions of 

effectiveness measures are reconciled and a unified database developed. 

Further, reliable, consistent data on such issues is needed to make 

procurement decisions on the number of bombs and other resources DOD 

will need to procure for future conflicts. In this regard, we recently 

reported17 that differences in battle simulation models and scenarios used 

by the services and the unified commands were resulting in different 

estimates of munitions needed for operations, and, ultimately, in reports of 

munitions shortages. Clear, consistent, and up-to-date measures of the 

effectiveness of precision weapons—such as the actual number of aircraft 

and bombs required to achieve targeting objectives—could help resolve 

such differences and improve procurement and other planning decisions. 

In addition, as discussed earlier, precision weapons can be considerably 

more expensive than traditional munitions. Without clear data on bombing 

effectiveness, DOD cannot analyze the return on investment from the 

 17 U.S. General Accounting Office, Defense Management: Munitions Requirements and 

Combatant Commanders’ Needs Require Linkage, GAO-03-17 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 15, 

2002). 

Differences Can Cause 

Confusion in Operational 

Assessments and Financial 

Decisions 
Page 32 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

trade-off of fewer, but more expensive, precision weapons versus the use 

of more, but less expensive, traditional munitions. 

Both the Joint Forces Command and the Defense Science Board found 

that current training does not provide the realistic preparation needed to 

cope with the emerging operating environment. DOD officials raised 

concerns that the changing strategy and technological improvements have 

created large increases in the pace of operations and volume of 

information that have overwhelmed commanders and other personnel at 

times. Further, advances in networking the force and other changes have 

fostered a more centralized style of management, with senior leaders 

increasingly involved in operations. At the same time, however, networkcentric operating concepts are distributing information to lower and lower 

organizational levels, raising the potential for increased autonomy for 

small units and individual soldiers. According to DOD officials, personnel 

at all levels, but particularly commanders, need realistic training to 

understand this new environment and adapt to it to ensure that the new 

capabilities are used to their fullest advantage. 

DOD officials told us that network-centric operations have advanced to 

the point that the heavy flow of information and rapid pace of operations 

may at times overload systems and personnel. This problem can create 

confusion and inefficiency as systems for conducting battle damage 

assessments or other operations become slow and clogged while sorting 

and integrating large amounts of information, and officials are distracted 

by having to devote precious time to sorting through hundreds of e-mail 

messages or by attending increasingly frequent videoconferences. 

Moreover, officials also believe that this problem may get worse as 

commanders increasingly recognize the advantages of networked systems, 

creating a need for even more information. 

The officials also stated that increased networking is fostering a more 

centralized style of command and control, which can create tension 

between command staffs and operators in the field. For example, 

according to officials, lawyers and senior civilian and military leaders at 

headquarters locations remote from the execution of operations are 

becoming increasingly involved in target selection and other operational 

areas. Historically, one of the principal tenets of U.S. command and 

control has been centralized direction, but decentralized execution of 

operations to give subordinates on the scene sufficient freedom of action 

to accomplish their missions. Increased centralization in the execution of 

operations can result in senior commanders being bogged down in 

Current Training Does Not 

Provide Realistic 

Preparation to Cope with 

Changing Operating 

Environment 

Operations Characterized by 

Increasingly High Volume and 

Centralized Command and 

Control, but More Autonomy at 

Lower Levels 
Page 33 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

operational details and subordinates on the scene losing initiative. This 

development has been linked to the advances in technologies that provide 

the opportunity for detailed views of the battlefield and frequent 

videoconferences and other communications to be shared among a wide 

array of officials that may be located thousands of miles away. This trend 

is also influenced by increased concerns over sensitive issues such as the 

avoidance of intrusions into the airspace of neighboring countries and 

collateral damage to civilian structures. Such issues act as an incentive for 

senior leaders to increase their involvement in lower and lower levels of 

planning and operations. 

While senior leaders are becoming increasingly involved in operations, 

information is also being distributed to lower and lower organizational 

levels, raising the potential for increased autonomy for small units and 

individual soldiers. For example, one of the principal organizing and 

operating tenets of network-centric operations is the concept called power 

to the edge. This concept involves empowering individuals at the “edge” of 

an organization—where it interacts with its operating environment—by 

expanding access to information and eliminating unnecessary constraints 

on action. According to department officials, adopting this concept 

requires DOD to change the way it handles intelligence and other 

information. For example, DOD’s current information systems are based 

on data requirements that are focused on the needs of the organizations 

supplying the data, with dissemination of the data based on a sequential 

process with information pushed out to customers at the end. But DOD is 

now moving to systems where broad arrays of information are placed on 

networks before any unnecessary processing at the point of collection, 

with total access for customers who can pull out the information that each 

needs simultaneously. This provides more information to lower 

organizational levels, enabling them to operate more autonomously with 

less direct control by commanders. According to officials at the Joint 

Forces Command, this concept helped DOD use smaller formations of 

personnel with flexible command and control relationships to great 

advantage during operations in Iraq. 

