Technologies for NATO's Follow-On

Forces Attack Concept

July 1986

NTIS order #PB87-100343, July 1986
Recommended Citation:

U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technologies for NATO’s Follow-On

Forces Attack Concept—Special Report, OTA-ISC-312 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office, July 1986).

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 86-600553

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents

U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402
Preface

This report is an unclassified version of OTA’s Special Report, Technologies for NATO’s Followon Forces Attack Concept. It contains primarily the executive summary of the classified report, as

well as the chapter on delivery systems and munitions, with classified material removed. The detailed

discussions of other areas–particularly surveillance systems and the threat–were omitted because

little more than what appears in the summary could be said in an unclassified report. The classified

Special Report from which this unclassified Special Report is derived may be requested by writing to:

Congress of the United States

Office of Technology Assessment

International Security and Commerce Program

(ATTN: Program Manager)

Washington, DC 20510

Also name the agency or office which can certify SECRET security clearance (please provide Social

Security number) and U.S. citizenship to OTA. For congressional requests need-to-know must be certified by a Member of Congress. For other requests, need-to-know must be briefly explained.

Ill
Advisory Panel on NATO Follow-On Forces Attack Concept

Jan M. Lodal, Chairman Ambassador Robert Komer

President, INFOCEL The Rand Corp.

Gen. George S. Blanchard, USA (Ret.)

Joseph V. Braddock

Senior Vice President

The BDM Corp.

Robert Calaway

President

Resource Management International, Inc.

Seymour J. Deitchman

Vice President for Programs

Institute for Defense Analyses

Col. Victor L. Donnell, USA (Ret.)

Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.

Christopher Donnelly

Soviet Studies Research Centre

Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

Col. Patrick J. Garvey, USMCR

Post Commander, Camp Smith

New York State Division of Military &

Naval Affairs

Walter B. LaBerge

Vice President for Science and Technology

Lockheed Corp.

Gen. John W. Pauly, USAF (Ret.)

Chief Executive Officer

Systems Control Technology

William J. Perry1

Chairman

H&Q Technology Partners

Stanley Resor

Debevoise & Plimpton

Stuart Starr

Director for Planning

The Mitre Corp.

Gen. Dorm Starry, USA (Ret.)

Vice President and General Manager

Space Missions Group

Ford Aerospace and Communications Corp.

Adm. Harry D. Train, II, USN (Ret.)

Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, USA (Ret.) John R. Transue

Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes, USMC (Ret.) Col. Ralph Wetzl, USAF (Ret.)

Director, Planning and Analysis The BDM Corp.

LTV Aerospace & Defense Co. Maj. Gen. Ennis Whitehead, Jr., USA (Ret.)

Lt. General Glenn Kent, USAF (Ret.) Vice President for Analysis and Evaluation

The Rand Corp. Burdeshaw Associates

‘I EX officio member from OTA’S Technology Assessment Advisory Council.

NOTE: OTA appreciates and is grateful for the valuable assistance and thoughtful critiques provided by advisory panel members. The view

expressed in this OTA report, however, are the sole responsibility of the Office of Technology Assessment. Participation on th

Advisory Panel does not imply endorsement of the report.

iv
OTA Project Staff for NATO Follow-On Forces Attack Concept

Lionel S. Johns, Assistant Director, OTA

Energy, Materials, and lnternational Security Division

Peter Sharfman, International Security and Commerce Program Manager

Alan Shawl Project Director

Stephen Budiansky1

Michael Callaham

Allen Greenberg2

Peter Lert

Nancy Lubin

Administrative Staff

Jannie Coles Sandy Erwin3 Cecile Parker Jackie Robinson

10TA Fellow.

2

0n detail from U.S. Department of State.

31 n-house contract employee.
Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Issues Before NATO..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Issues Before Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The OTA Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Topics for This Special Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Topics for the Final Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Basic Observations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Background: NATO Strategy and the Threat to the Central Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Concepts for Follow-On Forces Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Intermediate-Range FOFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cross-Corps Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Long-Range FOFA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Requirements, Capabilities, Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Near-Term Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Midterm Opportunities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Far-Term Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Packaging” Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Representative Remaining Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Appendix: Delivery Systems and Munitions ., . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Delivery Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Close-Range Air-to-Ground Missiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Short- to Medium-Range Air-to-Ground Missiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Long-Range Air-to-Ground Missiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ground-Launched Missiles, Rockets, Artillery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Munitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Combat Vehicles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hardened Fixed Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Soft Area Targets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A-1. Munitions Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

A-2. Combat Radii of Unrefueled U.S. Ground-Attack Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Table

Page

A-1. Ground-Attack Aircraft Characteristics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Introduction

On November 9, 1984, the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) Defence Planning Committee formally approved the Long

Term Planning Guideline for Follow-On Forces

Attack (FOFA) that had been developed on the

initiative of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander

Europe, General Bernard W. Rogers. Adoption

of this mission concept, a major objective of General Rogers, was strongly supported by the United

States. This approval set in motion an 18-month

review during which NATO is analyzing how to

implement this new element of its strategy for deterring a Warsaw Pact attack. This process has

included, among other steps, the inclusion of

follow-on forces attack in the NATO Military

Committee’s May 1985 Conceptual Military Framework for NATO Defence Long-Term Planning.

NATO’s ultimate decision will depend heavily on

views that the United States and the other members of the alliance are now formulating.

Although FOFA does not represent a change

in NATO’s overall defensive strategy of “Flexible Response” —which will continue to rely on

a balanced “triad” of conventional, theater nuclear, and strategic nuclear forces to deter a Warsaw Pact attack-it is one key element in NATO’s

effort to improve its conventional forces through

the application of new technology. (NATO has

already taken steps to strengthen the other legs

of the triad, for example by deploying the nuclear-armed Pershing II and ground-launched

cruise missiles in Europe, and modernizing U.S.

strategic nuclear forces.)

The need to strengthen NATO’s conventional

leg is underscored by General Rogers’s warning

that:

. . . if war broke out today, it would only be a

matter of days before I would have to turn to our

political authorities and request the initial release

of nuclear weapons.1

The objective of FOFA–and of other efforts to

reprove NATO’s conventional capability—is to

‘General Bernard W. Rogers, “Follow-On Forces Attack: Myths

lnd Realities,” NATO Review, No. 6, December 1984, pp. 1-9.

restore the flexibility to Flexible Response by assuring that NATO will be able to make a measured response to an attack by the numerically superior Warsaw Pact conventional forces, and in

particular that it will retain control of the decision to escalate to nuclear weapons—that it will

not be forced into an early all or nothing decision.

At the heart of the follow-on forces attack concept is the assumption that NATO’s conventional

forward defenses will be able to withstand an initial attack by Warsaw Pact armies in the critical

Central Region—where the Federal Republic of

Germany is bordered by East Germany and

Czechoslovakia and where the mass of Warsaw

Pact ground forces are concentrated–but that

they are likely to be overwhelmed by a rapid succession of reinforcing echelons (the “follow-on

forces”) arriving at the battle area to exploit weaknesses created by the initial attack. General

Rogers explains that the goal of follow-on forces

attack is to “reduce to manageable proportions

the number of Warsaw Pact forces arriving at our

General Defensive Position” by attacking–with

conventional weapons—’’those enemy forces

which stretch from just behind the troops in contact to as far into the enemy’s rear as our target

acquisition and conventional weapons systems

will permit. ”2

Preventing enemy reinforcements from reaching the front is not, of course, an idea new to

NATO’s conventional defense plans. NATO’s air

forces have always had the mission of “interdiction” -striking targets behind enemy lines, including follow-on forces—and even army artillery

has had the capability to fire beyond the closein battle. But what NATO has lacked until recently is the technology (or the right combinations of technologies) to find mobile targets at a

distance and to hit them effectively.3 As a result,

*ibid.

3As the Air Force learned in World War 11, Korea, and Vietnam,

interdiction campaigns making use only of “traditional” means to

locate and attack targets (reconnaissance flights and free-fall bombs)

have had only limited success at best. See for example Edmund

Dews and Felix Kozaczka, “Air Interdiction: Lessons From Past Campaigns,” RAND paper N-1 743-PA&E, September 1981.

1
aircraft and other weapons systems have tended dovetailed with new thinking about how to exto be assigned to other missions that are likely ploit the vulnerabilities in Warsaw Pact ground

to have a higher payoff. forces operations–specifically, the rigid timing

Recent developments in sensors and weapons required to move up the follow-on forces and

systems (loosely referred to as “smart weapons, ” commit them to battle—to produce the followor more generally “emerging technologies”) have on forces attack concept.

ISSUES BEFORE NATO

Having adopted this concept, NATO now faces

the question of making it work. In the process,

NATO will have to come to grips with some difficult questions, such as:

1. Which concepts for follow-on forces attack

should be pursued, and how should resources be allocated among them?

2. How much capability is needed?

3. Are dedicated forces required, and if so,

what?

4. How are competing demands for procuring

Congress will be concerned with defining and

funding the U.S. effort, including forces that

would be assigned to NATO in wartime and the

U.S. share of NATO infrastructure funding. However, FOFA is an alliance effort and the views and

actions of our Allies will have to be taken into

account,

Both the Army and the Air Force will be developing and procuring systems to locate targets

and direct weapons against those targets, as well

as the munitions and the means to deliver them.

Congress will likely be faced with decisions on

which of the many programs with potential applications to FOFA should be funded, and in particular whether actual procurement should proceed with technology now in hand or be deferred

until further progress is made.

Several major considerations will complicate

these decisions, First, follow-on forces attack

cannot be viewed in isolation; rather, its value

can only be judged in the context of NATO’s

overall ability to maintain deterrence and, if

forces for follow-on forces attack, the close

battle, and the air battle to be balanced?

S. What is to be bought? Who will produce it?

6.

7.

8.

Who will pay for it?

Will the NATO command structure and its

operating procedures have to be modified?

Will attacking follow-on forces require

changes in national intelligence policies and

procedures?

What are the implications of possible Warsaw Pact responses to FOFA?

CONGRESS

deterrence fails, to carry out a successful defense. Other missions–most obviously forward

defense against a Warsaw Pact attack–will always play a key role in NATO’s conventional defense planning.4 Thus the value of having new

capabilities to attack follow-on forces must be

weighed against the value of spending that same

money on NATO’s other missions. Some of these

missions, such as achieving air superiority (including suppression of enemy air defenses), may affect NATO’s ability to attack follow-on forces,

Second, the implementation of the follow-on

forces attack concept requires the procurement

and integration of a number of systems. Congress is not faced with the relatively simple deci-

—— . . — — 4

The NATO Military Committee’s Conceptual Military Frameworl

for NATO Defence Long-Term Planning “. . . defines the critica

warfighting mission components for alliance forces in the year

ahead, including preventing a breakthrough by lead echelons o

an attacking force, attacking follow-on forces, establishing and main

taining control of the sea and air, projecting maritime power am

protecting allied shipping and safeguarding rear areas.” Am bassado

David Abshire, “NATO on the Move, ” The A//iance Papers Nc

6, September 1985.
3

sion of whether a particular system will contribute to national security, or even with the decision

of which to fund among several competitors for

a particular job. Congress is faced with the complex problem of reviewing administration programs for a consistent mix of systems that will provide a viable capability to attack follow-on forces.

Third, those decisions cannot be made solely

within the context of FOFA. Many of the systems

will have other roles, both within Europe and elsewhere, that will have to be taken into account.

Fourth, although cost will be a very important

factor, it is not yet possible to determine how

much a credible and effective FOFA capability

will cost. The costs of individual systems can

be estimated with reasonable confidence, but

estimating the potential cost of FOFA will have

to await a determination of which systems are

needed, and how many of each will be required.

A recent report by a private study group concluded that “. . . the costs of the new programs

are modest in relation to the overall current

NATO defense budgets.”5 If their cost estimates

———-.—.

‘Strengthening Conventional Deterrence in Europe (ESECS //), The

European Security Study Report of the Special Panel (Boulder, CO:

Westview Press, 1985).

THE OTA

As a result of congressional interest in the issues that this NATO decision raises for the United

States, the Office of Technology Assessment was

asked in July 1985 to conduct a study of followon forces attack. The initial findings of that study

are presented in this special report, The study was

requested by the House Foreign Affairs and

Armed Services Committees, and has the interest and support of the Senate Armed Services

committee. This report discusses what the follow-

~n forces attack concept is and how it fits into

NATO’s strategy, and it introduces and explains

advances in technology that may be important

“or implementing the concept. Subsequent reports will expand this work in both breadth and

n depth.

are largely correct, and new developments perform as advertised, financing FOFA might significantly enhance NATO’s defensive capability

when compared to other uses of the same funds.

While these results raise intriguing possibilities,

estimates of cost, effectiveness, and technical risk

will require close scrutiny. Critics are very skeptical of such estimates, and believe that costs

could be very high.

Finally, decisions made by Congress will have

to take into account how the U.S. implementation of FOFA will be received by the other members of NATO. FOFA is unlikely to be successful if it becomes a United States-only effort. The

military approaches taken by each nation will

have to be compatible; they will also have to be

politically acceptable if the cohesion of the alliance is not to suffer. Continuing European concerns over the economic implications of defense

programs and, more particularly, the need for a

“two-way street” in arms sales between the

United States and Europe, will be major issues.

STUDY

In its assessment, OTA has been asked by the

requesting committees to:

1.

2.

3.

4.

survey the status of various deep interdiction capabilities and programs, including a

description of programs to develop and deploy advanced conventional munitions;

discuss the military and deterrence rationale for having a deep interdiction capability, and assess the strengths and weaknesses

of various existing and proposed alternatives;

review the attitudes of our NATO allies on

these matters and review relevant Soviet

doctrines and plans; and

assess the likelihood that plausible combinations of these alternatives would meet U.S.
4

and NATO objectives; discuss a range of reasonable policy options; discuss their pros,

cons, and likely timing of availability.

The first item is the subject of this special report. A full assessment, covering all of these

topics, will be delivered in February 1987.

Both this document and the final report take

the adoption of the follow-on forces attack conTOPICS FOR THIS

This report provides an overview of the U.S.

technological developments of interest for FOFA.

While it does not rate or rank these developments, it does describe what they are and how

they might contribute to implementing FOFA. It

also provides background on the role of FOFA

in NATO strategy, the threat it responds to, and

operational concepts for FOFA. The appendix

provides a more detailed discussion of delivery

systems and munitions.

Most of the details supporting this report–

especially discussions of the threat, operational

cept by NATO as a given; the purpose here is

not to question the wisdom of that decision, but

rather to explore options for implementing that

decision and their implications. In addition, the

use of chemical or nuclear weapons to attack Soviet follow-on forces is specifically excluded from

consideration.

SPECIAL REPORT

concepts, and surveillance systems—are classified. Those readers holding the proper clearances

are referred to OTA’s much longer secret report.

The discussion of Soviet doctrine presented in

this report reflects the generally accepted NATO

view on the subject. Other views—for example

that the Soviets would plan to employ nuclear

weapons from the very start of an offensive, or

that Soviet conventional strategy is moving away

from a strict echelonment of forces and toward

greater operational flexibility–will be explored

and analyzed in the final report.

TOPICS FOR THE FINAL REPORT

Analysis of the plausible options for implementing follow-on forces attack will be deferred to the

final report, as will discussion of several key issues underlying that question:

The advantages and disadvantages of different

technical approaches is a complicated question

whose answer depends not only on technical feasibility (whether the technology will actually

work) but also on the final system’s reliability

(whether it will continue to work under battlefield conditions and in the face of countermeasures), flexibility (whether it can be used against

different targets or under different conditions

from those it was designed for), effectiveness in

achieving military goals in battle, and cost.

