With the surveillance system upgrade, the S-3B Viking will allow the real-time targeting of all the weapons that carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups bring to the fight.
A common theme running through Navy, Marine Corps, and joint service guidance is the criticality of both the precise aiming of weapons and the speed with which they are applied. "Forward. . . from the Sea" states: "Precision means having the desired effect on the enemy, limiting collateral damage, lessening the risk to our forces, and achieving maximum impact with our combat resources." It also identifies the need for smart targeting of ordnance for maximum impact and the need for rapid and accurate battle damage assessment. The concept of precision introduced in "Forward . . . from the Sea" has been accompanied by an evolution in two major areas of warfare:
Network-centric warfare. Networking sensors to shooters in one seamless information grid will increase speed of command, which will allow combat power to be applied in a continuum rather than incremental steps.
Land attack. This is the ability to influence events ashore, anytime and anywhere, directly and decisively.
In a similar vein, the Marine Corps' "Operational Manuever from the Sea" (OMFTS) states that "successful execution of OMFTS will drive changes in fire support. To improve our mobility ashore, we will increasingly take advantage of sea-based fires.... we must streamline our fire support coordination procedures to improve responsiveness." And "Joint Vision 2010" identifies a need for precision engagement, which it defines as a "system of systems that enables our forces to locate the objective of a target, provide responsive command and control, generate the desired effect, assess our level of success, and retain the flexibility to reengage with precision when required."
It is evident that precision and speed of command are complementary goals. Given this, are there means by which these objectives can better be accomplished from the sea, through a more efficient use of resources? History provides the first clue.
Situational Awareness and the Sea-Based Scout
Situational awareness has been the goal of military leaders since the time of Alexander the Great. It enables a commander to apply combat power rapidly, in a constant rather than incremental flow—the essence of speed of command. Historically, within the land battlespace, building this awareness has meant seizing the high ground. This took on new meaning during the American Civil War, with the employment of balloons as observation posts.
The airplane's first sea-based employment was as a scouting platform whose purpose was to locate the enemy fleet and then to serve as a spotter for the big-gunned capital ships. After the introduction of the carrier, these scouting aircraft were able to be deployed in larger numbers, allowing the fleet commander to develop a more comprehensive tactical picture than what could be pieced together from the information provided by one or two floatplanes launched from a battleship. By the 1930s, scouting squadrons had become an integral component of the carrier air group. The scouting role was so important that one of four squadrons in the carrier air group was designated a scout/bombing, or VSB, squadron.
Known as the SBD-1 (scout dive-bomber), the Dauntless was instrumental in the early victories in the Pacific during World War II. As a dive-bomber, it brought to weapon delivery an accuracy theretofore unimaginable. Situational awareness and the speed by which it could be transmitted to the commander, however, were its most vital contributions. The Dauntless was the precision surveillance and targeting platform of its era for the standoff weapons of the battle group—battleship guns, air- and surface-launched torpedoes, and carrier-based aircraft. Each of these weapons was far more effective when employed as part of a concerted effort rather than individually. The SBD provided the key pieces of information vital to this early form of network-centric warfare.
A distinguishing feature of the Dauntless was its adaptability to other missions. It routinely conducted antisubmarine patrols and other surveillance and fleet-support tasks. Its airframe allowed for such wartime improvements as 50-caliber gun packs, rocket rails, multishackle bomb racks, and even radar in some advanced versions.
During the later stages of World War II and into the Cold War, the role of the sea-based scout was somewhat diminished. The demise of the Japanese fleet combined with the absence of a blue-water surface threat lessened the need for an organic scouting platform in the hands of the battle group commander.
All that changed with the advent of the Soviet bluewater navy. Cruise-missile-armed surface ships were fielded that were capable of threatening carrier battle groups at extended ranges. No longer could the fleet commander presume that the carrier air wing offered the only long arm in maritime combat. As a result, the role of the sea-based scout was resurrected.
Enter the S-3B Viking, the perfect scout. Like that of its predecessors, the Viking's role was, and remains, offensive, not defensive, and its scouting characteristics are strikingly similar to those of the Dauntless:
- Extended range, endurance, and loiter capability
- Organic battle group asset
- Flexible and responsive
- Stand-off detection, identification, and targeting capability
- Enhanced connectivity networked to the battle group
Using the S-3B's surveillance and targeting capability, the battle group commander then can choose from a menu of stand-off weapons to neutralize any blue-water threat on a real-time basis—the essence of speed of command and network-centric warfare. The Viking truly is the "reach out and touch" battle group asset.
The Modern Scout from the Sea
The sea-based scout has met the requirements of precision, smart targeting, and speed of command in the past. How can its capabilities now be applied to the littorals? Given the importance of land attack and network-centric warfare, why not replicate our blue-water surveillance and targeting capability in those coastal regions, where most of the world's conflicts are likely to occur?
