SIX DECADES OF GUIDED MUNITIONS AND BATTLE NETWORKS: PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS Barry D. Watts Thinking Center for Strategic Smarter and Budgetary Assessments About Defense www.csbaonline.org Six Decades of Guided Munitions and Battle Networks: Progress and Prospects by Barry D. Watts Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments March 2007 ABOUT THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) is an independent, nonprofit, public policy research institute established to make clear the inextricable link between near-term and long- range military planning and defense investment strategies. CSBA is directed by Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich and funded by foundations, corporations, government, and individual grants and contributions. This report is one in a series of CSBA analyses on the emerging military revolution. Previous reports in this series include The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment (2002), Meeting the Anti-Access and Area-Denial Challenge (2003), and The Revolution in War (2004). The first of these, on the military-technical revolution, reproduces the 1992 Pentagon assessment that precipitated the 1990s debate in the United States and abroad over revolutions in military affairs. Many friends and professional colleagues, both within CSBA and outside the Center, have contributed to this report. Those who made the most substantial improvements to the final manuscript are acknowledged below. However, the analysis and findings are solely the responsibility of the author and CSBA. 1667 K Street, NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20036 (202) 331-7990 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEGEMENTS .................................................. v SUMMARY ............................................................... ix GLOSSARY ………………………………………………………xix I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................... 1 Guided Munitions: Origins in the 1940s............. 3 Cold War Developments and Prospects ............. 6 The Origins of Battle Networks ....................... 17 Early versus Late Adopters.............................. 19 The Rest of This Report ................................... 23 II. HOW TO THINK ABOUT GUIDED MUNITIONS AND BATTLE NETWORKS…..................................... 25 Definitional Matters and Scope........................ 26 War’s Nature versus War’s Conduct ................ 32 The Influence of Technology and Numbers ..... 38 The Problems of Recognizing Revolutionary Change ........................... 65 Questions about Future War and an Anomaly........................................... 81 III. PLATFORM-VERSUS-PLATFORM CASES… ............... 91 US Navy Torpedoes after World War II ........... 92 Solid-State Microelectronics.......................... 108 The AIM-7 Sparrow III.................................. 115 Styx and Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles ............. 149 The Shillelagh Anti-Tank Missile.................... 162 IV. SURFACE-ATTACK CASES… ................................ 175 Laser-Guided Bombs ..................................... 179 The Copperhead Anti-tank Round.................. 204 The Joint Direct Attack Munition ................... 213 TLAM and CALCM........................................... 230 CEC as a Targeting Network .......................... 248 Higher-Level Effects and Mass....................... 252 V. IMPLICATIONS AND PROSPECTS…......................... 257 The Guided-Munitons Era as an RMA ............. 257 Drivers and Causation ................................... 266 i Diffusion and Reproducibility ........................ 270 Characteristics of the Precision- Strike Regime ..................................... 276 Prospects for Change: Robotics, Directed Energy, Precision Information ............ 280 Final Thoughts .............................................. 289 INDEX ………………………………………………………... 291 ii FIGURES Fig. 1: World War II Guided Munitions .............. 4 Fig. 2: Talos RIM-8J Naval SAM ......................... 5 Fig. 3: SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missile..................... 7 Fig. 4: US Guided and Unguided Munitions Expenditures in Four Campaigns ........ 20 Fig. 5: The Assault Breaker Concept ................ 29 Fig. 6: The Skeet Submunition......................... 30 Fig. 7: France, May 1940 ................................. 39 Fig. 8: Force Ratios versus Battle Outcomes.... 43 Fig. 9: F-15 versus Red Loss Rates (CAP Mission) by SA and Weapons.............. 52 Fig. 10: Mark-24 FIDO “Mine” ......................... 99 Fig. 11: USS U-3008 Off the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, ME, August 1946..... 105 Fig. 12: “Joe 1” ............................................. 