How new technologies with distinctly new capabilities would be incorporated into the NATO

military structure is a separate issue, likewise

complex. An important question, for example,

is whether it would be necessary for all NATO

corps to acquire a capability for attacking followon forces; another is the question of how their

use would be coordinated between corps and between ground forces and air forces.

A more thorough analysis of Soviet operation:

and likely Soviet responses to NATO’s adoptior

of follow-on forces attack is necessary to reach

a conclusion about plausible options for NATO

Where in the battlefield to concentrate follow

on forces attack and against which targets is

clearly a fundamental issue that depends in Iarge

measure on Soviet offensive strategy. And by an

ticipating possible Soviet responses, it should be

possible to identify the more robust options.

Finally, the attitudes of the NATO allies will de

termine the political feasibility of options for im
5

plementing follow-on forces attack. The European

members of NATO have historically been uneasy

about moves that appear to decouple the ultimate

threat of nuclear escalation from the defense of

Western Europe. Although General Rogers has

been careful to frame follow-on forces attack in

terms of “raising the nuclear threshold” and increasing the credibility of NATO’s ability to escalate to nuclear weapons—rather than replacing the need for nuclear weapons—European

concerns remain. Conversely, political sensitivities have always required NATO to foreswear a

declaratory strategy that could be seen as “offensive”; for this reason NATO’s military plans

noticeably omit counterattacks that involve

ground forces crossing into Warsaw Pact territory.

Follow-on forces attack, by extending the reach

of ground forces across borders, may well aggravate these sensitivities. And on the economic

front, the European nations, already sensitive

about what they see as a “one-way street” in

arms sales, are concerned about the implications

of a military strategy that relies even more on the

advanced technology in which the United States

possesses a lead.
Summary

BASIC OBSERVATIONS

The adoption of the Supreme Allied Commander

Europe’s (SACEUR’s) follow-on forces attack (FOFA)

concept is an effort to enhance deterrence by

dealing with a potential vulnerability–the risk

that even if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) forces could largely withstand the

initial attack by the Warsaw Pact’s first echelon,

pact follow-on forces could overwhelm by sheer

numbers, or could exploit tactical advantages to

penetrate into NATO’s rear. It does not reflect

a downgrading of other missions such as fighting the close battle. Although NATO has always

sought a capability to delay, disrupt, or destroy

such follow-on forces, the means to do so have

been limited. NATO’s adoption of the FOFA concept reflects a recognition of new opportunities

to carry out this mission—both through new technology and through the development of new procedures to take advantage of existing capabilities.

Although NATO could attack follow-on forces

using the systems currently in the inventory,

realizing the full potential of the concept is usually

linked to exploiting emerging technologies–

especially those associated with gathering the

information required to attack the targets (reconnaissance, surveillance, and data handling), and

advanced weapons concepts. The technologies

of primary interest are now relatively mature,

and could result in fielded systems over approximately the next decade.

In considering how best to support the FOFA

concept, there are several basic points which

bear on many congressional decisions:

● procurement of systems ought to be tied to

clearly defined operational concepts. It is

important to understand how the job is to

be done before buying the tools to do the

job. However, concept development should

be rooted in an understanding of what is

technically feasible.

● Systems ought to be considered not in-

●

●

●

●

It

dividually, but as complete packages to

support specific operational concepts. The

process of attacking follow-on forces is a

complicated one, with many steps between

initial detection of the target and successful

attack. It requires a number of different systems to perform different functions compatibly. Since failure to buy one or two could

greatly reduce the value of investments in

the others, it is important to treat them in

groups.

Component systems will have to be procured in sufficient quantities. It is likely that

large numbers of targets will have to be engaged. If attacking follow-on forces is to aid

NATO’s defense, the capacity will have to

exist to attack enough to make a difference.

If having this capability is to aid deterrence,

it should be apparent to the Soviets that

NATO has this capacity.

Some systems will be “key systems.” Failure

to procure them will greatly reduce the ability to implement the concept.

Some redundancy may be desirable. Complicated systems that have to perform many

consecutive functions are subject to disruption in many ways. Redundancy in some of

those functions reduces the vulnerability.

Practice and training will be important. The

process of attacking follow-on forces is likely to be complex, as are many of the systems

used to support it. Facilities to train commanders and operators will be of value.

is largely up to the Department of Defense

(DOD) to-provide Congress with lists of what systems the services require and how many of each

are needed. This report provides a framework for

understanding the plans that DOD submits to

Congress. It reviews the place of FOFA in NATO

strategy, outlines operational concepts, and

reviews the developments of particular interest

for attacking follow-on forces.

7
8

BACKGROUND: NATO STRATEGY AND THE THREAT

TO THE CENTRAL REGION

NATO’s Flexible Response strategy, adopted in

1967, rests on conventional, theater nuclear, and

strategic nuclear forces. It is a strategy for deterrence based on the idea that:

The price of an attack on Western Europe must

remain the possibility of triggering an incalculable chain of nuclear escalation.1

NATO–which does not want a nuclear war any

more than the Warsaw Pact does—would resist

a conventional offensive with conventional

forces, but would reserve the option for deliberate escalation should its conventional defense be

unsuccessful. NATO’s conventional defense must

“provide a reasonable prospect of frustrating a

conventional attack.”2

Soon after the founding of the Alliance in 1949,

it became clear that for economic and political

reasons NATO would not deploy the number of

army divisions and combat aircraft that studies

showed were required to meet the threat posed

by Soviet forces in Central Europe. NATO’s solution to this shortfall in conventional forces was

to introduce nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons

compensated for NATO’s disadvantage in conventional firepower, and reduced the burden of

maintaining large conventional forces. Moreover,

the threat of a nuclear strike against Warsaw Pact

armies gave NATO two distinct strategic advantages. It forced the Warsaw Pact armies to disperse in order to reduce their vulnerability to a

nuclear strike, which limited their ability to conduct an offensive strategy based on concentrating massive forces against a prepared defense.

And by confronting the Soviets with the incalculable risk that a conventional attack could set off

a chain of escalation leading to nuclear destruction of Soviet territory, it provided NATO a deterrent that relied less on the possibility of actually having to fight an intensely destructive modern

war on NATO territory.

IGeneral Bernard Rogers, “Follow-On Forces Attack (FOFA):

Myths and Realities,” NATO Review, December 1984, pp. 1-9.

Zlbid.

Soviet gains in nuclear weaponry led NATO in

1967 to adopt a new strategy, Flexible Response,

which remains in effect today. Flexible Response

relies on a “triad” of conventional, theater nuclear, and strategic nuclear forces designed to

maintain the credible possibility that a war could

become nuclear and escalate to a strategic nuclear exchange; that credibility is supported by

a conventional capability which is strong enough

that NATO would not be forced into an early decision to use nuclear weapons.

Two important factors govern NATO strategic

thinking. First, both nuclear and conventional capabilities are essential; neither one can substitute

for the other. Second, as a defensive alliance,

NATO is precluded from adopting an aggressive,

offensive military strategy.

These major strategic considerations, along

with the threat and the realities imposed by geography, shape the current situation in Europe. The

major threat to NATO comes from the continental forces of the Warsaw Pact, concentrated in

Central Europe along the eastern border of the

Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).

in the Central Region, NATO lacks “strategic

depth,” while facing an adversary with extreme

strategic depth and the ability to use that depth

to bring large land forces to bear in an offensive.3

While the territory of the Warsaw Pact extends

thousands of kilometers (km) back into the Soviet Union, it is less than 500 km from the interGerman border to the English channel. Moreover, the loss of substantial portions of West Germany, a major NATO land power in this Central

Region, would be extemely serious for NATO.

The Warsaw Pact has adopted a “blitzkrieg”

strategy that appears to be aimed at defeating

NATO conventionally before NATO could decide

to escalate to the use of nuclear weapons.4 This

Jone impo~ant aspect of strategic depth, especially from the

defender’s perspective, is the ability to trade space for time, to fall

back when attacked in order to organize a responsive defense and

to counterattack. Great depth was exploited in this way by the Russians against the offensives of Napoleon and, much later, Hitler.

4Some analysts believe that a Soviet offensive could be nuclear

from the outset.
9

strategy depends on a ground offensive in which

the initial attack is likely to be followed by succeeding waves, or echelons, of follow-on forces,

all supported by air power.

Echeloning forces in-depth attempts to overwhelm a defense by bringing fresh forces against

defenders exhausted by the preceding wave. Soviet doctrine calls for a carefully timed and coordinated attack, with each succeeding echelon

committed at the time and place where it could

be most effective in exploiting the success of its

predecessor and extending the Warsaw Pact advance deeper into NATO territory. This permits

the Soviets to assign individual units specific

preplanned objectives and a schedule for achieving those objectives. It avoids moving massive

amounts of men and equipment forward just

prior to an offensive, thus avoiding giving NATO

unambiguous warning of attack and overloading

available roads. In the Central Region, where

West Germany borders East Germany and Czechoslovakia, NATO would face a massive Warsaw

Pact ground offensive that could involve over 100

divisions.

Depending on how they fit into the offensive

plan, some follow-on forces would start from just

behind the initial attack forces, others would begin farther back in East Germany, Poland, and

Czechoslovakia, and still others would begin in

the U.S.S.R. Those farthest back would be transported by rail or by road. Closer in they would

group into combat units and proceed under their

own power toward the battle.

NATO has a much smaller number of divisions

in place in the Central Region or able to deploy

there rapidly; the only immediate prospects for

reinforcement would be from three French divisions in West Germany that might be assigned

to NATO in wartime6 and from several U.S. divisions which could arrive by air. NATO’s only

other reinforcements—some 20 U.S. Army and

National Guard divisions plus one Canadian

sAlthough these numbers provide the basis for a rough force comparison, there are many detailed differences between a NATO division and a Warsaw Pact division; they are not strictly equivalent

units.

bFrance withdrew from the NATO military structure in 1966 and

has not formally committed itself to providing troops for the common defense of NATO territory.

brigade–would arrive only much later, primarily by sea, and in some cases only after mobilization and training.7

Within the Central Region, eight army corps

of five nations—West Germany, Belgium, The

Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States

—are each assigned the responsibility of defending a specific sector along the border that divides

West Germany from East Germany and Czechoslovakia. A Canadian brigade is also garrisoned

in the Central Region. Each national corps (or

other unit) has its own structure, equipment, and

national doctrine; only in time of war are they

assigned to a unified NATO command structure.

The northern corps form the northern army group

(NORTHAG) under the command of a British general; those in southern Germany form the central army group (CENTAG) under a U.S. general.

Each army group is supported by a multinational

Allied Tactical Air Force (2ATAF in NORTHAG,

4ATAF in CENTAG); the commanders of 2ATAF

(COM2ATAF) and 4ATAF (COM4ATAF) report to

the Commander of Allied Air Forces Central Europe (COMAAFCE). COMAAFCE, in turn, reports

to the Commander-in-Chief, Central Region

(CINCENT), a German general to whom the commanders of CENTAG and NORTHAG also report.

Finally, the entire European theater–which includes the northern and southern regions as

well—is under the command of SACEUR, a U.S.

general.

A major consequence of NATO’s structure is

that the Soviets are free to allocate their forces

to best advantage, and are likely to concentrate

in the sectors they believe to be the weakest—

particularly the Dutch and Belgian sectors in

NORTHAG–while NATO’s ability to shift its

ground forces across corps sectors is limited.

Attacking follow-on forces is a specific defensive response to the Warsaw Pact strategy, within

the context of NATO’s posture. If NATO’s defending forces successfully resist the initial attack,

they might be in danger of being overwhelmed

as successive waves of fresh forces joined the atThough not counted in the NATO force totals, there are in addition some 10 French army divisions and 13 French reserve divisions as well as West German, Belgian, and Dutch home-defense

militias that could assist NATO.
10

tack. However, if the schedule of the offensive

could be upset and the rate of introduction of

fresh Warsaw Pact forces limited by delaying, disrupting, and destroying the follow-on forces, then

the defenders would have a better chance of

defeating each successive echelon as it arrived.

Some believe that destroying the coherence of

the offensive would be sufficient to cause it to

fail. 8

NATO’s planners and commanders will have

to decide how to allocate assets among the close

elt is impo~ant to note that some observers believe Soviet doctrine is becoming more operationally flexible; while echelonment

would still perhaps remain the favored strategy, commanders might

be given the flexibility to allocate forces between first and second

echelons according to the circumstances.

battle, the follow-on forces attack, and the air battle. What forces the member nations provide will

determine the NATO commanders’ flexibility in

making those allocations. Allocating resources to

attacking follow-on forces would affect the success of the close battle, but would reduce the assets available for the close battle. Similarly, airplanes not used to attack follow-on forces might

be used to suppress air defenses (which would

facilitate attacking follow-on forces), provide

close air support for the close battle, or defend

NATO aircraft against Pact air strikes.9

gNot all aircraft could fill all these roles. Procurement decisions

will affect the commanders’ future flexibility to allocate.

CONCEPTS FOR FOLLOW-ON FORCES ATTACK

Several general concepts for attacking followon forces have been suggested. NATO has some

capability to implement each of these now, but

that capability is limited and might be improved

dramatically by suggested measures. These concepts, described below, are:

●

●

●

Long-Range Attack. Attack follow-on forces

deep in the enemy rear where they are lined

up in transit on trains or roads. The advantage of this is that the enemy forces are concentrated and vulnerable, and their locations

are relatively predictable. However, it may

be difficult to know what is being transported

on any particular train.

Intermediate-Range Attack. Closer in, identify and attack critical enemy forces that are

particularly threatening to a NATO corps

sector within a day or two. This would allow NATO to concentrate its fire in a way

that would most directly affect the success

of the Warsaw Pact’s next move.

Cross-Corps Support. In the event of an attack concentrated against one or a few

NATO corps sectors, attack heavily the

follow-on forces in the threatened sectors

using the long-range attack capabilities of

other corps.

The specific targets would include groups of

tanks and other less heavily armored combat vehicles, as well as surface-to-surface missiles, air

defenses, command posts, and support vehicles.

Some of these are fixed, some are movable, and

others are highly mobile. Most are soft, others

are hard. In order to be able to attack these targets effectively, it would also be necessary to take

actions against targets—such as air defenses—that

might restrict NATO’s capability to conduct surveillance and to strike into enemy territory.

Within these overall approaches, there is some

disagreement about which targets ought to be hit

in order to most effectively delay, disrupt, or destroy a given Soviet force element. Some argue

that the tanks are the most important targets.

Others maintain that all the combat elements are

important, and that concentrating on killing

tanks—which is relatively difficult—is not necessary. Some argue that disrupting command and

control is the most effective way to stop the offensive, while others would attack logistics and supply. Still others argue that disrupting the Soviet

schedule is the heart of FOFA, and that the most

effective way to attack is to concentrate on creating chokepoints, which might also facilitate effective attacks on the force elements themselves.
11

Finally, some believe that because timing is critical, what gets hit is not as important as hitting,

for example, a command post, or a bridge, or a

tank battalion just when the Soviets need it most.

