HIGH-PRECISION WEAPONS AND SIDE-EFFECT RISK PRECISION GUIDED WEAPONS AND SIDE-EFFECT RISK LTC Dipl. Eng. Ivo PIKNER Abstract: This paper deals with possibilities of side-damage elimination during military operations. It provides fundamental information on characteristics and potentialities of introduced precision guided weapons. ¬¬¬ General A serious problem faced at attacking legal military targets during the armed con- icts is injured or killed civilians or other non-combatants and undesired side harm of the civilian installations. Employment of high precision weapons in current conicts shows, along with new courses of action, also new options and ways to reduce the risk of non-military target damage. Side damage risk elimination Risk of non-combatant health or lives harm side effect and undesired side damage of civilian installations is imminent at any military operation impossible to totally avoid. However there are many ways of how to reduce it substantially. The land or air attacks potential target selection and assessment process should comprise their combat or military evaluation for attaining the operation objectives, together with denition of the way for attaining the desired military effect. The objective should be reached with as low threat to the non-combatants as possible and minimum undesired side damage of protected installations such as residential building, schools, hospitals, religious facilities, cultural heritage and diplomatic buildings. Research done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has showed the U.S. citizens intolerant to the own and allied battle injuries and increased in the intolerance to enemy injuries, mostly of civilian population. It should be noticed, though if the enemy deploys the legal military targets – e.g. HQ, AD systems or armoured vehicles in or among protected installations, these loose the protected status as stipulated by international law. Even 129 Pikner.indd 129 8.3.2004, 18:58 DEFENCE AND STRATEGY now measures should be taken to direct the attack, if applicable, at the military target to minimize side-effect damage. Similar attitude should apply to double use facilities – both military and civilian, such as communication equipment representing legal targets in accordance with martial law. Every time the advantage of their destruction should be sensitively compared to potential non-combatant life injuries. Similarly complex issue is use of “human shields”, volunteer or not, to protect key facility object. There are several feasible options of civilian population threat or undesired facil- ity damage elimination. First, the above mention target selection process – needs highly performed intelligence and reconnaissance and profound analysis, as well, of broad mili- tary, political, humanitarian, economic and other relations, such as Centres of Gravity (COG) for an air operation. Second, the way of attacking the selected target. If it is a legal military target as of international martial law but surrounded by civil installations or facilities a suitable weapon system to strike is selected. Its killing effect should be such to destroy or annihilate the target (according to dened criteria) but causing no risk to civil population or protected installations, as shown in gures 1 and 2. Naturally, high precision weapon systems are considered, assets of destruction either guided along the whole ight trajectory or in the ight end phase. Those are land, air or naval assets guided by internal or external system to the target killed with high hit probability and high efciency. While “Desert Storm” operation in Iraq in 1991 pre- sented the guided assets in approximately 20 % of the total used air missiles and ammu- nition, today estimates “Iraq Freedom” operation of this year range between 60 % and 70 % reaching 90 % in areas of highly undesired side-damage risk. Weapon calibre is an important parameter. A thousand kilogram bomb destruction effect obviously differs from the effect of a 60-kilogram warhead guided missile. That is a reason of why mini- aturized air bombs are being developed. The undesired side-damage may be reduced by selection of suitable direction/ angle of attack, i.e. bomb landing to orientate the splinter effect off the protected instal- lations. Appropriate fuse timer setting so that ammunition explodes after having pen- etrated into the structure or ground may play similar role. Also attack timing – night hours, for example – helps to eliminate non-combatant injury risk. A military target is surrounded by installations protected as of international law. Employment of a too effective weapon or inappropriate course of attack causes high side damage risk of hitting the protected installations. It is of course impossible to reach hundred per cent certainty of side damage avoidance