Weapons of Choice: The Development of Precision Guided Munitions

By Paul G. Gillespie

History and deployment of smart weapons

In the United States, efforts to develop precision guided munitions—PGMs—began during the First World War and resulted in an 'aerial torpedo' by the 1920s. While World War II was dominated by large-scale strategic bombing—essentially throwing out tons of free-falling munitions in the hope they hit something important—both sides in the war worked to develop airborne munitions that could be steered toward a target. However after that war, U.S. national security policy focused on the atomic bomb, hardly a weapon that needed to be directed with accuracy.

The cost of emphasis on atomic weapons was revealed in the general unsuitability of American tactics and weapons deployment systems during the Vietnam War. Lessons learned in that conflict, coupled with rapid technological developments in aerodynamics, lasers, and solid-state electronics, brought air power dramatically closer to the "surgical strike" now seen as crucial to modern warfare. New technology created attractive choices and options for American policymakers as well as field commanders, and events in the Arab-Israeli wars, the U.S. raid on Libya, and most dramatically in the first Gulf War created an ever-increasing demand for the precision weapons.

The prospect of pinpoint delivery of weapons right to the enemy's door by speeding aircraft seems to presage war in which the messy and politically risky deployment of ground troops is unnecessary. The potential of such weapons, and their strategic limitations, made the Gulf War and Iraqi War living theater for assessing what such weapons can and cannot do and have important implications for planning for future warfare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9780817381899

Book preview

WEAPONS OF CHOICE

The Development of Precision Guided Munitions

PAUL G. GILLESPIE

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 2006

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Typeface: AGaramond

∞

The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library

Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gillespie, Paul G., 1962–

Weapons of choice : the development of precision guided munitions / Paul G. Gillespie.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1532-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8173-1532-2 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-5353-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-8173-5353-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-8189-9 (ebook)

1. Precision guided munitions. I. Title.

UF510.G55 2006

358.1'718—dc22

2006006864

To Clinton G. Gillespie and Scott C. Gillespie, whose remarkable experiences in and contributions to the evolving practice of air-to-ground combat inspired this undertaking . . . 

and

To Yvonne, who made the endeavor not only possible but also worthwhile and enjoyable.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. The Roots of Precision Guidance

3. Air Power in the Aftermath of World War II

4. Making Pinpoint Accuracy a Reality

5. Vietnam: Precision Guided Munitions Come of Age

6. The Aftermath of Vietnam: Gulf War and Peacekeeping

7. Policy Implications

8. Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

1. Kettering Bugs

2. Bridges in Burma destroyed by Azon

3. Guided missile cartoon

4. Razon guided bomb

5. Tarzon-style ring shroud

6. Aerodynamically stabilized seeker head

7. Diagram of laser guided bomb concept

8. Original TI laser guided bomb design

9. M-117 guided bomb configuration

10. Autonetics laser guided bomb design

11. F-4 cockpit laser illuminator

12. Mark 84 guided bomb concept of operations

13. Thanh Hoa Bridge

14. TI Paveway bomb commonality concept

15. Paveway II laser guided bomb

16. Rocket-boosted, TV-guided AGM-130 bomb

17. GBU-28 hard target penetrating laser guided bomb

18. Joint Direct Attack Munition

19. Joint Stand-Off Weapon

20. Internet posting featuring stealth fighters

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the many people who helped make this work a reality. I owe a special thanks to Brigadier General Carl Reddel (ret.) and Colonel Mark Wells, the Air Force Academy history department heads whose support and encouragement allowed me to pursue a lifelong interest in aviation technology. A substantial portion of this manuscript was developed and written during a three-year period of Air Force-sponsored study at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Throughout my sojourn at Lehigh, I was shown every kindness and given phenomenal support and encouragement by the faculty. I owe a tremendous debt to the entire history department, but especially to John Smith, Stephen Cutcliffe, James Saeger, Roger Simon, and Gail Cooper, who gave freely of their time and talents.

