THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 TAG: 9609170281
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 87 lines
A mock battle off the coast of Virginia's Eastern Shore has proved the mettle of a new defense system that should give Navy ships more time to react to approaching threats, a wider view of their surroundings and radar ``vision'' that extends beyond the horizon.
With little pomp or public notice, the cruisers Cape St. George and Anzio pulled into Norfolk last week after testing the new system, which also enables one ship to fire another's missiles at incoming trouble.
Never again, said the system's program manager, will an American warship be as vulnerable to a missile hit as was the frigate Stark, which lost 37 crew members when it was mistakenly attacked by an Iraqi plane in 1987.
The exercise was the final hurdle for fleet-wide tactical use of the system, Cooperative Engagement Capability, said Michael O'Driscoll, the program manager.
Success in the test firings, held near the AEGIS Combat Systems Center at Wallops Island, means the Navy can get to work installing it on ships and aircraft - 200 of them, the service hopes, by 1999.
The CEC uses essentially the same radar and weapons equipment now aboard Navy ships, but it adds sensors, antennae and computer programs that provide a common radar picture for all ships in a battle group.
Previously, O'Driscoll said, individual ships within a battle group could detect incoming targets, but did so at varying times. Because of horizon limitations, electronic jamming techniques and other influences, each ship wound up with only a partial picture of what was happening around it.
With the new CEC, target data from each ship is distributed to every other system-equipped ship or aircraft. All of the units look at
the same composite picture of their surroundings.
``We develop one picture, so they can fight together as a single element,'' O'Driscoll said.
An additional feature, called ``engage on remote,'' allows one ship to fire the missiles of another.
``You might have a ship out here being (electronically) jammed,'' O'Driscoll said. ``That ship can't see the target. But these other ships can because they are spread out and can see the target with their radars.
``So that ship (the jammed ship) can use that information, fire its missiles and engage the target, yet never have seen the missile on its radar.''
In last week's test, the Anzio and Cape St. George were about eight miles apart off Wallops Island when a missile began coming toward them. Both ships tracked the target, with either ship engaging it, depending which had the clearer view of it.
``It happens automatically and saves ammunition,'' O'Driscoll said. ``This way you don't have everybody engaging the same target. If you get into a complex environment, where a lot of threats are coming in, the (sytem) will decide who has the best advantage.''
O'Driscoll called the CEC program ``extraordinary war-fighting'' and ``the leading-edge technology that significantly enhances a ship's ability to defend itself.''
Off Wallops Island, the scenario challenged CEC to identify simulated hostile missiles rapidly, process the radar information between ships, display it to the ships' combat information centers and engage the targets more efficiently by sharing radar measurement data.
``The crews of the Anzio and Cape St. George performed flawlessly,'' O'Driscoll said.
The crews have been working on the project for the past two years. In 1994 the program was tested near Puerto Rico by a battle group led by the carrier Eisenhower.
There the test involved a simulated ballistic missile that was tracked to an altitude of 580,000 feet. All five ships in the battle group could track it.
In an earlier test involving the Eisenhower, two mock cruise missiles fired at the carrier were detected before they got to the ship's radar horizon.
``Normally those missiles would have crossed the radar horizon at a very low altitude and may or may not have been picked up in time to engage them,'' O'Driscoll said. ``Our rule of thumb is that it can now double the (time to) intercept.''
This new ``sensor netting,'' as O'Driscoll calls it, is revolutionary. No other military force is known to have it.
The system is a 1,800-pound package that will go on ships and a 600-pound package designed for aircraft. The Navy's E-2C Hawkeye radar plane, which is a carrier-based air traffic controller and early warning system, will be the first aircraft to receive the system. Later it will be used on the Air Force's AWACS plans, which perform a similar function. ILLUSTRATION: Color Staff graphic by Robert D. Voros
How it Works
[For complete copy, see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: RADAR COOPERATIVE ENGAGEMENT CAPABILITY U.S. NAVY
CEC by CNB