Consistent with DOD’s basic tenet that the force must train as it will fight, 

DOD officials have called for improved, more realistic training to match 

the scale and tempo of actual operations. For example, the Joint Forces 

Command reported that the lack of realistic training undermined theaterlevel intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance management and other 

Changing Operating 

Environment Requires Better, 

More Realistic Training 
Page 34 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

operational level capabilities during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Similarly, 

the Defense Science Board reported18 that the changing operating 

environment will have unintended human consequences that will require 

personnel to adapt to increasing cognitive demands at even the most 

junior levels, and to think and act more quickly. According to the Board, 

current training will not adequately prepare DOD personnel to cope with 

the increasing and constantly changing cognitive requirements. 

DOD officials also cautioned that the joint operational effectiveness 

experienced in Operation Iraqi Freedom was often the result of 

procedures developed during 18 months of practice begun during 

operations in Afghanistan and that such improvements are often fleeting—

needing to be reinvented in the next contingency. The Joint Forces 

Command called for development of an improved joint training capability 

to institutionalize the operating procedures developed in Iraq and allow 

commanders and staffs to experiment with and practice operational-level 

processes. Moreover, service and DOD officials also noted that 

expectations for the future need to be tempered with the understanding 

that operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq were conducted with 

other advantages—such as largely complete air superiority—that may not 

be available in future conflicts. 

The development of networked surveillance and command and control 

systems, precision weapons, and other advances has combined to have a 

synergetic effect on U.S. military power—providing increased capabilities 

for dealing effectively with enemies operating out of nontraditional 

battlefields, as well as more traditional approaches to warfare. 

Notwithstanding these advances, the full impact of these changes is still 

emerging and is not fully understood. Moreover, the enemy is likely to 

continue to evolve and adapt its approaches in response to the continued 

evolution of U.S. tactics and capabilities. As a result, it is important to 

continue developing and refining these capabilities. However, the legacy of 

DOD’s traditional focus on service-specific operations is inhibiting the 

continued evolution of the new capabilities. The lack of standardized, 

interoperable systems and equipment interferes with the development of 

force networks, slowing operations and reducing effectiveness. Difficulties 

in quickly obtaining sufficient numbers of trained battle damage analysts 

 18 U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Science Board, Defense Science Board Task Force 

on Training for Future Conflicts—Final Report (Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2003). 

Conclusions 
Page 35 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

result in slowed assessments unable to keep up with the increased pace of 

operations, inhibiting battleground progress and the utility of 

improvements in other areas. Similarly, the absence of a unified battlefield 

information system also confuses the clear understanding of 

improvements to the efficiency and effectiveness of operations as a result 

of changing capabilities, slowing the rate of adaptation to changing 

battlefield conditions. Finally, the lack of realistic training limits the ability 

of leaders to understand and systems to sense changes in the operating 

environment—such as the increased pace of operations and flow of 

information, the increased centralization of command, and the increased 

potential for operational autonomy and self-direction of small units and 

individual soldiers, as well as emerging concepts such as effects-based 

operations—further inhibiting the ability to adapt. 

To ensure continuing evolution of the capabilities demonstrated in recent 

conflicts, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Joint 

Staff, the Joint Forces Command and other unified commands, and the 

military departments to take the following four actions: 

• identify the primary information required for bombing operations, such as 

targeting and battle damage assessments, ensure that planned 

interoperability enhancements provide the standardized definitions, 

mission reporting formats, and other necessary instructions for this 

information to be used by all unified commands during joint combat 

operations, and determine whether this standardized information can 

replace that used by the individual services; 

• formulate a plan to provide sufficient numbers of personnel trained in 

battle damage assessment procedures when they are needed for combat 

operations and include in the plan the following: incentives for personnel 

to take the existing joint training on damage assessment, development of a 

system to be used by the Joint Forces Command to track and mobilize 

personnel who have received damage assessment training for use during 

surge situations, and development of guidance on the appropriate use of 

effects-based, probabilistic, and other nontraditional concepts in assessing 

battle damages; 

• develop a unified battlefield information system that provides for the 

identification and collection of data on key, standardized measures of 

bombing operations needed to assess the basic efficiency and 

effectiveness of such operations, for use by all unified commands; and 

• develop a joint operations training capability that provides commanders 

and staffs with a realistic simulation of the increased pace of operations 

and other emerging changes to the combat operating environment. 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 
Page 36 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred or partially 

concurred with all our recommendations. DOD stated that the Joint Staff, 

in coordination with the Joint Forces Command, is addressing our 

recommendations for actions to improve standardization of information 

used in bombing operations, develop a unified battlefield information 

system, and develop realistic joint training to help personnel adapt to 

changes in the operating environment in various ongoing initiatives. 

