Radioflash! Episode 16: SMART Kill!
Listen now
Description
You have heard of hard kill, you have heard of soft kill, but what about SMART Kill? Drawing on his operational experience in the Royal Navy, and time in industry, Alasdair Gilchrist, our guest on episode 16 of Radioflash! says we need to start thinking about how to engage threats without stovepipes. Mr. Gilchrist, who has recently embarked on a new career as a consultant, has developed the SMART (Sensors and Measures Against Realistic Threats) Kill concept of operations. This takes the effects-based approach to prosecuting threats a step forward. He argues that traditional thinking about hard kill and soft kill approaches are becoming obsolete. The plethora of emerging threats militaries are facing, the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV) menace being a good example, is forcing this rethink. Within the SMART Kill concept, sensing stresses the importance of threat comprehension. Are we understanding the real, and not the perceived, threat? This is particularly relevant on future battlefields where misinformation and disinformation risks clouding our threat sensing and comprehension. When engaging a threat, are we using our effects judiciously and responsibly? Should we be sending kinetics aloft to counter UAVs, when jamming may kill such threats just as effectively? The danger posed by swarms of UAVs aptly underscores this point. Can the SMART Kill approach allow us to use technologies which may not be exquisite, but which may perform the mission just as well, but at a fraction of the cost?
More Episodes
The US and her allies are embracing the Multi-Domain Operations philosophy with the Joint All Domain Command and Control System is at the heart of this endeavour. Multi-Domain Operations, or MDO, focus on improving the pace and quality of decision-making at the expense of one’s adversary. The...
Published 09/19/24
Published 09/19/24
Estonia is experiencing the challenges of Russian hybrid warfare first hand and is most likely in the direct path of any future military action by Moscow to reconstitute the former USSR. Estonia is on the frontline of efforts by the Russian government to destabilise the governments, economies...
Published 07/04/24