“SOF is experienced with laser designators and going behind the enemies front line defenses to provide targeting, so this is a perfectly plausible role. It probably can be used even more than we have thought about in the past now that we have new technologies. We now have the technology that allows a closer connection between sensor and shooter,” said Daniel Goure, vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based think tank. “SOF has shown a remarkable ability to get people where they need to be. We had SOF going around the western desert of Iraq in the first Gulf War to locate SCUDs, hoping that would allow us to mouse trap some of the missile launchers.”
Given these and other factors, the report suggests the SOF community continue to invest in a range of next-generation technologies to include stealthy, long-dwell unmanned aerial systems and what the report calls “novel weapons systems” such as lasers or directed energy and small, mobile precision-strike, air-launched capabilities.
As examples, the report cites Advanced Precision-Kill Weapons System (APKWS) and Viper Strike munitions. APKWS is a laser-guided, precision variant of the conventional 2.75 folding-fin, Hydra 70 rockets currently launched from helicopters.
The report also cites the importance of developing “identity masking” technologies such as biometrics and the need for more “stealthy air support,” and “long-endurance dry submersibles” to improve possibilities for access in the undersea domain.
“The proliferation of long-endurance maritime patrol UAVs and affordable commercial off-the-shelf undersea sensor networks could make the future surface and undersea environments more transparent, thereby putting littoral SOF insertion at risk,” the report states.