Up to this point, the Amber program had been a secret. During the fall of 1987, information began to be released on the design, possible payloads, and future activities. However, many details such as the engine technology and performance specifications, remained "highly classified."[600] The first public appearance by the Amber was at the 1988 San Diego Air Show.[601]
Another highly publicized display of Amber took place in June 1988. For the Fifteenth Annual Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems Technical Symposium and Exhibit, Leading Systems decided to attempt to break its UAV world endurance record. The Amber took off from El Mirage at 7:48 A.M. on June 6. As the flight progressed, the elapsed time was posted in Leading Systems' booth. At 10:10 P.M. on June 7, the Amber was brought to a landing. The total elapsed time was thirty-eight hours and twenty-two minutes, a new record.[602]
During this same time, Congress was becoming dissatisfied with the large number of UAV programs under way. In 1987, it ordered a consolidation of the programs and froze UAV funding pending submission of a master plan for its approval. In June 1988, the Joint Project Office (JPO) for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles was established, under the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Systems Command. UAV funding was now provided at the Office of the Secretary of Defense level. The idea was that with control centered in a single, high-level group, duplication between the UAV programs would be eliminated.[603]
With these bureaucratic changes accomplished, work began on the production Amber I UAVs. It had a length of 14.8 feet and a wingspan of 29.5 feet. Payload was a television […] we're covered with a plastic bubble.[604] The Amber I's maximum altitude was 25,000 feet, and it had a range of 1,200 nautical miles. The UAVs endurance was thirty-eight hours at 5,000 feet while flying at 85 to 110 knots.[605] The airframe was made of composites for stealth. The Amber I was controlled by an autopilot and a command data link. The operator at the ground station flew the Amber I using a nose-mounted television camera. The powerplant was a sixty-five-horsepower, four-cylinder, liquid-cooled engine.[606]
The second series of Amber I test flights was made during October 1989 at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, (headquarters of U.S. Army Intelligence, underlining the tactical mission of Amber). These were called the "maturation" tests and were to last for 500 hours of flight time. They would test the Amber design's ability to meet service specifications for reliability, availability, and maintainability. The payload, data links, and ground control were also integrated. Ten Ambers (three B45s and seven Amber Is) were used in the tests. Some expected that all ten would be lost during the tests, but in fact, there were no mishaps. The Amber Is were turned over to the government between December 1989 and January 1990.[607] A total of thirteen Amber UAVs had been built — three A45s, three B45s, and seven Amber Is.[608] The Amber project was subjected to repeated budget cuts, however, and after the Amber Is were delivered, they were put into storage and the program was canceled.[609]
The end of the Amber I program was one sign of a growing trend. Airborne reconnaissance was being reduced to a second-class mission. In 1990, the SR-71 was retired due to the high cost of operations. The move was widely regarded as an act of folly because it created a gap in overhead reconnaissance. At the low end, the air force and navy were dependent on RF-4C reconnaissance planes and F-14s carrying camera pods. At the high end, photo reconnaissance satellites would provide worldwide coverage. Their resolution was as good as six inches under ideal conditions, but they could provide coverage only when they orbited over a target. There was nothing to provide deep coverage on a continuing basis. The events of January and February 1991 would make this shortcoming clear.
Throughout the Gulf War, intelligence was a problem. Both army General Schwarzkopf and air force Gen. Charles Horner expressed dissatisfaction about the quality of intelligence reports they were given. Schwarzkopf said later that the reports were outdated, as well as "caveated, disagreed with, footnoted, and watered down."
There were major disagreements over the bomb damage assessments (BDA) of Iraqi forces. The BDA controversy was the result of the differing data and "platforms" being used, as well as the mindsets of the analysts.
The air force intelligence officers in the field were using the videotapes from the strike missions. Back in Washington, the CIA and DIA were using satellite photos. Based on this, the CIA-DIA consistently reported Iraqi forces had greater strength and Coalition air strikes had lesser effectiveness than the air force estimated.[610]
An example of this was the tank-plinking effort. When an Iraqi T72 tank was hit, the ammunition and fuel would ignite. A jet of flame would erupt from the hatch, and the tank's interior and crew would be incinerated. All this was clearly visible on the strike video. But once the fire burned out, the tank would have little visible external damage — perhaps only a small entry hole. When a satellite photographed the area hours or days later, the tank would be listed as intact. In one case, a tank was declared operational, until it was pointed out that the turret had been blown a foot out of position.
Schwarzkopf complained that the guidelines for assessing damage were so stringent that a tank had to be on its back "like a dead cockroach" before it would be counted as destroyed. In other cases, the T72 would undergo such a violent secondary explosion that it would be blown apart. Then it would be claimed that the revetment had been empty when it was bombed.
The result was widely differing figures. As the ground war was about to begin in late February 1991, the air force estimated that 40 percent of the Iraqi tanks and artillery had been destroyed. The CIA-DIA estimate was between 20 to 30 percent. Some estimates were as low as 15 percent. Not surprisingly, the air force was accused of inflating its damage estimates. In fact, 60 percent of the Iraqi tanks and artillery had been destroyed during the bombing campaign.
In the final assessment, the strike videos, which recorded events as they happened, proved more accurate than "National Technical Means" such as satellites.[611] Clearly, tactical intelligence required continuous real-time data, which the strategic systems could not provide.
This was reinforced by the experience of UAVs in the Gulf War. Three different systems were used by U.S. forces — the Pointer, Pioneer, and Exdrone UAVs. The Pointer, built by AeroVironment and used by the marines, was simplicity itself. It was a radio-controlled model airplane, similar to the ones built by hobbyists. It was hand-launched and powered by an electric motor. The battery provided about an hour of operation. The Pointer carried a television camera that transmitted its photos back to the operator.
The Pointer was used for real-time BDA, artillery adjustment, and reconnaissance-early warning.
The Pioneer was based on an Israeli design. It was powered by a piston engine and had a twin-boom, high-wing design. The Pioneer had a flight time of five hours and a range of 100 nautical miles. In the Gulf, one Pioneer unit was aboard each of the battleships Missouri and Wisconsin, three units were assigned to the marines, and one to the army. (Each unit consisted of eight Pioneers and support equipment.) The Pioneers flew 533 sorties; at least one was aloft at all times during the war. They suffered heavy losses — of the forty UAVs, twelve were lost and another fourteen or sixteen were damaged. Several were sent on one-way missions — the UAV was kept over a target until the fuel ran out, in order to produce the maximum amount of information.
603
William Wagner and William P. Sloan,
604
Leading Systems, Inc., "The Leading Systems Story" (Irvine, Calif.: Leading Systems Inc., July 1989).
605
General Atomics, "Advanced Technology Amber I" (San Diego, Calif.: General Atomics, n.d.).
606
Murphy, "AMBER for long endurance," 33; and Leading Systems, "Amber Fact Sheet" (Irvine, Calif.: Leading Systems, n.d.).
608
General Atomics, "Long-endurance Tactical Surveillance and Support Systems" (San Diego, Calif.: General Atomics, n.d.).
610
611
Richard P. Hallion,
Consequently, the impact of the air war depended, to a great extent, on psychological imponderables, and such uncertainties are not congenial to staff officers or to those statistical managers that have so bedeviled American military and intelligence agencies over the past twenty years."