Today's mobile target sets of conventional and unconventional threats do not lend themselves to conventional preplanned strike packages. There is not yet, for example, a means of locating moveable missiles on a regular, predictable basis. But we can use lessons learned from dealing with mobile and lethal threats in the blue-water arena as a start in formulating a solution. Smart targeting of littoral threats demands a pointing platform that can maintain a constant surveillance of the enemy's likely area of operations and direct the appropriate weapons—whether air, surface, or subsurface launched—to it. Air operations within the amphibious and joint operations areas including joint offensive and defensive counterair, theater missile defense, interdiction, suppression of enemy air defenses, and joint maritime operations share the need for timely, precise surveillance and targeting.
Further demanding a precise targeting platform is the increasing accuracy of today's standoff weapons. We are equipping the battle group with a number of precision, standoff weapons, yet we have not given the launch platform the sensors or targeting data with which to target and employ those weapons responsively to the limits of their ranges. Nor can we target those weapons in real time on relocatable threats. Weapons such as the joint standoff weapon (JSOW), joint directed attack munition (JDAM), standoff land attack missile (SLAM), and other global-positioning-system-guided munitions (GGMs) offer the prospect of circular error probabilities of less than ten meters. But GGMs are reliant on preprogrammed geodetic coordinates and imagery that today's data bases are not equipped to provide to the firing platform.
The targeting problem is even more acute with relocatable targets, such as those whose status can rapidly change (such as radar sites), and those that otherwise might be destroyed inside the air-tasking-order cycle. Killing these targets demands the employment of standoff, networked weapons that can be targeted by a responsive, third-party targeting asset.
The same is true of munitions with reactive capabilities, such as the high-speed antiradiation missile (HARM). When employed by a platform-centric shooter, its effectiveness is limited. With networked sensors and targeting information, the missile's effectiveness improves greatly.
Today's unmanned aerial vehicles and afloat mission planning systems do not provide the range, speed, coverage, or flexibility required to meet the needs of smart targeting and in many instances cannot provide the kind of continuum required for speed of command. To be truly effective, smart weapons need a responsive targeting capability that can be supplied only by three means: launch platform self-targeting, targeting via the weapon, and third party targeting. Given the fiscal and operational constraints of the first two alternatives, third-party targeting offers the optimum solution.
The Army has seen the value of third-party targeting and has developed the relatively low-cost yet highly effective RC-7B Airborne Reconnaissance Low-Multifunction aircraft, which incorporates the latest sensor, data fusion, and data collection technology. Specifically, it includes synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with a moving target indicator functionality, Link 16, and a standoff electro-optical system—all inserted into an existing, proven airframe. Systems such as SAR, inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR), Link 16, and video link now are available at a cost that makes them employable in large numbers at the tactical level.
It's time for the Navy and Marine Corps to adapt some of these same capabilities to the littoral environment in the form of the Surveillance System Upgrade (SSU) S-3B. The S-3B's basic characteristics suit it for the surveillance and targeting role:
- Airframe numbers to ensure constant coverage
- An open architecture central processing system, which offers an inexpensive yet highly effective means of adding additional sensors and links
- All-weather capability
- Multistation sensor and man-in-the-loop configuration
- Extended range and endurance
- Organic carrier battle group (CVBG) and amphibious ready group (ARG) asset
Employing the S-3B as a third-party targeter would allow commanders to react rapidly to emerging threats without having to compete for national or theater assets in developing littoral situational awareness. As such, the SSU S-3B would fill a niche between the joint surveillance/target attack radar system (JSTARS) and unmanned aerial vehicles in the high-performance sensor grid of cooperative engagement capability. In addition, it would be flexible in three key areas, with the ability to:
- Swing between the surveillance/reconnaissance role and the tactical role of real-time targeting
- Locate and target sea- and land-based threats
- Move with the carrier battle group and amphibious ready group as an organic element or as a unit under joint force air component commander (JFACC) control
Operations in the littoral maritime environment require a surveillance radar that incorporates both an ISAR and SAR capability. Both need to be available at extended ranges and resolutions, to permit the detection of small craft and small, mobile land targets. Equally important is the availability of moving target indicator capability—proved so effective during the Gulf War on board JSTARS. Complementing the SAR/ISAR would be an enhanced electro-optical and infrared device that would be used to confirm the identity and conduct surveillance of targets cued by the radar and other sensors. Smart targeting, precision, and speed of command cannot be achieved without the constant and responsive surveillance provided by these devices.
Rapid, abbreviated connectivity also was key to the SBD's success. The unreliability of 1940s voice radios resulted in a reliance on Morse Code signal, atmospherics permitting, by the rear set operator. A typical contact report might read: "One CV, two CA, five DD, Lat 08-45S, Long 163-20E, Cus 160, Spd 15." This meant one carrier, two cruisers, and five destroyers were sighted at 8 deg 45' south latitude, 163 deg 20' east longitude, course 1600, speed 15 knots.
