Follow-on-to-Lance (FOTL)
The modernization or replacement of the Army's Lance short-range tactical nuclear missiles in Europe had a high priority because of the removal of Pershing missiles from Europe and the limited shelf life of deployed Lance missiles. Army planners envisioned a new missile, the FOTL, with a range of 250 to 270 miles, considerably longer than the 70-mile range of the Lance missile, but within the limits for short-range missiles allowed under the INF Treaty.
| missile | T-12 | T-22 |
| modified Patriot | improved Lance | |
| length | 17 ft 5 in | 20 ft 2 in |
| span | 2 ft 10 in | TBD |
| diameter | 16 in | 22 in |
| weight | 3740 lbs | 2850 lbs |
| speed | Mach 3 | |
| range | 200 Miles + | |
| propulsion | single stage solid rocket motor | |
| guidance | radio command or inertial | |
| 5 x more accurate than Lance | ||
| warhead | unspecified nuclear yield | |
| 30% larger than Lance | ||
The follow-on to Lance (FOTL) missile was born in 1983 with a consensual decision by NATO, in the face of a worsening strategic situation. Meeting in Montebello, NATO defense ministers called for a Follow-on to Lance (FOTL) surface-to-surface missile, a new Tactical air-to-surface missile (TASM), and the modernization of nuclear artillery and nuclear-capable aircraft. These steps were part of a package that simultaneously foresaw a reduction of 1400 nuclear weapons. These measures were intended improve and to rationalize NATO military capabilities, as well as to assuage public concerns about a nuclear buildup when the alliance was planning to introduce 572 Pershing II and cruise missiles in line with the NATO 1979 dual track decision.
The decison to modify or replace the Lance grew out of a report by Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) General Bernard Rogers to the NATO Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) in Luxembourg in 1985. General Rogers was tasked to prepare a report outlining feasible reductions to be made in NATO's theater nuclear arsenal in response to the allies' agreement to go along with INF modernization. This was the unpublicized compromise that had been arrived at as part of the 1983 NATO Montebello agreement, and was essentially political in nature. The idea was to defuse objections by segments of West European public opinion to the introduction of the Pershing-II and GLCM by promising reductions in other tactical nuclear systems.
The US Army's preference was for a dual-capable system (able to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads) which would have an extended range and greater accuracy than the Lance, and which would be deployed on the new Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), a quickly-reloadable missile rocket launcher which was already operational and based in West Germany. The missile the Army originally wanted to build for the MLRS was a version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). Tentative plans were for positioning several hundred launchers and nearly 1000 missiles, the majority of them conventional. Congress had been allocating funds for this systemsince 1983, and there is a conventional version of it alreadydeployed in Europe. For several years after 1984, however, the Congress prohibited the Army from building a nuclear warhead for the ATACMS until it seemed certain the Europeans would accept its stationing on their soil.
International arms control efforts profoundly affected the structure of Army missile forces in Europe. The INF Treaty, signed in December 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, required that four US and six Soviet missile systems be destroyed by 31 May 1991 and prohibited further production of these systems. The treaty called for verification by on-site inspections of the elimination of an entire class of US and Soviet land-based missile systems with ranges of 300 and 3,400 miles. The four US systems affected are the ground launched cruise missile (BGM-109G) and the nuclear-equipped Pershing II, 1A, and 1B; the six Soviet systems are the SS-20, SS-4, SS-5, SS-12, SS-23, and SSC-X-4.
The INF Treaty did not affect the Army's Lance missile, a nuclear-armed tactical missile with a range of approximately seventy-eight miles. Lance was deployed in 1972 and by the late 1980s was experiencing metal fatigue and problems with corrosion induced by liquid fuel. Although the possibility of extending its life and refurbishing it had been examined, the costs were prohibitive and doing so would mean opening old production lines for parts. Moreover, Lance's limited range, its long reloading time, and its poor accuracy limited its deterrent value.
Eighty-eight Lance launchers were assigned to NATO in FY 1989. The Army considered extending the range of the Lance to three hundred miles, but West German officials urged removal of the Lance from Europe. The FY87 Appropriations Act prohibited development of a nuclear warhead for the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), one of the Lance follow-on missile candidates. The FY 88 DoD Authorization Act did allow the study of ATACMS in a nuclear role, and the study for the atomic ATACMS began in 1988.
