DATE: Friday, May 23, 1997                  TAG: 9705230741

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NEW YORK                          LENGTH:   42 lines

GLITCHES PLAGUE COMPUTER-AIDED TROOPS ``FRIENDLY FIRE'' CASUALTIES WERE THREE TIMES HIGHER THAN USUAL, A PENTAGON STUDY SHOWS.

In its first major test, the Army's computerized fighting force suffered self-inflicted casualties three times higher than those in previous exercises without computers, a new Pentagon study shows.

The review by the Office of Operational Test and Evaluation was obtained by Newsday and first reported in the Army Times.

The OTE challenged almost every aspect of the Army's Experimental Force, which is being pushed by Defense Secretary William Cohen and Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So far, $750 million has been spent to equip tanks, trucks and troops with personal computers and laptops. Cohen and Shalikashvili requested an additional $1 billion for the program Monday.

Gen. Dennis Reimer, the Army chief of staff, told Congress that relaying battlefield intelligence to computers in the field will increase the Army's speed, accuracy, survivability and killing power.

But after observing a war game in March involving 6,000 soldiers operating 900 ``digitized'' vehicles at Fort Irwin, Calif., the OTE staff said computer malfunctions were rampant. Dozens of computer contractors were required to live and work with the troops to maintain the systems, the OTE report said.

``There was no increase in lethality, survivability or Optempo (speed of operations) attributable to digitization,'' the OTE report said.

In addition, there were 32 ``friendly fire'' killings during the March war game, compared with 28 in the three previous exercises.

Lt. Col. Joan Ferguson, a spokeswoman for Cohen, said the OTE study was an internal report not intended for the public or Congress. Other Army officials said it was too premature to make final evaluations about the performance of the computerized fighting force.

``I think they missed the point,'' said SFC Richard Puckett, a spokesman for the 4th Division, who said he read the Army Times report. ``This was an experiment, not a pass/fail situation. The point was to experiment and we did that.''

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