We Can’t Always Count On Smart Bombs: CSBA « Breaking Defense
The U.S. military has enjoyed an enormous advantage in precision strike
over the past 25 years. The success of America’s precision strike
operations has not gone unnoticed, however. Potential enemies have
invested in active and passive defenses that could force the U.S.
military to fly more strike sorties and expend larger numbers of
precision-guided munitions (PGMs) in future wars. In
Sustaining America’s Precision Strike Advantage,
Mark Gunzinger and
Bryan Clark
assess the implications of a “salvo competition” between two
adversaries that are both equipped with PGMs and capabilities to defend
against precision strikes. The report concludes that attempting to
compensate for an enemy’s defenses by using much larger numbers of the
kinds of PGMs DoD has procured over the last 14 years may be infeasible.
Instead of a “simply more” approach, the authors propose the Defense
Department adopt operational concepts and field a new generation of
offensive PGMs that will maintain its precision strike advantage in
future salvo competitions.
[
Sustaining America’s Precision Strike Advantage | CSBA] a new study from the influential
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says
Countermeasures
are growing more sophisticated and more common. Advanced anti-aircraft
missiles can snipe a single smart bomb out of the sky, let alone the US
aircraft carrying it.
Jammers can scramble radar and GPS.
Lasers and
high-powered microwaves are becoming practical weapons against incoming missiles. So the smart bomb won’t always get through.
Worse, as the odds of any single weapon hitting go down, the number of weapons required to
assure a hit goes up
exponentially, say CSBA authors
Mark Gunzinger and
Bryan Clark.
Guided munitions try to counteract countermeasures
Guided munitions are not as sure as they used to be, given the
increasing effectiveness of jammers and spoofing equipment that
interfere with global positioning systems.
To counteract the
defenses, the military and its industry partners use techniques such as
redundant targeting systems like seekers that target GPS jammers,
laser-guidance systems or camera-aided navigation, according to a report
in Defense News.
Jammers can interfere with weak GPS signals and
causes a guided weapon to lose its satellite connection, which could
lead to a complete miss or a hit on an undesired target.
Foreign Military Studies Office Publications - Desert Defense and Surviving PGMs: the New Russian View
For a static defense the unresolved
problem is how to move on a PGM-dominated battlefield, particularly in
the desert, and survive. The Iraqis had no solution during the Gulf
War. The Russians have published some tentative articles about mounting
various ageometric-shaped screens above vehicles and moving behind
minature robot vehicles which mimic the shape and signature of primary
weapon systems, but there seems to be no present, effective solution.
Currently, the only realistic solution appears to be to ride out the
initial period of the war. Future conventional war, in the Russian
view, would be fought in two phases. The first is the defensive,
counter-PGM phase, during which border troops, air forces, defensive
forces dug in and concealed in key points, limited-scale forces
optimized for nonlinear combat, Spetsnaz, and forces equipped
with high-technology weapon systems would attempt to gain the advantage.
Meeting battles and meeting engagements, combat for point defenses and
tactical-scale counterattacks would be the main forms of ground combat.
Each side would target the other's PGMs and supporting systems to
destroy enemy combat power, defeat/suppress enemy troop control and
force him to deplete his PGM munitions. Once the PGM stocks were
depleted to the point where they lacked operational impact, phase two
(counteroffensive) would be launched and the war would develop along
conventional lines.9
Clearly, the PGM threat cannot be disregarded when facing
a foe with modern weaponry. PGM weaponry is most effective in the
desert, but even in this open country, effective, inexpensive
countermeasures can be devised. The Russian Army is just one of many
armies looking for such countermeasures.
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