Tim Ripley and DeeDeeDoke/LONDON
Allied commanders are calling in additional surveillance assets to improve their coverage of Yugoslavia in an effort to combat intensifying Yugoslav military action in Kosovo.
US Air Force General Atomics RQ-1A Predators and US Army TRW Hunter unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) - the latter on their first operational deployment - were ordered to Europe at the end of last month to "deepen the intelligence focus" of Operation Allied Force, say US officials. The UAVs join a growing armada of surveillance aircraft in the region as NATO grapples with the problems of tracking Yugoslav armour, infantry and artillery units in Kosovo.
Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint-STARS ground surveillance aircraft that have been positioned in Europe since February and other reconnaissance assets such as the Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joint and the US Navy Reef Point multi-sensor platform Lockheed P-3 Orion are also being used. The French Transall C-160 Gabriel tactical reconnaissance aircraft is also known to be in the area.
NATO started the air campaign with near real-time surveillance assets largely limited to USAF Lockheed U-2R Dragon Lady aircraft and German Dornier/Bombardier CL-289 UAVs, to allow it to track the dispersal of key Yugoslav assets in hostile environments. According to NATO sources, satellites and tactical photo reconnaissance systems have so far failed to keep track of mobile Yugoslav surface-to-air-missile batteries, tank columns and the dispersed operating bases of combat aircraft units.
Real-time intelligence is considered essential if NATO is to hit Serb forces fighting in Kosovo. The medium-altitude Predators have deployed to the Balkans several times since 1995. Their stay late last year was brief because of icing problems - a hurdle the vehicles makers are attempting to solve with a new system allowing anti-freeze to seep over the wings as the aircraft flies.
Since 1995, the Predator's visual range has been increased to over-the-horizon capability, more than doubling its original line-of-sight views from 75km (120 miles) from its ground control centre to beyond 480km.
The urgent need to get intelligence on the Yugoslav military led to NATO chiefs to request the return of the Predator to Europe. During the Operation Deliberate Force air offensive in Bosnia in 1995, NATO officers described Predator as "the best source of bomb damage assessment of the destruction to Bosnian Serb military targets".
The Hunter is a low-altitude reconnaissance system used by the US Army. The Army cancelled the Hunter programme in 1996 but still trains with the system while it awaits a decision on a replacement.
The British Army is also believed to be close to deploying its GEC-Marconi built Phoenix tactical UAV to support artillery and armoured units in the region.
Another tool available to US pilots flying in the region is the rapid targeting system nicknamed Gold Strike, an information relay system that is designed to zero in on elusive targets like missile units that launch and run. It cuts the time needed to spot, confirm and attack ground targets to minutes. Previously, the system has been used over Bosnia with the USAF's Boeing F-15Es and navy Grumman A-6 and Boeing F/A-18s.
Gold Strike works by providing imagery from airborne sensor data from assets such as the U-2 or Joint-STARS linked to the combat aircraft cockpit through a processing station, an imagery analysis centre and command-and-control decision makers who determine which pictures air crews receive.
Source: Flight International
