Time-critical Targeting

Targeting has long been a primary concern for our air forces; it took a thousand plane raids in World War II to destroy a factory. The revolutionary gains in precision weapons of the last dozen years have eliminated the requirement for the air force armada and highlighted new areas of improvement, particularly a desire to destroy more difficult, fleeting targets of opportunity. As Lt. Col. Gregory S. Marzolf points out in this study of new targeting parameters, the Air Force became aware during Operations desert Storm and Allied Force of its inability to find and destroy emerging targets before they disappeared. Marzolf sees the Air Force moving towards solutions, particularly with the concept of reactive methods, wherein identified targets are attacked by loitering aircraft. The Air Force is working to improve its persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms to identify the targets, its communications network to get the information to a shooter, and it weapons to quickly engage the target. On the other hand, work in this area suggests some 15-20 years for implementation, and Colonel Marzolf advocates a temporary solution for engaging time-critical targets and suggests a methodology he calls a preemptive or predictive approach. He bases his idea on the need for an analysis of enemy activity to the point of accurate prediction and employment of a flying platform that has long-loiter capability and incorporates sensors to detect, locate, and identify targets that will be destroyed by miniature munitions that it carries. He identifies the low-cost persistent area dominance (LOCPAD) system, now under development, as the one that will tie intelligence with a kinetic mechanism to finalize the time-critical targeting. The author outlines the issue in an introduction and has a background chapter that explains the current system, which provides a useful description of sensors, fusion of information, shooters, and weapons. He explains the current reactive method and identifies various system weaknesses and strengths. His main theme of a preemptive approach describes in great detail the projected employment of LOCPADs as a very effective system for time-critical targeting. Marzolf insists that persistence of surveillance is crucial, especially when Airmen directing the air war in Iraq used persistence surveillance to identify and effectively target the illusive Iraqi insurgents.