Integrated air defense system
An integrated air defense system puts all antiaircraft sensors (e.g., radar, visual observers, and other technical means) as well as antiaircraft weapons (e.g., anti-aircraft artillery, surface-to-air missiles, air superiority fighters and interceptors, etc., under a common system of command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I). Depending on the national doctrine involved, the control is more or less decentralized. NATO doctrine is concerned with deconfliction, but allowing a fighter pilot the discretion to pursue the final attack. Soviet doctrine, including that of Iraq, was more centralized and less flexible for the pilot.
The first operational IADS, with no computer assistance other than in the brains of the defenders, was in the Battle of Britain.[1] The term IADS had not yet been invented, but more important was that the Germans did not see the British system as a system. They saw airfields, radars, etc., but did not grasp that the most critical and vulnerable part were the control centers.
Requirements of an IADS
Sensors
Command and control
Air defense platforms
Deconfliction
Deconfliction is one of the key aspects of an IADS. In general, there are a series of concentric circles around a target: the outermost might be assigned to long-range fighters, the next to long-range SAMs, the next to shorter-range fighters, and the innermost to AAA and short-range SAMs. These circles may be three-dimensional; there may be a rule that while aircraft at high altitude over troop concentrations are not to be engaged by the ground missiles, if they descend below a given altitude, they become targets.
Some IADS will mix systems in an IADS, either accepting a certain probability of fratricide,[2] or relying on identification friend or foe and other electronics to avoid fratricide.
Both air force and air defense force [Egyptian] commanders
confirmed that, while it was an operational goal to use the MiG-21 as the first force to engage enemy aircraft at maximum range, it also was tactical doctrine for the interceptors to fight within the missile belt and continue harrying attacking forces all the way to their targets. They agreed that losses from friendly missiles were so relatively small that the tactics of using both interceptors and missiles in the same airspace was operationally sound and militarily
effective against the offensive formations.[3]
IADS over time
NATO
North America
Soviet Union
Six Days' War
Iraq 1991
Balkans
References
- ↑ Royal Air Force, Battle of Britain
- ↑ Press, Michael C. (09 June 1978), Tactical Integrated Air Defense System, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, ADA057830
- ↑ Hotz, Robert, Offense, Defense Tested in 1973 War, Both Sides of the Suez: Airpower In the Mideast, Aviation Week and Space Technology