The INF treaty cut a significant number of missiles from the inventories of both the US and the USSR. It did leave room for tactical and some short range operational-tactical missiles, including the continued development of a modernization program. Follow-on-to-Lance, with a capability to target out to the INF treaty limits of 500 km, was scheduled to replace the current Lance system that becomes obsolete in the mid 1990s.
NATO had adopted its Follow-On Forces Attack (FOFA) concept as part of its program to ccunter a growing Warsaw Pact conventional threat, and thus to avoid either an early resort to nuclear weapons or even a collapse so rapid as to preclude escalation to nuclear weapons. Early in its history, NIATO decided to rely on both cunventional and nuclear weapons because it could not afford a completely conventional defense. However, with the FOFA doctrine, there was an attempt by NATO leaders to do all they can NOT to use nuclear weapons at all, or at least, not early in the fight, as they had planned to do in the past. This was reinforced by the attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany and many other countries who vigorously oppose modernization of nuclear weapons, because if they are used in a NATO war, they will be used on their soil.
The objectives of deep operations are to reduce the tempo of the enemy attack, to alter the enemy's commitment plan, and to create an opportunity to seize the initiative. To accomplish this goal, the Corps commander must have a responsible and reliable weapon system capable of engaging second echelon targets, including both the attack of forces to disrupt or neutralize them, and the attack of command, control and communications (C3) nodes to interfere with the enemy commander's ability to bring combat power to bear at the time and place of his choosing.
The Lance system was not capable of fulfilling this requirement, nor was it ever designed too. The Follow-on-to-Lance (FOTL) would provide the Corps commander with this capability. FOTL was needed to meet the doctrinal requirements for Corps and cross-Corps operational fires as outlined in Field Circular 100-15-1, Corps Deep Operations. The specific physical elements and operational role of those Corps commander's targets that would need to be serviced fall under three general categories. The first category, followon maneuver forces, is generally described as the Soviet tank or motorized rifle divisions which make up the second echelon of the lead army or the first echelon of the follow-on army. The second category, command, control and communications (C3), is generally described as the troop and weapon control centers associated with threat army- and division-level activities. The third category, high payoff systems, is a number of specific systems that, because of their destructive ability, mobility, range and/or broad functional impact, are always viewed as relevant targets.
Tactical aircraft (TACAIR) were the primary means for conventional attack of deep targets; however, tactical air support is prioritized at echelons above corps and is influenced by weather conditions and high threat environments. TACAIR response times between acquisition and attack are unacceptable for many targets. FOTL would be oriented toward the attack of combat forces not yet engaged and the destruction of enemy capabilities which may have either an immediate or deferred impact on the close battle, but which are beyond the range of available cannon and rocket artillery systems.
The Soviets saw the implementation of AirLand Battle and Follow On Forces Attack (FOFA) concepts by the Army as a significant change in the development of US military operational art. Both concepts were significant because they grasped the multidimensional aspects of modern combat operations at a level above pure tactics. The Soviets had been expecting the West to "discover" operational art for several decades and by the end of the Cold War the predictions were being fulfilled. The Soviets realized that the development and procurement of a FOTL would provide significant additional support to both the AirLand Battle and Follow On Forces Attack concepts. They also recognized that the US and its allies were prepared to build a FOTL system.
The had been expecting such a system since the 1950s. Yu.P.Davydov, in the August 1988 issue of USA (a Soviet journal), stated that the US "intends to increase the range of the Lance missile to 400 km and to increase the power and broaden the limits of other types of nuclear weapons on the battlefield." This new extended range for the Lance identified by Davydov placed the Lance missile system, by Soviet definition, into the operational-tactical missile category (ranges between 184-740 km). This also placed the Soviet assessed FOTL at the higher end of the INF 500 km range limit.
In a report to the Follow-On-To-Lance Study Group, V.G. Reznichenko in the 1987 edition of Taktika stated: "Deep destruction by fire lies as the basis of the Air-land operational concept adopted by the U.S. Army accordingly, targets are distributed as follows in relation to depth: for artillery, i: a zone from 1 to 30-40 km, for tactical missile systems- from 10-15 to 60-70 km, for operational missile complexes- from 50-70 to 400-1,000 km... In accordance with the requirements of the concept of Air-land operations, the U.S. Army is working out the methods of deep destruction by fire. In the division, for example, it is planned to a depth cf 100 km".
