Kilkenny: Information is Key To Time-Critical Strike Capability

As the director of aviation plans and requirements for the director of air warfare in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Rear Adm. (select) Joseph F. Kilkenny oversees aircraft carrier and tactical carrier aviation requirements. Kilkenny also assists Rear Adm. Mark P. Fitzgerald, director of air warfare in the Office of the CNO, in formulating requirements in strike warfare, particularly in support of the Sea Strike leg of CNO Adm. Vern Clark’s Sea Power 21 strategy.

A naval flight officer, Kilkenny served as an A-6 bombardier/navigator in three attack squadrons, commanding the third, Attack Squadron 196. As a carrier air wing operations officer, he flew in the first air strikes of the 1991 Gulf War. He later served as air operations officer of Carrier Group Two and as director of the strike warfare directorate of the Tactical Training Group, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. He served as head of aviation officer distribution at the Bureau of Personnel after commanding Carrier Air Wing Three during the maiden deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman. Kilkenny spoke recently with Sea Power Managing Editor Richard R. Burgess about the Navy’s plans for precision strike.

What are the trends in the Navy’s requirements for precision strike?

Kilkenny: We do a really superb job of hitting fixed targets. We need some work in countering moving or mobile targets and that’s where we are going with the next generation of weapons. When I first came in the Navy, we had general-purpose bombs, then laser-guided bombs and then we have the [Joint] J-family of precision weapons. The measuring units in the airplanes are getting better, the weaponry is getting better and we are narrowing down our circular error-of-probability miss distance.

‘Time critical’ seems to be the metric for hitting mobile targets. How can that be improved?

Kilkenny: What applies to time-critical strike is persistence in ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance]. We can hit a lot of targets, but if we don’t know where they are or if they move to an unknown location, the greatest arsenal known to mankind won’t be employed against them. There’s a difference between knowing where a target is in general terms and positively identifying it and going after it. The Chief of Naval Operations’ Task Force ISR is conducting a study right now to determine our requirements. The investments in ISR are costly so we need to review where we are going in order to get the best warfare capabilities for our money.

The Navy seems to have reached its goal of enabling a single strike fighter to attack multiple targets with precision. What’s the next step?

Kilkenny: The next way to get even better at that is the network area, which will expand our capability to reach out. The weapons and platforms are really getting better, and it’s going to come down to persistent ISR so we can truly see the shape of the battle space, how it’s changing and what’s evolving. The most important piece will be getting that information in a time-sensitive manner to the platforms that are capable of taking out those targets.

This concept of ForceNet will enable us to make a time-critical strike. In any battle space now it is extremely hard for Navy, Air Force and even Marine Corps assets to share information. So if in ForceNet we can share this information on a timely basis with other services and coalition forces, we can exponentially reduce the kill chain. I don’t think we have even begun to tap the capability to network with each other. We used to do it in hours and now it’s down to 30 minutes, and we’re shooting for less than that.

How can the time from target detection to weapon on target be shortened?

Kilkenny: We need a decision-making aid. I think it’s truly important. Right now there’s an awful lot of folks that we have to go through to be able to get the ability to strike a target, so we need some kind of decision-making aid with software where we can tie in ISR and factor in such things as rules of engagement and other sensitivities, blast fragment pattern [to avoid collateral damage], target priority, target location, etc. That would really shorten the time between identifying a target and getting permission to drop. I truly think that we have some smart minds out there in industry that can help solve this problem. I know they use decision-making aids in business; I think we ought to be able to come close to something similar to that in strike warfare.

What new precision weapons are planned or entering service in the near future?

Kilkenny: We have the majority of the target set covered with our current weapons. For finding relocatable targets and moving targets, we are testing the waters on some sort of high-speed standoff weapon, maybe anywhere from the Mach 2 to 3.5 speed range. It’ll shorten the kill chain and enable us to hold at-risk, high-value deep interdiction targets with short dwell times.

The classic one is our AARGM [Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile]. That weapon has a tremendous capability in [suppression of enemy air defenses]. In fact, it is more properly characterized as a [destruction of enemy air defenses] weapon. It will really change the way we attack well-defended targets. We will either suppress or cause an alteration in the enemy’s integrated air-defense system. With AARGM, we’re going to be able to destroy the target whether it’s blinking [radiating] its radar or not.

Also, we’re fully committed to the Joint Common Missile, a program that will cover much of our capability gap. If it comes to fruition as we hope it will, it’s going to be an extremely valuable weapon. Its tri-mode seeker will truly give us an all-weather capability, which we don’t have in the Navy right now. The missile will have the accuracy and range to hit mobile targets at standoff distances not only for tactical aircraft but also for helicopters.

The Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile is designed to be retargetable in flight. Will other weapons have that capability?

Kilkenny: JASSM [Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile], SLAM-ER [Standoff Land-Attack Missile-Expanded Response] and potentially JSOW [Joint Standoff Weapon] will have that capability. Retargetability of airborne weapons is going to be directly proportional to time of flight of the weapon. When dropping a JDAM [Joint Direct-Attack Munition] that only has to go a couple of miles, there’s not much that can be done in the way of retargeting it.

We truly need to go after retargetable capability in long-range weapons such as Tomahawk, particularly if we are going to use them against mobile targets. It’s going to be down to how fast your target is moving or how mobile it really is. A 70-mile-per-hour vehicle is tough to retarget against. But we ought to be able to change the coordinates to hit a target that moves from point A to point B, instead of hitting what now is a patch of earth.

Data link control also is a challenge in retargeting. We only have so much bandwidth with so much going on, so we need to ensure that weapons get the priority for the data link.

What are the trends in battle-damage assessment?

Kilkenny: One is battle hit assessment: ‘Did I hit the target I was intending to, regardless of whether it was the right one or not?’ The second part of that, which is extremely challenging, is bomb damage assessment: ‘I know I hit my intended target, but what damage did I do?’

It’s also important to keep networked information flowing. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the ground war got way out in front of our expectations of where it was going to be. At the time, the commanders were faced with the situation, ‘Am I more concerned about the 20 miles I just went over and what I did? Or do I need to be more concerned about the enemy that’s looming ahead of me and what they’re doing next?’

From an aviator’s perspective, I’d like to be able to know if I hit a target, that I took it out, and the damage I did to it. The ground commanders have a different perspective. If I were a ground commander, I would want to know what’s looming around the corner. That is more important than what I just mowed over.

What capability will the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) bring in terms of precision strike?

Kilkenny: The JSF is going to bring leading-edge lethality, survivability and multispectral situational awareness. The aircraft’s sensor suite is going to bring a full range of electro-optical, infrared and electromagnetic spectrum capabilities to the battlefield. We have no platform today that has all those capabilities encompassed. Not only will it be able to destroy targets on its own, it’s going to be a truly valuable ISR asset, quite capable of information gathering and passing it … back to the combatant commander and other platforms in the network.

How are new sensor pods affecting precision strike?

Kilkenny: Going from a forward-looking infrared sensor in an A-6 in Desert Storm to an F-14 Tomcat equipped with a Lantirn pod was like going from my mom and dad’s black and white TV to high-definition TV. ATFLIR [Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared] is a step beyond that. And we just can’t get it fast enough. It’s surpassing our expectations.

Three pods were tested in Iraqi Freedom by Strike Fighter Squadron 41, which had a 100 percent success rate, guiding 28 laser-guided bombs to impact, 28 for 28. When a Super Hornet with ATFLIR flew in a mixed section with a Lantirn-equipped Tomcat, the Super Hornet crew found the target before the Tomcat crew. So that’s a testimony about the level of capability that we are bringing aboard.