DOD partially agreed with our recommendation to improve the battle 

damage assessment process and stated that it is addressing the issues we 

raised in the Joint Network Fires Capability Roadmap, the Joint Close Air 

Support action plan, and other efforts. However, DOD believed that the 

section of the report titled “Timely Understanding of Battle Damages 

Remains a Difficult Problem” discusses battle damage assessments as if 

that function was detached from the broader targeting process. That was 

not our intent. As indicated on page 6 of the report, we agree that battle 

damage assessments are an integral part of the broader targeting process. 

The use of a separate section of the report to deal with that aspect of 

targeting was meant only to highlight the long-standing problems with 

battle damage assessments and the need to focus DOD’s attention on 

corrective action. Officials from the U.S. Central Command, which was in 

charge of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Joint Forces 

Command report on lessons learned in Iraq both pointed to the need to 

elevate recognition of problems in the battle damage assessment process 

and address them. Continued improvement in the speed at which targets 

are generated and attacked will only further increase the need for damage 

assessments to keep pace with operations in the future. 

DOD’s comments are reprinted in appendix III. DOD also provided 

technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the 

Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy; the Commandant of the 

Marine Corps; and the Director, Office of Management and Budget. The 

report will also be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 
Page 37 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

If you or your staff have any questions on the matters discussed in this 

report, please contact me at (757) 552-8100. The major contributors to this 

report are listed in appendix IV. 

Neal P. Curtin 

Director 

Defense Capabilities and Management 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 38 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

To assess the impact on operational effectiveness of improvements in 

networking the force and the use of precision weapons and identify the 

key barriers to continued progress in implementing the new strategy, we 

followed a three-phased approach. 

To identify Department of Defense (DOD), military service, and unified 

command policies and approaches to implementing the new strategy, we 

obtained briefings, reviewed DOD and unified command directives and 

regulations, the Operation Enduring Freedom Campaign Plan, lessons 

learned reports, and prior reports by us and others. A bibliography of key 

reports on issues related to our review is included. We also interviewed 

officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense; the Office of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff; the U.S. Central Command; the U.S. Joint Forces 

Command; the U.S. Special Operations Command; headquarters offices of 

the Army, Navy, and Air Force; and other offices as appropriate. 

We accompanied this work with a detailed analysis of bombing data 

developed for our March 2002 classified report on air operations in Kosovo 

and bombing data on operations in Afghanistan provided by the U.S. 

Central Command. Prior to conducting these analyses, we discussed the 

appropriate databases to use, the time frames to measure, and other such 

methodological issues with officials from the Central Command. We used 

Central Command data because its commander was in charge of joint 

operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. To determine whether bombing 

accuracy and effectiveness had improved, we compared changes in the 

percentage of attacks resulting in damage or destruction to fixed and 

mobile targets, the number of attacks and the number of bombs during a 

given attack that were required to damage or destroy a given target, and 

other such measures of operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. We then 

provided the results of these analyses to officials from the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense; the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the U.S. 

Central Command; the U.S. Joint Forces Command; the U.S. Special 

Operations Command; and the Army, Navy, and Air Force for their review 

and comment. We also obtained analyses of Operation Enduring Freedom 

from the Navy and the Air Force for comparison purposes. We requested 

data from the Army, but officials were unable to provide such data. We 

also requested copies of any similar analyses of operations in Iraq, but 

officials were unable to locate any such analyses. We did not conduct our 

own detailed analysis of operations in Iraq because of the extremely 

resource intensive and time-consuming nature of these analyses. 

To assess the reliability of the Central Command’s database for Operation 

Enduring Freedom, we (1) performed electronic testing for obvious errors 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 39 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

in accuracy and completeness; (2) reviewed related documentation, 

including tracking target files to specific data entries, and interviewed 

agency officials knowledgeable about the data; and (3) worked closely 

with agency officials to identify any data problems. When we found 

discrepancies such as missing or incorrect data, we brought them to the 

command’s attention and worked with it to correct the discrepancies 

before conducting our analysis. We determined that the data were 

sufficiently reliable for our reporting purposes. 

