Adding less-lethal arrows to the quiver for counterinsurgency air operations

Air & Space Power Journal, Summer, 2008 by Ernie Haendschke

Airlifters flew the inert GBU-38 JDAMs to Balad Air Base for immediate carriage as an option available for JTACs. The next day, F-16 fighters flew with the inert JDAMs, and the JTACs received briefings on the additional weapon available for their use. They now had a shock effect available to them for the surge operations of summer 2007, when insurgents engaged their soldiers in the urban CD setting and when Hellfire, strafing, or nonkinetic SOF options were inappropriate due to concerns about fragmentation pattern or ineffectiveness.

Lessons Learned

Lessons learned during this process apply in any future case in which the joint war fighter wishes to add an effect to the airpower repertoire. First, the quicker we can identify a need, the better, so that requirements processes can run their course, ensuring evaluation of all possible avenues. In this particular case, the ground force commander needed an effect for troops in contact in the urban setting during upcoming operations, so expediency became an overriding concern. Second, one should use all available resources early on to determine which potential options have merit and which don't, thereby avoiding the wasting of time or resources pursuing dead ends. The Airmen originating the request did their homework to expedite the process. By contacting the Seek Eagle and JDAM Joint Program offices early in the process, they saved a great deal of time by ensuring the absence of showstoppers before sending the personal memo. Next, the importance of having Airmen not only at the tactical but also at the operational (division and MNC-I) and strategic (MNF-I) levels ensured that we were asking the right questions regarding the desired effects, thereby enabling airpower to become more proficient in integrating with the Army's unique, timesensitive requirements. These embedded Airmen are a conduit for Army planners and leaders as well as their JTACs on the front lines. This organizational structure guarantees that the planning for upcoming operations can apply the appropriate means to meet the objectives requested by the ground unit from the standpoints of both effectiveness and efficiency. Another lesson learned involves assuming nothing, no matter how obvious it may seem. The fact that the inert and live JDAM versions do have differences in mass properties and weight that can affect accuracies is not intuitively obvious, especially since we employ the inert weapons routinely on training sorties.

In addition, there are two very important reasons to educate the appropriate Army decision makers and JTACs once we have fielded a new capability--particularly in a fluid combat environment. First, this "expectation management" ensures that onscene commanders realize they have another weapon they can employ and lets them know what they can expect in the way of effects. Second, it gives the ground commander and JTACs an awareness of any limitation, which guards against misuse of the new capability. Obviously, we do not want to employ limited resources against targets unless they will produce the desired results.