Israel Lauds New Capabilities in Gaza - Cites Fully Networked Air-Land-Sea Force
Aug. 16, 2014 - 03:45AM By BARBARA OPALL-ROME
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140816/DEFREG04/308160016/Israel-Lauds-New-Capabilities-Gaza


TEL AVIV — On July 8, the first day of Operation Protective Edge, five Hamas frogmen attempted an amphibious assault on an Israeli military
base bordering northern Gaza.
They didn’t get far.

First, they were spotted by a Navy coastal sensor, which streamed targeting
data through the Army’s new command-and-control network to air, sea and ground
shooters. Almost instantly, the Nahal infantry battalion commander in the sector
had multiple options for these moving targets of opportunity.

A Merkava Mk4 tank poised at the border had them painted in its sights, as
did Israeli Air Force unmanned aircraft. At the same time, a Navy offshore
patrol vessel was following the frogmen, eager for orders to launch
electro-optically guided Tammuz missiles.

Brig. Gen. Eyal Zelinger, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief signals officer,
and C4I Directorate chief of staff, recounts what happened next.

“In the end, everyone shot at the same time,” Zelinger said. “As the event
was unfolding, they all shared a common picture that allowed the ground
commander in charge to choreograph the strike.”

In an Aug. 13 interview, Zelinger ticked off examples in which fully
networked joint force capabilities, demonstrated for the first time in
Protective Edge, prevented potentially game-changing setbacks at the hands of
Hamas.

One was the underground infiltration attempt near Kibbutz Sufa on July 17,
the first day of the ground war. Young female IDF observers at the border
detected at least eight dark-dressed commandos emerging from a tunnel and
starting their advance toward the kibbutz.

As initial visuals streamed through the IDF network, they were fortified and
fused with other land and air sensors. Within a few minutes, the commander on
the ground understood the enemy squad had aborted its mission and was heading
back to the tunnel.

“In that event, several shooters were available to the ground commander,”
Zelinger said. “The decision was made to attack from the air directly into the
access point from which they emerged.”


Tzayad's Test


Zelinger credited the Tzayad digital command-and-control network, which links
Israel’s highest command echelons with all sensors and shooters down to
battalion and often company levels.

Protective Edge marked the moment of truth for the network, known in English
as Digital Army Program (DAP). Consuming billions of dollars over more than a
decade, the high-priority program was managed by the C4I division of the IDF
General Staff, developed by Haifa-based Elbit Systems and produced in large part
at the firm’s Elbit USA subsidiary with annual funding from Washington.

Officers here said Tzayad was not yet available in 2008, when Israel last
waged maneuvering ground war in Gaza as part of its 23-day Cast Lead
campaign.

By November 2012, when Israel launched its last anti-rocket operation in
Gaza, IDF brigades and most battalions were fully equipped and trained to work
on the net. But after eight days of standoff attack, that operation, called
Pillar of Defense, ended without a ground war.

“In Pillar of Defense, we had the force structure, but we didn’t go in. The
network didn’t have the chance to prove itself,” Zelinger said.

“But this time around, maneuvering ground forces were the dominant and
significant player in truly joint, net-centric warfare,” he said. “Our entire
active-duty ground force capabilities were involved in Gaza maneuvers, all of
them linked with Air Force, Navy, intelligence and special units.”

“I can say this was the first time in history that a modern army went to war
with a fully networked maneuvering force,” said Zelinger. “What we demonstrated
here was the world’s first writ-large use of networked warfare.”

In private conversations last week, several US warriors called that a bit of
hyperbole. Still, no one — as one retired US Army general put it — wanted “to
get into a public pissing match” with the IDF.

“It might be the first time the IDF did it, but not the first time it was
done in the world,” the retired officer said. “Operations by US joint forces in
Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking advantage of fully networked, digitized
architectures of which the US military has invested so heavily in over the last
20 years.”


Preventing Friendly Fire


Brig. Gen. Roy Riftin, IDF chief artillery officer, credited connectivity and
situational awareness provided by Tzayad not only for improved combat
effectiveness, but for saving lives that could have been lost to friendly
fire.

He cited a July 19 battle in Shuja’iya, a suburb of Gaza City described by a
military intelligence officer as “the underground military garrison of Hamas.”
From underneath that built up area, the IDF claims Hamas launched hundreds of
rockets, anti-tank and mortar attacks against the Israeli homefront and
advancing forces.