For making my archival visits productive and rewarding experiences, I wish to specifically thank three highly competent, professional archivists: Yvonne Kinkaid of the Air Force History Support Office in Washington, DC, Joe Caver of the Air Force Historical Research Agency in Alabama, and Jim Elkins of the Munitions Directorate Technical Library in Florida. Of course, the core of my story could not have been told without the cooperation of several key individuals from Texas Instruments. I thank Sheryl Baxter, the TI archivist who gleaned for me important documents on the original laser guided bomb project from long-buried files. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Weldon Word, the engineer who led this groundbreaking project—his recollections and insights, together with the corroborative correspondence of his colleagues, Steve Roemerman, Bob Wagner, Ben Ford, and Fred Clark, proved indispensable.

Others contributed to this work indirectly. Shelby Spires was kind enough to share transcripts of his interviews with the pioneers of laser guidance, and Dean Failor, one of the first Air Force flyers to drop laser guided bombs, provided invaluable operational details. For offering useful commentary and early encouragement of this project, I thank Bart Hacker and Hans-Joachim Braun of the Society for the History of Technology.

Mark Gatlin, formerly of Smithsonian Books, recognized the value of this work early on and served as a trusted guide and mentor as I traversed the uncertain path to publication. I especially want to thank the staff at The University of Alabama Press, who patiently shepherded my manuscript through the revision and polishing process. Even such a fine supporting cast can never completely compensate for the acknowledged imperfections of the author, but it has been gratifying to work with such outstanding professionals and to benefit from their expertise and friendship.

Finally, for understanding that dads sometimes have homework too, I express my love and appreciation to my children: Bryan, Clint, Spencer, and Giuliana.

1

Introduction

Why Precision Guided Munitions?

While there is perhaps some inherent value in examining any technology used by a society, clearly some choices will be more instructive than others. At the dawning of the twenty-first century, the real challenge for anyone hoping to better understand technology lies not in finding a suitable subject but in making sense of the exponentially expanding spectrum of technology that has inundated human existence. Studying an individual technological innovation may provide valuable insight, but only if a particular technology from which broader conclusions might be drawn is selected. Even among military technologies there is no shortage of potential subjects. Limiting oneself to the current U.S. arsenal, the scope and variety of high-tech weaponry is still so wide-ranging that isolating a decisive technology seems akin to selecting the largest tree in the forest. Why, then, have precision guided munitions, or PGMs, been singled out as the subject of this historical study? In order to better demonstrate the relevance of this particular class of weapons, the point of a spear provides a much more apt metaphor than the trees of a forest. If the entire armed forces of a nation are thought of as a spear, logically those personnel and weapons that directly inflict damage and determine outcomes equate to the tip, or point of that spear. At first glance this lethal tip might seem to include much, if not all, of a nation's fielded forces. However, in recent decades an increasingly select few persons and technologies have constituted the spear point.

Born in the earliest days of the twentieth century, one technology has come to dominate the battlefield like no other. The prospect of aerial bombardment began to stir controversy and interest even before the Wright brothers first demonstrated powered flight in 1903, but it was not until the First World War that aircraft emerged as a decisive weapon, capable of producing far-reaching effects. In summarizing the impact of the fledgling German air arm in the opening moves of that conflict, General Paul von Hindenburg flatly stated, without the airmen, no Tannenberg.¹ During the first half of the twentieth century, the industrialized nations of the world poured vast resources into the development of technologies designed to increase the effectiveness of aerial bombardment, and following World War II, no less a naval enthusiast than Winston Churchill himself was forced to conclude that for good or ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power, and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept subordinate rank.² Particularly in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the air force became the indisputable queen of battle, dominating all subsequent twentieth-century conflicts. However, even in the midst of the cold war it was realized that a nuclear-tipped air weapon had severe limitations. While a number of technologies were developed in the next half-century to increase air power's effectiveness, including improved cluster bombs, proximity fuses, penetrating warheads, napalm and other incendiaries, and stealth technology, nothing has revolutionized modern warfare in quite the same way as precision guidance. Hearkening back to Hindenburg's observation, today one might justly assert: without the PGM, no Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

