Who Goes There: Friend or Foe? - Federation of American Scientists

A s described
and identification to avoid air fratricide. There are
in the previous chapter, reducing fratricide
requires more than improving identification. This chapter
discusses ways to improve both tactical knowledge
several technical approaches to better identification; each of
these is described briefly below with a discussion of its
advantages and disadvantages. The chapter ends with a discussion
of the interaction of military identification systems with
civilian air traffic control and a brief discussion of avoiding
fratricide of ships.
BATTLE MANAGEMENT
‘‘Battle management’ includes collecting information about
where combat resources are needed, setting priorities, and
allocating resources to needs. The tactical knowledge or
‘‘situational awareness’ provided by battle management is so
integral a part of air combat that its importance to avoiding
fratricide is easily overlooked, Yet the foremost antifratricide
measure is properly coordinating friendly forces.
Any efforts that improve coordination also improve combat
effectiveness—and that typically is their primary justification—
but these same efforts can help reduce fratricide. The Navy and
the Air Force discovered during joint operations in the Persian
Gulf War that air tasking orders (ATOs) were difficult to
transmit between the Services’ strike planners. Air Force and
Navy radios were not always compatible and the ATOs were so
voluminous that transmission was time , consuming. These and
other uncovered communication problems are now being
corrected. The resulting improvement in attack efficiency will
be obvious, but better communication and coordination also
will make fratricide less likely.
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Avoiding
Fratricide of
Air and
Sea Targets 4
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