|
|
ONLINE FEATURES
Book Reviews
BW Video
Columnists
Interactive Gallery
Newsletters
Past Covers
Philanthropy
Podcasts
Special Reports
BLOGS
Auto Beat
Bangalore Tigers
Blogspotting
Brand New Day
Byte of the Apple
Economics Unbound
Eye on Asia
Fine On Media
Green Biz
Hot Property
Investing Insights
Management IQ
NEXT: Innovation
NussbaumOnDesign
Tech Beat
Working Parents
TECHNOLOGY
J.D. Power Ratings
Product Reviews
Tech Stats
Wildstrom: Tech Maven
AUTOS
Home Page
Auto Reviews
Classic Cars
Car Care & Safety
Hybrids
INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | |
APRIL 16, 2003
By Alex Salkever Friendly Fire: Still a Deadly Foe Sophisticated and expensive technology offers the most hope -- but no guarantees -- for beating any war's worst enemy
Friendly-fire casualties, however, remained a problem for even the most wired military in history, with aerial and artillery attacks the most serious. So far, 18 of the 149 fatalities suffered by U.S. and British soldiers were the result of errant strikes by coalition forces. U.S. Patriot missiles shot down a British Tornado fighter plane and may have brought down an F-18/Hornet. A number of mistaken air raids struck U.S. soldiers, their allies, and Iraqi civilians. In the worst episode of friendly fire yet in this Iraqi war, a U.S. plane bombed a column of U.S. Special Forces troops and Kurdish fighters, killing 19 Kurds and an embedded journalist, and injuring an unspecified number of U.S. solidiers. STILL TOO HIGH. At initial glance, these tragic numbers appear to be an improvement over Gulf War I, which recorded 35 deaths from friendly fire -- 24% of all combat fatalities, vs. 12% in Gulf War II. But the U.S. and its allies deployed twice as many troops in the first Gulf conflict. And as the Pentagon gathers the final data from the war, the number of friendly-fire deaths could go up. Estimates of these rates in past conflicts depend on who's doing the estimating -- the numbers are lower according to the Pentagon and higher according to veterans' groups. But regardless of whose numbers one goes by, friendly fire is still a big enough problem to warrant serious attention, which is why the Pentagon is working on several programs to reduce the number of friendly-fire incidents. One program is aimed at perfecting a technology called Battlefield Target Identification (BTID), an updated version of the Battlefield Combat Identification System (BCIS). BTID uses transmitters (as BCIS also did) that aim very shortwave bursts of communication data at a target just before letting go a salvo. If the target responds with the correct encrypted reply -- indicating it's a friend -- then the gunner's sight will turn red. The system is accurate at distances of up to three miles. "ROBUST CRYPTOGRAPHY." NATO members Germany, France, and Britain are each developing BTID-compatible units. For the U.S. to outfit all its tanks and other vehicles with BTID will cost $40,000 per installation, according to Pete Glickerdas, the head of the U.S. Army's combat identification research and development unit in Fort Monmouth, N.J. Using BTID, "Coalition forces would be able to identify a British tank as a British tank, and they would be able to do that with high fidelity and robust cryptography," says Glickerdas. Final field tests for BTID should take place later this year. A second program is called Individual Combat Identification System (ICIS). It comes in two parts: a specialized laser sight mounted on a rifle and a combination laser-detection device and radio transponder mounted on a soldier's helmet. When a soldier takes aim with the ICIS laser, the beam will activate the detector if the person in the sights wears the helmet of a U.S. solder. The transponder will then send an encrypted signal warning the shooter not to fire. ICIS uses off-the-shelf components and weighs less than two pounds. It can run for 30 days on a single camera battery. The Pentagon has ordered 3,000 of them in a $50 million contract with General Dynamics (GD ). SPACE HOGS. Neither of these systems addresses the far more difficult problem of preventing air attacks on ground forces, however. In the past, the Army and Air Force have successfully tested technology to prevent air-to-ground fratricide involving tanks and vehicles but found that the systems would occupy key positions on the aircraft needed for other systems. It becomes a question of prioritizing military technology aboard fighter jets. Besides, soldiers who already carry 70 pounds of equipment on their backs couldn't lug around a heavy broadcast device powerful enough to reach fighter bombers. And those devices would need to generate a signal in a radius of 360 degrees to be able to to warn not only planes but tanks and other soldiers. Another issue: building systems to communicate from air to ground and back involves complex physics. Sandstorms and other atmospheric disturbances are more likely to interfere with air-to-ground communications than with data links between two tanks on the ground. SPLIT-SECOND DECISIONS. For now, the military is focused on improving "situational awareness" to lower friendly-fire casualty rates. It will strive toward wiring more and more of the armed forces into data networks to improve communication. A byproduct will be, commanders hope, a better awareness of where each soldier is located at any given time. Better networks for the military should make it easier for Americans to avoid bombing their own troops. Those days remain a way off, however. Many support units in Iraq lacked even standard radios, let alone high-tech communications devices. And key questions remain as to how to fit friendly-fire information into a decision that usually involves but a few seconds. The right choice can make the difference between blowing up your own people or taking fatal fire and casualties from an enemy. That's why friendly-fire deaths could remain an inevitability of battle for years to come.  Salkever is technology editor for BusinessWeek Online. Follow his column every week, only on BW Online Edited by Douglas Harbrecht Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
 Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of Use | Privacy Policy |
Printer-Friendly Version