Joel Resnick of Science Application International Corporation(SAIC), in a report prepared for the Systems Analysis Working Group (SAWG) of the Follow on to Lance (FOTL) Phase 2 study, presented some factors which would influence Congressional acceptance of the FOTL: 1) the importance of East-West relations and the fear that introducing FOTL may in some way damage that relationship; 2) because the FOTL is a dual capable land-based system, the Soviets may interpret the conventional firing of the weapon as nuclear and immediately escalate to the use of their nuclear weapons; 3) Congressional unwillingness to support programs which allies have not yet committed to; 4) the fierce competition for DoD development dollars within Congress despite Presidential support for FOTL.
The Follow-on To Lance is to be carried in pairs, in two launch containers mounted on conventional Multiple-Launch Rocket System (MLRS) launch vehicles. As is the case with the conventional long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS - see below), now in low-rate initial production at LTV, the containers are to be camouflaged so as to be indistinguishable from the six-pack containers for the more than 30 kilometre-range MLRS rockets already being deployed in NATO. This camouflage is designed to make the nuclear Follow-On to Lance systems difficult to recognize by anti-nuclear demonstrators and saboteurs in peacetime, as well as by Soviet conventional assets (both airborne and Spetsnaz special forces) in time of war. The Army specifications do, however, call for the FOTL to be identifiable by Soviet technical means of verification (i.e. satellites). They will, in any case, be available for inspection by visiting Soviet verification teams in peacetime, in compliance with the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty rules.
FOTL, with its extended range, would seem to correspond to the West German desire for systems with extended range. That the FOTL issue became a potent political symbol in a broader and politicized debate - and a lightning rod for criticism - was nonetheless clear. No consensus existed for deploying a FOTL in the FRG.
In discussing the future of the Lance in NATO, the alliance's High Level Group reported to the NATO Nuclear Planning Group in the spring of 1989 that the United States had selected the M270 MLRS launcher as a Follow-on-to-Lance (FOTL). Soon DOD had moved beyond consideration of the ATACMS as a prime candidate for SNF modernization in Europe, though the missile being considered did not even have a formal title. The idea of developing a nuclear version of the ATACMS was apparently dropped because it did not have adequate range (only about 250 kilometers). The as yet unnamed Follow-On-To-Lance was supposed to have a range four times that of the earlier system and with much greater accuracy, even though in terms of its physical dimensions it would bear considerable resemblance to the ATACMS.
Boeing's proposed FOTL design was based on the new SRAM T nuclear weapon Boeing was already developing for the tactical air-to-surface role from the existing SRAM II (Short-Range Attack Missile). In the ground-launched FOTL role, SRAM T would require virtually no modifications other than being fitted with two off-the-shelf, 6" diameter strap-on booster rockets. Compared to the obsolescent Lance, Boeing claimed that its FOTL design would provide not only a dramatic range increase, but also improved ground and in-flight survivability, greater accuracy, and reduced collateral damage. "Replacing the dedicated Lance force structure with multi-capable (MLRS/ATACMS/FOTL) battalions", Boeing says, "will yield a better than 5-to-1 reduction in required manpower-to-ready missiles."
According to Boeing the 2600lb missile would, however, require a launch container 20 cm longer than the standard MLRS six-pack. For satellite verification, the launcher would simply be elevated and the end-covers removed, revealing the missiles in their containers. The missiles could also be electronically "tagged".
The US Army was scheduled to issue Requests For Proposals (RFPs) on FOTL to industry, leading to one or more development contracts in May/June 1990, just as political campaigning for the December 1990 West German federal elections gets into full swing. If the US Army stuck to this appallingly ill-judged timing, it would guarantee an electoral firestorm over FOTL in West Germany, where the Lance replacements would have to be deployed. This would be two years earlier than NATO had agreed to re-discuss the thorny issue of its future SRNF requirements, and eventual negotiations on their reduction. Unless it changed its schedule, the US Army risked having the FOTL program killed off by anti-nuclear pressure from German politicians and public opinion, before it has even got into development.
The prospective drawdown of US Army and allied ground forces' nuclear assets (ie, Lance missiles and nuclear artillery shells), together with the decision of the NATO summit in May 1990 not to go forward with modernization of the follow-on to Lance (FOTL) surface-to-surface missile system, made the acquisition and deployment of a new-generation nuclear-tipped tactical air-to-surface missile (TASM) critical to the deterrence balance in Europe.
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