Another aviation week article. Looks like the Predator B is better suited to ISR ops in Iraq than the F-22. Good thing, the Predator B is a lot cheaper and can be operated fron a double wide in NV.
Whatever ends up working best, the bad guys are in some deep sh*t.
Aviation Week and Space Technology
Technology Will Be Key to Iraq Buildup
Jan 14, 2007 By David A. Fulghum
Any U.S. military surge in Iraq will be far more than a troop increase.
A key element in the deployment will be an accelerated effort to bring more and newer technologies to bear on the foe, in part by targeting insurgent commanders, often through their communication networks, say Pentagon and aerospace industry specialists. Even the F-22 with its advanced electronic surveillance and analysis capability is being considered for deployment into theater from Okinawa this year during the stealth fighter's first air expeditionary force assignment.
The Pentagon is scrambling--in tandem with a crash reworking of the 2008 President's budget, due in February--to make sure that the ground force in Iraq, enlarged by 21,500 troops, will "have more advanced technology tools to work with," says a retired U.S. Army official with insight into the service's preparations. "There's certainly going to be more precision weapons available and more special operations teams that can provide precision targeting." But what the military really will be focusing on are electronic emitters, primarily communications used by insurgents.
One goal of the technology infusion in Iraq will be to decapitate the leadership of some insurgent cells quickly and map their communications to reveal additional layers of their networks. Well before the White House's call for troop increases last week, the military and industry were conducting an urgent examination of sensors and weapons that could provide more network-centric-based options for increasing the clout of what's expected to be a relatively small and difficult-to-sustain increase in ground forces.
"Will there be more airpower going to Iraq in the next days, weeks, months? Hell, yes," says a senior Air Force official. "The plan is to clear some insurgent areas and militia strongholds in Baghdad and keep them cleared. There will be precision weapons applied wherever there's an enclave, a storage area or logistics activity--boom, boom, boom. It will be fixed-wing attack of critical targets within urban areas."
In fact, the number of suitable weapons for precision attacks with minimum collateral damage is growing. The 250-lb. Small-Diameter Bomb (SDB) made its debut in theater last year, providing close air support to ground troops. Meanwhile, the Air Force continues work on a new variant called the Focused Lethality Munition (FLM), which will combine an SDB casing with a new explosive fill that will confine the weapon's blast effects to within 100 ft. of its detonation point. Boeing is the contractor for both SDB and FLM.
A surge in aviation would accompany any increases in ground forces, agrees former Air Force chief of staff, Gen. (ret.) John Jumper. "The numbers of locations, of patrols, the tasking through the combatant commander are accompanied by everything that goes along with that--more logistics, fuel and support from the air and sea," he says.
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At the heart of the effort will be unmanned and manned aircraft networked to a greater degree than ever before. However, that doesn't mean a large number of UAVs will be shipped to Iraq even though they are available. The bottleneck is in the U.S. There the shortage of "cockpits" and aircrews (located at Nellis AFB, and Creech AFB, Nev.) needed to fly the unmanned systems operating in Iraq and Afghanistan is the limiting factor.
Those monitoring these programs say there will be additional UAVs deployed, including some new designs; but primarily changes will involve improved ISR capabilities for existing UAVs such as the Global Hawk and Predator. Another thrust will be the addition of improved network-centric warfare systems that, by linking the output of many platforms, can provide wider coverage and better situational awareness for the ground troops.
While unmanned aircraft will sometimes carry weapons, the primary thrust (at least initially) will be to focus on beefing up the ISR payloads on UAVs while relying on manned aircraft to provide precision delivery of weapons.
"The Air Force has lots of strike capability, but not enough [ISR] collection," a Pentagon official says. Therefore, the need for linkages between manned and unmanned aircraft and operators on the ground will be "a driving emphasis," he says.
What's being batted back and forth in Pentagon planning circles is whether to use the advanced electronic surveillance capabilities of the F-22 Raptor, which will have its first expeditionary deployment this summer.
Right now the stealth fighter doesn't have the data links installed that would let it instantaneously deliver its high-resolution data to other aircraft and ground stations. Until the new, low-probability-of-intercept communications are on the fighter, getting the electronic order of battle (what's emitting and where) information off the aircraft will always have to wait until the aircraft lands and the data can be downloaded (AW&ST Jan. 8, p. 47).
"F-22 doesn't have the link, and crucial to the network-centric improvements [in Iraq] is being able to move the data," the Pentagon official says. The effort to support the new surge "is really an integration issue," he says. "F-22 deployment is still a maybe. The increase in ISR collection capability will be done primarily with unmanned aircraft." Even the Predator B, which has six weapons stations and is expected to deploy to Iraq, would devote most of its payload to sensors rather than missiles.
"They've been close to sending it in once or twice before," Jumper says. "That wouldn't surprise me at all. It would be able to do a lot more" in the ISR world than conventional aircraft. The F-22 does a different mission."
Others think not. "The F-22 community is itching to go, but I don't think it's going to happen," an Air Force official says. "There are airplanes already there and you don't really need it. As for a surge, the only thing you could do for the next two years is additional ISR payloads for Predators and Global Hawk."
With Amy Butler in Washington.
