1. ASCMD,
2.3 THEATER BALLISTIC MISSILE THREATS .1 Characteristics of Theater Ballistic Missiles
2.3.3 Postulated Future Theater Ballistic Missile Threats
Threat missiles will become more sophisticated in the coming years.2 Im- proved accuracy for warhead delivery and some form of countermeasures are almost certain to be incorporated into the TBMs that U.S. forces will face. The
2(1) National Air Intelligence Center. 1998. “Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat,” Wright-Patter- son Air Force Base, Ohio. Available online at <http://sun00781.dn.net/irp/threat/missile/naic/
index.html>; (2) Committee on Foreign Relations. 1999. “Foreign Missile Developments and the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States Through 2015,” Hearings Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate 106th Congress, First Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., April 15 and 20, May 4, 5, 13, 25, and 26, and September 16. Available online at
<http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1999_h/s106-339-8.htm>; (3) Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. 1998. “Executive Summary of the Report of the
35
FIGURE 2.3 Tactical ballistic missile threats and their characteristics. SOURCE: Information extracted from (1) Cosby, Anthony W., “Protection from the Missile Threat,” (Unclassified) May 24, 2000, briefing to the committee, Program Executive Office, Air and Missile Defense, Arlington, Va.; (2) Patterson, CDR Sheila A., USN, “Navy Theater Wide TBMD Program (U),” (Classified) June 28, 2000, briefing to the committee, Program Executive Office, Theater Surface Combatants (PMS 452), Arlington, Va.; and (3) Rempt, RADM Rodney P. USN, “Naval Theater Missile Defense for the 21st Century,” (Unclassified) May 24, 2000, briefing to the committee, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Theater Combat Systems, Washington, D.C.
0
510
15
20 120300300500300 600600650<1500900-1300200022503000 Range (km)
Length (m)
Area Defense
Theater Wide Defense SS-21 Mod 3
M-11 Eskander
Al Hussein SS-26
Scud-B Scud-C M-9
Shahab-3No Dong CSS-5 Mod 2
Taipo Dong
CSS-2
threat indicators are already present. Newer TBMs incorporating accurate war- head delivery are in (or will soon enter) Russian and Chinese inventories.
No one can state with certainty what specific countermeasures will be incor- porated into threat TBMs within the next 5 to 20 years. However, the committee suggests that future threat TBMs, in response to the presence of defense systems, might incorporate some combination of the following capabilities so as to stress the capabilities of present and planned TBMD systems:
• RVs with reduced RCS,
• Flares and or IR chaff,
• Radio-frequency chaff,
• Escort jammers,
• Decoys and/or tethered objects,
• Shrouds to mask IR signatures,
• Coated boosters that are robust against laser attack, and
• Deceptive maneuvering.
Some of these techniques (chaff, jammers, low-RCS RVs, shrouds, and so on) would stress the ability of our military’s primary and secondary target acqui- sition sensors to detect and track the RV of interest. Others pose a sensor dis- crimination problem—for example, How does a TBMD system differentiate between an RV and a decoy? The committee believes that the situation in TBMD is much like the competition between ECM and ECCM techniques in the ASCMD arena. Although the foregoing potential countermeasures to a TBMD system are a significant concern, none of them is inherently immune to negation.
The committee takes note of the vigorous debate that rages about exo-atmo- spheric discrimination and the ease of creating effective countermeasures. The
Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., July 15. Available online at <http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/bm- threat.htm>; (4) Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. 1997. “Exploring U.S. Missile Defense Requirements in 2010: What Are the Policy and Technology Challenges?” Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Mass. Available online at <http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/advocate/ifpa/>; (5) APS Forum on Physics and Society. 1994. Symposium on Theater Ballistic Missiles: What Is the Threat? What Can Be Done? American Physical Society, held in Washington, D.C., on April 18, published as Vol. 23, No. 4, October. Available online at <http://www.positron.aps.org/units/fps/
aoct94.html>; (6) Director, Operational Test and Evaluation. 2000. “Navy Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (NATBMD),” DOT&E FY99 Annual Report to Congress, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., February. Available online at <http://www.dote.osd.mil/reports/FY99/other/
99natbmd.html>; and (7) Sessler, Andrew M., John M. Cornwall, Bob Dietz, Steve Fetter, Sherman Frankel, Richard L. Garwin, Kurt Gottfried, Lisbeth Gronlund, George N. Lewis, Theodore A. Post- al, and David C. Wright. 2000. Countermeasures: A Technical Evaluation of the Operational Effectiveness of the Planned U.S. National Missile Defense System, MIT Security Studies Program, Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge, Mass., April. Available online at <http://
www.ucsusa.org/security/CM_exec.html>.
PRESENT AND PROJECTED THEATER MISSILE THREATS 37 contest between countermeasures and counter-countermeasures often hinges on particular idiosyncrasies or “tags” that can be exploited by one side or the other.
Knowing how potential adversaries are exploiting their tags allows denying the tags. It is observed that those actually working on the defeat of countermeasures must of necessity keep silent, while those who raise issues of the difficulties of defeating countermeasures on the basis of so-called “physical first principles”
arguments are not hampered by security issues. With insight into some of the ongoing restricted or classified work in this area, the committee would caution against the oversimplistic arguments often heard in the public rhetoric.