ever. A human or technical factors should always be considered either in the phase of preparation or execution of the operation. Experience of high precision weapon employment, particularly PGM (Precision Guided Munition), shows 8 to 10 per cent failure rate of precise target hit. 130 Pikner.indd 130-131 8.3.2004, 18:58 HIGH-PRECISION WEAPONS AND SIDE-EFFECT RISK Another option for considerable reduction of undesired side damage is employ- ment of non-lethal weapon systems that use other principles of enemy system annihi- lation than explosive or incendiary charges. Submunition BLU-114/B with conductive carbon bres is a typical example. It was successfully used in Serbia during the Kosovo crisis for power network shut down through short-circuiting of the transformer sites and power lines. ObytnáResidential část area DestructionMaximální oblast effect maximumničivého ú rangečinku MilitaryVojenský installation objekt NemocniceHospital MešitaMosque - Kostel / Church Figure 1: Convention ammunition damage side effect The use of “electromagnetic bombs” generating a very high power electromag- netic pulse capable to seriously damage electric and/or electronic equipment such as computers and radio/radar receivers and put thus the enemy command, control and infor- mation systems out of operation has been currently discussed. Precision guided weapons of small calibre, suitable attack direction and narrower splinter effect may eliminate side damage. High risk for both the civilian population and friendly forces is represented by attacks at combat chemical agent storage sites, as leakage of the agents into environment is imminent. Therefore special warhead and bomb charges has been developed capable of crushing the agent containers and release chemical or ozone neutralizers at the same time or make a sustained heat effect to dispose the agents, as appropriate. 131 Pikner.indd 130-131 8.3.2004, 18:59 DEFENCE AND STRATEGY ResidentialObytná část area SuitableVhodný attacksměr directionútoku DestructionMaximální oblast effect maximumničivého ú rangečinku MilitaryVojenský installation objekt NemocniceHospital Mosque Mešita - Kostel / Church Figure 2: Side damage elimination High precision weapons: Leading representatives The last mentioned operation in Iraq strictly afrmed superiority of the high preci- sion weapon systems to the today commonly used conventional ammunition that must be used in big amounts to kill the target reliably so that a considerable area in the target neighbourhood is hit. The high precision weapons were mostly represented by guided ammunition able to hit the target at rst attempt with high probability. The guided ammunition reduced number of sorties as well as of total red ammunition in air and land strikes, and also negative injuries of non-combatants (in the operation “Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan in 2001—2002 the guided ammunition represented almost 90 % of used ammunition). The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) that really proved in Afghanistan and Iraq (in some events even 80 pieces a day were used) distinguishes by its extraordinary resistance to harsh weather effects and by high precision rate. Laser guided munition is more precise when compared to JDAM, however sensi- tive to weather effects and needs marking with a laser emitter – either airborne or sur- face. The laser sensor is unable to overcome obstacles in the form of cloud layers, smoke or dust. The following paragraphs illustrate the leading examples of precise guided air- to-surface and surface-to-surface weapon systems designed to destroy surface hardened and armoured targets established in modern forces. 132 Pikner.indd 132-133 8.3.2004, 19:00 HIGH-PRECISION WEAPONS AND SIDE-EFFECT RISK AGM-86C CALCM (Conventional Air-launched Cruise Missile) is a subsonic strategic, air launched winged cruise missile powered by a small turbofan jet engine. It is equipped with a combined inertial/GPS navigation system that provides for under 5 metres circular error probable at target. The missile total length is 6.3 m, range around 1,100 km and the warhead differs by version to carry either high-explosive charge of 1,360 kg or blast fragmentation charge for hardened targets. BGM-109 Tomahawk – a subsonic US submarine or ship-launched land-attack cruise missile. The navigation system is combined inertial TERCOM/GPS and terminal guidance in the target area is provided by the optical Digital Scene Matching Area Cor- relation (DSMAC) system. The warhead is either conventional unitary or submunition. An improved navigation system variant of Tactical Tomahawk is under development. Missile length with booster is 6.25 m, total weight 1,587 kg and range around 1,600 km. AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air to Surface Stand-off Missile)