One indication of the relative importance of precision air weapons is the prominence they have attained in modern military forces. Air power encompasses a variety of roles and missions, making it difficult to single out one as decisive. However, it should be kept in mind that the bulk of an air force does not actually fly or fight. For example, in today's U.S. Air Force, only about 3 percent of active duty personnel are pilots—the remaining 97 percent provide flyers with the communications, supply, maintenance, transportation, security, engineering, intelligence, medical, and other support functions that make up the long, nonlethal haft of the spear. Beyond this, most aircraft do not wield bombs or bullets, performing instead such supporting roles as training, airlift, aerial refueling, and reconnaissance.³ Even critical combat mission areas such as air superiority and the suppression of enemy air defenses, as galling as it must sound to the fighter ace, are actually supporting roles. After all, except in the case of a defensive war, of the sort England fought during the Battle of Britain, air-to-air combat serves chiefly to clear a path for the bomb droppers.⁴ So, while the first U.S. Air Force core competency remains Air and Space Superiority, current doctrine admits that this superiority is rarely an end in itself but is a means to the end of attaining military objectives . . . it provides freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack. In contrast, the second Air Force core competency, Precision Engagement, supports the premise that air power provides the ‘scalpel' of joint service operations—the ability to forgo the brute force-on-force tactics of previous wars and apply discriminate force precisely where required.⁵ Returning to the previously mentioned spearhead analogy, in the final analysis only those combatants and weapon systems capable of efficiently destroying valued enemy assets on the ground equate to the tip of the spear. As Vince Lombardi might phrase it, when it comes to modern air warfare, putting bombs on target isn't everything; it's the only thing.

Not long ago, nuclear weapons—primarily bombs and missiles, but also torpedoes, mines, and artillery shells—unquestionably constituted the pointiest end of the spear. Not surprisingly, much has been written analyzing this class of weapons and the strategies and policies that revolved around them. This experience has shown that there is considerable value in writing the history of a dominant weapon—of privileging one particular winning technology, so to speak—because of what such history reveals about society. This may seem counterintuitive to those in other disciplines, but as one respected historian of technology observed, the purposes (ethics and values) of our society are built into the very form and fabric of our technology, and the latter does not exist in some neutral sphere divorced from that purpose.⁶ During the past four decades, an entire new class of weapons has emerged. In the process, the nuclear weapons that were once the centerpiece of the U.S. arsenal have been relegated to a minor supporting role, and a potent new family of precision guided munitions has emerged as the linchpin of U.S. national security policy. Eventually, American military and political leaders came to rely upon PGMs as the weapon of first choice, believing them capable of solving a wide variety of problems with minimum risk of casualties or escalation. Thus, this treatment is far more than merely another case study—PGMs now represent the sharpest point of the spear, and consequently provide insight into a crucial nexus in the evolution of American national security policy.

Precision Revolution

The development and use of technology for military advantage is hardly unique to the American experience. Technology has shaped warfare in important ways since Herodotus first historicized armed conflict in the fifth century BC. In more recent centuries, such technological innovations as gunpowder, iron ships, and airplanes have played a decisive role in the development of Western warfare. However, following the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, the United States clearly developed a uniquely American way of war—one dependent on a strategy of attrition and the efficient employment of technology to defeat its enemies. This unique way of war, built upon the strength of superior numbers and mass production, was epitomized by Ulysses S. Grant in the final phase of the American Civil War. Later military planners and leaders stuck with Grant's overall strategy but continually looked for ways to reduce the cost in lives, frequently turning to more and better technology as the antidote to decrease the bloodshed intrinsic to the strategy of attrition.

Given America's overall success and eventual superpower status, not surprisingly much historical ink has been spilled analyzing the American way of war.⁷ In recent years historians and policy analysts have commenced a lively discourse seeking to explain how new technologies have fundamentally changed the American way of war. In fact, the transformation of warfare during the past two decades has involved much more than a mere shift in American strategy—it has, arguably, amounted to nothing less than a revolution. The term revolution in military affairs (RMA) has emerged as a favorite buzzword among academics interested in defense affairs. The years since 1995 have seen a rush by military historians to "examine virtually everything from the strategy of Edward III to Blitzkrieg operations in the light of what we call revolutions in military affairs"⁸ While historians debate the complexities and ambiguities of a historical record that is not yet settled, American policymakers appear to have accepted and embraced the current RMA, described as the use of computers and knowledge management systems to improve battlefield command and control; the development of precision-guided conventional weapons; and the deployment of stealth systems . . . which reduced risk for American combatants.⁹ While numerous specific technologies have been cited in conjunction with the ongoing changes in warfare, the key elements of the revolution in military affairs have been reducing risks to friendly personnel and reducing diplomatically costly forms of collateral damage to enemies. Both have been accomplished by employing the maturing technologies of precision guided munitions, satellite networks, and other computer-age innovations. Therefore, if RMA has transformed the American way of war, as some have argued, there can be no doubt that precision guided munitions are the sine qua non of this new way of war.

