JP 3-01 Countering Air and Missile Threats - Defense Innovation ...

Defense Counterair Planning and Operations
2. Unit Security/Counter-Surveillance. Local unit security is an
important element in denying accurate targeting data to enemy SOF or other enemy agents.
Patrolling and ground forces support is important to keep enemy threat forces of Level I
(agents, saboteurs, and terrorists) and Level II (small tactical units) from conducting
harassment or interdiction attacks against DCA assets.
3. Nighttime Support Operations. Consider nighttime for conducting
time-consuming resupply or other operations that could highlight units’ visibility and
increase their vulnerability.
4. Camouflage and Concealment. Practice visual signature reduction
measures that can “hide” or deny accuracy in locating friendly targets/target systems. These
measures may be conducted continuously or in response to specific warnings. Timely
intelligence concerning the overflight by enemy satellite and aircraft collection systems is
important to the effort. Those measures also may be coupled with deception measures to
further complicate chances of effective enemy attacks. The employment of obscurants can
negate the effectiveness and accuracy of attack threats during DCA operations.
Refer to JP 3-13.3, Operations Security, for additional discussion regarding OPSEC.
Refer to JP 3-13.4, Military Deception, for more details regarding deception operations.
(3) Reducing Vulnerability. There are four measures that may enable friendly
assets to survive enemy attacks by reducing their vulnerability.
(a) Hardening. Valuable assets and their shelters are hardened to protect
against physical attack, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and transient radiation. Hardening
measures should be accomplished during peacetime whenever possible. Hardening reduces
the effect of attack on systems and facilities (i.e., aircraft, missiles, air base support
equipment and facilities, nuclear delivery systems, nuclear storage areas, C2 facilities,
communications nodes, and logistic facilities). When EMP hardening is not feasible, an
EMP vulnerability assessment should be made to identify suitable preparatory and defensive
measures.
(b) Redundancy. A principal means of preserving combat power is
duplication of critical nodes, capabilities, and systems that are particularly vulnerable to air
and missile attack and for which other passive measures may be less appropriate.
Redundancy includes dual, contingency, or backup capabilities that can assume primary
mission functions (in whole or in part) upon failure or degradation of the primary system. Of
primary concern are “soft” targets such as C2 nodes and sensors (antenne) and fixed sites
such as airfields and ground stations for airborne sensors.
(c) Dispersal. Dispersal reduces target vulnerability by decreasing
concentration and making a target system less lucrative. Combined with mobility and
deception, dispersal increases enemy uncertainty as to whether a particular location is
occupied and, if so, whether it will be occupied when the attack is executed.
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