Urban exercise tests novel technology: Unmanned systems and sensors play prominent role in marine experiment.

Aware of their weaknesses in urban warfare tactics, U.S. Marines are experimenting with new technology that could help them fight more effectively in crowded cities.

The Marines spent several weeks testing urban combat equipment this summer, during Millennium Dragon--the Marine portion of the joint Defense Department experiment called Millennium Challenge 2002.

"The U.S. military is not ready to fight in MOUT [military operations in urban terrain] unless they are ready to rake a lot of casualties," said Marine Maj. Brian Homberg, from the Joint Forces Command. "It is not that they are not capable of doing so, but they want to be able to do it without taking a lot of casualties."

The urban environment is the most difficult setting for any baffle, said Maj. Robert Barr, a wargaming expert at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. Out of the last 66 conflicts where Marines fought, 58 involved some type of urban terrain, he said.

To prepare for what could be a war in the streets of Baghdad, Marines forming an "experimental task force" prowled the streets of the now-closed George Air Force Base, in California. "Besides the infrastructure that is present, the housing area has over 300 individual structures on it," Barr explained. He added that there are nearly a thousand houses on the base.

In the enveloping dust and scorching heat, the enemy (the opposition force, or OPFOR) moved like shadows across the streets, eluding the Blue Force, which was rolling in with ranks and high-tech equipment.

The tanks quickly became sitting ducks for anti-tank missiles. During the free-play before the combined arms exercise started, an M1A1 was pinned down between two houses, making feeble attempts at trying to move forward.

"Tanks provide firepower to infantry when they are shot at," said Homberg. "It's a team effort. If the rank is without the infantry around it, it is vulnerable, and so is the infantry without the tank." He explained that ranks are important for destroying enemy positions. Tanks can be blown up by rocket-propelled grenades from the back, and the soldiers usually cover that.

"Gadgets aren't worth everything without sophisticated tactics in urban environments," said a Marine spokesman. The Marines had to adapt to some of the classic, but most effective opposition tricks in the book--deception and illusion.

"We make them think something is happening, while really something else is going on," said a Marine from the OPFOR, who identified himself only as Pfc. Widener. "We focus on the surprise element, and illusion is a big factor.

"Being the enemy, you are in your house, while the good guys come into an environment where they have limited intelligence, if any at all," he added.

Eventually, the Blue Force Marines adapt to the situation.

"We have a much larger base here, and we have the ability to employ a full battalion landing team with other attachments, ranks and engineers," said one Marine participating in the exercise. Not only do the Marines have to get the lowdown of all the buildings in the training complex, but they have to deal with an opposition force that knows its territory really well.

One of the purposes of the exercise, apart from fine-tuning urban warfare tactics, was to test novel technologies that could be recommended for acquisition programs. Most of these technologies are still in development at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, in Quantico, Va., and they focus mostly on surveillance, reconnaissance, communications and targeting.

"It does not mean that they [the technologies] are ready for prime time and ready to go to the Marine Corps Systems Command with a possible procurement, or that the tactics, techniques and procedures are mature enough to he ready to go to our doctrine," said Barr. "We will transition some of this technology into a program of record for an acquisition path."

The Marine portion of Millennium Challenge had three phases: one was a ship-to-objective maneuver; the second one was the experimentation of the new technology, and the last portion focused on a 96-hour, force-on-force urban combined-arms exercise.

"The big problem that we have is that there is a decrease in situational awareness in urban environments," said Capt. David Moreau, who works in the RSTA (Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Target Acquisition) section of the Warfighting Lab.

"Marines can only use their eyes and ears, and the eyes and ears of the guys next to them."

The lab is interested in technologies that could fit an urban mission and would "not impede the Marines' performance in carrying out their missions," he said.

Ground Robots

Robots that crawl around and scout the enemy territory are among the Marines' more coveted technologies. One of those is the Dragon Runner, a nine-pound ground sensor on wheels. It was developed jointly by Carnegie Mellon University and the Naval Research Lab. "We made them build a system that we felt would fit the urban mission," he said.

The ground robot runs off a standard military lithium-ion battery, which lasts for about six hours if the Dragon Runner is in full motion, and about 24 hours if the sensor is simply monitoring the surroundings.

"We looked at the systems that would climb stairs and that would climb rubble, but they moved about two, three feet per second and that was too slow," he said.

"The novel thing about it [the Dragon Runner] is that there is no side up," said Moreau. "It is invertible." That offers a lot of flexibility, he added. "If it is not accessible through a front door, we wanted to be able to throw it through the window." He explained that no matter what side the vehicle may fall on, it still keeps its direction and transmits images according to plan.

"The video that is sent back through the little hand-held controller or the user interface automatically flips--within a millisecond--and its controls flip as well," Moreau explained. "So if it were going forward and it tumbled, the controls would automatically change themselves."

Internally, the Runner has a low-light, wide-angle video camera that sends the image back to the user interface, Moreau noted. The vehicle is an all-wheel drive and has six-inch tires."

