The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A8. Avoiding 'Friendly Fire.' Army Drags Feet Over a New System. By John Mintz In 1991 the Army, appalled by American soldiers accidentally shooting fellow troops in the Persian Gulf War, declared efforts to prevent "friendly fire" a top priority. But today, the Army is delaying installation of a promising, 3-year-old electronic technology that has proved repeatedly in tests to help end such fratricidal incidents among tanks and other armored vehicles, according to military officials, members of Congress and defense industry executives. Army officials agree the new equipment is effective at allowing U.S. combat units to identify one another quickly and silently in battle. But they say they do not have the $300 million or so to put it on most tanks and other armored vehicles, even as they are planning to spend billions in coming years to upgrade such weapons in other ways. Some retired military officers and industry executives say the Army has lost some of its zeal in ending combat fratricide and would rather spend money on increasing its weapons' combat capability. The Army is "slipping back into a position it's had for decades, that fratricide is just a small problem," said David Sa'adah, who retired as a colonel last year and was a longtime Army expert on friendly fire. The Army strenuously denies such allegations. It has ordered further tests for the new equipment and Army officials say they are seeking to reduce fratricide through improved training, battlefield doctrine and technology. But the service is coming under pressure from Congress to move more quickly to install the technology, known as the Battlefield Combat Identification System, or BCIS. The system allows a weapons system to "question" another electronically as to whether it is American, and to receive an answer in a tenth of a second. The House National Security Committee favors immediate fielding of BCIS. It said in a recent statement it "finds it difficult to understand the Army's delay in initiating procurement." The committee noted under current Army plans, the earliest BCIS could become available for troops is 2000 and other people guess 2003. Concern over "friendly fire' soared with the Persian Gulf War, when 35 American troops were killed by fellow soldiers out of 146 dead, or 24 percent -- the highest recorded rate for Americans in a war. Also troubling were the low-tech tactics troops were forced to use to protect themselves from their own side. The Army painted inverted "Vs" on allied tanks so colleagues would know not to shoot, and in some desert battles in Iraq, U.S. soldiers had to jump out of armored vehicles to wave red-lensed flashlights to signal fellow troops to stop shelling them. The soldiers shot by their side in Operation Desert Storm were victims of a technological mismatch. U.S. tanks were outfitted with the latest heat-locating sights that allowed them to detect enemy tanks at much longer distances than ever before, even at night, and to fire at them while moving. But the tank gunners, under pressure to decide whether to fire within seconds of spotting a target, lacked technological help in discerning through a screen of dust and smoke whether a shadowy blip on their scope was friendly or unfriendly. One machine developed since then -- a strobe light-like device for foot soldiers that emits signals detectable only by other U.S. troops wearing special goggles -- is being used by some units in Bosnia, and is available for units elsewhere. Another device, now being tested in Army laboratories, transmits laser beams to allow soldiers to identify themselves. But these contraptions do not address the problem of friendly fire between tanks, by far the more common form of such accidents in the Gulf War, officials said. Army officials are bracing for increased public interest in the issue owing to the July 12 release of the Twentieth Century Fox movie, "Courage Under Fire." The film stars Denzel Washington as a tank commander in the Iraqi war who is racked by guilt after he kills some of his troops in a tank battle. The new BCIS technology was built after the Army gave a contract to TRW Inc. of Cleveland in 1993 to develop it. Army officials say it has "met or exceeded all criteria" in tests. Several military officials, defense industry executives and independent experts said it could dramatically reduce fratricide among tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters. While agreeing BCIS is effective, Army officials want to subject it to new rounds of testing, a move some advocates see as an attempt to justify delaying BCIS. "The BCIS system works, and the Army is basically stalling," said David Rockwell, a senior analyst with the Teal Group, a northern Virginia defense consulting company, who has extensively studied so-called "combat identification" technologies. "The Army's not pushing it.... It boggles my mind why they wait for a disaster to happen." "It's a very successful program, and it protects soldiers against a real threat," Sa'adah said. He said he believes the Army practices "denial" on the subject of friendly fire. The Army denies the charge but acknowledge it stings. "Fratricide eats at the fiber of a military unit, and we take it very seriously," said Brig. Gen. John P. Rose, director of Army horizontal technology integration. "We've done a lot to address it. But we're somewhat defensive to critics who say we haven't." One of the briefing papers the Army distributes on the topic is headlined, "The Army is not ignoring combat I.D." Embedding BCIS on most Army tanks and armored vehicles would cost $180 million to $300 million. The BCIS machinery -- a set of antennas and transmitters -- costs about $15,000 per tank, plus up to $15,000 for installation. Advocates say that is cheap, considering the Abrams M-1A2 tank, on which it would be installed, costs about $6.5 million apiece. "To argue about $15,000 is absurd," said Sa'adah, who worked on the BCIS program and other anti-fratricide initiatives while in uniform. "It costs less than an average car." But the Army says it does not have the money to install BCIS, given what it asserts are tight budgets for weapons systems it feels it must acquire. "BCIS at present is