Surveillance and target acquisition is, loosely, another variable in the all-encompassing term reconnaissance, but it is a specific function. Surveillance will take place at a distance away from the front line or the battle area, and is particularly relevant to air warfare and to the use of artillery to enable the accurate acquisition of targets.
The decision by the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese war to deploy their artillery on reverse slopes at the battle of Sha-ho on 1 September 1904 marked a significant development in warfare. Out of sight of the enemy, the guns required assistance from forward observers, who conducted surveillance of the target and corrected the fire of the artillery. This indirect fire became key to the battles of WW I, but could not be conducted without accurate surveillance of targets which were out of sight of the guns which were to engage them.
The advent of aircraft enabled spotting to take a giant leap forward and artillery observation flights became part of the daily work of the early air forces, both to identify targets and to observe the fall of shot. But weather could ground the aircraft or obscure a target area, while enemy fighter action and camouflage made this less than a panacea, so other means of surveillance and target acquisition evolved, namely flash-spotting and sound-ranging. In the first, forward observers would take a bearing on the flash of an enemy gun and report it to a central control. The intersection of several bearings would establish the location of the gun for counter-battery fire to be ordered. Sound-ranging took time to develop as an effective system, since the noise of the battlefield and weather conditions could make it difficult to differentiate among sounds, but technological innovations enabled the system to develop by using microphones to detect the sound of an enemy gun firing and extrapolating the range and bearing from the sound intensity.
These technologies remain in use, although flash-spotting has declined. A more significant development has been that of radar systems to locate the source of enemy fire. Soviet artillery, before the demise of the USSR, employed highly effective target acquisition systems combining inertial navigation systems and laser rangefinding and direction-finding equipment. It was advancing towards what was termed a ‘reconnaissance-destruction complex’, a system whereby the automated surveillance and acquisition of targets followed by their immediate engagement would be possible. It is hard to exactly assess how the collapse of the USSR has hindered this development, but there can be little doubt that the system is less formidable now than it might have been. A similar automated system, the Stand-Off Target Acquisition System (SOTAS), is employed by the US army.
The sophistication of radar means that it is now possible to acquire the positions of enemy mortars through the use of systems such as the British Cymbeline, while the introduction of Uninhabited Air Vehicles (UAVs) —formerly Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs) —exemplified by the Israeli Pioneer, enables artillery units to acquire targets for engagement with near real-time transmission of information. Similar technology is employed by naval units. In the Gulf war of 1991, 57 per cent of targets engaged by the US battleships Missouri and Wisconsin were located from the air by UAVs.
Surveillance of the aerial environment has become of ever-increasing importance. Radar early warning enables enemy aircraft to be located and with adequate communications, friendly fighters can be despatched to engage them. This technology began to be seen in the later 1940s, particularly in carrier air wings, but it was not until the late 1960s that the system became truly effective. The development of the Boeing E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) started a new trend, with highly capable radar systems coupled with advanced communication facilities being employed to provide management of air battles. The information provided by AWACS aircraft allows fighter aircrews to plan in advance what tactics they will employ. It also makes the setting of traps using decoy aircraft impossible, since the AWACS sees the big picture and there is nowhere to hide.
As well as providing an aerial battle management facility, radar has led to the development of airborne systems to survey the progress of the land battle. The systems extant for this purpose can be found in the E-8 JSTARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System). This enables ground commanders to be furnished with a ‘God's-Eye’ view of the disposition of their own and enemy forces, an exponential improvement over all previous systems that will make JSTARS and AWACS the priority target for any commander who can find some means of attacking them.
Bibliography
- Bellamy, Chris, The Red God of War (London, 1986).
- Bidwell, Shelford, and Graham, Dominick, Fire-Power: British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945 (London, 1982)
— David Jordan