This book examines not only the historical development of an important class of weapons but also the tremendous implications they have had, and will no doubt continue to have, for national security policy. In the process of detailing the historical development of precision weapons, this study addresses several themes relating to their ultimate impact. Some social scientists have argued that precision guided munitions are epiphenomenal—merely the result of the phenomenon of casualty aversion. In contrast, this work attempts to identify a more complex causality, one in which the avoidance of bloodshed is an important, but secondary, factor in the development and wholesale adoption of this crucial technology. In fact, it will be demonstrated that PGMs have proven revolutionary in a number of ways. In addition, because this study contends that PGMs have affected national security policy in significant ways, it will evaluate what they have achieved militarily and whether or not American policymakers have perhaps overestimated what PGMs can accomplish for them strategically and politically. Teasing such themes out of the story will, it is hoped, provide valuable insight into how people perceive and cope with technological change more generally.

Another underlying purpose of this study is to shed light on the sources of technological innovation. Specifically, it investigates which forces, prior discoveries, and contemporary contributions made pinpoint bombing technologically feasible in the mid-1960s but not before. It will be shown that invention is a social process and that it is usually misleading to present it as the achievement of individual genius. A number of key individuals did play prominent roles in the development of PGMs, but the social process that led to the invention of the first laser guided bomb consisted partly in the development of earlier forms of guided weapons and partly in the numerous experiments being carried out contemporaneously.¹⁰ As always, novel artifacts clearly arose from antecedent artifacts. What makes the case of PGMs instructive is the source of that novelty. Although many of the necessary antecedents, including laser and computer technologies, were readily available by the early 1960s, it took America's experience in Vietnam to produce a research agenda that purposefully sought technological solutions to specific military problems. Once engineers at Texas Instruments broke the bottlenecks that had limited technological progress, and consequently the effectiveness of air power, the result was a three-tiered revolutionary transformation in munitions guidance, armed conflict, and defense policy.¹¹

Overview and Organization

The quest for precision bombardment has occupied the American military for a long time. But, while the far-reaching, even revolutionary, implications of PGMs were recognized and debated almost immediately following their debut in Vietnam, and despite a plethora of published articles on the subject, a comprehensive historical treatment of this important class of weapons has until now gone unwritten. This book's uniqueness lies in its focus on the historical development of guided munitions technology, with particular emphasis on the effect this technology has had on U.S. national security policy. In order to make sense of such a broad topic, however, this study will necessarily be limited in scope. Precision guided munitions have been variously defined as anything from a firepower system whose overall performance provides a high probability of hitting targets with single-round efficiency, to a weapon capable of achieving a specified circular error probable (CEP), the radius of a circle around the target within which 50 percent of firings will fall.¹² However, because not all munitions fitting these broad categories have contributed equally to the revolution in warfare, this book will concentrate on a specific class of weapons: conventional bombs that are interactively guided to terminal impact. Specifically omitted by this definition are ballistic missiles, which once formed the nucleus of U.S. national defense, but which have been rendered largely impotent by political complications associated with their nuclear payloads. Also largely omitted are modern cruise missiles, which, while enjoying the decided advantage of not endangering human operators, differ from the munitions of this study because of their significantly higher cost, lesser accuracy, smaller nonpenetrating warheads, and lack of flexibility in terms of in-flight retargeting or reattack capability.¹³ In order to avoid creating here a tedious list of definitions, other terms central to this work will be defined as encountered.