Many specific operational concepts can be formulated within these general concepts, Several

are discussed below. There are several general

themes that run through this discussion of operational concepts. First, the closer an enemy force

is to the area of the immediate battle, the more

immediate is its threat. inflicting a given amount

of damage or imposing a given amount of delay

will be more significant for forces about to be

committed to battle. At shorter ranges, NATO’s

ability to find targets with its tactical surveillance

systems and to attack them with ground or air

force weapons is also much greater. As the range

to target increases, the number of surveillance

and attack systems that can reach the targets decreases, the time between detection and attack

may increase, and the attrition suffered in reaching the targets may also increase.

The second major point, however, is that at

long ranges the targets–primarily forces being

transported by rail–become more predictable

and easier to localize, and this fact may well compensate for the lack of surveillance coverage.

Finally, operational concepts for follow-on

forces attack do not exist in a vacuum. Other missions are likely to be crucial for their success—

in particular the suppression of enemy air defenses.

Intermediate-Range FOFA

Within 150 km, prime targets for follow-on

forces attack are the armored combat units which

pose the most immediate threat to NATO’s defensive position. Throughout the war, new forces

would arrive in this band after being transported

from farther East by truck or rail; thus the forces

in this band—wherever their starting point—

would continue to be key targets for follow-on

forces attack as they always will represent the

Warsaw Pact’s immediate capability to add to the

offensive. An attack that imposes a delay of 12

hours or more in the movement of a unit through

this band could cause a significant disruption in

the Warsaw Pact schedule for prosecuting the immediate battle.

There are three general mission concepts for

attacking forces in this range band: attacking units

on the move on roads, attacking them while

stopped, or attacking them while stalled in “traffic

jams” created at chokepoints. Furthermore, creating chokepoints or attacking specific facilities

such as command posts could have value in their

own right by delaying or disrupting the advancing forces.

When on the move under its own power, an

armored combat division would, if possible,

move on three or four parallel routes. A division

moving over roads could stretch over 40 km. A

surveillance system that can distinguish between

armored vehicles and trucks (there are roughly

twice as many trucks and other light vehicles as

armored vehicles; among the armored vehicles,

there are three times as many light-armored vehicles as tanks) could increase the value of the

resulting attack.

Divisions on the move could be expected to

stop from time to time. These stops could be

short, necessitated by considerations such as traffic control or emergency repairs; moderately long

stops for food and rest; or very long stops while

waiting to be committed to the battle.

Chokepoints might be created by dropping key

road bridges or sowing minefield. The Warsaw

pact units attempting to move forward could pile

up at these points, disrupting their schedule and

presenting a concentrated target for further attack. C3 facilities, particularly those associated

with traffic control and river crossings, are also

valuable targets under this concept. Although

chokepoints are fixed targets whose locations are

known ahead of time, the optimal timing of an

attack may well depend on being able to monitor the movement of the follow-on forces so that

the chokepoint will have the greatest effect.

Some more specific targets in this range band

are also of interest—in particular surface-to-surface missile units and command posts. They are,

however, more difficult to locate and identify.

60-901 0 - 86 - 2
12

Air Attack

Under current procedures, NATO army group

commanders (on advice of the corps commanders)

would provide the NATO regional Allied Air Force

Commander, COMAAFCE,10 with requests for air

support and lists of target priorities. COMAAFCE

must weigh these requests against competing demands for aircraft (e.g., air-to-air combat missions

or attacks on enemy airfields) and apportion

weights of effort to each category of missions.

Specific target lists are identified by the corps

commanders, and missions are allocated to them

by the ATAFs in coordination with the army

group commanders. In general, the closer to engaged ground forces the attacks are to take place,

the more weight is given to specific targets nominated by the corps commanders. ” This planning,

which would determine in general terms the

numbers of aircraft required, their ordinance

loads, and where they would go, would routinely

occur well in advance of the actual attack. There

would then follow more detailed preparations,

in which particular aircraft are assigned to each

mission (which may require putting together a

“package” of aircraft from several different tactical units in a coordinated attack), the aircraft

are loaded and fueled, and the crews are briefed.

There is considerable flexibility within this system, however, to reallocate aircraft on the basis

of new information received up until take off, and

to a lesser degree, even after take off. In addition, the U.S. Army and Air Force are pursuing

a number of initiatives under the recent Memorandum of Agreement to improve coordination

in locating and carrying out attacks against deep

targets.

In the case of the mobile follow-on force targets, up-to-date information on the target locaIOThe commander, Allied Air Forces, Central Europe (COMAAFCE)

is the air component commander for the Commander-in-Chief, Central Region (CINCENT), COMAAFCE is “dual-hatted” (he “wears

two hats”): he is also the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Air Forces in

Europe (CINCUSAFE).

11 Unitd States prm~ures are specified in Joint Operational Concept, joint Attack of the Second Echelon (J-SAK) (TAC Pamphlet

50-26, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-16, U.S. REDCOM Pamphlet 525-

4, Dec. 13, 1982). Close air support sorties are distributed to corps.

Battlefield air interdiction sorties are flown against targets identified and prioritized by the Army. Air interdiction targets are selected

from those nominated by the Air Force and those nominated by

the Army to meet the joint commander’s interdiction strategy.

tion would have to reach the pilots as close to

the actual attack as possible. The longer the time

lag between target location and attack, the lower

is the probability that the aircraft will find its

target.

Aircraft are able to compensate, to some degree, for a lack of precise target-location information by placing a human observer on the scene;

on-board targeting equipment can further compensate. However, the heavy Warsaw Pact air

defenses, especially those that move with the

combat units, limit the flexibility aircraft may exercise in searching for an imprecisely located

target.

Attacking aircraft thus need to be able to minimize their exposure to air defenses. Air-toground missiles that allow aircraft to remain some

distance from the target; munitions that are more

effective and which can engage several targets

per pass; and targeting systems that allow the aircraft to launch its weapons without making an

initial pass to search for the precise target location can all assist in attaining this goal. This latter can be accomplished either by systems that

can communicate real-time target location data

to aircraft in flight to the target, or by sensors carried on board that give the aircraft a greater

autonomous capability to find an imprecisely

located target.

Surface-to-Surface Missile Attack

Planning an attack with Army weapons such

as surface-to-surface missiles can be less complicated; the procedures for allocating and packaging aircraft for an attack are avoided. Some coordination with the air forces would however be

necessary to make sure that missile firings do not

interfere with air operations and to avoid duplication of effort. Moreover, targeting information

may come from Air Force systems.

Precise and timely target location information

is, however, more essential in the case of groundlaunched weapons: current missiles cannot

search for targets as airplanes can. If missiles are

to be used against armored combat units moving on roads, an attack location would have to

be preselected based on advance observation 01

the moving units; the missile would be Iaunched
13

when the units are observed to reach a point that

would place them at the attack location when

the missile arrives several minutes later. This timing may not be critical if the target is a long

column of vehicles. Sensors that can distinguish

between tracked and wheeled vehicles could increase the value of these attacks, given an effective antiarmor munition.

Cross= Corps Support

One important new possibility raised by followon forces attack is that one corps could use its

long-range attack capabilities to support another

corps, adding a flexibility that is currently possessed only by the air forces. Warsaw Pact forces

may well concentrate their attack on the weaker

NATO corps–particularly the Dutch and Belgian

corps assigned to defend areas in the northern

half of Germany, where the level terrain adds to

their vulnerability. The Warsaw Pact attack in

other sectors would then aim just to tie up the

other corps and prevent them from moving to

reinforce the weak points.

The United States and German corps are the

best equipped to hold their forward defensive

positions even without attacking the follow-on

forces facing their corps sectors; they are also the

most likely to be equipped in the future with a

capability to attack follow-on forces. However,

if some corps are to fire across corps boundaries

in support of others, procedures would have to

be developed by which the Army Group commander tasks the individual corps (which actually own the weapons) and coordinates fire across

corps sectors. Today, NATO corps routinely plan

cross-corps support with artillery.

Long-Range FOFA

At depths of greater than 150 km or so, the

follow-on forces–second-echelon armies and

second-echelon fronts—do not represent as immediate a threat. And an equivalent attack against

the forces in this band is less quickly felt in the

immediate battIe: because the forces are farther

away from commitment, they have greater leeway to repair damaged vehicles or otherwise

compensate for damage caused by an attack. The

ultimate objective is nevertheless the same: to

control the rate of arrival of fresh forces at the

immediate battle area.

The general mission concepts involve attacking divisions on trains; attacking railroad facilities

such as generating stations and bridges; and, as

in intermediate-range FOFA, attacking units on

roads.

Trains moving across Poland are difficult to detect; doing so would require satellites or airplanes

that penetrate deep into Warsaw Pact territory.12

But the very large number of trains required for

moving many divisions forward might present

regular and predictable targets with a high density of high-value armored vehicles.13

Railroad facilities offer a number of suitable targets. The seven railroad lines that cross Poland

from the Soviet Union have few north-south interconnections. Dropping the railroad bridges

that cross the Oder-Neisse Rivers could thus create an effective obstacle. Other fixed targets include railroad generating stations, the railroad

signal-control system, off-loading areas where the

units shift from rail to road, and the transshipment

points along the Polish-Soviet border.

Attacking units on the roads or in assembly

areas poses problems similar to those discussed

above for attacks at intermediate range, but compounded by the greater range and by the probability (which increases with range) that armored

vehicles wiII be interspersed with trucks. The armored fighting vehicles are likely to be carried

on transporters rather than moving under their

own power. Greater range makes finding the

units more difficult, and severely limits the numbers of existing aircraft that can reach these targets; and given current air-to-ground weapons

that require a close approach to the target area,

attacks at long range would also increase aircraft

exposure to enemy air defenses.

As with intermediate-range FOFA, there are in

addition a number of specialized targets of interest: command posts, nuclear weapons facilities,

surface-to-surface missile units, and C3 facilities.

Virtually all of the surveillance data in this band

will have to come from national sensors, espeIzover.the.horizon radar might also provide some capability.

I JThere is, however, some controversy about this Point.
14

cially satellite-based systems. Making that information available to NATO poses a number of

problems, some technological and some procedural (such as U.S. security regulations that govern the release of national sensor data to foreign

countries), However, as noted above, units being carried by train may present continuous and

predictable targets; other targets are fixed, such

as bridges and power stations. While sensitive

surveillance data may help to make a decision

about when best to launch an attack against such

targets for maximum effect, such data are not required in order to know that these targets are

there.

An essential requirement is that the delivery system have sufficient range; most of the long-range

band is reachable only by strategic bombers, although much is also within range of certain

fighter/bombers (F-1 11s and Tornados). This situation will not change in the near future. Bomber

crews would have to be trained for such a tactical mission. At the direction of higher U.S. authorities, the Strategic Air Command would make

the bombers and crews available to NAT0.14 The

problem of enemy air defenses is serious; at long

range most escort aircraft (which could protect

the bombers from enemy interceptors and could

attack or electronically jam air defenses) lack the

range to accompany the attack. A long-range airto-ground missile that would allow the bombers

to remain out of range of enemy antiaircraft missiles would provide the greatest assurance of survivability. Short-range air-to-ground missiles could

keep the bombers away from at least the terminal defenses around heavily defended points, such

as power stations and bridges.

For attacking divisions being transported by

trains, such a missile would need sensors capable of following the rail lines and detecting trains.

Effective submunitions, capable of both derailing the train and destroying the armored and unarmored vehicles on the trains, would also be required.

)4SAC now maintains a liaison with USAFE and with SHAPE to

facilitate tasking these aircraft. Their role is not necessarily limited

to attacking at long ranges.

REQUIREMENTS, CAPABILITIES, OPPORTUNITIES

Each of these concepts requires the following

general elements: 1 ) surveillance and target acquisition systems to identify and locate the targets; 2) timely analysis and dissemination of the

information to permit planning attacks; 3) timely

command decision allocating attack assets to targets; 4) platforms to deliver the weapons to the

targets; 5) control of the platform to the location

of the target at the time it arrives; 6) weapons that

can engage the targets; 7) munitions that can destroy the targets; and 8) survivability of airplanes

and their bases, ground-based launchers, and surveillance systems, so that operations can continue. Since there are great numbers of individual vehicles, it would be important for each

weapon to be able to engage several targets. Developments that limit the exposure of NATO aircraft to enemy defenses would also be important.

Because attack of follow-on forces is likely to require many sorties throughout the war, it cannot tolerate high attrition rates.

In the Central Region, NATO currently has a

substantial number of airplanes that might be

used for attacking follow-on forces. Although

these aircraft have the potential to deliver thousands of tons of ordinance per day, their ability

to effectively attack follow-on forces is limited by:

the ability to provide and exploit target information in a timely manner, the number of individual targets each aircraft could engage per sortie,

the ability of the munitions to kill the targets, the

ability to control weapons to targets, and the ability to operate at night and in bad weather. There

is some capability in all these areas, but much

room for improvement. Furthermore, it is unlikely

that all these aircraft would be devoted to attacking follow-on forces. Although some aircraft

might be dedicated to that mission, others would

have the flexibility to carry out other missions,

such as providing a favorable enough air situation to make attacking follow-on forces attractive

In addition, many of NATO’s interdiction aircraft
15

are dual capable; some number of them will be

withheld to stand nuclear alert.

Within about 30 kilometers, follow-on forces

could also be attacked with artillery or the Army’s

multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). Several Allied nations also plan to acquire MLRS. Targeting could be supported by the Aquila RPV (remotely piloted vehicle; a small unmanned aircraft

controlled from the ground), or by other Army

systems such as the OV-1D Mohawk airplane.

Several of the Allies also operate RPVs.

A number of measures that have been suggested for improving NATO’s ability to attack

follow-on forces are described qualitatively below. In the next few years improvements might

be obtained by altering operational procedures

and procuring sufficient quantities of existing systems. Systems that have undergone significant

development–some currently in development

and others unfunded—could be available in the

late 1980s or early 1990s. In the far term, developments now in relatively early stages might be

exploited.

Although the application of developmental systems is described here on the assumption that

they will work as advertised, there is always risk

associated with development. Many of the systems have been tested to varying degrees, but

neither complete concepts nor the complete

process of attacking follow-on forces, from target identification to destruction, have been tested

under anything approaching wartime conditions.

Many of the developments discussed here have

applications beyond follow-on forces attack.

Their overall value should be judged within a

wider context.

Near-Term Opportunities

In the near term, the following steps might improve follow-on forces attack capability. To some

extent these are all being done now. Many are

procedural and might be done at low cost. However, they require effort, and are not without risk

of unsatisfactory outcome:

● continue to develop and exercise procedures to strike targets deep in Warsaw Pact

●

●

●

●

●

territory using FB-111s or B-52s carrying conventional weapons;15

develop procedures to provide the output

of some intelligence systems to tactical users

sufficiently quickly to support engagement

of follow-on forces;

develop procedures for command and control of attack aircraft and army weapons that

are sufficiently responsive to support attack

of follow-on forces;

extend procedures for cross-corps support

with ground-launched weapons to include

MLRS ,

16 and in the future ATACM S;

17

procure sufficient numbers of existing

weapon systems that would be useful for attacking follow-on forces, in particular the

MLRS, GBU-15,18 and the tactical munitions

dispenser; 19 and

improve training for planning and execution.20

Currently NATO has little capability to strike

very deep against divisions being transported forward by rail and road. These are attractive targets because the units would be all lined up, and

would exist in such high density along a few welldefined routes that detailed surveillance might

not be required to guide the attack airplanes to

the targets. Few airplanes–primarily the F-1 11s

which have many other tasks—can strike sufficiently deep. Using FB-111s or B-52s (trained and

equipped by the Strategic Air Command and

operating under SACEUR’s operational control)

could provide a major increase in the amount of

ordinance that could be delivered against these

I SSAC has offices at USAFE and SHAPE to faci Iitate the tasking

of these aircraft. As these aircraft are replaced in the strategic bomber force, they could be used to augment the firepower available

to SACEUR.

