LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The Air Combat Command Combat Targeting and Intelligence Group is the Air Force's sole supplier of controlled base imagery.
CTIG has a variety of missions, which include production and delivery of timely, tailored targeting and geospatial intelligence, the provision of combat identification products, strategic analysis and support for intelligence units.
In December 2006, CTIG became the only Air Force organization that provides the Point Mensuration Training and Certification Program, which teaches Airmen how to determine the best way to hit a specific target, said Chief Master Sgt. Kurt Schueler, CTIG superintendent.
"We train people to use different tools to precisely put either a Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile or a Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile where it needs to go," said Chief Schueler. "The Airmen are trained to determine the exact point on Earth."
Point mensuration is a big part of targeting, development and analysis, said Senior Airman Logan Blanton, CTIG operations intelligence technician. The targeting flight is comprised of three sections, weaponeering, modeling and precision point mensuration. (Airman Blanton is qualified for all three of these.)
When a JASSM, the newest and most accurate missile, is released from an aircraft, it flies using a global-positioning system, said Staff Sgt. Brock Davis, non-commissioned officer-in-charge of the weaponeering section. It then opens its seeker and compares the actual target area to three-dimensional wire models that the CTIG Airmen produce.
Modelers create the 3-D wire models, also known as terminal area models, using specialized computer 3-D software. These models ensure the JASSM hits its target and helps to avoid collateral damage.
"The models take the guess work out," said Airman Blanton. "This is where the precision comes from. They assist the JASSM within three meters of its target, which is extremely accurate."
According to Airman Blanton, the job of a weaponeer is to build scenarios to help identify efficient ways to take down a target.
Weaponeers use computer programming that mathematically calculates all possible outcomes, such as collateral damage, and also take into consideration different types of terrains, such as tunnels and bunkers, said Sergeant Davis. Once they have received the results of a scenario they've created, they refine it to get the damage for which they are looking.
"Point mensuration uses all the data the modelers and weaponeers have provided to find the exact point, three dimensionally, where the missile should hit," said Airman Blanton. "All three jobs rely on one another."