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INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY to REDUCE FRATRICIDE Larry Doton

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INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY to REDUCE FRATRICIDE Larry Doton TechnologyRESEARCH and Fratricide INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE FRATRICIDE Larry Doton The high incidence of fratricide during the Gulf War requires materiel devel- opers to anticipate and compensate for the consequences of partially or completely non-integrated technology. Solutions include thorough risk as- sessments for all systems, combat identification capability equal to the range of the weapons employed, and service integration of IFF technology. his paper will analyze the appli- lyzed and that the consequences of in- cation of technology in our mod- appropriate or incomplete application ern warfighting systems, evaluat- be averted. Columnist and retired ing the potential adverse impacts of ap- Army colonel Harry Summers recently plying mismatched, non-integrated, or addressed an argument made by Walter incomplete technology to a require- Lippmann, writing in December, 1941, ment. It will substantiate the criticality that air and sea power would prevail in of thorough requirements analysis prior World War II with ground forces play- to implementation of technology in ma- ing only a minor role. Wrote Summers: jor weapons systems. The paper will show that the high fratricide rates in the Lippman [did] not understand the Gulf War were due to incomplete and dynamics of the Army where man non-integrated applications of technol- is still dominant and the machine ogy, resulting in a blind spot for the merely a tool. Technology must lethal warfighting systems. The paper serve the soldier, not vice versa will discuss fixes made during the Gulf (Summers, 1995). War and current initiatives to solve the problem. Finally, it will offer recom- Summers is right. Requirements mendations to minimize the incidence should drive the technology, not vice of fratricide in future conflicts. versa. We must critically evaluate the Given the lethality of our warfighting importance of the man-machine inter- systems, it is imperative that the appli- face to minimize the possibility of frat- cation of technology be carefully ana- ricide. 1 Acquisition Review Quarterly Winter 1996 The Gulf War verified the impor- equipment or facilities, which re- tance of superior knowledge on the sults in unforeseen and uninten- battlefield. This control of knowledge, tional death or injury to friendly and its denial to the enemy, proved to personnel (Department of the be an indispensable factor. As Alan Army, 1992). Campen noted in the Introduction to The First Information War, allied forces In a recently published study on frat- could see, hear, and talk all through the ricide, Army Col. Kenneth Steinweg, a war. After a few hours, the enemy could physician, argues that, This restrictive not. Campen also discusses the ability definition precludes accidental weapon of information warfare technology to explosions and misfires, training acci- support a leaner and cheaper force dents, casualties from unexploded ord- while continuing to effectively support nance, or self wounding of any kind. the nations goals and objectives. Vic- This artificially reduces the true fratri- tory in any future conflict will hinge on cide percentage rate (Steinweg, 1994). our ability to win the information war. In his 1982 paper on the same sub- A vital part of winning the information ject, Army Lt.Col. Charles Shrader war is the prevention and minimization coined the term amicicide. He derived of fratricide. this from the legitimate combination of the Latin noun amicus (friend) with the common latinate suffix for killing (- WHAT IS FRATRICIDE? cide) (Shrader, 1982). The term fratri- cide was at that time applied most of- To understand the lack of serious at- ten to casualties inflicted by artillery tention given this problem prior to the projectiles. This limited definition arti- Gulf War, it is important to grasp how ficially lowered true fratricide rates. restrictive the official definition of frat- ricide is. The Center for Army Lessons Learned, quoting from the U.S. Army HISTORY OF FRATRICIDE IN WAR Training and Doctrine Commands Fratricide Action Plan, defines fratri- A brief history of fratricide since the cide as: 18th century illustrates the evolution of problems in positive combat identifica- The employment of friendly weap- tion. This history documents that com- ons and munitions with the intent bat identification remains a critical to kill the enemy or destroy his problem, particularly with our techno- Lieutenant Colonel Larry Doton, USA is the Project Manager, Electronic Campus, for the Defense Systems Management College at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Doton holds a M.A. in Personnel Management from Central Michigan University and a M.S. in Management Infor- mation Systems from American University in Washington, D.C. 2 Technology and Fratricide logical capability to engage targets at American plane incinerated nearly an previously unfathomable ranges. These entire U.S. Marine platoon. And com- ranges