Concise, speedy connectivity is equally vital to today's scout and can be achieved through Link 16. A joint tactical network, Link 16 is one of three interoperable warfighting networks in network-centric warfare. It provides the capability to synchronize a platform's position with the entire network. In addition, it has the potential for sensor registration, whereby any inaccuracies in a participant sensor can be recognized and mitigated in developing a coherent tactical picture. Sensor registration would, in turn, minimize sensor azimuth, range, and elevation errors and allow more precise position reporting of enemy tracks.
Another potential feature of Link 16 architecture is the use of a common position and acceleration source by the host platform and onboard sensor (in this instance a SAR radar). In this arrangement, radar track information would be more closely synchronized with the position of the reporting platform.
Link 16 reporting accuracy achieved through such steps would allow precise targeting without reliance on preplanned data. This in turn would allow the rapid targeting of mobile threats, transfer of those coordinates to a shooter, and delivery of a standoff weapon. In this instance, the third-party targeter's sensors are networked to, and in essence take control of, the shooter's weapons. Taking this a step further, man-in-the-loop weapons such as SLAM and SLAM-ER could be controlled by the SSU S-3B.
The second element of a comprehensive connectivity system is high-quality imagery and a full-motion video link. The advent of tactical common data link (TCDL) makes incorporation of this capability feasible and affordable. Lightweight and inexpensive, it would enable the SSU S-3B to link the littoral SAR/ISAR and EO/IR picture on a real-time basis to the carrier battle group and amphibious ready group.
Teaming TCDL with Link 16 shortens the speed of command timeline significantly by two important means. First, it can provide the data needed to confirm hostile targets and order attack concurrently to the command and control platform. Second, it can provide targeting-quality Link 16 messages to the launch platform. This would allow for expedited communications between the three network-centric warfare grids: sensors, command and control, and shooters. In some instances, the SSU S-3B would feed the three network-centric interoperable warfighting networks: joint composite tracking, cooperative engagement, and joint planning.
Teaming Link 16 and TCDL also addresses two recommendations of the sensor-to-shooter working group—first, by enhancing the effectiveness of the execution controller, and second, by providing the shooter with key information rather than inundation with data. The SSU S3B also is the first step toward architecture in which sensors will input new information continuously into battle-- space awareness data bases, while both executing elements (shooters and controllers) and battle managers will be able to retrieve information simultaneously.
The SSU S-3B allows responsive targeting through:
- Timely detection
- Rapid classification of priority targets
- Expedited decision to engage
- Timely targeting and hand-off to shooters
- Ordnance on target
- Battle damage assessment
More weapons on more targets, more accurately, more rapidly is the SSU S-3B's bottom line.
Continuous advances in the capabilities of SAR/ISAR, Link 16, and TCDL demand that the aircraft data processing interface be open architecture, to support growth in processing requirements. The AYK-23 data processing system being installed in the S-3B is such a system. In addition to hosting current S-3B tactical mission program requirements, the AYK-23 has a considerable growth capacity capable of hosting devices that can be interfaced through the tactical mission program software or independently. This latter point is key, because improvements to sensors no longer would require a costly software change or the equally costly addition of a stand-alone, non-networked device, which in turn would require additional aircraft real estate and unique interfaces. The open architecture AYK-23 provides a plug-and-play feature that permits a modular approach to sensor and connectivity improvements—such as improved passive electronic sensors with automatic target recognition features and enhanced connectivity.
A Scout for the 21st Century
To use battle group precision weapons effectively, we must have an organic capability to target those weapons on a real-time basis. Relying solely on sensors and sources external to the battle group does not provide the flexibility to deal with concealed and mobile threats. This targeting capability must be fielded in numbers to permit constant all-weather littoral surveillance that can be called on rapidly to pinpoint targets.
In the summer of 1999, a prototype Surveillance System Upgrade S-3B was fielded with many of the above capabilities. Like the scout of yesteryear, it will allow the real-time targeting of all of the weapons that the carrier battle group and amphibious ready group bring to the fight. In its early years, the SBD cost $84,000 to test and produce. At the beginning of World War II, it was averaging $29,000 a copy. By any measure, the return on investment for this aircraft was enormous. The SSU S-3B offers this same return.
We cannot fire our silver bullets with iron sights. The goals of network-centric warfare and IT-21 will not be realized fully until we have a dispersed, responsive, and networked targeting platform that can assist the shooter and the command-and-control platform simultaneously. The SSU S-3B stands ready to meet this challenge.
Commander Wedewer is an aerospace engineering duty officer and naval flight officer with approximately 1,900 hours in the S-3B. He is the S-3B avionics systems project officer at the Naval Air Systems Command, NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.