Geophysical MASINT - Military Requirements

Military Requirements

Geophysical sensors have a long history in conventional military and commercial applications, from weather prediction for sailing, to fish finding for commercial fisheries, to nuclear test ban verification. New challenges, however, keep emerging.

First-world military forces, opposing other conventional militaries, there is an assumption that if a target can be located, it can be destroyed. As a result, concealment and deception have taken on new criticality. "Stealth" low-observability aircraft have gotten much attention, and new surface ship designs feature observability reduction. Operating in the confusing littoral environment produces a great deal of concealing interference.

Of course, submariners feel they invented low observability, and others are simply learning from them. They know that going deep or at least ultraquiet, and hiding among natural features, makes them very hard to detect.

Two families of military applications, among many, represent new challenges against which geophysical MASINT can be tried. Also, see Unattended Ground Sensors.