Guided mortars: the next IED?(Technology)

* Can improvised explosive devices become smart weapons?

"I call guided mortars the next IED," says Tom Ehrhard, a Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments senior analyst.

Just as insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan learned how to juryrig explosives and detonate them beneath U.S. military convoys, they and potential adversaries may soon get their hands on the smart munitions that are readily available on the market today.

"From intel briefings, I can assure you that threats from guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles are very real," says Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee.

In retaliation for precision-guided weapon attacks in the Middle East, insurgents have launched Iow-tech mortars and rockets into so-called green zones where U.S. forces are based. If such munitions were equipped with guidance systems, the enemy would have had an increased lethal advantage.

"The canary in the mine shaft was the attacks on the green zone," says Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He and his colleagues point to the 2006 Lebanon war as a case in point. In the conflict, Hezbollah was able to hold off Israeli defense forces by firing Katyusha missiles and other non-guided artillery during the 34-day war.

"This was a bad situation for Israel in many ways," says Ehrhard. How would the scenario have changed if one percent of the 3,900 missiles and rockets that Hezbollah fired were GPS-guided and could hit within 30 feet of the intended target, he asked. "Guess what? We already used one of those types of rockets ... We're showing people that you can do this. So how long is it going to be before it happens?"

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During the Lebanon conflict, the Israelis had approached the U.S. government to ask for the Army's tactical high-energy laser, THEL, to help defend their country from the rocket and missile attacks. At the time, the technology, which is being developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. as a chemical laser-based air defense system called Skyguard, was not battlefield ready. It would have taken at least a year or two to deploy into the field in significant numbers, says Krepinevich, who co-authored a study on solidstate lasers. In the report, he contends that solid-state lasers would be an effective weapon against the threat of guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles.

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