I GMLRS is the Army’s mu Itiple launch rocket system.

17Army Tactical Missile System. See append ix for description.

18 GBU. Is is an Air Force weapon: a guided glide bomb. Once

released from the airplane, it can be “flown” by a weapon systems operator in the airplane by means of a data link that transmits a TV picture from the weapon’s seeker to the airplane and

transmits guidance controls from the weapon systems operator in

the airplane to the weapon.

lgThe tactical munitions dispenser is dropped from an airplane.

It breaks open in flight and drops submunitions. Several types of

munitions are available for use in dispensers, and others are under development.

zOFor example, by using the training facilities of the Warrior preparation Center near Ramstein Air Base in West Germany.
16

targets. 21 Existing guided bombs like the GBU15 (or future powered and otherwise improved

versions such as the AGM-130) might be used to

attack important fixed targets and perhaps trains,

and munitions dispensers with currently available

submunitions could destroy many types of vehicles, but not the most modern tanks. Buying

enough munitions would be a key to success.

Timely information from national intelligence systems that can see deep into enemy territory might

improve capability to find trains or columns in

road march, and cut down on search time and

exposure to enemy air defenses. However, since

current air-to-ground weapons require aircraft to

come close to the target in order to attack it, these

aircraft would still have to penetrate air defenses

both enroute and in the vicinity of the target.

Within about 1 so km of the close battle, information on enemy maneuver units (e.g., tank battalions) provided by tactical reconnaissance aircraft may be incomplete, and late when attack

aircraft reach expected target locations.22 (The

same limitations would apply to ground-launched

weapons; NATO, however, currently has no

ground-launched weapons with a range comparable to that of aircraft.) Furthermore, many

of the weapons carried by NATO’s attack aircraft

have relatively low kill rates against large numbers of vehicles, especially against armored

vehicles. Several are limited by darkness and

weather conditions, as are most of NATO’s airplanes. The tactical munitions dispenser could

provide a capability to destroy a few soft and

lightly armored vehicles per sortie, while the

guided bombs could improve capabilities against

fixed structures and other important single targets. The multiple launch rocket system could

provide the army some capability to engage

follow-on forces located by corps reconnaissance

systems, but its range is limited; it, too, is limited

by its current munition, which has a low kill rate

against heavy armor.

Zlsee “NATO Deploys Boeing 6-52s in Deep-Strike Attack Exercise,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, Sept. 9, 1985.

zzThat does not mean that the targets would never be found, or

that all reports would be very old. Judicious coordination of reconnaissance and attack aircraft, when conditions permit, can greatly

reduce the delay. Stopped vehicles may remain stopped many

hours. Finally, aircraft vectored toward the predicted location of

a division on the move are likely, after some searching, to find all

the targets they can handle.

NATO nations–especially the United States–

have intelligence gathering systems that can

gather important information on potential targets.

That information does not generally go directly

to NATO tactical users. If it must go through a

lengthy sanitization process, it will be too old to

be of much value. Developing procedures for

making intelligence information available on a

timely basis could be important for attacking

follow-on forces.

Attacking mobile follow-on forces will place demands on NATO’s command structure. Procedures will have to be in place to assess surveillance information, decide what to do, task attack

aircraft or ground-launched weapons while the

targets still have value, and get timely target location information to the attackers so that they can

find and attack them. For the past several years,

the U.S. Army and Air Force have been working

on joint measures to streamline this process.23

Midterm Opportunities

Current Programs

Several systems that are expected to reach

maturity during the next several years could have

important implications for attacking follow-on

forces. These will require substantial funding, and

many of the programs still have problems awaiting

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

resolution:

ASARS II synthetic aperture radar surveillance system;24

PLSS emitter location system;

Joint STARS moving target radar and weapon

control system;

products of the Joint Tactical Fusion program

(e.g., ASAS and ENSCE) as well as other C3

improvements;

F-1 SE;

LANTIRN navigation and targeting system for

tactical aircraft;

Army TACMS ballistic missile;

zJSee, for example, joint Operational Concept, Joint Attack of

the Second Echelon (TAC Pamphlet 50-26, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-

16, U.S. REDCOM Pamphlet 525-4, Dec. 13, 1982), 1982, and the

Memorandum of Agreement on U.S. Army-U.S. Air Force Joint

Force Development Process (May 22, 1984). This MOA covers developmental programs as well as procedures.

Zdone A!jARS II prototype is CUWWMIY flying.
17

●

●

●

●

smart antiarmor submunitions, such as Skeet

and SADARM and the MLRS/TGW;

AGM-130 missile;

RPV/TADARS, an Army reconnaissance and

target designation system; and

various electronic warfare capabilities and

IFF (identification friend or foe) to enhance

the capability of NATO forces to penetrate

into enemy airspace and return safely.

The ASARS II, PLSS, and Joint STARS systems

are designed to provide surveillance data on

fixed, emitting, and mobile targets, respectively,

to properly equipped users. Based on aircraft flying nominal patterns over NATO territory, they

would see targets in enemy territory .25 The systems developed under the Joint Tactical Fusion

program (probably available after ASARS II, PLSS,

and Joint STARS) would correlate these data—as

well as data from other sources such as reconnaissance aircraft and RPVs—into a coherent picture of enemy activities. This could be used as

part of the general situation assessment leading

to identifying the most threatening enemy units

and planning attacks. With more direct links to

aircraft and missile launchers, the sensor systems

could be used to update target location information up until the attack aircraft take off, or the

army launches a missile. Target update information might also be sent directly to attacking aircraft in flight. If all this works, it would provide

NATO the capability to identify the most important targets, plan its strikes accordingly, and be

fairly confident that most of the attacking aircraft

would find their targets, provided that NATO

forces were properly equipped to receive and exploit the information. The weapon control implicit in sending updates directly to the attacking aircraft would be similarly important. It would

minimize the amount of searching an aircraft

would have to do in order to locate its target, and

hence minimize its exposure to enemy air defenses. It would facilitate successful attack by aircraft lacking sophisticated target acquisition systems, such as the LANTIRN.

LANTIRN is a two pod system designed to fit

several aircraft including both the F-1 6 and the

F-15E (a version of the F-15 designed for ground

attack and having greater range/payload capabilzSACtUal range would depend on location and altitude of patrol.

ity than the current F-1 6). The LANTIRN navigation pod will provide the capability to navigate

at low altitude at night, while the targeting pod

will find targets, and lock weapon seekers onto

them. it would expand the area that the pilot can

see, enhance his capability to detect a target, and

give him a capability to search for targets in the

dark.

Loading dispensers with smart antiarmor submunitions would improve NATO’s ability to exploit this improved data by allowing each sortie

to engage groups of vehicles. A proper weapon

mix would also include dispensers loaded with

submunitions for attacking vehicles other than

tanks, and dispensers loaded with mines. The

AGM-130, a powered version of the GBU-15,

would provide greater standoff for the launch aircraft. It could be useful in attacking trains, vehicles on roads, major air defense sites, or other

fixed facilities that might be defended with local

defenses.

The availability of these airborne capabilities

will depend on the survivability of NATO’s airfields, among other factors.

The Army TACMS (ATACMS) missile will have

the capability to engage targets well beyond the

range of MLRS, either in front of a NATO corps,

or laterally to support another corps. If target location updates are received just prior to launch, and

if effective submunitions are provided, it will be

capable of engaging moving targets as well as

fixed or stopped targets. It will provide the theater commander a capability in addition to that

provided by the Air Force. This maybe especially

important early in the conflict when requirements

for aircraft sorties are high and heavy Warsaw

Pact air defenses–not yet suppressed–may restrict operations.

Other Midterm Opportunities

Other measures that have been explored over

the past few years might produce greater benefits from these systems. One is a target update

link from the Joint STARS directly to an ATACMS

or air-launched missile in flight, to further reduce

target location uncertainty.26 Another is the proZsDireCt updates to air-launched missiles have also been considered.
18

vision of antiarmor submunitions for the ATACMS,

currently planned for later production models.

These two taken together could give the ATACMS

the ability to attack targets such as tank battalions. A version of the ACM-130 that carried a submunition dispenser was under development but

plans for procurement have now been dropped.

If loaded with antiarmor submunitions and combined with a seeker to follow rails or roads, this

could provide the capability to destroy vehicles

on rails or road march. It might provide all attack aircraft with greater ability to stand off beyond defenses while attacking.27 The LOCPOD,

a powered dispenser being developed by a multinational consortium, might play a similar role.

Far-Term Opportunities

Most of the developments discussed above

would be expected to enter procurement during the next few years. Given typical procurement

patterns, their impact would begin to be felt during the 1990s, although in some cases inventories might not be filled until after the turn of the

century.

Some problems would still remain. There has

been concern over the survivability of PLSS,

ASARS, and Joint STARS. The aircraft that carry

these systems could be vulnerable to rapid progress in Soviet air defenses. Associated ground sites

and the airfields from which NATO aircraft operz~he B-52 conventional Stand-off Capability program is investigating putting target acquisition systems on 6-52s.

ate could also be vulnerable to attack. If followon forces attack were to depend on these systems, losing one or more might seriously degrade

capability, as would moving patrol stations west

to reduce vulnerability. Similarly, attack aircraft

attempting to penetrate into Warsaw Pact territory can be expected to face increasingly capable air defenses; and all attack systems, with the

exception of strategic bombers based in the continental United States, would be subject to prelaunch attrition.

Ideas have been proposed for addressing these

problems. Some are highly classified. More survivable platforms are being studied. Using longrange cruise missiles would enhance the survivability of attack aircraft, but probably at a price—

cruise missiles have proved expensive. Variants

of existing missiles, the JTACMS, and the multinational NATO Long-Range Stand-off Missile are

possibilities. For attacking deep into Pact territory,

B-1s might be more survivable than B-52s, but

would probably be less available.28

There has been concern that developments in

Soviet armor might greatly reduce the effectiveness of new antiarmor submunitions. Programs

are currently underway to explore improvements

in armor and methods for defeating advanced

armor.

ZSB-52s could become available as B- 1s replace them for 5trategic nuclear missions. B-1s could become available without reducing strategic forces if and when they are replaced by the Advanced

Technology Bomber. Of course, a decision to send some of SAC’s

bombers to support SACEUR rather than hold them for nuclear missions is always possible.

“PACKAGING” CONCEPTS

A complete concept, or system, for follow-on

forces attack should be considered as a “package” of individual systems, each of which has a

different job. For example, a package must at least

include system elements for performing target acquisition and weapons delivery, as well as effective munitions. They all have to be there and

operate for the concept to work. In deciding what

to fund, Congress may want to suggest that DOD

present complete packages, so that the effectiveness of the entire concept can be analyzed and

the utility of each component can be readily understood. This approach would help Congress

understand: the full extent of what has to be procured, when the full capability might be in place,

how limited the capability would be until various elements were procured in sufficient quantity, and what the consequences might be of not

procuring particular pieces (or failure of developments to meet expected goals). For some elements of a package there may be several candidate systems to choose among. For others, there
19

will be only one viable choice, and failure to obtain it could have serious consequences for the

viability of the package.

As a simple example, a package might include

a LANTIRN-equipped F-16 that carries a tactical

munitions dispenser and receives information

from Joint STARS, ASARS II, and PLSS.29 A joint

—.—-——

29Both Joint !jTAR’j and LANTIRN improve the capability of the

F-1 6 to find the target. The joint STARS decreases the area it has

to search–by updating the target location—and the LANTIRN increases its capability to search the area. The closer to the target

Joint STARS updates the airplane, the less it has to search. LANTIRN

also provides the ability to navigate at night and in bad weather,

which would be important with or without Joint STARS targeting

information.

tactical fusion facility would assimilate target information and pass data to automated command

and control facilities supporting planning, tasking, and execution. The munitions dispenser can

be loaded with either Skeets–an antiarmor submunition—or the Combined Effects Munition,

which is effective against personnel and vehicles

other than modern tanks. This entire package

might be available in quantity by the mid to late

1990s, and–if everything works as advertised–

would be capable of successfully attacking tank

battalions as well as other maneuver units. Other

elements would also be needed to make the system complete. This example is illustrative only;

it is not an OTA recommendation. Other packages might be as capable.

REPRESENTATIVE REMAINING QUESTIONS

Besides the obvious question of how well all

these developments will work, especially in the

presence of Soviet efforts to counter them, several important questions remain to be answered.

First, for a given level of effort, how successful

can NATO expect to be in attacking follow-on

forces, and indeed how is success to be measured? How does success in attacking follow-on

forces translate into success overall, and how successful does follow-on forces attack have to be?

How do we balance striking very deep (i.e.,

against rail lines in Poland) versus attacking those

forces that pose an immediate threat? Since the

assets used to attack follow-on forces will generally come at the expense of forces to fight the

close battle-either sorties diverted or money not

spent on other systems—how do we gauge and

balance follow-on forces attack against the close

battle?30 How will NATO’s capabilities degrade

JOThiS is not to say that an ability to attack follow-on fOKeS can

only be obtained by reducing force structure in other areas (although

as parts of its ability to attack follow-on forces are

lost–either through attrition or through lack of

funding?

some have stated that doing so would be a cost-effective trade).

FOFA capability will be obtained by extending the interdiction capability of the Air Force to include a significant capability against

the forces themselves, and extending the range of the Army’s firepower and the ability to use it successfully against moving forces.

However, the funds used to extend these capabilities will then not

be available for other applications, and the systems tasked to attack follow-on forces in wartime will not be simultaneously available for other missions. For example, funds spent procuring TACMS

missiles are not available to be spent on tank modernization, or

air defense, or additional antitank guided missiles. An F-16 sortie

flown to attack follow-on forces 100 km deep means one less F-16

sortie available to fly air defense, or to attack enemy air bases. In

weighing alternative applications of the same resources, it will be

necessary to consider how each would affect the outcome of the

war. The effect of the reduction in one area will have to be weighed

against the effect of the improvement in another within some framework that takes both into account.
Appendix

Delivery Systems and Munitions

Two major areas of development are of particular interest for the follow-on forces attack

(FOFA) concept: reconnaissance, surveillance,

target acquisition, and data handling; and munitions and delivery systems. Little can be said

about the former in an unclassified report. This

appendix provides information on munitions and

delivery systems.

A weapon system is a combination of a delivery system and a munition. The delivery system—

an aircraft, a missile, or an aircraft launching a

missile—needs to have several general capabilities

●

●

●

if it is to be of use in follow-on forces attack:

range: FOFA targets will be located anywhere from 30 km back to as far as the

Polish-Soviet border, some 800 km from the

inter-German border;

accuracy: depending on the target and the

munition, the delivery system must be able

to land a munition to within anywhere from

100 m or so to less than 1 m of the target; and

survivability: aircraft and missiles must be

able to reach the target (and aircraft must

make the return trip as well) without getting

shot down.

The choice of delivery system ranges from a

manned aircraft flying directly over the target and

dropping a munition, to a ground-launched missile that flies autonomously to the target. In between are a range of possibilities involving missiles launched from aircraft at increasingly longer

“standoff” distances. As that distance increases,

the survivability of the aircraft increases, but the

time during which the missile must fly autonomously increases as well—which means less capability against targets which can move between

the time the missile is launched and the time it

arrives over the point at which it was aimed, unless the missile receives mid-course target location updates. Ground-launched missiles eliminate

the aircraft altogether, but are vulnerable before

launching–missile launchers will be high-priority

targets for the Warsaw Pact. A manned aircraft

is also able to compensate for imprecise targetIocation information and for the movement of targets by placing a human observer on the scene.

