Wargaming the Enemy Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Threat.

摘要

The downing of two Hezbollah Ababil UAS over Israel during the 2006 Lebnon War served as a benchmark tactical event in that war. Although the US military had been looking at ways to defend against enemy UAS prior to 2006, it is safe to say that Hezbollah s use of UAS served as a wakeup call for the entire Department of Defense. This prompted Joint Forces Command s Joint UAS Center of Excellence and Joint Staff J8, Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization (JIAMDO) to conduct a series of UAS defense events. In addition, since 2008 the US Army has conducted a series of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) funded joint experiments with a significant enemy UAS threat. These experiments included the Fires Battle Lab s Earth Wind and Fire (EWF) 2008 and 2009 experiments and 2010 Army Functional Concepts Integration Experiment (AFCIE) at Ft Sill, OK, the Mission Command Battle Lab s Omni Fusion 2008 and 2009 experiments at Ft Leavenworth, KS, and the 2011 Joint Forcible Entry Warfighting Experiment (JFEWE) run by the Maneuver Battle Lab at Ft Benning, GA. In each of these experiments the AF provided support in the form of personnel, and in several of the larger experiments the AF provided modeling and simulation support. This article discusses the major AF UAS defense insights gained in the above TRADOC experiments with a focus on the operational level of war, and recommends UAS defense be a topic of discussion at the 2012 Army Air Force Warfighter Talks.