The next chapter will discuss the earliest attempts to develop a precisely guided, aerial delivered bomb. In the United States, this effort received serious attention as early as the First World War and resulted in a marginally successful aerial torpedo by the 1920s. In order to put this technological development in context, this chapter will explore the broader impact of technological change on military strategy. By first examining World War I, with its new and evolving technologies, it should be possible to assess just how successful wartime attempts at innovation were. This chapter will also examine the interwar years, that formative period in the development of air power doctrine and attitudes, and the subsequent role of air power in World War II. The role of the air weapon expanded dramatically during this global conflict, bringing about fundamental changes in military strategy as the extreme limits of total war were reached. Notwithstanding the emergence during this period of a doctrine focused on large-scale strategic bombardment, World War II witnessed significant development programs among both Allied and Axis powers aimed at precisely steered airborne munitions. This second chapter will thus demonstrate the persistence and pervasiveness of the early attempts at guided weapons, addressing the underlying question of why precision is so important. At the same time, this chapter will reveal a technology that consistently exceeded the grasp of its would-be inventors, resulting in partial successes at best.

Chapter 3 will examine the relationship between America's rapidly developing air power technology and its evolving national security policy during the crucial decade of the 1950s. Based on experience in World War II, particularly the dramatic results of the Manhattan Project, America had little incentive to improve bombing accuracy following the war. Although slightly improved guided bombs did see marginal use in Korea, that limited war, fought without atomic weapons, strained the resources and challenged the strategy and doctrine of America's fledgling, jet-age air force. In its aftermath, the Eisenhower administration adopted a national security policy that clearly substituted technology, and particularly nuclear technology, for manpower. The resulting cold war policy of massive retaliation rested upon radical new technologies, including ballistic missile guidance systems, but left American policymakers with few real options. The relative neglect of military battlefield capabilities, and particularly accurate tactical bombing, left America ill-prepared to fight another conventional war, as became painfully obvious in Vietnam.

The period during the 1960s when technology finally caught up with the early air power visionaries will be the subject of chapter 4. This chapter will highlight the innovations and technological breakthroughs, including developments in aerodynamics, lasers, and solid-state electronics, that finally made the elusive surgical strike possible. An examination of the specific contributions made by participants within the military, government, and civilian industry further illuminates the process by which innovative military technologies are selected and created. Part of this investigation will include exploring the extent to which precision guidance stemmed from the historical antecedents of the previous chapters and how much was true novelty. In order to make sense of such a complex technological system, this chapter will describe in detail the engineering, development, and testing of the first laser guided bombs, but it will stop short of discussing the results of initial combat testing in Southeast Asia in 1968 and the subsequent operational use and impact of PGMs.

The use of precision guided munitions in the Vietnam War, and particularly the Linebacker air campaigns of 1972, marked a watershed in the application of modern air power. Thus, although chapter 5 represents a relatively short time period, it is critical to an understanding of the long-term effects PGMs have had on military strategy and, consequently, national security policy. This chapter will examine the actual use to which precision guided munitions were put as they came of age in Vietnam. During the final year of this conflict, newly acquired guidance technology allowed U.S. forces to foil a major enemy offensive against South Vietnam without reversing the rapid troop drawdown already well under way. Clearly, this new technology created attractive new choices and options for American policymakers. This chapter explores the contemporary attitudes, both within and outside the military, regarding possible future usage. Such an examination must also necessarily include some discussion of the phenomenon of casualty aversion, which has been intertwined with PGMs from the beginning, but gained considerable currency in the quagmire of Vietnam.

The sixth chapter will examine the subsequent rise of this special class of weapons, which surpassed even the most optimistic predictions of the Vietnam era. Analysts writing in the years following the Vietnam War were quick to grasp the potential for revolutionary change embodied in PGMs, some even comparing them to the atomic bombs that had so completely altered warfare some thirty years earlier. Crises and events in and around the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli Wars, the U.S. raid on Libya, and ultimately the Persian Gulf War, proved instrumental in fostering an ever-increasing demand for precision weapons. While the obvious focus of this study remains throughout primarily an examination of the American experience with PGMs, this period also lends itself well to a slightly broadened view—to include a brief look at how allies and adversaries, particularly the Soviet Union and later Russia, responded to America's increasingly high-tech arsenal. This chapter also illuminates the high-level policy decisions in this country that influenced the marked shift toward reliance upon PGMs.

The seventh chapter will specifically examine changes in U.S. national security policy attributable to the advent and adoption of PGMs. Recent military operations conducted by the United States have highlighted a dramatic shift in America's use of