Short-range missiles can incorporate relatively

simple guidance systems that offer substantial improvements in accuracy over free-fall munitions;

but at longer ranges, providing high accuracy becomes a complex engineering challenge.

Munitions for follow-on forces attack can be

as simple as conventional high-explosive bombs.

But improvements in two general areas can significantly increase the usefulness of a munition

in follow-on forces attack:

●

●

kill radius: a conventional 500-lb high-explosive bomb must land within a meter of

a tank to put it out of action; a munition with

a greater area of effect need not be delivered

so accurately and may in addition be able

to engage multiple targets; and

lethality: hardened targets, such as armored

vehicles and reinforced concrete command

posts, are becoming resistant to conventional

high explosives; moreover, a more sophisticated lethal mechanism that uses smaller

amounts of explosives increases the number

of targets that can be killed per pound of aircraft or missile payload.

Munitions concepts are, broadly speaking, variations on three themes: unitary explosives, such

as bombs and artillery shells; cluster weapons,

which contain many small “submunitions” that

blanket a large target area; and “smart” submunitions that search out an area with electronic

sensors and selectively engage the targets they

find. Figure A-1 illustrates these approaches.

Although it is often convenient, as above, to

separate delivery systems from munitions—and

indeed that is the way procurement requests are

presented to Congress—the two elements do in

fact form a complete, interacting system. Choices

in one determine the range of choices available

for the other, An inaccurate missile, for example, could not use a munition with a very small

kill radius. On the other hand, a munition capable of engaging multiple targets per pass could

inherently increase the delivery system’s surviv21
2 2

Figure A-1.—Munitions Concepts

(a) MW-1 Dispenser releasing “dumb” submunitions

(b) Terminally guided submunitions frying out to seek targets

SOURCES: Photo—MBB Corp. (Messerachmitt-Bokow-Blohm (GmbH)); drawing—General Dynamics Pomona Division.

ability by reducing the number of sorties required

to kill a given number of targets. The effectiveness of any one component can be measured

only by examining how well the entire system

functions.

Delivery Systems

Aircraft

Historically, only aircraft have been able to

reach the sorts of depths behind enemy lines required to attack follow-on forces. “Air interdiction” —the Air Force’s term for attacking ground

targets beyond the immediate battle area—is

however just one of several missions that NATO’s

air forces are charged with carrying out, a fact

reflected in the capabilities and relative numbers

of the various aircraft now in the inventory.

The United States aircraft that can play a part

in follow-on forces attack fall into three general

categories:

1.

2.

3.

long-range ground-attack fighter/bombers (F111 and future F-15E);12

multi-purpose fighter/bombers that, as competing demands permit, could assume some

ground-attack missions (F-4 and F-16); or

strategic bombers which could be designated-to support NATO (B-52, FB-111, and

future B-1 B).

Aside from the obvious question of range (see

figure A-2), a number of factors determine the

suitability of an aircraft for follow-on forces attack missions:

●

●

●

Targeting equipment: In order to locate

and attack targets day and night and in all

weather, aircraft require aids such as highresolution ground-mapping radar and forward-looking infrared (FLIR, which is used

for precise targeting close-in; the LANTIRN

targeting pod, to be acquired for the F-16 and

F-15E, contains a FLIR along with electronics

for controlling precision-guided bombs).

Crew size: Flying an aircraft in an extremely

hostile environment and operating modern

precision-guided ground-attack weapons are

both demanding jobs; a two-man crew permits one member to give full attention to

each task.

Low-altitude flight: Because of the dangers

of being spotted by enemy radar and being

shot down by ground-based air defenses, aircraft penetrating enemy territory may fly very

low–200 feet or SO;

3 not all combat aircraft

are equipped with the terrain-following radar

or infrared navigation equipment needed to

maintain these low altitudes safely at night

or in bad weather. (The LANTIRN navigation

pod provides both.)

IThe F.15E will retain the F-1 5’s air-to-air combat capabilities, and

in fact may be called on early in a conflict to carry out air superiority missions, but is built primarily for ground attack.

ZThis repo~ deals with U.S. systems. Airplanes that are in the inventories of our Allies, but not our own, are not discussed, Principal among these is the Tornado aircraft, currently in production.

The ground attack versions being procured by the Germans carries the MW-1 submunition dispenser, aspects of which are discussed in this appendix.

JThis doctrine is being reconsidered, however; some analyses suggest that medium-altitude flight may prove safer, in some cases.
23

Figure A-2.— Combat Radii of Unrefueled

U.S. Ground-Attack Aircraft

F-ill F

F-15E ,

F-4E t“

F-16A

I I I 1

0 500 1,000 1,500 km

I I I

o 500 1,000 km

I I I I I

England Rhine East Polish Soviet

German Border Border

Border

Assumptions: HI-LO-LO-HI profile from England; LO-LO-LO from

Germany

LO flight at 480 knots and 200 feet

4,000 lb of ground-attack ordinance plus self-defense

weapons*

● The assumed loads listed below were provided by the Air Force

to place the range comparisons on a common basis; they are not

meant to represent the preferred ordinance for actually attacking follow-on forces.

F-1 11 F: ECM Pod, PAVE TACK

2 x AIM-9

2 X Mk-84

F-4E: ECM Pod; 2 external fuel tanks

2 x AI M-7

2 X Mk-84

F-16A: ECM Pod; 2 external fuel tanks

2 x AIM-9

2 X Mk-84

F-15E: LANTIRN nav + trgt pods; 2 conformal, 3 external fuel

tanks

2 x AIM-9; 2 x AIM-20 (AMRAAM)

2 X Mk-84

● Availability: The multi-purpose fighters will

be largely committed to fighting the air superiority battle for at least the first few days

of a war in Europe, according to Air Force

analyses; committing aircraft to FOFA missions would reduce the Air Force’s ability to

gain or maintain air superiority. In addition,

some of the ground-attack fighter/bombers

(particularly F-1 11s and designated F-4s)

probably would be held on alert for tactical

nuclear missions and would be unavailable

for conventional air interdiction.

Because of the long development time for new

aircraft, NATO is likely to continue well into the

1990s with current equipment and the equipment

entering the inventory in the next few years. (See

table A-1.)

When flying directly over the target, a manned

aircraft has the advantage of placing a human observer in a position to adjust his plans to the immediate situation on the ground. On the other

hand, the accuracy with which direct-overflight

munitions—bombs, or dispensers holding submunitions—can be delivered to targets can be relatively low. For a dive-bombing attack, the accuracy is very good. For a “toss” delivery, in

which the aircraft remains several kilometers

away from the target and releases the bomb during a climb—in effect lobbing the bomb to the

target—accuracy is lower. In both cases, too, the

aircraft may be very exposed to ground-based air

defenses.

Table A.1 .—Ground-Attack Aircraft Characteristics

F-111

Ioca: 1988

Crew: 2

Take-off weight: 42,000 kg

Targeting: ground-mapping radar

FLIR on F-11lFs with PAVE TACK pod

Night/all-weather: yes

F-15E

IOC: 1989

Crew: 2

Take-Off weight: 37,000 kg

Targeting: ground-mapping radar; FLIRb with LANTIRNC

targeting pod

Night/all-weather: yes, with

F-16

IOC: 1979

Crew: 1

Take-off weight: 15,000 kg

Targeting: visual; LANTIRN

LANTRIN nav pod

will add FLIR

Night/all-weather: at present, no; LANTIRN nav pod could

provide capability

F-4

IOC: 1961

Crew: 2

Take-off weight: 28,000 kg

Targeting: visual; PAVE TACK on F-4Es add FLIR

Night/all-weather: no

aloe—lnltlal operational capability.

bFLIR—foward.looking infrared.

CLANTIRN —IOW altitude navigation targeting infrared night.

SOURCES: Jane’s All the IVorld’s Akcraft 7985-&3 (London: Jane’s Publishing Co.

Ltd., 1985). Nuclear VVeapons Llataboolr, Volume / (Cambridge, MA:

Ballinger Publishing Co., 1984). “The F-15E” /rrternatlona/ flefense

Review, August 1985,
24

The standard bombs in the Air Force inventory

are the 500-lb Mk-82 and 2,000-lb Mk-84 freefall, general-purpose bombs. A variety of dispensers have been developed to hold submunitions;

most are released like bombs, but are fuzed to

break open after a set interval or when a set altitude is reached, scattering the submunitions.

Close-Range Air-to-Ground Missiles

By adding a guidance system and controllable

tail fins to free-fall bombs or submunition dispensers, accuracy has been greatly improved.

Wings, which permit the bomb to glide aerodynamically, or a small rocket motor give these missiles a modest range that permit the aircraft to

remain several kilometers away from the target.

The guidance concept of these missiles, however,

requires that the target be in sight at the time that

they are launched.

Two basic approaches to guidance are employed:

laser-spot designation and autonomous TV-tracking. In the former, a laser beam is aimed at the

target either by the attack aircraft or a second,

“buddy” aircraft, and the missile homes in on

the reflected laser light; in the latter, a TV or

imaging-infrared camera is mounted on the nose

of the missile, the pilot or weapons officer lines

up the target in cross-hairs on a TV screen, and

the missile then locks on to that point and guides

itself in.

Paveway.–The Paveway series of laser-guided

bombs consists of kits that are attached to conventional Mk-82 and Mk-84 bombs. The laser

“designator, “ which produces a coded beam that

matches a code fed into the bomb’s electronics

before take-off, is carried in a pod mounted either on the attack aircraft or on a second aircraft

which could remain at a safe distance from the

target while the attack aircraft flies in and releases

the bomb. The current designator pod, PAVE

TACK, has a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera which sends a picture of the ground ahead

to the cockpit; the weapons officer uses a joystick

to line up the target in cross-hairs and must keep

it there manually until the bomb impacts. It is currently deployed on F-4 and F-1 11 aircraft, which

have two-man crews. A new targeting pod,

LANTIRN,4 is being developed for the F-16 and

4FOr ‘JLow.Altitude/Navigation and Targeting I nfrared SY5tem for

Night.”

F-1 SE; once a target is initially selected, LANTIRN

can be locked on, automatically keeping the laser designator pointing at it, and freeing the pilot

or weapons officer to perform other tasks.

The older Paveway IIs in the inventory cannot

be dropped from low altitude because of their

small airfoil, a fact that severely hinders their usefulness in the face of antiaircraft defenses. A new

version, Paveway Ill, also known as the Low-Level

Laser-Guided Bomb, has an improved guidance

system. The Air Force decided in spring 1985

to cancel its planned procurement of paveway

Ill because of rising costs, however. The 5,000

Mk-84 versions (known as the GBU-24) purchased with fiscal year 1985 funds will be delivered by 1987; some 500 have been delivered so

far (along with 200 of the Mk-82 versions, known

as GBU-22).

Maverick.–The Air Force has in operation with

F-4, F-1 11, and F-1 6 aircraft a TV-guided antiarmor missile, the Maverick AGM-65B. In operation, the pilot can slew the TV camera located

on the nose of the bomb to line up the target in

cross-hairs on a TV display in the cockpit; the

Maverick is then launched and flies autonomously

to the indicated target. It is propelled by a small

solid-fuel rocket motor. Approximately 30,000 TV

Mavericks have been produced.

A new version, now in production (the AGM65 D), substitutes an imaging infrared (IIR) seeker

for the TV. Its operation is similar to that of the

TV version; but in addition it can be used at night

and under low visibility, and it roughly doubles

the range at which targets can be recognized

even in daylight. The IIR version also can be used

in conjunction with the LANTIRN targeting pod,

which simplifies the job of finding and locking

onto a target. (F-16 and F-1 SE aircraft are to be

equipped with the LANTIRN system, which consists of a targeting pod and a navigation pod. The

navigation pod includes a terrain following radar,

which allows the pilot to fly at low altitudes even

at night, and a forward-looking infrared (FLIR)

camera that gives the pilot a night-vision picture

of the ground below.) The LANTIRN targeting

pod can give the pilot a wider field-of-view picture than does the Maverick’s own camera; once

the pilot locates a probable target on the wide

field-of-view LANTIRN display, he can switch to

a higher magnification to identify it and then lock
2 5

the Maverick seeker onto it.5 Without LANTIRN,

the entire search would have to be carried out

by slewing around the small field-of-view Maverick seeker, a difficult job for the pilot of a singleseat aircraft who must at the same time keep the

aircraft flying at low altitude and avoid hostile fire.

The Air Force Mavericks carry a 60 kg shapedcharge warhead for penetrating armored vehicles.

Short= to Medium- Range Air-to-Ground

Missiles

Longer range air-to-ground delivery systems incorporate guidance systems that do not require

a direct line of sight to the target at the time of

launch from the aircraft. They also permit aircraft

to stay out of range of the enemy’s terminal air

defenses (in the case of the short- to mediumrange missiles in this section) or even to avoid

having to penetrate enemy airspace altogether

(in the case of the long-range missiles discussed

below).

For the medium-range missiles in this category,

the two systems used are command guidance,

in which a radio data link allows the operator to

steer the missile throughout its flight; and inertial guidance, in which the missile is programmed

before launch with the relative geographic coordinates of the target and then flies out on its

own. Ranges of tens of kilometers are characteristic of these systems. A third basic guidance system, which allows the missile to recognize the

target automatically and home in on it, is in laboratory stage of development, and may be incorporated into the Autonomous Guided Bomb, discussed below.

GBU-15/AGM-130.—The Air Force is now acquiring the GBU-15, a command-guided glidebomb built around a 2,000-lb Mk-84 warhead.

A TV camera mounted on the nose transmits a

picture back to the cockpit during its flight. The

weapons officer uses a joystick to steer the GBU15, making course corrections as needed; once

the target is well in view, it can be lined up in

cross hairs and the guidance system locked on

to automatically guide the final approach. (If the

‘An automatic target recognition (ATR) system is being developed

for possible installation on advanced versions of the targeting pod.

Developmental versions of this system have been tested.

target is in sight before launch, the target can be

locked on from the start.) As with the Paveway,

control can be handled either by a weapons officer in the attack aircraft or from a second aircraft that remains farther from the target; the radio

link of the GBU-15, however, allows this buddy

aircraft to be much farther away, provided it

maintains a direct line of sight to the bomb’s flight

path. The aircraft controlling the GBU-15–currently F-4E, F-1 11 F, and, when it arrives, the

F-15E–must carry a 200-kg data link pod.

Since production began in 1980, 1,600 have

been purchased and 700 delivered. The unit cost

has fallen from $194,000 in 1980 to $128,000 in

1985. An imaging infrared version, to allow night

and poor-weather operation, is now in initial lowIevel production; full production is scheduled to

begin in 1988. The seeker was adapted from the

imaging-infrared Maverick.

The range of theGBU-15 can be roughly doubled by adding a small rocket motor;6 such a system, designated AGM-130, is now in full-scale development, with initial production of one version

scheduled for fiscal year 1987. That version, the

AGM-130A, carries a 2,000-lb Mk-84 bomb. The

AGM-130B, which would instead carry a submunition dispenser, is not currently funded. (Although only one submunition load, designed for

airfield attack, was being planned for the dispenser version, in principle other submunitions

could be used as well.) Current plans also call

for incorporating the improved 2,000-lb bomb,

designed to penetrate hardened targets, in fiscal

year 1988 in a third version of the AGM-130. The

Air Force is currently planning to begin work late

in fiscal year 1986 on a new data link that will

be more resistant to jamming than the present

model; the first improved models would be produced in fiscal year 1990.7

bThe actual range improvement depends on launch altitude, with

the greatest relative improvement at low-level release.

