Page 51 - NAVAL SCIENCE 3 TEXTBOOK

56 N AVAL KN OWLEDGE

Dissemination. The last step in the cycle, which logically During the 1960s and 1970s, special secret high-speed jet air-
feeds into the first, is the distribution of the finished intel- craft such as the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird were developed that
ligence to the consumers whose needs initiated the process. could fly above the ceilings of most defensive weapons and pho-
Typicalli, dissemination is accomplished by means of various tograph wide bands of the surface with special high-resolution
distribution lists, each made up on a "need to know" basis. cameras. When these "spy planes" returned from their missions,
Intelligence may be disseminated by oral briefings, messages air intelligence officers could examine the resulting film and learn
or written reports, published studies, and photographs and a great deal about such things as enemy fortifications, bombing
other media. The continuous flow of accurate, timely naval damage to enemy facilities, troop dispositions, and the like. This
intelligence is essential to planning successful naval opera- type of intelligence was extensively used during the Vietnam War
tions. Good intelligence, properly used by commanders, has and many of the other conflicts involving U.S. forces since then.
saved thousands oflives and won many battles.

Types of Intelligence

Intelligence may be classified according to source, such as signals
(SIGINT), communications (COMINT), electronics (ELINT),
photo (PHOTINT), and human intelligence (HUMINT). It may
also be described by the area to which it pertains:
Naval intelligence is concerned mainly with collecting infor-
mation of interest to the Navy. It includes information about
foreign (both friendly and unfriendly) ships, weapon sys-
tems, naval strategies and tactics, harbor and port facilities, The Global Hawk UAV is a large Air Force endurance drone, able to
cruise at 400 miles per hour for thirty-five hours. It can scan an area
and any other data that might help the Navy carry out its mis-
the size of the state of Illinois in just twenty-four hours. (Air Force
sion. Intelligence collected at sea or during battles is tactical photo)
in nature. By using such intelligence, a commander can try to
decide what the intentions of the enemy are, and modify the
During these same years the Navy used stand-off reconnais-
battle plan accordingly.
sance aircraft such as the EA-3, RA3, and EP-3 to gather intelligence
Air intelligence is information about the offensive and defen- by flying near the enemy's borders and coastlines. Supersonic air-
sive capabilities of actual or potential enemies and their vul- craft such as the RF-8, RF-4, and RA-5C were used over land areas
nerability to air attack. Such intelligence may be both strate- to gather photo intelligence and bomb damage assessment (BDA)
gic and tactical. Air intelligence officers work with specially inlmediately following air strikes on enemy targets.
trained photo interpreters. They study photographs made by In the 1980s and 1990s continuing advances in photographic
satellites and aircraft to try to learn as much as possible about and space technology made possible the use of Earth satellites to
an area of interest. obtain much of the kind of photo intelligence previously available
only from reconnaissance aircraft and spy planes. Today's spy sat-
ellites can spot objects as small as a grapefruit from their orbits.
Some are steerable, meaning that their orbits can be changed at
will to observe any area on Earth of particular interest to our intel-
ligence agencies. Some are equipped with infrared detectors that
can "see" and instantly report such things as the heat of a missile
launch, bomb blast, or a ship or even a submarine operating at
shallow depths at sea.
Much use is being made of remote-controlled unmanned aer-
ial vehicles (UAYs) for reconnaissance and intelligence-gather-
ing purposes, as well as clandestine launch platforms for missile
Spy planes like the SR-71 Blackbird were used extensively dur-
ing the Cold War era to gather intelligence. The SR-71 cou ld fly at attacks on enemy personnel and other high-value targets. They
altitudes above 80,000 feet at speeds in excess of Mach 3, above range in size from small drone aircraft to large model airplanes,
and beyond the effective limits of most contemporary antiair missile
systems. (Air Force photo) and can be launched by ships or from impromptu airstrips adja-
cent to areas of operations. In 2008 U.S. military services had some
SL,( thousand UAYs, and they flew a total of some 400,000 hours of