123 Fig. 13: SAGE Air Defense Center, McGuire AFB, NJ, Circa 1958 .......................... 125 Fig. 14: AIM-7 Sparrow III............................ 131 Fig. 15: F-4 with AIM-7s and AIM-4s............. 132 Fig. 16: Styx and Harpoon ASMs.................... 151 Fig. 17: Shillelagh Missile Fired by a Sheridan........................................... 163 Fig. 18: Iraqi T-72 Hit by a DU Antitank Round............................................... 170 Fig. 19: US Guided Expenditures in Four Campaigns................................ 177 Fig. 20: Early ("Paveway I") LGBs................. 185 Fig. 21: The Thanh Hoa Bridge Before and After a May 13, 1972, Strike with LGBs ......................................... 188 Fig. 22: Paveway II and III LGBs .................. 192 Fig. 23: Pave Tack Laser-Designator Pod on an F-4E ................................. 194 Fig. 24: LGB Damage against Hardened Aircraft Shelters, 1991 ..................... 198 Fig. 25: Unguided versus Guided Munitions/Day, 1991-2003 .............. 200 Fig. 26: The M712 Copperhead ...................... 205 Fig. 27: Copperhead Trajectories................... 208 Fig. 28: JDAMs............................................... 216 iii Fig. 29: B-2/JDAM Results, 1999................... 221 Fig. 30: Block-II GPS Satellites ..................... 228 Fig. 31: Tactical Tomahawk and CALCM......... 234 Fig. 32: JDAM versus TLAM Campaign Costs (250 Munitions/Day) .............. 241 Fig. 33: Aegis and SM-2................................. 249 Fig. 34: Guided-Munitions Accuracy .............. 261 Fig. 35: SDB I ................................................ 262 Fig. 36: LOCAAS ............................................ 281 Fig. 37: Tactical High-Energy Laser ............... 284 TABLES Table 1: Allied and German Forces and Force Ratios, 1940 ............................. 40 Table 2: AMRAAM OUE Test Matrix .................. 51 Table 3: Miitary Revolutions versus RMAs ....... 80 Table 4: AIM-7 Performance in SEA............... 140 Table 5: AIM-7M Performance in Desert Storm .................................... 143 Table 6: AIM-7M Performance in Decisive Engagements .................................. 146 Table 7: US and Soviet Conventional Naval Inventories, FY 1990 ........................ 159 Table 8: US TLAM and CALCM Expenditures... 238 iv Acknowledgements Since early 2003, numerous individuals have made contributions, some large, some small, to this report. The technical and tactical con- tent of the case studies dictated many narrowly focused discussions with colleagues and friends on specific details, and these contributions are mostly acknowledged in footnotes. There were, however, others whose insights, suggestions, or criticisms eventually affected the over- all structure, framework, and conclusions in this report. Foremost was Andrew W. Marshall, the Director of the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). He insisted from the outset on a wide range of cases spanning the various military services and war-fighting communities. Having been involved in the controversy between OSD and the US Army that culminated in cancellation of the planned replacement for the Paladin self-propelled howitzer, Crusader, I was already aware that some US military com- munities had embraced guided-munitions much earlier than others. Nevertheless, Marshall’s insistence that I needed to explore cases that went well beyond the experience of any single military service or mis- sion area proved to be wise counsel. Most of the substantive conclusions about guided munitions and battle networks in the summary and concluding chapter coalesced during discussions with my CSBA colleague Robert Work during 2006. The original draft of this report had been completed in 2004 and then was set aside during most of 2005. When I returned to the v manuscript in early 2006, it quickly became painfully clear that con- siderable restructuring was needed. In the end, three of five chapters were virtually rewritten from a clean sheet of paper and most of the cases studies in the other two chapters were substantially reworked. What made the discussions with Bob Work so valuable was the experi- ence he brought to the table from several years of observing and par- ticipating in ONA-sponsored war games, especially those in the Future Warfare 20XX and Strategic Challenge series of games. These games had explored future US force structures in the 2025 timeframe across a range of scenarios. As it turned out, the patterns I was seeing by this time in the guided-munitions case studies resonated with those Work was seeing in many of the 20XX and Strategic Challenge games. On the pivotal issue of a causal explanation for why some war-fighting communities had been early adopters of guided munitions and battle networks, Bob was in fact a step or two ahead of me in seeing the deeper pattern. Two outside readers,