"It has got an infrared [laser device] that acts like a spotlight at night, an invisible spotlight that you can see through your night-vision devices," he said. "It has got motion sensors in the front and side, they detect movement at about 30 feet and 270 degrees." The vehicle also has a directional microphone that would pick up any audible noise.

The Warfighting Lab is looking at different mission modules that could be installed on the ground robot, said Moreau. One if them is a miniature infrared camera that would send back thermal images. Down the line, the Marine Corps also will look at mine detection capabilities. Currently, however, the vehicle is used solely for reconnaissance and surveillance.

"Now, it gives an around-the-corner capability so we do not have to put that Marine in harm's way," he said. Even it the enemy detects and destroys it, "the unit would know that somebody is there."

The current prototype of the system costs about $12,000. The Corps is looking at reducing the cost by half. "We want to make it inexpensive enough," so that it becomes expendable, Moreau said. "We are going to do more technical assessments."

In heavily populated areas, the identification of friendly forces becomes confusing and difficult, said several Marines. At Millennium Dragon, the service tested a new identification friend-or-foe system that can be clipped on the M-16 rifle. However, Sgt. Jack Schaeffer cautioned that firing decisions still are make by humans in command.

Initially, if you don't know whether it is friend or foe, the system is going to help you make that decision, he said. "It is going to tell you definitely that it is friend, or that it might be a friend within an operative system, or that it might be a foe or it might be just an innocent bystander."

If the green light in the viewfinder goes on, it means that the system has identified a foe, Schaeffer said. But the tricky part is that the green light also may indicate that it may be a friend without an interoperable system. "So this is a decision on the part of the Marine," he said.

However, when the red light comes on flashing, it means, "Stop. ... The other person is definitely a friend," he said.

The IFF device has a security code and the frequencies are reprogrammed each day, in case the weapon falls in enemy hands. "If you are really in danger of losing that equipment, you can set it up so that two hours from now, you can change that security code," Schaeffer noted.

The downside of this system is that any civilian could be mistaken for an enemy.

The IFF system remains in development and is quite costly, Schaeffer said. The Marine Corps Systems Command has not decided yet if the technology will be acquired.

Medical Gear

Getting the wounded out of an urban environment may prove to be difficult, if not impossible at times.

In general, most combat fatalities occur from massive shock and bleeding, which could be controlled if the casualties receive medical attention within the first hour. To solve this problem, the Marine Corps is evaluating the Forward Resuscitative Surgical System (FRSS).

It is a mobile medical shelter with a surgical suite that can be set up near the battlefield. It is designed to move as far forward into the combat zone as possible, to reduce the time needed to bring the victims to the operating table.

Two shelters provide space for one operating room and one pre/post operative care room. The shelters are ventilated and wired for electricity and they have their own oxygen generator, which precludes the need for volatile oxygen bottles.

The FRSS is designed to be transportable by one 5-ton truck, two Humvee trucks or an MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. The Marine Corps Systems Command delivered two FRSS units to the Fleet Marine Forces and will deliver 13 more units in fiscal year 2003. The cost per unit is $330,000.

Immediate access to reliable communications is critical in any combat scenario, Marines said during the exercise. They are testing a deployable communications unit called the Preliminary First in Command and Control System (PRE-FICCS), which gives the commander instant satellite communications links during initial-entry operations. It is designed to facilitate the movement of forces ashore and communications with their headquarters.

PRE-FICCS still is in development, under sponsorship of the Marine Forces Pacific, the Office of Naval Research and the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

The PRE-FICCS command post consists of one heavy-variant Humvee with a communications shelter, a support trailer and about 400 pounds of ancillary equipment. The entire system can be airlifted in a single CH-53 helicopter.

The system is self-sufficient for up to 24 hours, including food, fuel and shelter. It has its own generator and power.

"We are self-sufficient," said Tom Nolton, who works in the communications division of the Naval Air Warfare Center. "We have 35 kilowatts of power, and we only use about 45 percent of that, so that we can support other activities." The system has its own air-conditioning and heating systems, and also a cooling unit to keep the equipment cold. "Once we upload the truck, we can do everything in the truck," Nolton said.

The servers are kept inside of the truck, so they are relatively safe, said Nolton.

The shelter supports up to eight phone lines, has a UHF tactical satellite for secure data/voice connectivity and UHF/VHF line-of-sight for Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS). The trailer also has a non-secure Internet protocol router and secure Internet protocol router network connectivity.

PRE-FICCS can support 15 cell phones. "That allows us to tie into a voice switch to go out into the satellite and call into the defense system network," said Nolton.

For a certain period of time during Millennium Dragon, the PRE-FICCS was transmitting images from the Dragon Eye unmanned aerial vehicle. The Dragon Eye weighs five pounds and is carried in a backpack. Its missions are reconnaissance and surveillance for small-unit commanders. They can see over the next hill or building.

The Marines received 40 Dragon Eye systems this year for operator evaluation. Procurement and fielding of the system will begin in spring 2003. Each Dragon Eye will cost $60,000 to $70,000 in low-rate production. The Marine Corps is planning to buy 311 systems by 2006.