D.I.E.D. in Air Combat

The DIED chain from a pilot's perspective (C. Kopp).

The ‘Live’ Chain: Survival is the first requirement in air combat – even if it means leaving the battle-space to fight another day. These are the steps in the 'Live chain':

Detect: If possible, deny an adversary’s sensors detection. ‘Low Observable’ designs deflect or absorb probing radar beams, but must be effective across the sensor spectrum which begins with low frequency radio wavelengths and ends in the millimetre radar band. Passive sensors span the radio-frequency bands, through the infrared up to the ultraviolet bands. Emission control of aircraft systems is vital, as passive radiofrequency sensors can find and track emissions from radars and computer networking terminals, while infrared sensors can detect hot airframe components and engine efflux. Aircrew must adopt an approach that avoids detection – this may be terrain masking or presenting an aspect of the aircraft where reflections and emissions in the direction of a detector are minimised.

Identify: Make it difficult for an adversary to ‘sort the wheat from the chaff’ by careful use of emissions and objects that ‘spoof’ detection systems. Fly approach patterns that appear to be non-aggressive. Return a response to a detection probe that looks like a different object, in a different location.

Engage: If the adversary appears to have a sensor lock, break it with electronic emissions, seduce it with decoys, or by presenting a less detectable aspect to radar. Manoeuvre to stay outside the known engagement range and altitude of opposing weapons. If an incoming weapon is detected, use the same DIED methods against its tracking systems. Generally, aircraft onboard and surface based sensors are ‘smarter’ than sensors in the seekers of engaging missiles, so deceiving or defeating a 'not so smart' weapon may be a way to frustrate an attack.

Destruction: Having a warhead explode at a lethal range from a target is a difficult task, and an engaging weapon can be defeated in its terminal phase. Powerful, directed emissions can disrupt tracking. Chaff and flares can obscure the target, although these measures are being increasingly negated by on-board signal processing in ‘smart missiles’. Present a convincing false target with a towed decoy or release free-flying decoys that confuse the attacking weapon. Finally, a determined manoeuvre can move the airframe outside fusing distance, especially after a long flight when the incoming weapon has little capability to turn sharply.

The ‘Kill Chain'. An effective ‘Kill Chain’ capability is primarily built in the design phase of a aircraft weapon system - an air combat weapon system developer must ‘know thine enemy’ and combine aircraft, sensor and weapons in a way that overmatch potential enemies’ capabilities, assuring that an engagement results a ‘live’ approach until weapons release, a ‘kill’ result against an opponent, and then surviving the disengagement from the fight. Accurately forecasting potential opponents' air combat capabilities is an essential part of this process.

If we wish to assess a potential or actual opponent's capabilities to achieve a ‘kill’, the DIED chain can be used very effectively, as follows:

Detect: Sensors must be optimised to probe at those frequencies where targets give reliable signatures. Cooperative detections, using on-board or off-board sensors can often defeat low observability from some aspects and at some frequencies; for example a pair of air combat aircraft might force a low observable aircraft to reveal a highly reflective surface, or a low frequency ground-based sensor might find a persistent return, which can be uploaded via a radio link or network to a fighter aircraft or missile in flight.

Identify: Combinations of sensors can discriminate and identify targets – an aircraft with no high frequency reflections and strong low frequency reflections is likely to be a ‘stealth’ target. Similarly, combinations of radar and infrared detections can often identify the source. Many platforms emit distinctive waveforms – examples: a specific ‘Low Probability of Intercept’ radar, a JTIDS/Link-16 network terminal. Height and speed of the detection can eliminate narrow the possible identity of the detection.

Engage: Most importantly, if one aircraft has a flight envelope superior to another (in terms of speed, endurance, altitude, range and manoeuvre), then the time and place of the engagement can be dictated by the superior aircraft which becomes the hunter, and the other the quarry. Cooperative engagement is becoming increasingly important. One sensor system may obtain a persistent, identified track, which can be passed to a ‘shooter’ for execution. Aggressive action can draw a defensive response, such as firing a missile; a tactical disengagement can force a miss. This engage-disengage cycle is repeated until the quarry runs out of either shots or fuel, or both, turns for home, and is then hunted down and killed with impunity.

Destruction: Selection and carriage of effective weapons and having capacity for multiple shots has a substantial effect on lethality. Examples are weapons with the capacity to engage at long range, that use seekers that operate in different parts of the spectrum, that have high terminal manoeuvre performance, and have ‘smart’ real-time processing to defeat terminal defensive measures. Warheads need to be large enough and smart enough, to kill, rather than maim the victim aircraft.

Conclusion

Success in air combat is achieved by realising that losing air dominance is not an option for a sovereign nation. Analysing and forecasting long-term tends in air combat weapons systems and the Concept of Operations of potential adversaries is essential, especially when the technology and the tactics of air combat are developing so rapidly. A technology that confers an advantage today, e.g. ‘Low Observability’ (LO) i.e. 'stealth' may be a future liability – for example if a LO platform’s performance was sacrificed to achieve stealth and it is subsequently detected in another part of the spectrum.

The ‘Detect, Identify, Engage, Destroy’ (D.I.E.D) is a useful analytical tool to maximise a nation’s air combat capability. Air combat systems must ‘live’ by disrupting an adversary’s DIED kill processes. Then the DIED chain must be executed as a ‘kill’ process to destroy adversaries and achieve victory in battle.

National security comes from having the ‘right stuff’ when needed. Ad hoc solutions based on aircraft choices which are ‘convenient’, ‘accessible’, ‘politically saleable’ or otherwise compromised in fundamental capabilities will not lead Australia down this essential path. An understanding of developments in technology, evolving concepts of operations, and the national will to invest in air combat systems that are always superior to potential adversaries, is the path to sovereign air dominance.