Windsor Star April 08, 2003
High-tech dominance
By Brian MacDonald
Master Tzu says, "If I am able to determine the enemy's dispositions while, at the same time, I conceal my own, then I can concentrate my forces and his must be divided. And if I concentrate while he divides, I can use my entire strength to attack a fraction of his. If I am able to use many to strike few, those I deal with will fall into hopeless straits."
The velocity of the coalition campaign has been far beyond the capacity of the Iraqi forces to react. The speed and violence of the campaign has allowed the coalition forces, again and again, to concentrate on an isolated element of the Iraqi forces, destroy it as a combat formation and move immediately to the next objective.
Key to the campaign has been the coalition's dominance of the information spectrum. The coalition forces know where the Iraqis are, while the Iraqis do not know where the coalition forces are or where they will strike next. And once again, it is the triumph of American technology that has created this dominance.
Intelligence collection capabilities range from the massive 18-tonne "Improved Crystal" optical satellite, which can distinguish an object on the earth's surface only 10 cm across, to the prototype of the tiny four-pound hand-launched "Dragon Eye" Unmanned Ariel Vehicle (UAV) of the U.S. Marine Corps which John Pike of Global-Security describes as providing an "over-the-next-hill, or building" reconnaissance capability.
In between, the coalition forces have manned aircraft providing a full range of information collection and analysis.
The radar domes of the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft provide coverage of the airspace over Iraq and can "see" anything flying through it. Their crews, including the 10 Canadians of the Canadian Forces "ghost force" which the government insists is not part of the war, use that information to control and vector coalition aircraft on whatever missions they need to do.
Rebuilt and upgraded
Flying in the same airspace are the "Rivet Joint" aircraft, built, like their AWACS cousins, on the frame of the elderly Boeing 707 aircraft, but like the venerable B-52, rebuilt and upgraded with the latest technology. Their job is to intercept and monitor the electromagnetic spectrum, to provide Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) as to whatever they can extract from Iraqi communications.
The third of the Boeing 707-based trinity of information aircraft is the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), whose phased array and synthetic aperture radars provide images of what is going on on the ground, rather than in the airspace monitored by their AWACS colleagues. Able to distinguish between wheeled and tracked vehicles, out to a range of 250 km, they can identify and hand off the co-ordinates of targets to attack aircraft or long-range artillery to deal with.
This might involve a U.S. Air Force F-15, 70 km away, dropping a Joint Stand Off Weapon (JSOW), a long-range glide bomb with GPS guidance to get it in the general area of the target, where it will drop 24 projectiles with infra-red sensors to locate armoured vehicles. Once the target is detected the projectile detonates, creating a shaped charge to blast through the weaker top armour of that unfortunate Iraqi tank.
Meanwhile, at the sharp end on the ground, the "Dragon Eye" prototype will be making its appearance.
One of our Marine scouts will strap the "wearable ground control station" on his back and then click on the moving map display strapped to his forearm to tell the "Dragon Eye" where he wants it to go. A five-kilometre-range video link provides the operator a high resolution colour picture in daytime and low-light black and white imaging for night operations.
With a wingspan of slightly more than a metre and low-noise electrically driven propellers, it looks as though it really should belong to a small boy on a school playground, but its potential for providing simple, real-time information intelligence to the Marine squad about what is "over the next hill," or "around the next corner," it will be a real life-saver, every bit as important to the squad as the JSTAR/JSOW combination is to the lieutenant-general commanding the battle.
"How subtle and insubstantial," says the Master, "that the expert leaves no trace. How divinely mysterious, that he is inaudible. Thus, he is a master of his enemy's fate."
Copyright © 2003, CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest Global Communications Corp.
