DTIC ADA487939: Integrating Technology to Reduce Fratricide

19 Pages·0.43 MB·English

by  Defense Technical Information Center

TechnRolEogSyE aAnRd CFrHatricide
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 (cid:145)blind(cid:146) 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.
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Integrating Technology to Reduce Fratricide
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Acquisition Review Quarterly, Winter 1996
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Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18
Acquisition Review Quarterly (cid:150) 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, (cid:147)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 nation(cid:146)s goals and objectives. Vic- This artificially reduces the true fratri-
tory in any future conflict will hinge on cide percentage rate(cid:148) (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 Command(cid:146)s
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 (cid:145)long(cid:146)
others(cid:146) 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 victim(cid:146)s 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 (cid:145)fog of war,(cid:146) 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-
(cid:145)friendly(cid:146) 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, (cid:145)blind(cid:146) spots exist and frat-
rences: A napalm bomb dropped by an ricide continues to occur.
3
Acquisition Review Quarterly (cid:150) 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). Shrader(cid:146)s 1992 study,
( M a c K a y , though (cid:147)primarily historical, narrative,
1993). The Of- and highly selective,(cid:148) concluded that
...fratricide rates during
fice of Technol- (cid:147)casualties attributable to friendly fire
conflicts of the 20th
century equaled at least ogy Assessment in modern war constitute a statistically
five to eight times the (OTA) deter- insignificant portion of total casualties
generally accepted two mined that the (perhaps less than two percent)(cid:148)
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, Shrader(cid:146)s assessment had be-
(Office of Technology Assessment, come the de facto standard. In subse-
1993). This figure did not include the quent published articles, Shrader ac-
British soldiers killed by aircraft bomb- knowledged that actual fratricide rates
ing, nor did it include engineer and are considerably higher than two per-
medical personnel, who were casualties cent (Shrader, 1992). In a 1993 inter-
of unexploded ordnance. As docu- view, Shrader further acknowledged
mented in his paper on unexploded ord- that higher rates are prevalent. He
nance, Lt.Col. Gary Wright stated that stated that (cid:147)It just seemed to be the
94 separate incidents involving number that I kept coming up with,
unexploded ordnance occurred during based on the materials that I had to
4
Technology and Fratricide
work with, which were pretty limited(cid:148) Hour War did liberate Kuwait and se-
(MacKay, 1993, p. A-4). verely defeated Saddam Hussein(cid:146)s
In a 1994 paper on the subject, forces.
Steinweg substantiated his thesis that In an article published shortly after
fratricide rates during conflicts of the the Gulf War, John D. Morrocco, a
20th century equaled at least five to writer for Aviation Week & Space Tech-
eight times the generally accepted two nology, lauded the performance of the
percent figure (Steinweg, 1994, p. 1). high technology systems used during
Steinweg(cid:146)s study examined historical the conflict. He also postulated that the
evidence of the 20th century, experi- Department of Defense would continue
ences at the National Training Centers, to press for high-leverage advanced
and the application of technology. Be- technology systems.
cause the casualty reporting system
failed (and continues to fail) to accu- Operation Desert Storm [has] vali-
rately document fratricide, Steinweg dated the U.S. military(cid:146)s empha-
also used medical documents in sub- sis on quality versus quantity in
stantiating his thesis. Steinweg con- weapon systems and provided a
cluded that (cid:147)Fratricide rates have been tremendous boost to the credibil-
and are conservatively 10-15 percent of ity of high-technology programs
our casualties, not two percent(cid:148) now in development (Morrocco,
(Steinweg, 1994, p. 29). 1991).
In 1992 another Army physician, Col.