While easily postulated, many countermeasures would be difficult to achieve. For example, many have proven to be difficult for U.S. engineers to incorporate into U.S. missiles. The committee wishes to emphasize that once deployed, a TBMD system must be upgraded periodically in response to ob- served threat indicators. Therefore, programs for future defense against TBM missiles must take into account not only the characteristics of known threats, but also the technologies that an adversary can employ in response to its perception of our defensive capabilities. Techniques to negate the countermeasure threats listed above may take several years to develop and implement. The committee believes that a robust and sustained R&D program to develop specific naval TMD upgrades to negate those techniques should be in place, and it addresses this point in Chapter 4.
For TBMs without an attitude control motor (ACM) or bus, the attacker has limited flexibility in the type of penetration aids carried and their deployment.
Objects need to be deployed either from the booster or from the RV, and the attacker must be sure that the penetration aides cover the RV but do not give away its location. There are further constraints on the orientation of the RV, which may impose more severe requirements on the penetration aids, increasing their weight or decreasing their numbers.
For TBMs with an ACM, the attacker has considerably more freedom in the design and deployment of penetration aids. If the RV’s orientation can be con- trolled, the attacker can take advantage of RCS reduction, which significantly decreases the radar detection range and makes it much easier to use maskers such as chaff and jamming.
Warhead maneuvers, intentional or not, increase the difficulty of intercept.
Thus, although a tumbling TBM may be relatively easy to detect, hitting its warhead still may be a challenge. Relatively small thrust impulses applied dur- ing exo-atmospheric flight can induce spiraling motions in oblong or dumbbell- shaped bodies, while aerodynamic forces and moments produce spiraling or jink- ing of a streamlined body during reentry. The amplitude and frequency of such maneuvers can have a first-order effect on an interceptor’s ability to sense and engage the warhead. Both deception and maneuvering can increase the uncer- tainty in estimates of the TBM trajectory. It must be recognized that both ap- proaches add to the actual dispersion of the trajectory and that neither is compat-
ible with the accuracy needed for conventional TBM unitary warhead target damage objectives. With penalties in payload complexity and displacement of warhead volume and weight, terminal guidance and maneuver capability could be added to maintain acceptable impact-point dispersion. The emergence of that capability could be a threat indicator for these induced-motion types of counter- measure.
39
3
Assessment of the
Current State of Technologies Involved in Naval Theater Missile Defense and an
Evaluation of Current and Projected Department of the Navy Programs Designed to Meet the Evolving Threat
This chapter assesses the Department of the Navy’s current and projected capabilities in theater missile defense and the status of the technologies involved.
It begins with a summary evaluation of the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ overall current and projected capabilities in the three distinct missions: ASCMD, OCMD, and TBMD. Then the discussion turns to subsystems in order to focus on technology, treating, in turn, sensors, weapons, and BMC3 systems.
Central to the effective utilization of these technologies are concepts of operation for executing the missile defense missions. The committee sought, during several of the Navy and Marine Corps briefings, to understand the con- cept of operations that would be used in the conduct of expeditionary operations.
In particular, the committee wished to learn how the theater missile defense operations might be coordinated with the other operations that would be taking place at the same time and in the same area. Various presentations indicated that aircraft would be operating to deliver and provide logistic support to Marine Corps units ashore and that fire missions would be executed by ships launching ERGMs and other land-attack weapons, as called for by the Marine Corps. The committee believes it is necessary to construct a concept of operations that uses whichever measures are necessary to ensure that the theater missile defense can be coordinated with the offensive operations in such a manner that both succeed without conflict or danger to friendly forces. The briefers were unanimous in the opinion that no such concept has yet been defined.
Joint doctrine has been promulgated to guide the conduct of air and missile defense in a theater;1 however, the doctrine appears to presume that the theater has already been developed and that joint forces are in place. Other than to note that the same functions must be performed in undeveloped theaters, the joint doctrine is not helpful as a guide for expeditionary warfare. Although work is ongoing to evolve this doctrine at the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization (JTAMDO), the committee is not aware of any efforts to address the expeditionary warfare setting.2
Pending the development of doctrine to guide initial operations in an unde- veloped theater, it falls to the Navy and Marine Corps to define the appropriate CONOPS. A CONOPS for expeditionary warfare in the littorals must address conflicting requirements for employment of operational assets and for control of offensive and defensive operations.
Concepts for conduct of the offense are amenable to preplanning to avoid conflict yet must remain flexible enough to support operations ashore by Marine Corps units that may become subject to variation because of real-time events. At the same time, and in the same area, defensive measures must be taken to defeat ballistic missile, cruise missile, and aircraft threats to forces in the area, both afloat and ashore.
The conduct of effective theater missile defense without disruption of and conflict with offensive measures is a very difficult task but a necessary one.
However, several briefers told the committee that no concepts for coordinating offensive and defensive operations have been worked out. Developing such concepts is critical to the conduct of expeditionary warfare and deserves consid- erable effort. Such concepts are also necessary to a proper evaluation of the adequacy of theater missile defense programs.
3.1 OVERVIEW OF THEATER MISSILE DEFENSE CAPABILITY