Team evaluates combat identification

  • Published
  • By Capt. David Small and Navy Cmdr. Tom Gresback
  • Joint Combat Identification Exercise Public Affairs
GULFPORT, Miss. (AFPN) --  Nearly 2,000 people participated in a joint combat-identification exercise at the Combat Readiness Training Center here Aug. 4 to 14. The exercise focused on identifying targets when systems disagree on the target’s coordinates.

An example might be when an E-8C Joint Stars and a RQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle both identify an enemy target on the ground, but there is a kilometer difference in the coordinates.

During the U.S. Joint Forces Command exercise, several teams of analysts captured virtually every aspect of the event and worked to determine the root cause of inconsistent data. Then the analysts forwarded their recommendations to fix problems to senior-military leaders, according to exercise officials.

The Joint Combat Identification Evaluation Team based at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., organized this exercise.

The team analyzes data collected from joint, live exercises and makes recommendations to military officials, according to Col. Greg Brown, the team’s commander. The recommendations are on combat identification tactics, techniques, procedures, systems interoperability and emerging technologies.

The annual field exercise is designed to provide a realistic scenario and create a fog-of-war feeling where airmen, soldiers, Marines and sailors practice tactical missions using their normal equipment and tactics, said Brown.

During these missions, analysts and experts gather as much data as possible including radio transmissions, targeting information and the time-space position and movement of forces, he said.

“If a (microphone) is keyed, we record and archive it,” said Brown.

Through a mission-debrief process, analysts use the data to compare and contrast the information seen on operational displays. They gain insight to combat-identification issues and make recommendations on how to refine tactics, techniques and procedures. This helps them solve some identification anomalies, he said.

To make the exercise realistic, Soviet-built equipment served as time-sensitive targets. For an air threat, the team used a Swedish-built J-35 Draken and an Israeli-built F-21 Kfir.

“In our line of work, having a representative signature from the threat systems is critical,” said Joe Gordon, technical adviser to the team. “Correct threat signatures, for both visual and emissions, allow us to assess how combat-ID systems are performing.”

Exercises often use visually modified U.S. equipment as opposing forces, but then the signature is not realistic, he said.

During the 1991 Gulf War, almost 24 percent of casualties were caused by friendly fire, which has been a military problem in wars throughout history, said Lt. Col. Deke Jenner, the exercise’s project manager.

“We have the ability to shoot targets at greater ranges than we can identify them,” said Jenner, who has flown the A-10 Thunderbolt II and F-117 Nighthawk.

Another advantage of field exercises like this is to have a place for testing and tweaking emerging technologies that prove critical to the integration of new tools, said Brown.

“Our venue provides them an opportunity to look at their emerging capabilities in a representative combat environment,” said Gordon.

The focus of this year’s exercise was on the time-sensitive targeting process -- the timely data flow between sensors and shooters when identifying the difference between friendly and foe forces in combat situations.

“Our goal is to provide the warfighter with the information he needs to make a decision,” said Dr. Betty Youmans, multiple-source integration demonstration project manager. “These data sources include a variety of radar sources, intelligence feeds and observations from the field transmitted over different means.

“An event such as this provides those developing new technologies to assess the value, and in some cases, the vulnerability and limitations of some of the data feeds and sources so they can better make use of these information assets,” she said.