David M. Sa(cid:146)adah, presented a paper Yet, the fratricide rate for the Gulf
to the 31st U.S. Army Operations Re- War rivaled that of all conflicts in this
search Symposium at Fort Lee, Vir- century.
ginia. Sa(cid:146)adah compared data from five In previous conflicts, artillery in-
casualty surveys (three in the Pacific flicted the highest percentage of fratri-
during World War II and two from the cide deaths. The Office of Technology
Vietnam War) with Desert Storm data. Assessment re-
He concluded that all weapons available ported that the
(cid:147)Reducing fratricide is
on the battlefield are potential contribu- sole artillery (cid:145)right near the top, if
tors to friendly fire incidents. Further, fratricide inci- not right at the top(cid:146) of
he asserted that movement from defen- dent in Desert the list of critical areas
sive to offensive operations resulted in Storm occurred that the Army is cur-
increased fratricide rates, sometimes by on February 26, rently exploring.(cid:148)
a factor of two (Sa(cid:146)adah, 1992). 1991, when one
Operation Desert Storm was the first soldier died from injuries inflicted by
major conflict in which America(cid:146)s fight- the premature burst of an artillery
ing forces used the high technology round (Office of Technology Assess-
weapons systems designed and built ment, 1993, p. 27). That single incident
during the Reagan Administration. It accounted for less than two percent of
proved to be a major test of the billions the fratricide casualties in the conflict.
of dollars invested. The One Hundred Steinweg and Sa(cid:146)adah(cid:146)s research sub-
5
Acquisition Review Quarterly (cid:150) Winter 1996
stantiates previous fratricide figures as Steinweg and Sa(cid:146)adah(cid:146)s finding.
routinely in the 15-20 percent range, As a result of the Desert Storm fig-
vice the previously quoted Shrader rate ures, fratricide became a topic of in-
of two percent. creased attention. The Department of
Desert Storm data revealed a new Defense and the services formed Frat-
paradigm. At the 1994 Combat Identi- ricide Task Forces. In an August, 1993
fication System Conference, Col. article in the Journal of Electronic De-
Sa(cid:146)adah reported that the M1A1 fense, Col. David O. Bird, Team Chief
Abrams tank inflicted 71 percent of of the Army Materiel Command(cid:146)s Frat-
fratricide casualties during the war ricide Task Force, spoke of the high pri-
(Sa(cid:146)adah, 1994). Journal of Electronic ority in coming to the quickest possible
Defense writer Zachary Lum further total solution for fratricide reduction.
substantiated Sa(cid:146)adah(cid:146)s findings. (cid:147)Reducing fratricide is (cid:145)right near the
top, if not right at the top(cid:146) of the list of
The Abrams M1A1 was the worst critical areas that the Army is currently
offender in the Gulf, responsible exploring(cid:148) (Lum, 1993, p.48). Retired
for 85 percent of the fratricide ca- Navy Commander George Cornelius
sualties. (The U.S. lost 10 tanks in reported in a Signal magazine article
the war, seven to fratricide; of 28 that the Gulf War experience, because
Bradley Fighting Vehicles de- of air supremacy, rendered air-to-air
stroyed, 22-23 were victims of frat- and ground-to-air identification prob-
ricide.) (Lum, 1993). lems nearly irrelevant. However, the
problem of air-to-ground and ground-
Sa(cid:146)adah(cid:146)s research documented the to-ground encounters revealed seri-
redundant lethality of what he termed ous shortcomings in combat identifi-
weapons (cid:145)platforms.(cid:146) cation capabilities (Cornelius, 1994).
The Department of Defense and the
The fratricide agent is not the spe- Clinton Administration have indicated
cific weapon, but the platform that they recognize that the probability
where the firing decision resides... of fratricide cannot be eliminated. Their
The main gun is accurate and le- reasonable goal is the reduction of frat-
thal to the target vehicle, but it was ricide. Secretary of Defense William
the follow-on with the lesser arma- Perry charged the services to rapidly
ment that created the majority of develop and field, as a high priority, an
casualties (Sa(cid:146)adah, 1994, p. 8). integrated, enhanced identification ca-
pability to reduce the risk of fratricide
The variation in calculated fratricide to armor, aircraft, and ships. He further
rates highlights the difficulty in defini- declared that the Army should reduce
tion (Shrader and Steinweg), as well as the possibility of fratricide through en-
the non-standard application of calcu- hancement of situational awareness
lation methodologies. Nevertheless, fig- technology (Paige, 1994, p.2). Situ-
ures clearly substantiate the significance ational awareness is officially defined
of the problem and fall in line with by the U.S. Army Combined Arms
6
Technology and Fratricide
Command as: Advances in technology, ironically
enough, can exacerbate, rather than im-
The real-time accurate knowledge prove some situations. They are but one
of one(cid:146)s own location (and orien- piece of the pie. Emmett Paige, Jr., As-
tation), as well as the locations of sistant Secretary of Defense for Com-
friendly, enemy, neutrals, and non- mand, Control, Communications, and
combatants. This includes aware- Intelligence, recently substantiated this
ness of the METT-T conditions point in a keynote address to the 1994
that impact the operation (Depart- DoD Joint Service Combat Identifica-
ment of the Army, 1992). tion Systems Conference.
