Joint Warfighting: Attacking Time-Critical Targets
Abstract
This letter responds to your request that we review the Department of Defenses (DOD) efforts to enhance its ability to attack time-critical targets.1 While DOD has developed and fielded considerable capability to detect, assess, and attack most fixed enemy targets, experiences in the Persian Gulf and more recently in Kosovo revealed that DOD has limited ability to rapidly identify and strike time-critical targets, such as mobile Scud2 and surface-to-air missile sites. Such targets proved to be elusive when our adversaries were able to move critical assets to safety in a shorter time frame than it takes us to implement the sensor-to-shooter process. In fact, the time needed to effectively attack mobile targets is much shorter than DODs established 30 to 72hour targeting cycle for attacking most fixed targets.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 30, 2001
- Accession Number
- AD1105589
Entities
People
- James F. Wiggins
- Mary Quinlan
- William Gillies
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office