Following this analysis, we conducted a series of roundtable discussions 

with officials from the offices of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, unified commands, and the services contacted previously. We 

conducted these discussions to gain a detailed understanding of the 

results of our analyses and officials’ perspectives on the impact of the 

changing strategy on operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq and the 

key barriers to continued progress in implementing the new strategy. We 

focused our analysis on combat bombing operations. We did not attempt 

to analyze whether larger operational and strategic objectives were 

achieved. 
Appendix II: DOD Reconnaissance Aircraft, 

Precision Weapons, and Other Technologies 

Used in Recent Operations 

Page 40 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Appendix II: DOD Reconnaissance Aircraft, 

Precision Weapons, and Other Technologies 

Used in Recent Operations 

The RC-135 Rivet Joint is a reconnaissance aircraft that supports theater

and national level consumers with near real-time on-scene intelligence

collection, analysis, and dissemination capabilities. Its onboard sensor

suite allows the crew to detect, identify, and locate signals throughout the

electromagnetic spectrum, which it can then forward to a wide range

of consumers.

The U-2 provides continuous day and night, high-altitude, all-weather

surveillance and reconnaissance in support of ground and air forces.

The U-2 is capable of collecting multi-sensor photo, electro-optic,

infrared and radar imagery, as well as collecting signals intelligence

data, with imagery, real-time down linking of data anywhere in the world.

The E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System is an airborne

battle management, command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and

reconnaissance aircraft. Its radar and computer systems allow it to provide

ground and air commanders with detailed information on ground forces

to support attack operations and targeting.

The EP-3E (Aries II) is the Navy's only land based signals intelligence

reconnaissance aircraft. Its sensitive receivers and high-gain dish antennas

allow it to detect a wide range of electronic emissions from deep within

targeted territory.

The E-3 Sentry is an airborne warning and control system aircraft that

provides all-weather surveillance, command, control, and communications

to command and control centers. Its radar and computer systems enable

it to provide positions and tracing information on enemy aircraft and ships,

and location and status of friendly aircraft and ships.

The Predator is a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial

vehicle reconnaissance system composed of four aircraft with sensors,

a ground control station, a satellite link, and some 82 personnel providing

24-hour operations. Its primary mission is interdiction and conducting

armed reconnaissance against critical targets.

The Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle is a reconnaissance aircraft

that provides battlefield commanders near real-time, high-reconnaissance

imagery. Typically cruising at high altitudes for 24 continuous hours, it

uses its cloud penetrating radar and other sensors to survey large

geographic areas and relay imagery about enemy locations and resources

to commanders.

Aircraft
Appendix II: DOD Reconnaissance Aircraft, 

Precision Weapons, and Other Technologies 

Used in Recent Operations 

Page 41 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Guided Bomb Units-10, 12, and 16 are laser-guided bombs. These bombs

consist of guidance packages bolted to traditional free-fall bombs (2,000,

500, and 1,000 pounds, respectively), enabling the bombs to analyze laser

energy shone on a target by an operator, and then to adjust the path of

the bomb as it descends on a target.

The Joint Direct Attack Munitions Guided Bomb Unit-31/32 consists of a

guidance tail kit attached to a traditional 2,000-pound free-fall bomb, 

enabling it to be navigated in flight to the selected target using Global

Positioning System satellite technology.

The Cluster Bomb Unit 87/B Combined Effects Munitions is a 1,000-pound

unguided, air-delivered cluster bomb consisting of a cluster of about 200

bomblets that disperse over the target area and explode on impact. 

This bomb is effective against armor, personnel, and material, enabling 

a single payload attack against a wide variety of targets.

The Navstar Global Positioning System is a constellation of 24 orbiting

satellites operated by the Air Force that provides navigation data to military

and civilian users all over the world. The satellites orbit the earth every

12 hours, emitting navigation signals that are picked up by receivers and

used to calculate time, location, and velocity.

A laser designator/rangefinder (U.S. Marine Corps AN/PAQ-3 pictured) is

used to locate targets and guide laser-guided weapons to the target.

Designators radiate a narrow beam of pulsed energy that is used to mark

a spot on the target that is then picked up by acquisition devices mounted

on aircraft or directly on laser-guided bombs.

(picture not

available)

Precision Weapons Systems

Technologies

Sources: DOD and other publicly available sources.
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 42 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Department of Defense 
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 43 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 44 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 
Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and 

Staff Acknowledgments 

Page 45 GAO-04-547 Military Operations 

John Pendleton (404) 679-1816 

John W. Nelson (404) 679-1949 

In addition to those named above, Katherine Chenault, Steve Pruitt, 

R.K. Wild, and Kristy Williams made key contributions to this report. 

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contacts 

Acknowledgments 
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Related GAO Products 

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