       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]