Fire Control

Sea Power, Mar 2006 by Klamper, Amy

Leveraging its air-defense sensors, the Navy helps coordinate all shooters in a battle area

As the U.S. military works to better coordinate operations when more than one service is firing on a single target, the Navy Integrated Fire ControlCounter Air is emerging as a new capability that will deliver fully networked, distributed and long-range defensive fire control.

During the next decade, the service plans to implement the integration program, commonly known as NIFC-CA, and ultimately incorporate it into a joint tracking and fire-control network. It will help U.S. forces create a single integrated air picture and foster the ability to push engagement distances beyond the launching platform's radar horizon.

This revolutionary ability will be key when operating in littoral waters, where compressed fire control timelines and an often-cluttered battle space make coordinated joint fires increasingly critical.

Rear Adm. Nevin P. Carr Jr., the Navy's deputy for Combat Systems/Weapons, who oversees NIFC-CA said it "really cuts right to what joint warfighting is all about at a macro level; to share the tactical picture and take maximum advantage of the weapons you already have, and shoot the right weapons at the right target to get the most out of your system."

He sees NIFC-CA as "a metaphor for getting the services to work together, to share a picture and share their systems in such a way that one plus one equals five."

The Navy portion of the joint endeavor evolves from existing systems while leveraging and improving the capabilities of each, "so that it all fits together to provide a leap in capability," Carr said.

These systems are the Navy's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, Aegis combat system, the SM-6 ExtendedRange Active Missile and the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC), which fuses tracking data from many sources and distributes it to all.

* The E-2D offers theater air missile defense enhancements that include the ADS-18, a rotating electronically steered array radar for superior overland performance, far greater precision and a higher degree of automation compared to the present E-2 variants, Carr said.

* Aegis open architecture increases the computing power of the combat systems necessary to perform future missions, and allows for ease of future war fighting upgrades.

* The SM-6 Extended Range Active Missile is being developed with a future integrated fire-control capability that will engage remote tracks not held on the firing ship's radar or covered by a firing ship's fire control illuminators. Employing the legacy SM-2 Block IV airframe and Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air active seeker technology, the SM-6 will provide the Navy with an increased capability against over-the-horizon anti-air threats.

* CEC will be the network that ties it all together, for example enabling the E-2 to communicate directly with Aegis to generate and update the targeting basket for the missile. That will provide a huge advantage, according to Carr.

Today, an inbound enemy missile headed toward a sea base at very long range might not be visible.

"But if we had an elevated sensor, maybe with the E-2, we can know that it's coming and actually send a missile on its way to engage the target before it would even come in range of the illuminators," he said. "It gives us longer range."

Carr said the other services are tackling similar networked systems as well. The Army's Joint Land-Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or even radar from ashore, could be incorporated into an eventual joint fires scheme, providing an overland capability.

"The Army has surface-to-air missiles, so there's potential for that to be part of the system, and the Marines have shore-based radars, and use a network similar to ours, the [Tactical Component Network], so everyone is working on something," Carr said. "Ultimately, the potential is there to knit it together in a joint fashion."

Carr said such a quantum leap is aided by the Navy's use of existing systems that can be modified on the margins in order to use them in a complementary fashion.

For example, while Aegis does not currently allow a missile to launch without taking it all the way to its target, the system can be modified to accommodate the radical new SM-6 capability.

Carr said one of NIFC-CAs biggest leaps in capability will be "getting CEC up in the sky to take advantage of its full capability," where it will provide a more accurate picture by fusing together raw information from multiple radars.

Although the Navy is excited about using CEC as the data path for its new integrated fires capability, Carr said it might not evolve into the larger joint fires effort.

That path is expected to involve three components air, land and sea - he said, noting that the other services may offer other options for the data path.

The Navy expects to spend nearly $60 million for NIFC-CA through fiscal 2010, including $14.8 million in the fiscal 2007 budget alone.

Carr said the air and land "kill chains" should come on line by 2011, while the sea portion is slated for operational capability in 2014. To date there has been no designated lead agency for joint integrated fire control, though the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense : Organization plays a role in guiding the effort.