7Several other concepts for improving the utility of the GBU15/AGM-l 30 have been suggested. Inertial guidance could, for example, allow the pilot to release the bomb while flying obliquely

to the target; it would also reduce the workload on the weapons

officer, making it feasible to control more than one bomb at a time,

switching from one to another only as each one reached the final

approach to the target. The data link is already configured to handle four channels, thus allowing four bombs to be in flight at once;

studies by Rockwell, the prime contractor for theGBU-15 and AGM130, suggest that the workload of fourGBU-15s with inertial guidance is comparable to that of one standard GBU-15.
2 6

Inertially Aided Munitions.–A demonstration

program is in progress at the Air Force Armament

Laboratory to incorporate a low-cost inertial navigation system into a guided Mk-82 bomb (the

concept is equally applicable to the Mk-84). The

coordinates of a fixed target would be entered

before take-off; Global Positioning System data

would provide the position of the aircraft at the

time the bomb is released. Because the time of

flight of the bomb is so short (on the order of a

minute), drift of the inertial system is not a serious problem, and a low-quality system can be

tolerated. Inertial navigation would allow the

bomb to be released at a location preselected to

be safe from antiaircraft defenses; the target need

not be in view; and a second crew member is

not needed to control the bomb to the target.

When released at a distance from the target, the

accuracy would be better than that attained in

conventional dive-bombing with free-fall bombs.

The 2-year demonstration program started in fiscal year 1986; a further 2 to 3 years would be

needed for full-scale development. The cost objective is $10,000 each.

LOCPOD,SRSOM.–The United States, Italy,

Spain, and Canada are jointly funding a feasibility study for a low-cost, probably inertially guided,

powered submunition dispenser. The principal

targets would be airfields; a range of 15 to 30 km

is contemplated. A feasibility study for a similar

dispenser that would carry antiarmor submunitions for attacking armored combat vehicles may

begin in late 1986; the United States, Britain, and

Germany are now involved and other NATO

members have expressed interest. Discussions are

under way to fold both programs together into

a single NATO cooperative development program for a “moduIar standoff weapon. ”

Autonomous Guided Bomb.–For attacking

some high-value fixed targets, such as bridges,

the accuracy of a pure inertial system is insufficient. One way to combine the autonomy of the

inertially aided munitions with the precision of

the command-guided bombs is to equip the

bomb with an automatic capability to recognize

the target and guide itself in to a precise impact

point. The Air Force Armament Lab is cataloging imaging infrared features of “generic” targets

and developing algorithms to automatically recognize key features. An early version, of which

the Air Force is planning to begin full-scale development in 1988, would be programmed before take-off with information about the target and

its location relative to a preplanned release point.

It would probably be built around the Low-Level

Laser-Guided Bomb or the AGM-130. A research

program is also exploring the application of automatic target recognition to millimeter-wave sensors for the GBU-15 and Maverick.

Long- Range Air-to-Ground Missiles

The Air Force has for several years been interested in a longer range (several hundred kilometer), conventionally armed, air-launched cruise

missile, primarily for airfield attack. At these

ranges, inertial guidance alone is no longer sufficient: the accumulated drift in even very expensive inertial systems is simply too greats Periodically correcting the inertial guidance system by

comparing the missile’s actual location—as measured by sensors which scan the terrain below—

against prestored maps can improve the accuracy;

this is the technique (known as TERCOM, for terrain comparison) used in nuclear-armed cruise

missiles. But accuracy is still not sufficient for conventionally armed missiles, which—at least for

hard targets such as bridges and reinforcedconcrete buildings—must get to within a matter

of a meter.

Even correcting the inertial system with data

from the Global Positioning System satellites may

not solve the problem if the exact location of such

fixed targets is not known with sufficient accuracy. Thus inertial guidance would likely be

applicable only to mid-course guidance of a conventional, long-range cruise missile.

Terminal guidance, involving a sensor that

looks at the actual target, would be needed to

fine-tune the missile’s course on the final ap8

The high-accuracy mechanical gyroscopes used in commercial

aircraft inertial navigation systems typically have a position error

that increases at a rate of 0.s km per hour; ring-laser gyroscopes

which are far less expensive and more compact, have a higher drift

rate. (See Proceedings of the /EEE, October 1983, 71, pp. 1121-

1232.) A cruise missile flying 600 km at high subsonic speeds would,

if it relied on inertial navigation alone, wind up at least several hundred meters off target. Fiber optic gyros, currently under development, promise to be cheaper and more accurate than ring-laser

gyros (see /EEE Spectrum, March 1986).
2 7

preach. The two basic approaches are scene

matching, which compares an optical or imaging infrared image with a stored picture of the

actual target; and automatic target recognition,

which combines a sensor (laser radar, TV, imaging infrared) with a processor that recognizes the

key features of generic types of targets. The

former is already in use in the conventionally

armed ground- and sea-launched Tomahawk

cruise missile and the reentry vehicle of the Pershing II ballistic missile; the latter is in the laboratory stage.

JTACMS.–An outgrowth of the now-defunct

MRASM medium-range air-to-surface missile program, JTACMS is a joint Air Force-Army effort to

develop a new conventionally armed missile.

LRSOM.–The United States, Britain, and Germany are working jointly on a feasibility study

for a conventional cruise missile known as the

NATO Long Range Standoff Missile (LRSOM); the

project began in April 1985. No hardware is being

built yet, however. The main target for such a missile would be heavily defended airfields, and the

missile would be designed chiefly to carry runway cratering submunitions and mines. The concept could in principle be adapted to other missions, however. Some form of terminal guidance

would be necessary in either case. The missile

would be launched from an aircraft (although

ground launching might be an option) and have

a range of up to 600 km (the limit set by the SALT

II agreement on cruise missiles launched from aircraft other than strategic bombers).

Ground-Launched Missiles,

Rockets, Artillery

Ground-launched weapons that might otherwise be suitable for follow-on forces attack have,

until very recently, had little capability of reaching much beyond the range of conventional

artillery—about 30 km. Although some longer

range tactical surface-to-surface ballistic missiles

(currently, Lance) have had a nominal capability to carry conventional explosives, their essential purpose lies in the tactical nuclear mission.

Proposals have from time to time been made to

adapt intermediate-range ballistic missiles to conventional missions, for example using the first

stage of the Pershing la or I I for airfield attack, g

but there are no actual programs at this time; similarly, the nuclear-armed ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missile could be armed with a conventional warhead (as is in fact done in two

ship-launched versions of the Tomahawk), though

there are no plans to do so at present.

The Army’s decision in December 1985 to proceed with full-scale development of a new conventionally armed ballistic missile known as

ATACMS will however change this picture significantly. Extended-range artillery, if eventually

combined with guidance systems or smart submunitions, could also provide some follow-on

forces attack capabilities. Smart submunitions and

guidance systems are currently being incorporated into conventional artillery and rockets, with

some application to very short-range FOFA

missions.

MLRS.–The multiple launch rocket system

consists of a 25-ton tracked vehicle that can

launch 12 rockets without reloading. Its chief role

is to generate the rapid surge of artillery fire

needed to counter enemy artillery. A new warhead, containing smart submunitions, is being developed to give the MLRS rockets an antiarmor

capability.

The United States has acquired 250 launchers

to date; current plans call for a total procurement

of 348 by 1988. An additional 143 launchers

would be procured to handle the extra assignment of the ATACMS missile. The British, French,

Germans, and Italians also plan to acquire MLRS

launchers.

ATACMS.–Originally a part of the joint ArmyAir Force JTACMS program, ATACMS split off in

June 1984 when the Army decided to proceed

at once with development of a ballistic missile

that could be fired from existing MLRS launchers.

Unlike the Assault Breaker missile from which it

is descended, ATACMS will not have the capability to receive target course corrections while

in flight; coordinates will be fed into the system

just before launch. In-flight updates could allow

the missile to engage targets that would other-

‘strengthening Conventional Deterrence in Europe ESECS II (Boulder, CO: Westvievv Press, 1985), pp. 55-62.
2 8

wise have moved out of the missile warhead’s

kill radius during the 3-minute flight time, and that

capability might be added in the future as a block

improvement.

Although the accuracy of ATACMS is to be considerably better than that of Lance, it still will not

have the terminal guidance that would be needed

to score a precise hit on a point target. Warheads

being developed for ATACMS, discussed below,

are thus designed to disperse a large number of

submunitions over a wide target area.

The existing MLRS launchers, which the U.S.

Army and other NATO armies have already begun

to acquire, will be able to handle the ATACMS

without modification. The ATACMS will be packaged in canisters (one ATACMS per canister) identical in outward appearances to the MLRS canisters (containing six MLRS rockets); all U.S. MLRS

batteries will be equipped with both. Thus the

higher value and more threatening ATACMS will

be dispersed among a larger number of MLRS

rounds, making it difficult for the enemy to single

out the smaller number of ATACMS for selective

attack.

Munitions for ATACMS are discussed below;

they are the APAM cluster warhead now used on

conventional Lance, a smart antiarmor submunition (possibly an I R-Terminally Guided Submunition), and possibly a wide-area smart submunition for attacking surface-to-surface missile

units.

Lance.–Development work on Lance began

in 1962; it was deployed in 1976. Although a conventional warhead is deployed, the principal role

of Lance is nuclear. It has a range of 5 to 125 km.

Lance, which is fired from its own mobile launcher,

will continue to have the nuclear role after

ATACMS is deployed.

Extended-Range Artillery .-A rocket-assisted

artillery shell is already in the Army’s inventory;

it has a maximum range of approximately 40 km.

The Army Armament Research and Development

Center and DARPA are also supporting research

on solid-fuel ram jet rounds for 155 mm and 8

inch artillery, which may be able to extend the

range to 60 to 80 km. A generic problem with

all efforts to add propulsion to artillery rounds

is that less and less space is available for the warhead and for a guidance system, which starts to

become a necessity at longer ranges as the accuracy of a purely ballistic round degrades; or,

conversely, that the round grows larger and

larger.

Guided Artillery .-The Army is now acquiring

a “smart” 155 mm artillery shell known as Copperhead that homes in on a target illuminated by

a laser designator. Although Copperhead (also

known asM712) is a short-range weapon in terms

of follow-on forces attack scenarios (16 km) and

requires a forward-observer (or a remotely piloted

vehicle) to handle the laser designator, the principles involved in Copperhead could be extended

to longer ranges if it proves feasible to incorporate

such guidance systems into rocket-assisted or

ramjet-powered rounds. A new sensor is being

developed for Copperhead (Copperhead II) that

would allow the projectile to home in on the target autonomously. (The sensor is a two-color IR

detector that looks for the characteristic “signature” of a tank. It is being developed in a joint

project that will also have applications to the terminally guided submunition (TGSM) being developed for the ATACMS missile, discussed below.)

The cost of Copperhead is now $35,000 per

round.

EM Guns.–Much further in the future are electromagnetic guns, or “rail guns, ” that would

achieve greater ranges through an entirely new

propulsion technology. Electric generators, perhaps powered by diesel fuel, would provide the

propulsion energy now provided by an explosive

charge. In principle, an electromagnetic gun

would be easier to resupply (diesel fuel is easier

to move than the conventional artillery propellant) and would have a longer range; in addition,

an EM gun would not subject the projectile to

the very high initial acceleration of artillery that

requires electronics systems incorporated into artillery projectiles (guidance and smart submunitions) to be engineered to withstand that shock.

Even optimistic projections, however, do not

place initial production of an EM gun before the

first decade of the next century.
2 9

Munitions

The representative approaches to carrying out

follow-on forces attacks described in the summary identified three broad classes of targets:

armored maneuver units; “hard” fixed targets,

such as bridges and heavily reinforced concrete

command posts; and “soft” area targets, including movable command posts, air defenses, surface-to-surface missile units, and other lightly

armored or unarmored vehicles within the maneuver units.

Combat Vehicles

The principal targets for follow-on forces attack

are the follow-on forces themselves, which are

made up of large numbers of armored combat

vehicles (e.g., tanks, personnel carriers, infantry

fighting vehicles) along with about twice as many

trucks and other light vehicles. They may be on

trains moving across Poland, or, closer to the battle area, moving along roads either on transporter

trucks or under their own power; at intervals they

may also be stopped, either pulled off along roads

or arrayed in assembly areas.

The fact that they are moving much of the time,

however, and the fact that at least the tanks (less

so the other armored vehicles) are heavily protected against conventional high explosive munitions, imposes some special requirements on

he munition-delivery system package. During the

i me that elapses from the moment a target is located, to the time that that intelligence can be

processed, an order to attack issued, and a delivery system finally arrives over the target area,

he target may well have moved. Thus either the

nunition must have a large kill radius to compensate for the uncertainty in the target’s final

position, or the delivery system must have some

utonomous capability—either a human or a sophisticated automatic target recognition system—

~ look for the target and adjust its course accordingly.

The increasingly heavy armor on Soviet tanks

means that a virtual direct hit is required to cause

ny damage—a 500-lb Mk-82 bomb would have

I land literally within a meter of a tank to be effective. One solution to this problem is the use

of “smart” precision guidance on the delivery system, as is done in the Maverick air-to-ground missile. The solutions that apply directly to munitions

are of two general types:

1. cluster bombs, which blanket the target area

with many small, unguided submunitions;

and

2. smart submunitions, which incorporate guidance or sensor electronics into the submunitions themselves.

By spreading the kill mechanism over a wide

area, both of these approaches increase the effective kill radius of the weapon as compared to

a unitary warhead of equivalent weight; they also

permit several targets to be killed with a single

weapon. In the case of air-delivered munitions,

this means the pilot need only look for an array

of vehicles rather than pinpointing each individual vehicle and attacking it separately, one target per pass; for both air and ground delivery,

it reduces the delivery accuracy needed.

The use of smaller submunitions in the place

of a single 500 lb or 2,000 lb bomb in turn, however, requires the development of lethal mechanisms more sophisticated than simple high explosive blasts. The two principal technologies are

the shaped charge, which focuses a relatively

small explosion into a concentrated jet of gas that

more readily penetrates armor (but which, conversely, has to hit the target directly to be effective); and the self-forging fragment or explosively

formed penetrator, a thin, extremely high velocity

metal slug that impacts (and may penetrate) the

tank armor, causing fragments of armor to span

off on the inside of the tank. A number of the

concepts discussed below—particularly those employing explosively formed penetrators, which,

as a rule, are less able to penetrate armor than

shaped-charge warheads—envision attacking tanks

from the top, where the armor is the thinnest.

Armored combat units can also be attacked by

mines. Traditionally, mines have been considered

a delaying tool; in a typical scenario they would

be used to create a chokepoint where vehicles

back up, forming a lucrative target for direct attack by air- or ground-delivered weapons. Recent

technological developments, though, which al-
30

low mines to be emplaced remotely–either by

aircraft, or by artillery or rockets—and which incorporate smart sensors and an extended area

of effect into mines, may increase their effectiveness to the point where they can be considered

antiarmor weapons in themselves.