Similarly, Maj.Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Unless we have reliable means of
then a deputy chief of staff at the U.S. positively identifying foes at long
Army Training and Doctrine Com- range, the technological advantage
mand, was quoted as saying (cid:147)So we(cid:146)ve we have achieved in our weapon
got to focus on the minimization... rec- systems, at great expense, will be
ognize that we will never be able to pre- partly negated (Paige, 1994, p. 3).
vent all instances of fratricide(cid:148)
(Gellman and Lancaster, 1991). Beyond Visual Range (BVR) tech-
The Office of Technology Assess- nology permits detection of potential
ment also recognized that reduction of targets at previously unattainable
fratricide is a correct and reasonable ap- ranges. As the term implies, the eye
proach. cannot detect,
let alone iden- ...the fratricide experi-
Reducing fratricide is desirable tify a target as enced during the Gulf
and feasible, but eliminating it is either friend or War was a legacy of
not. Although programs to reduce foe. BVR tech- previous weapons
acquisition policies.
fratricide are certainly needed, set- nology can de-
ting a goal of eliminating it is un- tect targets sig-
realistic and probably counterpro- nificantly smaller than a pixel on our
ductive (Office of Technology As- sensors, thereby precluding positive
sessment, 1993, p. 2). identification. Unfortunately, the
Desert Storm record of fratricide
Believing that the application of tech- proved a downside to these technologi-
nology alone will solve the problem is cal advancements. DeMonte highlights
fallacious and foolhardy. As Cornelius the major reason. (cid:147)Engagement ranges
stated in an article published by the U.S. became so extended that differentiation
Naval Institute Proceedings, (cid:147)Elec- between friend or enemy leapt beyond
trons, however marvelous, can never the capability of the (cid:145)sensor-aided eye-
relieve humans of the awful responsi- ball(cid:146)(cid:148) (DeMonte, 1992, p. 35).
bility of the final, lethal decision to fire(cid:148)
(Cornelius, 1993).
7
Acquisition Review Quarterly (cid:150) Winter 1996
NON-INTEGRATED APPLICATION identification appeared necessary.
OF TECHNOLOGY Review of applicable Cost and Op-
erational Effectiveness Analyses
To a large degree, the fratricide ex- (COEA) for combat vehicles in the late
perienced during the Gulf War was a 1970(cid:146)s (i.e., for the systems later used
legacy of previous weapons acquisition in Desert Storm) revealed that combat
policies. Planners and designers of high identification was not a system require-
technology warfighting systems, such as ment. In the area of survivability,
the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the COEA data consistently concentrated
Abram(cid:146)s tank, the Multiple Launched on the areas of large and small caliber
Rocket System (MLRS), improved con- direct fire weapons; indirect fire; mines;
ventional munitions, and scatterable nuclear, biological, and chemical weap-
mines failed to account for collateral or ons; and air attack (Department of the
unforeseen impacts. Employment of Army, 1978). In no single COEA was
BVR technology without evaluating all there a reference to combat identifica-
consequences, resulted in a (cid:145)blind(cid:146) spot tion or identification friend-or-foe
in the positive identification of ground (IFF) technology (Department of the
combat vehicles. Army, 1963). Built-in features such as
A review of official documents re- fire suppression, blow-out panels, hard-
veals recognition of the need to improve ened armor, and protective linings
combat identification. However, prior served to increase survivability. These
to the Desert Storm experience with measures proved effective in minimiz-
fratricide, little substantive progress oc- ing the impacts of friendly fire during
curred in reducing its incidence. The the Gulf War. As it turned out, the in-
commander of the Combat Develop- corporation of IFF would have been a
ments Com- more effective survivability factor.