unaffordable in terms of money available to the Army and because of competing demands," Rose said. Added Brig. Gen. John S. Caldwell, who helps run the service's efforts to "digitize" weaponry: "The Army's trying hard to keep BCIS alive." Army officials, stretching to rationalize their position on BCIS, say they have found ways other than technology to reduce fratricide, such as building a war machine so intimidating enemies will avoid taking it on. "Not getting in the battle is a way to cut down on fratricide," Caldwell said. "You convince the enemy they're in a losing game before they go into battle." Sa'adah echoes that point, asserting the key reason Army officials do not deploy BCIS is they doubt their tanks will be summoned for war anytime soon. "The Army's thinking is, 'We'll keep BCIS on the shelf, and if we ever need it, we'll start manufacturing it.' " He says it is a justifiable stance, but a difficult one to enunciate publicly because the Army is spending grand amounts on the armored platforms on which BCIS would be installed -- $883 million in 1996 alone to upgrade M-1A2 tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles with better communications, computers, armor and other features. In any case, the Army will test BCIS further in several maneuvers next year. The idea is less to see whether it works -- Army officials say it does. Rather, the new tests will examine, among other things, whether the Army can forgo BCIS and rely on another set of technologies to which the Army is heavily committed. BCIS's main competition tests is an ambitious array of technologies being installed on tanks and artillery -- sensors, computers, high-tech screens and communications gear -- designed to give soldiers up-to-date intelligence on events unfolding in battle. The Army calls the multibillion-dollar program its "digitization" initiative. These digital technologies were not intended to prevent friendly fire, but now the Army is considering reconfiguring this collection of digital computers to handle this mission. While Army officials defend this plan as a prudent use of limited procurement funds, some Pentagon and industry fratricide experts say that is one assignment too many for the digitization network. Last year an Army review at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico found the digitization plan is "not sufficient to prevent fratricide" without a combat identification system such as BCIS. A separate 1995 study by a Pentagon panel that studied fratricide concluded BCIS offers the "most payoff," and that digitization "contributes little in close battle," when a tank gunner is deciding whether to fire at another tank, according to a memo prepared by the panel, the Combat Identification Architecture Working Group. One of BCIS's advantages is that a tank gunner learns whether another tank is friend or foe by looking down his gun sights at his target. But using the digitization gear, a gunner's eyes must jump back and forth between his sights and a complex map showing location of various combatants on the battlefield before deciding whether to fire. Moreover, while BCIS can answer "who goes there?" in well under a second, it can take a digital map up to 10 seconds to respond. That is a serious problem because tank gunners are under pressure to fire at an enemy tank before being fired on. "It's been shown time and again that in a tank battle, the guy who gets the first shot off in the first 5-6 seconds is the winner," Rose said. The General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative arm, has backed delaying installation of Army anti-fratricide systems pending further studies on how to mesh them with the digitization plan, and with a separate Navy technology to end fratricide. It is anybody's guess what the tests will reveal, but Army officials say their budgets are not likely to loosen, even if BCIS emerges as the indispensable key to ending fratricide. "What if we can't afford it for everybody" in a unit, but only for some tanks? asked the Army's Caldwell. "What does that do for the confidence of soldiers who know not everybody has it? It's a complex question." _________________________________________________________ [See graphics at: http://jya.com/bcis.jpg] A New Way to Tell Friend From foe Here is a description of the Battlefield Combat Indentification System (BCIS), designed by TRW, Inc.: Gulf War technology ... During the Gulf War, U.S crews used reflective tape or paint on their vehicles to identify themselves to colleagues. This system did not work well over the ranges of more than two miles common in modern tank battles. Since the Gulf War, the Army has affixed thermal panels on tanks. They are designed to register in thermal sighting devices as "cold" holes against the background of a "hot" target. ... and BCIS With BCIS, friendly targets are immediately identified through triple-checked microwave pulses. These encrypted signals change frequencies 43 times a second, making them resistant to jamming or detection by enemy forces. [Diagram of Tank 1 identifying Tank 2] [Steps of identification] 1. Gunner in Tank 1 aligns weapon sight on Tank 2 and presses the laser range-finder button; this activates the BCIS signal. 2. Tank 1 transmits encrypted queries to Tank 2 via its directional antenna. 3. Tank 2's transponder receives the query through its omnidirectional antenna. 4. Tank 2's transponder validates the query and responds to Tank 1. Tanks 2's crew is informed it has been interrogated. 5. Gunner in Tank 1 sees a symbol in his gunsight indicating "friend" or "unknown." (See diagram below) [Diagram of data displayed in gunner's sight] Yellow circle: Friendly vehicle in sector. Readout of laser-designated distance to target. One of these symbols will display: Blinking red circle: Friendly vehicle in gunner's sight. Solid red dot: Unknown vehicle. + Cost per unit: $15,000. The Army wants to reduce the cost to $10,800. + Probability of correct identification: 99 percent, according to TRW. + Range: 8.7 miles in clear weather 4.9 miles in rain. + Performance: Works in fog, rain, smoke, dust, foliage, at night. + Applications: Could be used on helicopters and individual soldiers. _________________________________________________________ [End]