All of these new antiarmor systems face continuous improvements in Soviet armor. Composite armors with spacings between layers provide significant increases in protection. Reactive

armor—layers containing small explosive charges

that are set off when hit by an antitank weapon

—can degrade the effectiveness of modest-sized

shaped charges. Other advances in armor effectiveness are likely to be made by the time many

of the new antiarmor systems discussed here can

be fielded.

CLUSTER BOMBS

Rockeye.– Built in the 1960s and procured in

considerable quantities, the Rockeye is a 500-lbclass bomb; after release, a time fuze triggers the

bomb to break apart, releasing 247 unguided

antiarmor shaped-charge bomblets.

According to the Air Force, Rockeye is not effective against the newer Soviet tanks; it would,

however, be effective against more lightly armored vehicles and older tanks still in the inventories of non-Soviet Warsaw Pact armies.

CEM.–The principal new Air Force cluster

weapon is the Combined Effects Munition, which

consists of 202 beer-can-sized bomblets in a Tactical Munitions Dispenser; the TMD is a new

general-purpose, 1,000-lb-class submunition dispenser designed to be dropped from as low as

200 feet. An air bag on each bomblet causes it

to descend vertically, increasing its probability of

hitting the vulnerable top of an armored target.

The CEM bomblets consist of a shaped charge

for penetrating armor, inside a fragmenting case

which produces shrapnel that can damage trucks

at 20 m and aircraft or personnel at 80 m; a zirconium incendiary capable of igniting diesel fuel

at a distance of 3 m is also included. Against

tanks, however, it is effective only on the more

lightly armored surfaces. The TMD can be adjusted to produce a pattern of bomblets on the

ground ranging from roughly 100 to 300 m long.

Deliveries to inventory began this year; approximately 30,000 are to be purchased by the end

of fiscal year 1988; and the procurement goal is

200,000 to 300,000. The cost is approximately

$20,000 per fully loaded TMD.

KB-44.–Designed for use in the MW-1 submunition dispenser, the KB-44 is a small, shapedcharge bomblet weighing half a kilogram. Tail fins

stabilize its flight. A fully loaded MW-1 dispenser

delivers 4,500 KB-44s. The MW-1 dispenser is

carried on the German-British-Italian Tornado

fighter; it remains fixed on the aircraft’s underbelly and rapidly ejects the submunitions in sequence when the aircraft passes over the target.

(It thus requires the aircraft to fly directly over

the target; a toss delivery is not possible.) The

MW-1 is too long to fit on other aircraft; Germany

is developing another version—the Modular Dispenser System–to be compatible with all NATO

aircraft.

DPICM.–The current warhead for the MLRS

rocket launcher—so-called MLRS phase l—contains 644 dual-purpose improved conventional

munitions (DPICM) per round which are scattered

over a 100-meter-radius circle on the ground.

Each DPICM contains a small shaped charge surrounded by a fragmenting case, so that it is effective against both light armor and materiel and

personnel. (The DPICMs are slightly smaller than

the CEM bomblets.) The United States has so far

acquired 14,000 MLRS rockets with DPICM warheads; plans call for a total inventory of 362,000.

SMART SUBMUNITIONS

Smart submunitions offer in principle several

advantages over either conventional bombs, cluster bombs, or precision-guided bombs. The two

major types of smart submunitions, terminally

guided submunitions and sensor-fuzed submunitions, both operate by searching out an area

on the ground for a tank or other armored vehicle and accurately delivering a projectile to it.

(The terminally guided submunitions fly directly

into the target, sometimes described as “hit-tokill”; the sensor-fuzed submunitions shoot an explosively formed penetrating rod into the target

from a distance of 100 m or so, described as

“shoot-to-kill.”) Because they are small, several
31

submunitions can be packed in the space of a

single conventional bomb; because they can

search out areas 100 to several hundred meters

across, they do not have to be precisely delivered by aircraft or surface-to-surface weapons;

and because they are able to detect and precisely

locate the target, autonomously, they can achieve

a greater number of kills per pass.

Two sensor technologies have been used to

date in smart submunition designs: infrared detectors, which sense heat—typically coming from

the tank’s engine compartment; and millimeter

wave detectors, which can either be passive—

which sense a different wavelength of heat radiation than do infrared detectors, but with poorer

resolution—or active, which is a form of radar,

with better resolution than typical longer wavelength radars.

How well these sensors can detect tanks under a variety of conditions, including the presence of countermeasures that the Soviets might

deploy, is currently being tested in a joint ArmyAir Force program. The performance of the warheads is also being tested. The results of these

tests are expected to influence strongly the course

of development of new sensors and the choice

of submunitions for new weapons systems.

The major issues that will determine the choice

between a terminally guided submunition (TGSM)

and a sensor-fuzed weapon in any given application are:

●

●

●

cost (sensor-fuzed weapons are cheaper by

a factor of 5 to 1 O);

“footprint’ ’-the area on the ground searched

(TGSMS cover an area some 50 times greater);

and

lethality (TGSMs, which use a shaped-charge

explosive, have a greater penetration than

the explosively formed penetrators).

TGSM.–The terminally guided submunition incorporates some of the automatic target recognition and guidance concepts discussed in connection with cruise missiles; however, because

it is specifically an antitank weapon and as such

has a limited target set to search for, the technology is simpler—it is not so much target recognition as target detection. In the typical deployment, TGSMs would be released from a missile,

rocket, artillery shell, or aircraft and, after falling

to an altitude of several hundred meters, would

begin to glide at a steady altitude with their

seekers scanning back and forth across a track

on the ground, 500 to 1,000 m wide. The length

of the search “footprint” depends on the speed

and altitude at which the TGSMs are released;

it might typically be several kilometers. When the

seeker detects an object on the ground that

matches the characteristics of a tank, it sends a

signal to the guidance system to steer toward it

by adjusting its control fins. A shaped-charge warhead, containing a few kilograms of explosive,

detonates on impact.

A TGSM was developed for the Assault Breaker

demonstration project. Closest to actual deployment is a millimeter-wave TGSM now being developed for the MLRS rocket (usually referred to

as MLRS phase Ill, or the MLRS Terminally Guided

Warhead (TGW)). The project is a French-GermanBritish-United States collaboration, with 40 percent of the funding coming from the United States

and the remainder split equally among the other

three partners. Low-level initial production is

scheduled to begin in late fiscal year 1989 with

full production by fiscal year 1992. Current plans

call for six TGSMs to be packed into each MLRS

rocket, though there are some doubts that it will

prove feasible to keep the size of the TGSMs under the 26-inch length limit that this goal prescribes; three larger TGSMs (which would on the

other hand have larger warheads) might be used

instead.

The U.S. Army has favored an infrared sensor

for the TGSM, and is planning a l-year program,

beginning in June 1986, to develop a candidate

two-color IR seeker for use in an ATACMS missile (known as ATACMS Block II; Block 1 is the

conventional APAM warhead discussed below).

A decision to proceed with full-scale development of the ATACMS Block I I would come in fiscal year 1989. The seeker would be gun-hardened—that is, capable of withstanding the shock

of being fired from mortar or artillery-so that it

could also be used in a guided artillery shell such

as Copperhead II.

The Air Force is also supporting an analysis

project that is examining the utility of air-launch-
3 2

ing TGSMs from a Tactical Munitions Dispenser

or a dispenser version of the air-to-ground missile, AGM-130.

Skeet, Search and Destroy Armor (SADARM).

–Unlike the TGSMs, the sensor-fuzed weapons

do not fly into the target; they descend in a fixed

vertical or parabolic free-fall trajectory, scanning

a much narrower piece of ground for a target,

and fire a self-forging penetrator when they detect a target. Because of the narrower search area,

much simpler infrared (IR) or millimeter wave detectors can be used (they are referred to as “sensors” to distinguish them from the much more

sophisticated “seekers” employed in TGSMs) and

the expensive guidance systems of the TGSMs

which are needed to translate the data collected

by the seeker into control signals for the steerable tail fins are eliminated altogether. (As a rule

of thumb, 70 or 80 percent of any guided missile’s cost is in the guidance systems; cost of one

SADARM is estimated to be several thousand dollars as compared to $20,000 to $50,000 for a

TGSM.)

The Air Force’s version (known by the Air Force

as simply the Sensor-Fuzed Weapon or SFW or

by the contractor’s name for the submunition,

“Skeet”) is designed to be dispensed from a Tactical Munitions Dispenser. All of the sensor-fuzed

weapons must spin while descending so that the

fixed sensor or sensors on the submunition can

scan out an area on the ground. The Air Force

SFW employs a complex deployment sequence

to achieve this spin and to allow deployment at

low altitudes; the Skeet are ejected, spinning, in

a 100-m long parabolic trajectory. Each TMD contains 40 Skeets; all together they cover an area

on the ground, with the theoretical possibility of

hitting as many as 40 vehicles in that area. The

SFW submunitions employ a two-color IR sensor,

which “looks” for the engine compartment of a

tank. 10 In a test conducted at Sandia, New Mexico in September 1985, in which four Skeets were

mechanically tossed over tanks, all four hit the

IOThe original version, which used only a single-color IR Sensor,

suffered from a problem known as “fratricide”: the flash of one

Skeet firing would be picked up by the IR sensors of all of the other

Skeet in the area, triggering them to go off as well. Two-color sensors are able to estimate the target’s temperature and thus distinguish a warm tank from the flash of other Skeet firing and from

flares which might be used as decoys.

targets; three of the four hits were considered to

have been “kills” that would have put the tanks

out of action. The Air Force recently decided to

proceed with a $57 million full-scale development program. Production could begin in fiscal

year 1989; the procurement objective is 14,000

TMD-loads at a total cost of approximately $2

billion.

The Army’s sensor-fuzed submunition program,

known as SADARM (for “Sense and Destroy Armor”), is about to begin engineering development of submunitions for 155 mm artillery and

MLRS rockets. Both will use simple IR and millimeter wave sensors. In each case, the SADARMs

are deployed from the shell on a parachute that

is designed to rotate as it drops, causing the submunition to spin around the vertical axis. The sensor, which looks down at a 30-degree angle from

the vertical, thus scans out a collapsing spiral on

the ground, covering a circle with a diameter of

roughly 150 m. The accuracy of the shot is determined in effect by the accuracy of the sensor.

A SADARM has already been developed for the

larger 8-inch artillery shell, and was successfully

demonstrated in a test-firing in April 1985, in

which a shell containing one SADARM submunition was shot 10 km and the SADARM deployed and hit its target. The Army has decided

not to proceed with production of the 8-inch version, however. The MLRS effort began in the

second-quarter of fiscal year 1986, with the 155

mm to follow in fiscal year 1987; both will be gunhardened and the goal is that they will have 70

percent of parts in common. Initial low-level production would begin 21

\2 years after the start of

the development work in each case; the first ones

would be fielded in 41⁄2 years. The MLRS SADARM

can be of the same diameter as the SADARM developed for the 8-inch gun, and can thus be available sooner than the 155 mm version; the major

challenge is reducing the cost. The 15S mm version poses a greater technical challenge, as the

8-inch version (which has an outer diameter of

6.9 inches) will have to be shrunk to a 5.9 inches

outer diameter. (The smaller size makes packaging the sensors more difficult; it also requires

using a smaller penetrator, which will be less lethal.) An MLRS rocket could carry six SADARMS,

which together would cover an area of roughly

400 m by 400 m on the ground.
33

MINES

Two major advances in technology have occurred that may make mines attractive candidates

for follow-on forces attack missions. First, methods for dispensing mines remotely—from artillery,

rockets, or aircraft-have been developed; and

second, the lethality of mines against armored targets has been greatly increased. The usual concept of employing mines calls for antipersonnel

mines to be scattered along with the antiarmor

mines in order to make clearing the minefield

with infantry as difficult as possible.

FASCAM.–The Army and Air Force have developed and are now acquiring two basic types

of remotely deliverable mines—antitank and antipersonnel–known generically as FASCAM (for

“family of scatterable mines”). The Air Force version, known as GATOR, consists of a 1,000-lbclass tactical munitions dispenser containing 72

antitank mines and 22 antipersonnel mines. The

mines land over a 200-foot by 300 to 400 foot

area on the ground when the TMD is dropped at

an altitude of 200 feet. The TMD can be carried

on all NATO aircraft. The Army versions are delivered in a 155-mm artillery shell, carrying 36 antipersonnel mines (known as ADAM) or 9 antitank

mines (RAAM) per shell. Helicopter, truck, and

hand emplaced versions are also being acquired.

Although there are differences in the Air Force

and various Army versions, most of the components of the mines are shared. The antitank mine

has a magnetic sensor that is activated when a

tank passes directly over; an explosive charge is

then set off which forms a steel plate at the top

of the mine into a high-speed slug which penetrates the lightly armored belly of the tank. The

antipersonnel version unreels long (20 feet for

ADAM, 40 feet for GATOR) triplines on descent;

a large fragmentation grenade is set off when the

triplines are disturbed. Both mines self-destruct

after a preset time. The Air Force began purchasing GATORs in 1983, at a cost of $55,000 per

GATOR; approximately 1,500 are now in the inventory. Both ADAM and RAAM are currently in

production; approximate costs are $4,000 per

ADAM shell and $5,000 per RAAM shell.

The Army Armament Research and Development Center is examining new sensors, including

acoustic, seismic, infrared, and optical sensors

that may be more resistant to countermeasures;

remote control of mines (which couId for example allow mines to be emplaced and activated

or cleared by radio command at a later time); and

new warheads.

MIFF.–The West Germans have developed a

similar air-delivered antitank mine, MIFF. At

present, it can be delivered only by the GermanBritish-Italian Tornado aircraft equipped with the

l0,000-lb MW-1 submunition dispenser; 896

MIFFs are spread over a large area, 500 m wide

by 180 to 2,500 m long. The MIFF employs seismic and magnetic sensors and a shaped charge

explosive,

AT-2.—West Germany is developing a scatterable mine to be carried in MLRS rockets; the program is designated MLRS Phase Il. The mines–

28 per rocket—descend on a parachute and automatically right themselves after landing. A wire

antenna which mechanically senses a tank passing over sets off a shaped-charge explosive. Although the United States is committed to assisting

the research effort by developing the packaging

needed to integrate the mine into the rocket,

there is little interest in the Army to purchase the

mine when full-scale production begins in 1988.

The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command

is, however, reviewing the need for an MLRSdeliverable mine. West Germany and Italy are

committed to purchasing the AT-2; Britain and

France have expressed interest.

ERAM.-The Air Force has developed a prototype “smart” mine that is indicative of the direction in which mine technology is heading:

ability to control a wide area (and thus the ability to command a road from a concealed position to one side), to discriminate between tanks

and lower value targets, and to attack the lightly

armored areas of the tank (in this case the top).

The ERAM (extended-range antiarmor mine) consists of nine mines (BLU-101 submunitions in the

Air Force’s designation) in a tactical munitions

dispenser, The TMD is dropped, and the mines

dispensed sequentially, falling by parachute over

a ground pattern typically 200 to 300 m long.

When a seismic sensor picks up a tank’s vibration, the mine’s main electronics are switched on
34

and three acoustic sensors begin to track the

tank’s movement; the seismic and acoustic sensors together can determine the location of the

tank, its speed and direction, and can distinguish

between tanks and other vehicles. When the tank

reaches its closest approach to the mine, the mine

rotates and fires a Skeet submunition up and over

the tank. The submunition, which itself contains

an infrared sensor (a more complete description

appears above in the section on smart submunitions) flies in a 200-foot-long, 50-foot-high arc,

searching for the precise location of the tank.

