| Description |
1 online resource (xxix, 285 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
""PREFACE""; ""PROJECT AIR FORCE""; ""FIGURES""; ""TABLES""; ""SUMMARY""; ""KEY FINDINGS""; ""THE NEED FOR IMPROVED URBAN OPERATIONAL CAPABILITIES""; ""NEW CONCEPTS""; ""NEXT STEPS""; ""ACKNOWLEDGMENTS""; ""ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS""; ""INTRODUCTION""; ""BACKGROUND""; ""HOW LIKELY ARE URBAN OPERATIONS?""; ""THE NATURE OF URBAN MILITARY OPERATIONS""; ""From Rubble to Routine""; ""Redefining Warfare, Not Service Roles""; ""PURPOSE""; ""ORGANIZATION""; ""USING AEROSPACE POWER TO PREVENT THE URBAN FIGHT""; ""INTRODUCTION""; ""HOW AEROSPACE POWER CAN FORESTALL URBAN OPERATIONS"" |
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""Anatomy of an Urban Military Operation""""Comparative Advantages of Aerospace Power""; ""Preclusion Strategies""; ""WHERE PRECLUSIONARY STRATEGIES MAY HAVE WORKED""; ""Al Khafji""; ""Kuwait City""; ""Southern Lebanon""; ""WHERE AEROSPACE POWER FAILED TO PREVENT URBAN COMBAT""; ""Lessons Learned""; ""The Second Chechen Battle""; ""WHEN CIRCUMSTANCES LEAVE NO CHOICE""; ""As a Tool for Joint Force Commanders""; ""The Limits of Aerospace Power in Urban Operations""; ""SUMMARY""; ""LEGAL AND POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ON URBAN AEROSPACE OPERATIONS""; ""INTRODUCTION"" |
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""LEGAL CONSTRAINTS ON URBAN AEROSPACE OPERATIONS""""Reciprocal Legal Duties and the DefenderÃŒs Obligations""; ""The International Legal Challenges of Urban Environments""; ""POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS ON URBAN OPERATIONS""; ""Sensitivity to American Casualties""; ""Sensitivity to Collateral Damage and Civilian Suffering""; ""RESTRICTIVE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AND TARGETING""; ""THE ASYMMETRY OF CONSTRAINTS""; ""CONCLUSION""; ""AEROSPACE OPERATIONS AND THE URBAN PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT""; ""INTRODUCTION""; ""THE NATURE OF URBAN TERRAIN""; ""Urban Terrain Zones and Their Characteristics"" |
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""Air Defenses on Urban Terrain""""SURVEILLANCE AND RECONNAISSANCE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT""; ""Sensor Cueing in the Urban Environment and a New Cueing Concept""; ""Target Identification/Tracking in the Urban Environment""; ""EO Sensors Versus Targets on Rooftops and in Streets""; ""EO Sensors Versus Targets Inside Buildings""; ""AERIAL WEAPON DELIVERY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT""; ""Aerial Weapon Trajectories and the Geometry of Urban Terrain""; ""Weapon Effects and Urban Terrain""; ""AIRLIFT IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS""; ""CONCLUSIONS"" |
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""New concepts for accomplishing key tasks in urban operations""""introduction""; ""stop movement of combatants, vehicles, and equipment""; ""provide rapid, high-resolution imagery for target id""; ""detect and neutralize adversary ambush positions""; ""detect and neutralize snipers""; ""monitor high-priority targets""; ""resupply isolated friendly ground forces""; ""provide close support for ground forces""; ""the role of the joint control center""; ""enabling technologies for urban aerospace operations""; ""introduction"" |
| Summary |
The recent spate of urban operations in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia has motivated the Department of Defense to put considerable effort into identifying and correcting shortcomings in the United States' ability to successfully conduct urban military operations. Project AIR FORCE undertook a year-long investigation of the role that aerospace forces can play in joint urban military operations. This study sought to help the USAF better understand how the urban physical, social, and political environment constrains aerospace operations, to identify key operational tasks that aerospace forces can help accomplish, and to develop new concepts of operation, including enabling technologies, to enhance the contribution that aerospace forces make to joint urban operations. Among the study's key findings are the following: --Urban areas, with their physical and social complexity, are extremely difficult to operate in. Where possible, U.S. forces should avoid them. --Where urban operations cannot be avoided, aerospace forces can make important contributions to the joint team (air, land, sea, and space forces working together): detecting adversary forces in the open; attacking them in a variety of settings; and providing close support, navigation and communications infrastructure, and resupply for friendly forces. --Offboard sensors for manned aircraft, three-dimensional urban mapping, Global Positioning System relays on unmanned aerial vehicles, and limited-effects weapons have the potential to enhance the ability of aerospace forces to detect and attack adversary forces when rules of engagement are highly restrictive, such as in peace operations, noncombatant evacuations, and humanitarian assistance. Their development should be encouraged. --Automated integration and pattern analysis of inputs from large networks of sensors that use acoustic, infrared, seismic, chemical, and radar detectors will be necessary to interpret the massive volume of activity found in most urban areas. --Practical limitations of automated fusion, coupled with political concerns about collateral damage and civilian casualties, will dictate at least one human decisionmaker remaining in the loop between sensor and shooter, making human-machine interfaces a critical information-architecture issue. This report should be of interest to Air Force personnel in operations, plans, intelligence, and acquisition organizations, and to aviators in the sister services. It is the authors' hope that it will help soldiers, marines, and sailors better appreciate the contribution that aerospace forces can make to joint urban operations |
| Analysis |
Military operations on urban terrain (MOUT) |
| Notes |
"MR-1187-AF"--Page 4 of cover |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-285) |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
United States. Air Force
|
| SUBJECT |
United States. Air Force fast |
| Subject |
Urban warfare.
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Air warfare.
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Air warfare
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Urban warfare
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Vick, Alan
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| LC no. |
00033313 |
| ISBN |
9780833043917 |
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0833043919 |
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9780833028518 |
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0833028510 |
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