This has been an extremely cool couple of weeks for Defense Tech. Not because of anything I’ve written. But because several of my favorite journalists covering the military have been pitching in. David Axe — who just returned from Basra, on assignment for the Village Voice — is the latest.
In addition to the Village Voice, David’s written for The Washington Times, Salon.com, Proceedings, Sea Power, Air International, Combat Aircraft, Aircraft Illustrated, Warships International Fleet Review, and others. He’s also a video journalist for C-SPAN. His graphic novel memoir, WAR FIX, comes out in the spring. David’s nonfiction book about Army ROTC, called ARMY 101, is due in 2006 from University of South Carolina Press.
U.S. tactical fighters havent dropped a lot of bombs since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But it’s not like they haven’t been busy. In seven months “The Bengals” that’s Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 224 to you — flew 2,500 sorties in their dozen F/A-18Ds, totaling around 8,000 hours.
So what were The Bengals doing with all these flight hours? Reconnaissance, is what: Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR), in current mil-jargon. The confluence of low-intensity warfare and new technology (especially small, cheap targeting pods) means tactical jets are spending less time dropping bombs and more time collecting intelligence for Marines and soldiers on the ground.
During the Cold War, tactical aerial reconnaissance (recce) was the purview of a large force of specialized platforms like the RF-4C. In the 1990s, the U.S. services quickly shed their recce platforms — until a shortage of assets over Bosnia and the Persian Gulf prompted a panicked renewal that saw a small number of Air National Guard F-16s and Marine F/A-18Ds equipped with podded or palletized cameras. Then came Iraq, where skyrocketing demand for ISTAR outpaced even the rushed introduction of drones like Predator. During the invasion, Marine AV-8Bs equipped with Litening targeting pods (containing laser designators and trackers as well as Forward-Looking Infra Red and Charge Couple Device cameras) pioneered the use of targeting pods in the recce role, spotting insurgents for ground forces to go hit.
Even before the development of targeting-pod ISTAR tactics, there was a push across the services to equip all tactical aircraft (tacair) with new targeting pods like Litening and Sniper in order to facilitate autonomous use of Precision Guided Munitions (PGM). Even B-52 and B-1 bombers and A-10 Close Air Support jets are getting pods. Serendipitously, the PGM revolution has enabled an ISTAR revolution. Now, after a decade of relatively modest investment, there are literally thousands of ISTAR-capable jets in the U.S. inventory.
Developments in radar and other sensors are only strengthening the ISTAR capabilities of tactical jets. F-15Cs, F/A-18E/Fs and F/A-22s equipped with Active Electronically Scanned Array radars are capable of simultaneous ground-mapping and tracking of ground targets, essentially acting as mini E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) aircraft. Passive sensors like cameras and Radar Warning Receivers round out multi-spectral tacair ISTAR capabilities.
Perfecting this sensor fusion is a major selling point of the next generation of fighters. Lately, the Department of Defense has begun promoting the future F-35 as an ISTAR asset while de-emphasizing its traditional ground-attack capabilities. But the Bengals’ collection of pods and radars already do a pretty good rough approximation.
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Fighter Jets’ New Role: Recon
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What was he talking about? Yeah this is a great idea, that way they can be more flexiable with planes and the missions there assigned to. I would expect tac recon by high performance jets to be a great asset in Iraq and Afganistan. The insurgents are not ignorant in the ways to take down modern aircraft and they do have some limited means so a fast mover as recon would be indispensible. Doesn’t seem like a waste at all to me.
I have a game I play on x-box Die Hitysu 7 or something like that, well anyway it’s a turn based hex grid simulation and it has a recce version of the F/A-18 on it and it’s the most useful jet that the U.S. forces have on the game. It sees more then a normal jet and can defend itself with it’s air to air missles. Othere countries on the game have recce aircraft but there unarmed making them highly vulnuable.
Byron,
I hate to be a stickler for details, but details add up to generalizations, so I’ll have to correct you again: the first-generation F/A-18, including A, B, C and D models, does not cost $100 million, even including developmental costs. There have been more than 1,300 built at a total cost (including development) of $30 million per copy in 1993 dollars, according to National Defense University.
So are you proposing we essentially scrap all major hardware in the U.S. military in favor of training more infantry to fight terrorists that are bent on destroying America by bankrupting it? Geez. Where to begin …
First, we can afford not only the war on terror but to sustain large conventional forces in reserve as well. Even with war supplementals and recent budget increases, we’re spending only around 3.5% of our GDP on defense — a far cry from the 1980s and less than half of what we spent in the 1970s. What we lack is the political will to spend money on defense, not the actual money itself. The war on terror is fiscally sustainable. Only political will is lacking.
But don’t think that I’m proposing we actually keep fighting the war on terror. It may be affordable, but it’s still a bad idea. Islamic terrorists are interested in destroying the U.S., not really, nor are they capable of it. Islamic terror is largely a reaction to a century of ill-considered Western (European, mostly) meddling in the Middle East. More recently, America’s long military presence in Saudi Arabia created a backlash manifested in terror attacks. We can score a major win in the war on terror by simply pulling our troops out of the Middle East.
Terrorism is not new. Even Islamic terror is not new. We’ll always have terrorists. But the Western world will survive; America will survive. Even our failures in Iraq do not mean our destruction.
We should maintain strong conventional forces because they take time to develop and train, and who knows what threats the future holds? Also, conventional forces like tactical jets are long-term investments offering decades of utility and tremendous flexibility, as the recent trend in tacair recce demonstrates. Just because the F/A-22 program has been mismanaged doesn’t mean we should stop fielding fighters. Rather, we should be smarter about developing them. Perhaps evolutionary rather than revolutionary fighter development is in order. Take a look at the new versions of the F-15E and F-16 being fielded by Singapore and the UAE, respectively. They outclass all but our handful of new Raptors. A stateside example is the F/A-18E/F, a fine new fighter evolved from the first-gen Hornet. It came in on budget, on time, with advanced capabilities and at an affordable unit cost. While the Air Force struggles to field any fighters at all, in only five years the Navy has completely replaced its 200 F-14s with the same number of F/A-18E/Fs and achieved major economies in doing so.
Reader CA, with the Air Force, says…
I have never heard that term (must be Navy), but in the AF we call it NTISR:
NTISR (Non-Traditional Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance)
NTISR was developed to address the need for additional ISR collection by tasking
aircraft to record weapons system video of selected targets. Aircraft with targeting pods
traditionally used for targeting purposes, were tasked to locate, identify, and assess
potential/emerging targets and Battle Damage Assessment
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_hr/040704sams.pdf Search for it.…
This is in specific reference to the paras talking about Litening and Snipet and AESA.