When the IR sensor detects the tank (it looks particularly for the hottest spot on the tank, namely

the lightly protected engine compartment), the

Skeet fires a self-forging fragment directly down

onto the top of the tank. The mine thus covers

a range of 200 feet in all directions; it is equipped

with two Skeets, as well as three fragmentation

grenades that are lobbed out when the detectors

sense the approach of personnel,

After final tests of a prototype, the Air Force

decided not to proceed with full-scale development in fiscal year 1987 as originally planned. The

estimated cost is $75,000 per TMD-load. The

Army Armament Research and Development

Command is exploring an almost identical concept for development by the Army,

Hardened Fixed Targets

Bridges and tunnels, which may be important

targets in the effort to halt the movement of

follow-on forces forward, are representative of

a class of hard, fixed targets. Their location is

known in advance; but to destroy them requires

a very precise hit with high explosives. Taking out

a bridge, for example, may require hitting a support member to within a meter or less. The hardness of these targets poses other problems for

conventional munitions as well: a bomb may actually bounce off, it may fail to penetrate far

enough into the target before detonating, or the

fuzes may be damaged on impact.

Two general approaches to munitions are being pursued to deal with these targets: bomb

cases can be hardened to increase their penetration; or rocket motors can be added to accelerate the projectile through the fortifications (“kinetic energy penetration”). Although most of the

existing boosted kinetic energy penetrators have

been developed for cratering runways, the basic

concepts are applicable to penetration of other

hardened targets.

l-2000/HAVE VOID.–The conventional 2,000-

Ib Mk-84 bomb is capable of penetrating 31⁄2 feet

of concrete if it strikes it perpendicularly; the

penetration drops off sharply as the angle of impact decreases, to the point where the bombs

may actually bounce off. In addition, penetration

of hard targets sometimes damages the fuze of

the bomb, which then fails to detonate. The Air

Force has initiated a quick program to develop

an improved Mk-84 to be used with a Paveway

II laser guidance kit on the F-4E fighter. A forged

steel case will replace the rolled and machined

steel of the Mk-84; and the nose and aft fuzes of

the Mk-84 will be replaced with a single aft fuze.

Penetration of 6 feet of concrete with a perpendicular impact and 3 feet at a 45-degree angle is

expected. The fuze is factory set to detonate the

bomb at a fixed time interval after impact to allow

the bomb to penetrate. A production contract

was awarded in June 1985 and a limited buy of

1,300 is planned. Cost is $14,000 per bomb; the

Paveway II guidance unit adds another $15,000.

1-2000 P31.–A longer term program, with production planned to begin in fiscal year 1987, will

adapt the initial 1-2000 bombs from the HAVE

VOID program for use with the GBU-15, Paveway III, or as an unguided bomb; it will preserve

the mechanical characteristics of the Mk-84 and

will be compatible with the F-4, F-15, F-16, and

F-1 11 aircraft.

Hardened Target Munitions.–The Air Force

Armament Lab is planning a development program, beginning in 1987, to examine several advanced concepts for hard target penetration, including a “smart” fuze that could be adjusted

to detonate the bomb only after several layers of

concrete and voids had been penetrated (which

would allow the bomb, for example, to penetrate

a selectable number of floors through a building),

and rocket-boosted penetration, discussed below

Durandal.–France has developed a 500-Ib

bomb which is deployed on a parachute; when

the bomb has decelerated and is aiming toward
35

the ground at an angle, the parachute is jettisoned

and a rocket motor ignites, driving the bomb into

the target. The fuze sets the bomb off after a delay to allow it to reach an appropriate depth. The

Air Force has purchased the Durandal as a stopgap while the BKEP (see below) is developed; but

it is generally considered a cumbersome weapon

for its intended purpose because it is a large unitary weapon —each one making only one hole—

requiring many sorties before a runway is covered with enough holes to make it unusable over

its entire length. It is also not suitable for use as

a guided weapon in its current form.

BKEP, JP-233, STABO, ASW.–AII four of these

submunitions are much smaller weapons than the

Durandal11 and are designed to be deployed by

a dispenser (BKEP in a tactical munitions dispenser or a dispenser version of theAGM-130;12

STABO and ASW in the MW-1; and JP-233 in a

similar dispenser also built for the Tornado aircraft). All use some form of boosted penetration;

BKEP, which is slated by the Air Force for fullscale development in fiscal year 1986, and JP-233,

a British weapon that the Air Force was at one

time participating in the development of, are

quite similar in operation to the Durandal. The

STABO, and the ASW (designed to penetrate aircraft shelters), use a shaped charge to create an

entry hole in the target on contact and then ignite a small charge to drive in the projectile; a

time delay sets off the main charge.

None of these submunitions can themselves be

guided; rather, they seek to make up for a lack

of terminal accuracy in numbers, blanketing the

target area.

Soft Area Targets

Soft targets–surface-to-air or surface-to-surface

missile launchers with their associated communications and radar trucks, supplies and trucks

in a depot, field headquarters—are generally

movable (rather than fixed, as bridges; or mobile,

as tanks) and spread out over some area. The

I I The BKEFI for example, is 4 i riches in diameter and 43 inches

ong and weighs only 45 Ibs, of which a mere 6.5 lbs is high

‘xplosive–as against the 500 lb Durandal.

12The act Ua I deployment for airfield attack wou Id conta I n a mix

)f BKEPS (to damage the runways) and mines (to hinder repair opertions) In each dispenser load.

principal weapons against these targets are cluster bombs that contain fragmenting bomblets.

Smart weapons are also being considered for the

special case of surface-to-surface missile launchers

which can relocate after firing; it is the firing that

gives away its position, but by the time that a munition can be delivered against it, the launcher

will be on the way to a new and safer position

and may be a half a kilometer or more away.

APAM.–The conventionally armed Lance missiles are—and at least the first batch of ATACMS

(referred to as ATACMS Block 1) will be–armed

with antipersonnel/anti materiel (APAM) clusterbomb submunitions designated M74; these are

spherical, baseball-sized bombs with a tungsten

fragmenting case. The ground pattern can be controlled by the height at which the warhead is

fuzed to air-burst. The APAM is ineffective against

armor.

AMIS.– Diesel fuel is an attractive target, both

in supply dumps and in light vehicles; but it is

relatively hard to ignite. The AMIS, or antimateriel

incendiary submunition, breaks into fragments

designed principally to pierce truck fuel tanks,

producing a mist of diesel fuel; an incendiary then

ignites the vapor. It is designed to kill a dieselfueled vehicle at a range of 40 feet. The AMIS

is designed to be carried in a standard aircraft tactical munitions dispenser, 30 per dispenser load.

Advanced development has been completed,

and the Air Force has no plans at present to continue with the program.

Focused-Fragment SADARM.—TO be effective

against an imprecisely located surface-to-surface

missile launcher, a munition will need to have

a very large kill radius. A program to develop a

smart submunition for this task, to be used in an

ATACMS missile (designated ATACMS Block Ill),

is beginning in fiscal year 1986. Both SADARM

and TGSM submunitions are candidates.

To be effective as an area weapon against soft

targets, the SADARM’s explosively formed penetrator rod would be replaced with a “focused

fragment” warhead that produces a large number of larger-diameter, though shorter, fragments.

(Against lightly armored or unarmored targets the

single long explosively formed penetrator is relatively ineffective: it owes its lethal effect to the
36

spalling that occurs when it strikes heavy armor.

When it strikes a truck, for example, it simply

forms a small hole and passes right through without producing any collateral damage.)

The large search “footprint” needed to cover

the wide target area would be achieved by improving the SADARM sensor and by dispensing

many SADARMs—the SADARM is smaller and

less expensive than the TGSM, which makes this

a reasonable idea.

Large-Footprint TGSM. –In order to search out

a greater area on the ground, a TGSM for ATACMS

Block Ill will require an improved seeker able to

detect and begin homing in on the target from

a greater distance. Two technology projects are

now under way, looking at a dual-mode seeker,

which combines IR and millimeter wave in a single seeker, and an imaging infrared seeker, which

produces a picture-quality infrared image of the

scene containing far greater detail than the very

“patchy” digital picture of the conventional IR

seekers. The advanced technology seekers could

also be incorporated into the ATACMS Block II

at a later stage to improve their antiarmor capability.

Costs are uncertain at this stage; estimates range

from $20,000 to $50,000 per TGSM.
Glossary

AAFCE

ACE

AG

AFCENT

AGM

AGM-130

ALB

AMIS

AMRAAM

A PAM

Aquila

ASAC

ASARS II

ATACMS

ATAF

ATOC

{E

-2

.

-3

.

–Allied Air Forces Central Europe: the

NATO air force command for the Central Region

–Allied Command Europe: ACE includes

the Central Region and both the northern and southern flanks, and is commanded by SACEUR

—army group: a ground force command

echelon in NATO; Army Groups in the

Central Region are NORTHAG and

CENTAG

–Allied Forces Central Region

—air-to-ground missile

—a short-range rocket-powered air-toground missile derived from the GBU-15

–AirLand Battle: U.S. Army doctrine (endorsed by the U.S. Air Force as appropriate) for the conduct of army operations

—antimateriel incendiary submunition

—advanced medium-range air-to-air

missiIe

—antipersonnel/antimateriel munition:

the warhead carried by the conventional version of the Lance missile and

by block I of the ATACMS missile

–U.S. Army-developed remotely piloted

vehicle

—All-Source Analysis Center

–Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar

System II: a U.S. Air Force high resolution ground surveillance imagery radar

system, which can detect stationary

objects

–Army Tactical Missile System: a ballistic missile, also called Army TACMS, or

TACMS

–Allied Tactical Air Force: an air force

command echelon in NATO; ATAFs in

the Central Region are 4ATAF and

2ATAF

—Allied Tactical Operations Center: a

NATO C2 facility for offensive and supporting air operations in the Central Region, subordinate to the ATAF; there

are four ATOCs in the Central Region

–Belgium (NATO designator)

—command and control

—command, control, and communications

C

3

I —command, control, communications,

and intelligence

CEM —Combined Effects Munition: Air Force

cluster bomb

CENTAG –(NATO) Central Army Group: made Up

of four corps in southern Germany

CGSC –Command and General Staff College of

the U.S. Army

CHOP —change of operational control: from national commanders to NATO commanders

CINCENT –(NATO) Commander-in-Chief, Central

Region: the commander of AFCENT

COMAAFCE–(NATO) Commander, Allied Air Forces

DARPA

DPICM

ECM

ECCM

EO, or E-O

ERAM

FASCAM

FLIR

FLOT

FRG

front

FSCL

GATOR

GBU-15

Central Europe: the commander of

AAFCE

–Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency

–dual-purpose improved conventional

munition

—electronic countermeasures

—electronic counter-countermeasures

—electro-optical: TV-like, employing

vacuum tubes or semiconductor devices to convert optical (visible, ultraviolet, or infrared) radiation into electrical currents

—extended-range antiarmor mine

–family of scatterable mines

–forward-looking infrared: an airborne

system for locating targets and controlling weapons at night

–forward line of own troops: the approximate point at which opposing ground

forces are in contact; sometimes used

in the sense of a “battle line”

–Federal Republic of Germany

—a Soviet command echelon above

“army”

–fire support coordination line: a line

established at approximately the range

of fire of NATO artillery, or about 25

to 35 km into enemy area across the

FLOT

—air-delivered antitank and antipersonnel mines

—a Glide Bomb Unit, which is “thrown”

by an attacking aircraft and guided

toward the target from the aircraft, but

which has no propulsion of its own

37
38

GE

GSM

1-2000

IFF

IGB

IR

IIR

JSTARS

JTACMS

Joint STARS

LANTIRN

LOC

LOCPOD

LRSOM

Maverick

Mk-82

Mk-84

MLRS

MLRS/TGW

M M W

MTl

NL

–West Germany (NATO designator)

–Ground Station Module: a mobile

ground station being developed by

Motorola for the U.S. Army for use with

the Joint STARS airborne radar system

—improved 2,000-lb bomb, designed to

penetrate hard targets

—identification of friend or foe: the process of attempting to determine whether

vehicle or unit (etc.) belongs to friendly

forces, enemy forces, or neutral parties

—inner-German border: the boundary

between West and East Germany. Sometimes called the inter-German border

—infrared

—imaging infrared

—see Joint STARS

–Joint Tactical Missile System; joint

Army-Air Force development program

for medium-range conventional cruise

missile

–Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar

System: a developmental airborne radar system carried on C-18 aircraft intended to locate fixed or moving targets on the ground and to control

attacks against such targets using tactical aircraft or guided munitions

–Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting

Infrared System for Night: a system for

low altitude all-weather navigation and

targeting for tactical aircraft

–lines of communications

–Low Cost Powered Off-Boresight Dispenser: NATO development project for

air-launched submunition dispenser

–Long Range Standoff Missile: a trinational (U. S., U. K., FRG) feasibility

study for a long-range cruise missile

–guided short-range air-to-ground antiarmor missile used by the U.S. Air

Force

–general-purpose 500-lb bomb

–general-purpose 2,000-lb bomb

—multiple launch rocket system

—terminally guided warhead for the

MLRS

—millimeter wave

—moving target indicator: a type of radar

useful for surveillance of moving objects such as aircraft or ground vehicles

–Netherlands (NATO designator)

NORTHAG –NATO Northern Army Group: four

corps in northern half of Germany

Paveway –laser-guided bomb used by the U.S. Air

Force

PAVE TACK–a forward-looking infrared pod carried

PLSS

PLSS GS

RPV

SAC

SACEUR

SADARM

SAM

SAR

SFW

SHAPE

Skeet

SRSOM

SSM

STARS

TACAIR

TACMS

TERCOM

by aircraft to locate targets at night and

control laser-guided bombs

–Precision Location Strike System: an

airborne surveillance and control system carried on TR-1 aircraft intended

to detect, identify, and accurately

locate advanced (pulsed, frequencyhopping) enemy radar transmitters and

some types of jammers in near real time

and to guide weapons or aircraft to

such targets with sufficient accuracy to

destroy them; the continuation of the

program is currently in question

—PLSS Ground Station

—remotely piloted vehicle: usually referring to a small aircraft that communicates with and is guided by a control

station

–Strategic Air Command of the U.S, Air

Force

–(NATO) Supreme Allied Commander

Europe: the commander of NATO forces

throughout the European theater,

which is also known as ACE

—Search and Destroy Armor; smart antiarmor submunition for surface-to-surface weapons

—surface-to-air missile

—synthetic aperture radar: often used for

obtaining high-resolution radar images

of objects on the ground

–Sensor-Fuzed Weapon; see Skeet

—Supreme Headquarters Allied Power:

Europe: the headquarters for SACEUR

—smart puck-shaped antiarmor submunition which can sense a target and

send an explosively formed penetrating

fragment towards the target at high veIocity

–Short-Range Standoff Missile: a NATO

project currently in the feasibility study

stage

—surface-to-surface missile

—see Joint STARS

—tactical aircraft

–Tactical Missile System; see ATACM

—terrain comparison
39

TGSM —terminally guided submunition: smart TRS —Tactical Reconnaissance System: an airantiarmor submunition under consid- borne reconnaissance system which ineration for ATACMS missile eludes the TR-1 aircraft, TR1 GS or

TGW —Terminally Guided Warhead, under TREDS ground stations, and other assodevelopment for MLRS rockets ciated equipment

TMD —tactical munition dispenser

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1986 0 - 60-901

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