Raytheon is pitching a new approach for co-ordinating two currently difficult missions – using aircraft to provide close air support to ground troops in close contact with enemy forces, and engaging pop-up targets.
The company says it is responding to growing interest from the US Air Force and UK Royal Air Force to shift the command and control burden for such missions away from air crew by transferring terminal control of a bomb or missile to a ground commander.
An early concept of the Raytheon method was demonstrated last year, but the company now admits its strategy was overly ambitious. By passing full authority for an air-launched weapon to the troops nearest to its intended target, the method exceeded both the US Army’s and USAF’s doctrine for such missions.
“The warfighters thought there was some utility, but it was still out of the norm for concepts of operations to hand off weapon authority to the grunt on the ground,” says Bruce DeWitt, Raytheon’s director of precision engagement.
On 3 November, Raytheon staged a second major trial – dubbed the Strike Netted Effects Demonstration – which shifted the targeting burden from the troops on the front line to a battalion-level artillery commander.
The demonstration involved three of the company’s weapon systems: a lock-on after-launch version of its AGM-65 Maverick, the AGM-154A Joint Standoff Weapon and the BGM-109 Tomahawk Block IV cruise missile.
The weapons were modified to connect remotely to an adapted Raytheon Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), with command and control passed to the battalion artillery commander. The AFATDS was used to assess each target and assign a weapon to make the strike, and to relay this information to the weapons directly after approval from a combined air operations centre.
Raytheon emphasises that the netted effects concept relies exclusively on existing hardware, datalinks and waveforms and requires minimal software modifications. The USAF plans to develop new radios and a new waveform for its weapons over the next few years, but Raytheon says a basic capability could be available within 12 months.
“In the interim, there is a silver bullet capability out there,” says DeWitt.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE/WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
