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Subject: Artillery Targeting Process
ArtyEngineer    3/16/2006 1:24:41 PM
This is predominantly a question for Neutraliser, Carl S and S-2 but I welcome contributions from anyone else who can. Basically what is the targeting process in any theater of operations, what are the lines of communication between the combined arms team? I know this is a very complex process. Do any of the US arty FM's go into this?
 
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Carl S    RE:Artillery Targeting Process/ArtyEngineer Reply   3/17/2006 10:23:28 PM
"The ability of "the man in the loop" to keep up with the flow of data available to him is rapidly reaching its limit." Actually it was probably reached sometime between 1942 and 1945 in the British & US Army artillery. Even without computers it was possible to mass entire brigades & even multiple brigades on a 'new' mission in just minutes between intitiation of the call for fire and first round on target. By minutes I mean less than five minutes. The 'Net Centric' thing is another joke to me. The internal artillery com system in the artillery, either Brit or US in 1945 spread the data through the brigade about as fast as humanly possible to comprehend it. When we were adopting a 'networked' artillery computer system in 1996 I noticed a marked loss of situational awareness as it became necessary to peer at little computer screens to track events. Blaring radio loud speakers were usefull for grabing ones attention when immersed in some task. With the computers I found myself constantly wandering about the ops center checking the traffic printed out from each terminal. More than once I found some critical event occuring that was being missed by the operator or some staff principle. The MEF (corps to you army guys) artillery commander got around part of this by requiring old fashioned grease pencil charts be maintained for key items. this allowed him or any staff to gasp the essentials in a 5 - 10 second scan when stepping into the ops center. It typically took several minutes to bring oneself up to speed on the same info by asking terminal operators, peeking at screens, and flipping thru printouts. With the antidiluvian digtial equipment we were using then it was theoretically possible to send the call for fire from the observer to the section chief faster than the responsible offices along the way could comprehend it. The safety key was that the section chief did not fire until he recived a positive signal to FIRE. That is someone, either the battery, battalion, or regimental fire direction center had to push the little button the said FIRE. As a safety check in training the section chief had to recieve a verbal order as well over his headset, and he had to observe a visual signal from the position safety officer for correct propellant charge. Even with those checks it still got a little hairy. Even when we were entirely manual data & fire orders/commands were still flowing fast enough that situational awareness was lost and rounds often went astray. Deaths and injurys were not unknown. I think the short answer to Ary Eng question, is the institution of a positive check in the flow. The Fire Direction Officer or equivalent responsible officer has to actually say "Fire" before the firing lock is triggered. The data can go as fast as the geeks can make it go, but at some point someone has to indicate they understand what is happening and that they think it is correct. If not then eventually some Colonels wife will be shredded by a out of safe round & I can guarantee from that experince what will happen next.
 
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EW3    RE:Artillery Targeting Process/ArtyEngineer Reply   3/17/2006 11:49:54 PM
Interesting comment Carl S. While not a normal reader here this topic cought my eye, as I sort of understand the air to ground version and was interested in how the artillery guys so the same process. Have to make one comment up front, studies have been done that humans, even the best, can repeat and execute commands about 98% of the time. That means two errors per 100 transactions. Machines, at least the C&C side of the equation will make 2 errors in about 10 billion transactions, and even then there is error detection built in to either self correct or at least report an error. A good example of the air to ground version is the new stryker vehicle the army is going to be using. It has a combination of airforce and army guys who find targets, determine their lat/long coordinates, and release the weapon (hellfire or SDB or whatever is needed). Further the stryker is setup to recieve inputs from multiple Predator-A's and get the coordinates and pass them to a Predator-B which has 10x the load capabilty of the model A. One small stryker with 3 or 4 predators can kick butt over a 200nm range.
 
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neutralizer    RE:Artillery Targeting Process/ArtyEngineer Reply   3/18/2006 1:18:43 AM
On board computations is, of course, what MLRS has done for years. There is an issue of tactical, admin, local defence, etc, control which is why MLRS usually operates as platoons/troops (depending on army). One reason guns have been slower to adopt 'onboard' calcs has been comms bandwidth (modelling in the mid 80s showed the radios at that time couldn't cope with the required peak loads and performance). Onboard calcs really come into their own with an MV radar on every gun and the algorithms for MV prediction (circa 1990 it was found that this prediction reduced round to round MV variation by about 50%). They also make sense with MLRS because it uses a very computationally intensive ballistic model (whether it really needs to is another matter!) so spreading the computing load out makes sense. I'm less than convinced that 'connecting' individual guns to the tactical fire controller without an intermediary control to handle the second to second stuff is actually a workable idea. Probably OK if everything is working smoothely, but back on planet earth . . . Put another way, if data comms and tactical processing are going OK then fine, but if you have to revert to voice then all bets are off. However, I'd say that in any event there needs to be a bty level HQ that is fully across what the guns are doing, both technically and locally, it doesn't have to do much technically but it takes load of the guys focusing on the tactical use of firepower, and is also an obvious node to converge different types of comms bearers so that guns only have one to deal with.
 
