By: S. Rowan Wolf, Ph.D. Uncommon Thought Journal
November 25, 2004
This work is under a fair use Creative Commons License
No this is not the title of my newly released sword and sorcery novel. Nor is it a review of Rowling's latest book. Both Prophet and Smart Dust are new military intelligence and weapons systems. You just have to give credit where credit is due, and those DoD folks have a creative crew with twisted imaginations.
The "Prophet" is a "battlespace" deployed integrated electronic mapping and jamming system. Or as described in the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin report Analysis the Prophet way - TSM Notes - new military intelligence system for use by United States Army:
"Prophet is the U.S. Army's next generation, multispectrum, multi-discipline collection, jamming, processing, and reporting system. The Prophet system will be modular, scalable, deployable, and tailorable to address the full range of conflict required of the U.S. Army."
You can find a description/ad for Prophet in Defense Daily 2001 magazine simply labeled "Prophet" complete with pictures.
I love reading the brain teaser discussions of weapons systems - the conceptual rollout by the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (1999). Which describes the system as:
"The Prophet System consists of Prophet Air, Control, and Ground subsystems. The System is a suite of division-level signal intelligence/electronic warfare (SIGINT/EW) sensor and jamming subsystems that operate at or below the collateral SECRET security level. The Prophet-Control element will have the capability to co-locate with and interface with Sensitive Compartmented Information elements such as Analysis and Control Elements or the Special-Purpose Built Systems. Prophet's primary mission will be to electronically map radio frequency emitters on the battlefield that operate between 20 MHz (High Frequency)) and 2,000 MHz (Super High Frequency). Electronic mapping is defined as detecting, identifying, locating, and tracking all radio frequency emitters operating within sensor line-of-sight and hearability (detectable range), and graphically depicting the emitter's Electronic Target Indicators. The Electronic Target Indicators/electronic mapping supports nodal analysis and correlation with other intelligence inputs at the Division's Analysis and Control Elements SIGINT section and the Common Ground Stations at the Brigade's Analysis Control Teams. The Prophet mission includes: protecting the Global Positioning System (GPS) (GPS Protect) on the battlefield; detecting intrusive or false GPS signals (GPS Detect); and attacking (GPS Attack) the opposing force's GPS capability. The Prophet System will also have the capability to select specific emitters/nodes for more accurate geographic location (Electronic Attack) or performing tactical voice exploitation. The Prophet System has the capability to cross-cue other Intelligence and Electronic Warfare (IEW) and non-IEW sensors."
And like all military programs, the only way to get the money to develop them, it is linked to some "plan" (or in defense-speak "Vision"). In this case "Prophet" is a (supposedly critical) system in fulfilling Joint Vision 2010.
According to DEBKAfiles 11/24/04 report (An American "Prophet" Takes on the Prophet Mohammed's Fighters in Iraq) some of these "units of action" will be deployed with the 3rd Infantry Division, with "9,000 of these new military intelligence positions will be deployed with US forces world wide, 5,000 with brigade-sized units, 3,000 at the division level, and 1,000 with corps" within the next few years. Part of the Prophet is being deployed through UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles). Others, on specially equipped Hummers, and a bunch in backpacks.
One has to wonder if this electronic marvel of detection, targeting and (presumably destruction) interfaces with yet another enigmatically named system - "Smart Dust". You can see a further description in this DefenseTech article.
"Smart Dust" isn't really dust (at least not yet). They are watch-sized devices that can be deployed (scattered) in an area. Once activated they are supposed to create a wireless network that will act as surveillance devices monitoring temperature, motion, vibration, and then allowing co-location of the "target". In short, they are highly sophisticated bugging devices.
Each tiny device will feature power, communications, sensing and computer systems feeding into a secure, self-configuring network that can pass information locally using low-powered radios. For longer-distance transmissions to command centers, satellite communications may be used. Defense Tech
Like the Prophet, they can be deployed from UAVs. One might ask "Just how much weight these little planes can carry?" And then one might ask "How much do they cost?" Well, there are at least 155 different UAVs. The US military has approximately 510 deployed with ten different types (About RPVs - Remote Piloted Vehicles). The price range for all types is $1000 to $14 million. Yes that is quite a price range. $534 million was dedicated for research and acquisition of RPVs in the Pentagon budget for 1998. For the previous three years the RPV budget totalled $1.619 BILLION. So I guess that the US tax payer is paying for those at the higher end of the price line.
There is no information that I found that states that Prophet and Smart Dust are able to communicate with each other. There does seem to be a slight incompatibility however. You see Prophet jams and crashes low frequency radio communications, and Smart Dust communicates via low frequency radio. You can hear the phone communication now between the UAV quartermasters and pilots, and the commanders in the field"
Commander (Com): "Hey you just dropped Smart Dust on my Prophets"
Quartermaster (QM): "Hey, I dropped what was ordered."
Com: "I didn't order Smart Dust, I ordered a UAV strike on target."
QM: "That's not my problem. You need to take that up with MC (mission command) and the RPV pilot assigned to your unit."
Com: "Can you patch me through to them?"
QM: "Nope. I can't somebody dropped a Prophet CM (command unit) and the damn thing has shut down inter-network communications."
Com: "FUBAR."
QM: "Yep"