After repeated calls to evacuate civilians, an IDF combined arms force of
paratroopers, infantry, armor, combat engineering and special operations forces
converged in multiple directions, maneuvering house-to-house in search of tunnel
access routes.

At one point in the battle, Riftin’s gunners were called in to suppress enemy
fire with anti-personnel rounds. The problem, he recounts, was that enemy fire
was suspected to be firing from an area well within the safety zone
predetermined by IDF rules of engagement.

“We didn’t manage to detect the precise source of fire, but we knew it was
too close to our forces. But since the network gave us precise information of
where our forces were, we told them 20 minutes in advance to get deep inside
their Namers [heavy troop carriers] and put their heads down,” he said.

“We fired about 100-120 meters from our forces with ... weapons, some of
which obviously leaked inside [the safety zone].”

Israel lost 13 soldiers from the Golani infantry brigade in that
high-intensity battle, but none fell victim to friendly fire.

While Riftin credited Tzayad for safeguarding Israeli soldiers in that
particular case, he cautioned against counting on network-enabled situational
awareness to reduce friendly fire.


“Maneuvering forces are so vulnerable to so many threats that it’s too
dangerous to depend on it. But in this particular case, it helped save
lives.

The IDF has not yet released the number of friendly-fire deaths during
Protective Edge, but an officer here said at least three cases are under
investigation.

Riftin said improved target acquisition and range correction provided by Hot
Transmission — the dedicated system integrating his artillery corps into the
rest of the network — allowed his gunners to operate in concert with Air Force
aircraft, without fear of confliction.


“In most cases, coordination between attack helicopters and ground forces was
amazing,” Riftin said.

He cited two urban battles involving multiple Air Force assets overhead and
hundreds of forces on the ground, where Tzayad allowed his forces to use
saturation fire in support of ground forces. Both battles — in Shuja’iya and
Beit Hanoun — required heavy shelling with anti-personnel and smoke rounds to
secure the area enough for ground troops to extract those under enemy fire.
A third case was in Rafiah in southern Gaza on Aug. 1, where two Givati
infantrymen died while fighting an underground assault squad and another was
initially suspected of falling captive. He was later determined to have been
killed in action.

“My preliminary impression is that without Tzayad, we couldn’t have reached
the extent of the fire we were able to employ… not even close to it,” he
said.

In addition to “a few hundred” Tammuz precision missiles launched in the
campaign, Riftin estimated the IDF Artillery Corps fired some 34,000 rounds,
half of them smokers for screening maneuvering forces.

The other half, he said, were standard 155mm anti-personnel and illumination
rounds.


Riftin adamantly disputed widespread perceptions that the IDF used
disproportionate force in Gaza. On the contrary, he said improved Tzayad-enabled
target acquisition capabilities allowed individual batteries to fire more
selectively at assigned targets.

“Remember, Shuja’iya was supposed to be evacuated. Ditto Beit Hanoun. A
normal army would firstly prepare the area well with saturation fire before
allowing its forces to enter.


“But we first entered our forces, determined which areas were threatening
them, and then implemented our fire,” Riftin said.

“It’s a different approach that comes at a cost of tremendous work and added
risk to our people, but that’s what we did. No one can be more righteous than
that.”

For all the added value that officers here attribute to the IDF’s networked
war debut, Israel suffered several embarrassing tactical upsets at the hands of
an inordinately outnumbered and technologically inferior enemy.

Five soldiers were overtaken in a firefight adjacent to their base by
commandos who penetrated the area by tunnel. Hamas gunmen made away with the
infantry’s latest Micro-Tavor personal assault weapon, pictures of which flooded
social media sites. It was not the only battle where situational awareness
proved lacking.

So far, Israel has lost 65 soldiers in Protective Edge, more than six times
the 10 killed in Cast Lead, four of them to friendly fire.

When queried about the surge in fatalities, Zelinger said the IDF faces a
different enemy this time around, much better schooled in the art of
asymmetrical war.

“All losses are painful, but it’s a war. Mistakes get made. Soldiers get
killed…. Just imagine in this reality against this complex threat what would
have happened here if we didn’t have this network.”

Email: bopallrome@defensenews.com.