In recent years, there have been changes in the technical equipment of military intelligence and its methods - both in our country and in the armies of the NATO bloc - which, for obvious reasons, are very sparingly advertised.
In modern operations, over 85 percent of the intelligence is produced by technology.
A few words about what structural reconnaissance of the Ground Forces of the RF Armed Forces is today, what tasks it solves. “This is a well-built system that includes military units for analyzing and processing data, information impact, formations and subunits of special and special purpose,” explains an officer of the Ground Forces. - Everyone has their own tasks, but the main one is to exclude the suddenness of actions of a potential enemy or, as they say now, our counterparts. That is why we exist."
Blind "The Tempest"
The main tasks facing military reconnaissance are to establish the location and nature of the enemy's actions, clarify its forces and composition, numbering of units and subunits, combat capability and intentions. The identification of weapons of mass destruction and precision weapons is considered paramount. The main efforts are directed at this. Simply put, commanders of all levels are primarily interested in where the enemy is, what he is doing, what are his strengths and weaknesses, plans.
In recent years, electronic warfare has been widely used in local conflicts. Based on this, the task arose of identifying the areas of deployment of electronic warfare. By the way, it is the conflicts that reveal what is usually carefully hidden by all the armies of the world - new items of military equipment that mark a new stage in the development of armed struggle.
For example, the success of Operation Desert Storm was predetermined by modern reconnaissance means and its competent organization in difficult conditions. The Iraqi side paid a lot of attention to measures for operational and tactical camouflage, using, along with traditional means, new ones: inflatable models of aircraft, tanks, launchers covered with metallized paint and equipped with thermal emitters. The features of the terrain, various structures (tunnels, bridges, overpasses, etc.), service camouflage coverings were used, false positions and trenches were erected. This made it much more difficult for the coalition to gather intelligence. Contrary to popular belief, Iraq managed to hide the location of air defense systems not only from US satellites, but also from reconnaissance aircraft, the command of which was later forced to admit that up to 50 percent of the attacks on air defense targets fell on false targets.
Nevertheless, the military leadership of the coalition managed to obtain sufficiently complete data on the plans, the composition of the groupings of troops, the structure of the defense and the nature of its engineering equipment, and to establish the location of the fire weapons, launchers and objects of the enemy's rear. This became feasible due to the integrated use of all types of reconnaissance and ensured the effectiveness of fire strikes and offensive actions. And the results of the combat use of the latest high-precision weapons and electronic warfare equipment, based on the results of reconnaissance, turned out to be so impressive that they made it possible to draw a conclusion about the possibility of achieving operational and strategic tasks without the invasion of ground forces.
However, our overseas colleagues have shown not only their capabilities, but also their weaknesses. We closely watched their actions and made the appropriate conclusions.
Not all of the reconnaissance means used in the Persian Gulf zone made it possible to effectively solve the assigned tasks. It was necessary to make adjustments already in the course of hostilities. In this respect, the experience of using the American ballistic missile launch detection system is indicative. Initially, it was intended for preliminary notification of the Patriot air defense missile system control points and target designation to strike aviation groups about the launch sites. But this turned out to be insufficient to deliver timely strikes against Iraqi mobile missile systems, which managed to leave the starting positions before the appearance of strike groups.
The prompt introduction of changes in the procedure for receiving and processing the received information by the system has significantly increased the timeliness and, consequently, the efficiency of target designation for aviation. Similar tasks were set before, and were often considered the main ones, for example, for reconnaissance means of missile forces and artillery of our ground forces. Moreover, it was they who determined the need for vertical integration, when each military formation was endowed with its own reconnaissance capabilities, which, along with a certain tactical independence, made it possible to significantly reduce the time for transmitting information to means of destruction.
But here there were also negative aspects. The fact is that during the development, as a rule, only the needs of that type of armed forces were taken into account, in whose interests the corresponding means were created. This led to an unjustified dispersion of finances, an increase in the cost of development and production of weapons. There were also shortcomings in the use of intelligence information, when from their total volume only those were taken into account that were determined by the needs of the corresponding type of the Armed Forces, while some of the information could be lost or arrive at headquarters too late.
In the event of overlapping areas of responsibility, some of the data obtained by the reconnaissance means of various formations duplicated each other, and important objects could be unrevealed. All this is confirmed by the experience of using heterogeneous weapons in the same Persian Gulf, when there were many overlaps, which was noted in the Pentagon's report to the US Congress. For example, aviation struck at targets already hit.
