PSA conference offers program updates.

• Author: Lopez, Ramon
• Position: Precision Strike Association

The hardware--including tactical aircraft and advanced targeting pods--is in place for precision-strike operations, but a "revolution won't come about until information is moved around the battlefield," according to Rear Adm. Matthew G. Moffit, aviation plans and requirements branch chief of Navy Air Warfare.

In the future, "the NavyUSMC TacAir team may not be platform centric," Moffit told the 2002 Annual Program Review of the Precision Strike Association, an affiliate of the NDIA. "The idea is to move information around the battle group and around the area of responsibility."

Moffit said that he favors more self-targeting weapons in the future, including the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, which incorporates a terminal seeker. He also anticipates deploying unmanned combat air vehicles from carrier decks. "You can read the writing on the wall," he said.

Operation Enduring Freedom affirmed the need for joint operations, said Air Force Brig. Gen. John W. Rosa, Jr., deputy director for regional operations for the Joint Staff "We will never step back to the era of single services. We are joint. We train joint. That's the way we have got to think," he said.

"We've come a long way during my career in terms of weapons accuracy," Rosa said. "We've got some way to go, but I can tell you we've made tremendous progress.

Precision-guided munitions played a prevalent role in Operation Enduring Freedom, according to Tony Palumbo, senior vice president for domestic business development for the Raytheon Company. But U.S. military services need further improvements, including "smarter weapons that take part in the identification tasks, weapons that are compatible on land, sea and air platforms, and weapons that are retargetable in flight," he said.

The Predator unmanned air vehicle performed successfully in Afghanistan as a "birddog" for Air Force AC-130 Spectre gunships, providing target locations, said Ron Mutzelburg, deputy director of air warfare for the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. The Air Force is considering a demonstration in which control of a Predator would be turned over to an operator in a gunship. Some day, he said, small, disposable UAVs might be operated from AC-130s.

In the near term, warfighters will gain by improving the effectiveness of older C3I systems through a "network-centric" approach, in which reliable, secure information becomes available in real time for battlefield decisions, said...