go beyond the capability to vi- bat identification problems continued sually distinguish friend from foe. in Vietnam. In his study of fratricide, In 1758, during the French and In- Shrader referenced many Vietnam dian War, the commander of a British friendly fire occurrences. Among them detachment and Col. George Washing- was a terrible artillery incident. It hap- ton, then a colonial officer of the Brit- pened in 1967 when a gun crew cut an ish Army, mistakenly identified each incorrect powder charge. The long others forces as French. In his papers, round killed one and wounded 37 U.S. Washington reported that between 13 soldiers. Compounding the tragedy, the and 40 British soldiers died at the hands victims unit initiated extremely accu- of their own forces during the ensuing rate counterbattery fire, resulting in an engagement (Abbot, 1988). Uniforms additional 53 casualties. The entire in- at that time identified alliance. Due to cident occurred in the short span of 23 the fog of war, that means of identifi- minutes (Shrader, 1982, p. 21). cation proved to be ineffective. In a recent keynote address on frat- Of the five million French casualties ricide, the Assistant Secretary of De- in World War I, artillery caused two- fense for Command, Control, Commu- thirds, regardless of friend or foe. nications, and Intelligence reported French General Alexandre Percin be- that fratricide caused over 30 percent lieved that French artillery fire caused of all aircraft losses during the 1973 Is- one million, or 20 percent of French raeli-Egyptian War (Paige, 1994). Inci- casualties (Hawkins, 1994). During the dents of fratricide also occurred in breakout from Normandy in the Sec- Grenada and Panama. In Grenada, four ond World War, British aircraft inad- Navy A-7 aircraft strafed a U.S. Army vertently bombed the 30th Division for command post, inflicting 17 American over two days, killing, among others, casualties. Similarly, in Panama, American Lt.Gen. Leslie J. McNair. At friendly fire incidents accounted for the Battle of the Bulge, the First Infan- three of 23 killed and between 16 and try Division became the target of heavy 37 of 310 wounded, as reported by De- friendly bombing. In St. Lo, over 750 fense Department spokesman Pete Wil- casualties occurred as a result of U.S. liams during the June 19, 1990 daily bombers attacking American ground DoD press briefing (Department of De- forces. fense, 1990). Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, an As this brief history documents, frat- allied destroyer depth-charged and sank ricide is not a new phenomenon, but a an allied submarine; likewise, in the recurring and deadly problem in com- Caribbean, friendly fire sank the Ameri- bat identification. Despite the evolution can submarine USS Dorado. of high technology systems for The Korean War saw similar occur- warfighting, blind spots exist and frat- rences: A napalm bomb dropped by an ricide continues to occur. 3 Acquisition Review Quarterly Winter 1996 OPERATION DESERT STORM: Operation Desert Storm. These inci- THE FIRST HIGH TECHNOLOGY WAR dents equated to 104 woundings and 30 deaths, 10 percent of total casualties in Ground combat identification again the operation (Wright, 1993). Rick emerged as the core issue related to Atkinson of The Washington Post re- fratricide during the Gulf War. In an ported that despite the hundreds of article published in the Journal of Elec- fixed and rotary-winged aircraft from tronic Defense, Vito DeMonte suc- more than a dozen allied nations, none cinctly described the friendly fire sta- of the Gulf War fratricide cases involved tistics of Operation Desert Storm. air-to-air fratricide (Atkinson, 1994). Never before have we fought such a short war, in such a confusing en- UNDERSTATEMENT OF vironment, with such a great per- FRATRICIDE RATES centage of deaths due to friendly fire (Demonte, 1992). The high incidence of fratricide in the Gulf War brought new and heightened Friendly fire killed 35 Americans and attention to this historically troubling wounded 72 during the Gulf War. In a problem. The Office of Technology As- special column in The Washington Post, sessment agreed (with Steinweg) that Robert MacKay reported that of the 35 past rates of fratricide were systemati- Americans who died, 24 died as a re- cally and substantially underestimated sult of ground-to-ground fire, and 11 (Office of Technology Assessment, succumbed to fire from U.S. aircraft 1995, p. 1). Shraders 1992 study, (MacKay, though primarily historical, narrative, 1993). The Of- and highly selective, concluded that ...fratricide rates during fice of Technol- casualties attributable to friendly fire conflicts of the 20th ogy Assessment in modern war constitute a statistically century equaled at least five to eight times the (OTA) deter- insignificant portion of total casualties generally accepted two mined that the (perhaps less than two percent) percent figure. official friendly (Shrader, 1982, p. vii). Because of the fire casualty dearth of published documents on this rate for Desert Storm was 24 percent subject, Shraders assessment had be- (Office of Technology Assessment, come the de facto standard. In subse- 1993).
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