December23, 2006:
The U.S. Navy is buying another fifty ATFLIR targeting pods, for $3.2
million each. These new targeting pods that are radically changing the way
warplanes find and attack ground targets. ATFLIR is similar to the air force is
installing Sniper XR pods. The pods contain FLIR (video quality night vision
infrared radar) and TV cameras that enable pilots flying at 20,000 feet to
clearly make out what is going on down there. The pods also contain laser
designators for laser guided bombs, and laser range finders that enable pilots
to get coordinates for JDAM (GPS guided) bombs. Safely outside the range of
most anti-aircraft fire (five kilometers up, and up to fifty kilometers away),
pilots can literally see the progress of ground fighting, and have even been
acting as aerial observers for ground forces. These new capabilities also
enable pilots to more easily find targets themselves, and hit them with highly
accurate laser guided or JDAM bombs. While bombers still get target information
from ground controllers for close (to friendly troops) air support, they can
now go searching on their own, in areas where there are no friendly ground
troops. For Special Forces teams, the new pods are very useful, for the teams
often operate deep in hostile territory, and they can use the bombers overhead
to hit designated targets, but also ask the warplanes to look elsewhere in the
vicinity, in areas the Special Forces troops cannot see, but where they suspect
enemy troops are.
The
first such targeting pods were used in the 1991 Gulf War. Those LANTRIN pods
had, by current standards, poor camera resolution for the pilots looking at
what's down there. But over ten years of technological progress have given the
pilots a much sharper vision of what's on the ground. Pilots can make out if
people below are carrying weapons, and can see, in great detail, any buildings
and fortifications below. The next step is the installation of digital data
links, which enable the pilots to share the images with troops on the ground,
other aircraft, or someone pack in the Pentagon. These links have already been
installed in some aircraft, and in the next few years, all aircraft with the
pods will have the data links. More troops on the ground are getting equipment
for catching this data, and displaying the pictures and videos on laptops or
PDAs or militarized cell phones. This is all part of the "digital battlefield"
project that is installing what is, literally, a battlefield Internet.