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Carl S    RE:Error Rates   3/18/2006 2:53:43 AM
EW3...if all this were only microprocessors then your observation would have some validity. The trick is you have human input at various points. At the observers terminal for one. This brings you directly to the fundanmental problem of GIGO. As the net centric thing get more elaborate the probablity of bad data, bad settings, bad info, bad things you never thought of, getting shoved into the system increase. Probably logarithmicly. When we converted completely to digital mission planning execution the number of potientialy "Out of Safe" errors did not decrease. The nature of the errors changed, but they were still there. Towards the end of my career one of the fatal accidents I was way too close to occured when a lazer guided 500lb bomb pickled off a A10. I never saw the final report on the accident, but apparently the microprocessor decided the sunlight reflecting off the tail lamp of the truck was a better frequency than the lazer spot. Ironicly the vehical belonged to the spotting team. Both US Army officers running the lazer designator were killed. I could go on adnauseaum with other examples, would rather not. These electronic tools are very nice weapons and can be used to kill very effciently. They also have to be treated with absolute caution and respect like any other weapon, or inevitably you will kill the wrong people.
 
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EW3    RE:Error Rates   3/19/2006 11:06:05 PM
"The trick is you have human input at various points." Carl that is exactly my point, eliminate the humin input other than shoot or not. I remember the case near a prison in Afghanistan, and the forward observer typed in coordinates that were wrong and few of our folks died. Automation eliminates the fat finger problem. The issue with the LGB is fair game. I do have to doubt it was the sun reflecting off a rear reflector. The laser and LGB both operate on specific wavelengths with some kind of modulation to allow for multiple lasers to operate in the same area and not interfer with each other. They are also designed to operate in broad daylight, so I would assume they don't operate in the 490nm range. While not a groundpounder, I know that humans make mistakes. The more they are removed from the loop the better. Just give a human to say fire or not. The rest is technology, and technology is actually more reliable than humans.
 
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neutralizer    RE:Error Rates   3/20/2006 4:33:44 AM
Agree about lasers, I was starting to think the US did something odd with them. Also true about avoiding human input because people make mistakes, particularly when under stress. Traditionally we've managed this in the arty system by having independent double checks at every stage, and this can still be used. The Brits got it 100% right in the early '70s with their FACE, the operator keyed in the digits but the CPO had a remote enter button and nothing started until he pressed it after checking what was entered. Of course an acquaintance told me of the Iran Iraq War when he visited an Iraqi gun position, the CPO was entering data and had the remote enter button in his mouth and pressing it with his tongue! There's no limit to gunner ingenuity to get around the rules. However, at some point somebody somewhere has to enter something, even if it's aim a LRF and 'fire' it. As we all know in some terrain it's very easy to hit the wrong ridge, that's why you apply common sense checks to the range (or grid if it gives you a readout in those terms).
 
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Carl S    RE:Error Rates   3/20/2006 7:05:20 AM
Eliminating Human Input: I dont think you are grasping whats oing on here. Or not thinking the problem through. Networking the entire fire support control/data for a corps or army wide area digitally insures massive ammounts of human input. This is not just a observer punching in fire missions, or a few dozen observers initiating fire missions. Gun locations, ammo types & locations, ammo lot numbers, ammo locations, observer locations. I just scratching the surface here for artillery data input. Friendly locations? There are dozens of inputs for what we called the battlefield geometry that were priamrily designed for preventing fratricide. This was all based on data input from ultimatly every squad on the battlefield entered via a dozen or more liasion team terminals. All this data changes by the hour, if not by the minute. When I was involved in corps level artillery circa 1996 the visable data base in our system was undergoing a 75% turnover every four hours. The system we were usng, the IFASS/BCS combination, was extremely stable and fairly easy to trouble shoot. After fifteen years of use it should have been. It was also obsolete & scheduled fro replacement. I dont recall the name of the replacement now. We got a lecture on it at Ft Sill in 1996. The project manager told us it was only a year behind schedule. The primary problem was that its program, originally designed fro some eity artillery related tasks, had been expanded to cover spme 400+ tasks relating to all aspects of firesupport. As the program became more complex the results of became less satisfactory. My point here is these are not just simple two terminal systems with a couple microprocessors and one program. Your modern networked system hs several thousand boxes and a compelex series of overlaping programs. The operating systems are just one more part of the overall data input into these systems and correct design & installiation is a large part of error input. If Art Eng wants to delve into this subject I'd recomend he obtain the investigations and related documents for fratricide incidents in both Gulf wars. That reading should give him some clues as to where additional digital control will be helpfull & where human control is really needed.
 
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Carl S    RE:Artillery Targeting Process   3/20/2006 7:40:28 AM
Also if you can get ahold of the reports on the Dragon Fire 120mm mortar system. It was a experiment with a completely automated sensor to weapon system the marine Corps tested just a few years ago.
 
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AlbanyRifles    RE:Error Rates   3/20/2006 10:43:04 AM
And as a maneuver guy (yes, S2, I was a killer BEFORE i became a loggie!!!) I want postive control on th esupporting fires as well as rapid and accurate supporting fires. As the old axiom goes....."There's no such thing as friendly fire when its landing on you!"
 
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Carl S    RE:Error Rates   3/20/2006 12:43:38 PM
"There's no such thing as friendly fire when its landing on you!" That is so wordy, drawn out & clumsy. : ) Better - "Freindly fire, isnt."
 
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