...(cid:147)failure to consider mand, in a No- In a February, 1974 letter following
effects of unexploded vember, 1967 the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict and the
submunitions increased letter to the Israeli(cid:146)s difficulty in identifying friendly
the potential for Army Chief of from enemy tanks, the Assistant Secre-
friendly deaths.(cid:148) Staff (Depart- tary of the Army for Research and De-
ment of the velopment acknowledged that there was
Army, 1967), observed that soldiers not a battlefield IFF system for use with
must be conditioned to distinguish be- tanks (Department of the Army, 1974).
tween friend and foe. He recommended He directed the Army staff and the U.S.
a study to analyze modification of train- Army Training and Doctrine Command
ing firing ranges to condition trainees to determine the Army(cid:146)s need for a
to make distinctions among targets battlefield IFF system for tanks.
prior to firing. In June, 1982, J.R. Sculley, the As-
The November, 1967 letter also re- sistant Secretary of the Army for Re-
ported that improvements in techniques search, Development, and Acquisition,
for visual recognition of friendly per- in a memorandum for the Under Sec-
sonnel and procedures for battlefield retary of Defense (Research and En-
8
Technology and Fratricide
gineering), concluded that there was no with submunitions(cid:148) (Wright, 1993, p.
requirement for an electronic question 17). Further, Wright stated that (cid:147)The
and answer system for ground combat transfer or sharing of UXO information
vehicles (Department of the Army, is not currently in our Joint or Service
1982). The Assistant Secretary based doctrine(cid:148) (Wright, 1993).
his recommendation on the results of a Unfortunately, this is not a new phe-
Battlefield Identification Friend-or- nomenon. It applies, as well, to
Foe (BIFF) study (Science Applica- minefield placement. In the November,
tions, 1979). 1967 letter previously cited, the com-
The Rand Corporation conducted a mander of the U.S. Army Combat De-
study on ground-to-ground fratricide at velopments Command noted the inad-
the National Training Center in 1986. equate reporting and recording of
In the study entitled Applying the Na- friendly protective minefields. The
tional Training Center Experience - Inci- commander reported that casualties in
dence of Ground-to-Ground Fratricide, Vietnam occurred because units failed
Martin Goldsmith provided several to record or retrieve minefields before
conclusions. His data revealed that half moving. The report recommended re-
of the recorded fratricides were pre- newed compliance with the published
ventable if the shooter had proper doctrine.
knowledge of the location of friendly Project office technical management
units. Further, he found that one third engineers and the Studies Branch Chief
of the fratricides were preventable if in the System Manager(cid:146)s Office for
tank gunners had knowledge of the lo- MLRS confirmed that:
cation of individual friendly vehicles.
Finally, Goldsmith found that 17 per- The battlefield safety of operating
cent of fratricides were also preventable areas where submunitions had
with the implementation of IFF devices been delivered was not considered
on combat vehicles. during the design and early pro-
In the case of the MLRS, a (cid:145)blind(cid:146) duction of the system (MLRS).
spot in doctrine emerged during the They [the System(cid:146)s Manager(cid:146)s Of-
Gulf War. In his paper on the problem fice, Training and Doctrine Com-
of unexploded ordnance on the battle- mand] said the Army believed the
field, Lt.Col. Gary Wright calculated weapon would most likely be used
that more than 1.5 million unexploded against the Soviet threat in Eu-
munitions (UXO) remain on the Gulf rope, where U.S. troops would
War battlefield. Wright further docu- probably be in a defensive posi-
mented that vast amounts of tion. Therefore, U.S. soldiers were
submunitions targeted beyond the For- not expected to occupy submuni-
ward Support Coordination Line tions-contaminated areas (Gen-
caused maneuver problems as ground eral Accounting Office, 1993).
forces thundered into Iraq. Wright
documented that (cid:147)Many units found The U.S. Army Training and Doc-
themselves in areas that were saturated trine Command(cid:146)s System Manager for
9