CHECO Report September 1970, Page 23

CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION

The value of the ARDF/COMINT mission, as conducted by USAF EC-47s in Southeast Asia, has been undeniably established and adequately documented. The future of the mission, in terms of doctrin, roles and missions, hardware, and evantual command and control, was, however, largely undetermined. This was not merely an Army/Air Force struggle for control of the mission; intestine differencies as to where the program belonged existed within the Air Force itself, stemming in great degree from the overlap in function between electronic warefare and reconnaissance.

Hq 7AF's Assistant for Electronic Warfare outlined part of the complexity of the problem:

Future doctrin has not been fully formulated and
spelled out, but work is underway. New platforms,
hardware, techniques, and training programs have
not been provided for, except that studies are
being undertaken and there is some R & D work going
on. It is hard to tell which agency or agencies
would operate and control a future Electronic War-
fare program.

He went on to explain further the overlap an complexities of pinning down EW to one pat function. For instance, a Wild Weasel aircraft, configured with RHAW (Radar Homing and Warning) equipment, and armed with the AGM-45 Shrike or AGM-78 Standard ARM missile, sought out enemy terminal radar threats. As such, it was performing an electronic reconnaissance function. When its missile warhead exploded, however, the Wild Weasel became a strike aircraft. The EB-66's primary job was to obtain data on the enemy's electronic order of battle (EOB), by collection of electronic intelligence (ELINT). The EB-66B and E aircraft, on the other hand, were purely ECM in their mission, and fitted into neither the attack nor the reconnaissance catagory. Yet all were involved in electronic warfare.

The EC-47 with the "Q" console had the ability to jam or spoff enemy communications; this was an ECM function. Yet, unless the threat were to become such that it would be more advantageous to deny the enemy his communications, the airplane was more valuable as a finding-and fixing and data gathering platform. As things stood, the EC-47 was performing a reconnaissance and intelligence gathering mission. Because of these many overlaps with attack, reconnaissance, pure ECM, and intelligence areas, no clear-cut doctrine for tactical electronic warfare had yet been established.

For the duration of the Southeast Asia conflict, the question of who would control the ARDF/COMINT program could well become academic. The DEPSECDEF memo of 19 June 1968, and the CSAF and CSA agreement of 11 September 1967, respectively placed operational control of the ARDF function under COMUSMACV and held in abeyance a final decision on the future of the program.

All of the effects might not be fully felt until after the Southeast Asia war was over, but, even while the conflict continued, some of them were becoming evident. The bulk of intelligence data gained were obtained by UASF sources, but because of their applicability to ground warfare in South Vietnam, most were reported and exploited by the Army, and all were retained in the 509th RRG technical data base by the Army. This meant that while the Air Force did the "collecting," the Army did the "keeping", and this "in-house keep" could conceivably provide them with a lever for expanding their fixed-wing capability in post-hostility years.

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