Integration and automation
There is an important regularity: the higher the destructive power and independence of the subunit in solving fire missions, the more the effectiveness of the application depends on the timeliness, reliability, accuracy and completeness of intelligence.
Nevertheless, abroad, even with the creation of reconnaissance and strike complexes, it was originally supposed to build developments on the basis of vertical integration. For example, the first sample "Assolt Breaker" was focused on its own reconnaissance and target designation - the "Pave Mover" radar station, located on an air carrier. In the promising Jisak, which is being developed by the United States in two versions (for the ground forces and the Air Force), it is also planned to have independent reconnaissance means. In the ground forces, the OU-Sh "Mohauk" aircraft was supposed to be used as the carrier of the side-looking radar, and in the Air Force - TK-1 and S-18.
Later, it was decided to use the Djistars radar system in both versions of the reconnaissance-controlled complex (RUK). This meant, if not a rejection of the traditional form of vertical integration of reconnaissance and destruction means, then at least a transition to the creation of systems in the interests of several branches of the armed forces. The combination of reconnaissance and strike capabilities in "Jistars" contributed to the improvement of the management of heterogeneous weapons.
The new concept of using the Jistars system provides for its use not only in the interests of the RUK, but also when planning fire damage in army corps and divisions. The war in the Persian Gulf zone confirmed that the horizontal integration of reconnaissance and strike assets, along with vertical integration, significantly increases the efficiency of using the information and weapons received.
Since most of the most important targets (launchers, batteries of self-propelled guns, MLRS, etc.) are mobile, their guaranteed defeat is possible only if it is carried out immediately after detection. An example is the automated system for processing and analyzing reconnaissance data of the air army (army corps, division) ASAS. The deepest integration was achieved in the divisional link.
In the CDBD, the data obtained is processed and brought together into a single general picture of the object situation with the recognition of subunits, units and formations. The final information is issued in the form of an electronic map of the current object situation, which facilitates its operational-tactical assessment, revealing the enemy's intentions, and making recommendations for fire damage. Comparison of intelligence information received from various sources makes it possible to significantly increase its reliability and, consequently, the effectiveness of weapons.
According to the calculations of US military specialists, the reconnaissance equipment with which divisions and army corps should be equipped in the future will be able to create streams of information (each for tens of thousands of targets) with an intensity of about 80-110 messages per minute during the most intense periods of hostilities. Therefore, they rightly believe that timely information processing is possible only in automatic or semi-automatic mode. This is how the inertia of intelligence is ensured, the consolidation of all data into an overall picture.
Note: forming large-scale horizontal structures, ACS do not exclude their already established vertical integration. Being structured into such formations as RUK, ROK, units and subunits of field artillery, reconnaissance assets, as before, accompany their combat activities. At the same time, their integration increases the reliability of information received by the command and control authorities, where direct planning of fire engagement is carried out, which ensures a clear coordination of the actions of various means.
Your horizontal path
Military reconnaissance today is an integral part of a large information system, united into a single command and control loop, allowing the collection and analysis of data from various sources.
The domestic industry supplies the troops with fundamentally new technical devices and reconnaissance weapons, which are integrated with the means of destruction. The task of obtaining information, the reliability, timeliness and accuracy of which ensures the possibility of its use in real time, is considered as the main one.
Calculations show that in modern operations, over 85 percent of information is obtained by technical means (optical, radio-electronic), placed on various media. It is they who must ensure the receipt of data in the interests of fire damage. The experience of recent local wars has once again confirmed that victory in an armed struggle in modern conditions is possible only with a high degree of awareness of the intentions and actions of the enemy, which can only be achieved by equipping troops with highly effective reconnaissance means, their skillful and comprehensive use.
The trend of horizontal integration of reconnaissance assets appears to be very promising in this respect, especially with a deficit of appropriations for the creation of weapons and military equipment. Along with a significant increase in the efficiency, reliability of the extracted data and the accuracy of determining the coordinates of the targets hit, this promises a significant reduction in financial and time costs for new equipment. In addition, the development and implementation of automated systems facilitate the creation of unified reconnaissance, electronic warfare and fire engagement control centers.
Author Fedor Valentinov
