If you wanted to to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?
Why . . . no, sir!'
Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy with an H-Bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him . . . but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing . . . but controlled and purposeful violence.
Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers
Death from Above was the motto of the Starship Troopers. It is said that Heinlein was influenced by the feats of the Fallshirmjaegerkorps in the Invasion of Crete and by the largescale airborne operations in Normandy, Market Garden, and in the Phillipines. By 1959 when he wrote the book it was not such a great stretch. Space travel, yes, still in the future, but Sputnik was in orbit. The "bounce" was still a future capability but the mini-nukes were already in the inventory or at least designed, remember SADM, MADM, Davy Crockett?
Death from above, of course, is not limited to airborne forces. The war in Vietnam spurred the development of air-delivered weapons far beyond the tactical nuclear weapon. As Heinlein implied, somtimes wholesale destruction is not desirable. In April and May 1972 the 8TFW flying out of Ubon, Thailand, essentially destroyed the famous Thanh Hoa bridge in North Vietnam with less than 25 sorties carrying laser-guided bombs.
Predictably, some learned analyst from the RAND Corporation quickly pronounced that the very nature of war was changed forever by the advent of guided weapons. PAVEWAY was not the first guided weapon, nor did the nature of war really change, but we have certainly continued the development of almost incredible capabilities.
We quickly proceeded to "dumb airplanes" with "smart bombs," and we're currently at the stage of "smart airplanes" with "smart bombs." Bombs need targets, so in the intelligence world we proceeded rather quickly from choosing DMPIs (desired mean point of impact) for multi-ship attacks, to "which window do you want me to put it in?"
With the current capabilities of the armed Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper, Heinlein's troopers would probably feel outgunned. In Waziristan these days there's no place where it's safe to have a meeting if you are a certain kind of individual. Some people scoff at the capabilities of the tactical UAVs, and it's true they are not very stealhy to radar, but if you don't have a radar they are not all that easy to detect.
If you choose to hide inside a potent, highly integrated air defense environment it's no guarantee of invulnerabiltiy either. There are such things as the Advanced Cruise Missile launched from the redoubtable B-52, the ubquitous Tomahawk Cruise Missile from submarine and surface platforms, and, of course, if push comes to shove, the F-22 is not merely a long range fighter. It is a highly capable immensely stealthy platform capable of supersonic cruise, and capable of carrying the JDAM and the GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb. Both are guided weapons with impresive accuracy.
It is not hard to imagine a single-ship mission deep into the heart of enemy territory to strike a single immensely valuable target. The nature of war has not changed, but the capability for "controlled, purposeful violence" has never been higher.--Basilisk
About JDAM, it took me a while to realize that they aren't just accuratized dumb bombs, though they certainly are that. At least as interesting is that they're de facto glide bombs, and that gives them an enormously expanded release envelope (there's a name for that that I forget), which makes life much more difficult for the air defense people.
See slide 9 in http://guidebook.dcma.mil/38/dpas/12DavisPres.pdf
And, as an extra, the arrival can be considerably off-vertical, handy for attacking adits and the like.
Posted by: Allen Thomson | 05 August 2012 at 03:15 PM
"The deadliest weapon in the world is a marine and his ... laser designator"
My cousin was a forward air controller during some parts of the Afghanistan conflict. Even artillery is getting smart munitions.
What really impresses me is when they use a bomb filled with concrete instead of explosives. http://defensetech.org/2011/04/29/france-using-concrete-bombs-in-libya/
Posted by: SAC Brat | 05 August 2012 at 04:54 PM
These are useful against essentially defenseless countries, yes?
I mean, a state that cannot retaliate in an analogous manner.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 05 August 2012 at 04:54 PM
I think there are few countries that can actually retaliate in an analogous manner, if you want to be specific. That's what "asymmetric warfare" is all about. In certain cases it would not even be clear there had been an attack, I suppose
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 05:00 PM
Right. And the JDAM and the Small Diamater Bomb even dispense with the laser designator. "Just put it in the GPS, Bro."
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 05:02 PM
I would expect that during the last seventy years of forward observers calling in fire there have been some artists with a map and a radio or telephone. One person could have a big effect on what happened on a battlefield with communications and a quick response time.
Posted by: SAC Brat | 05 August 2012 at 05:14 PM
I think you'd have to count in the airborne Forward Air Controllers too. Any forward controller ground or air gets my respect.
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 05:19 PM
Well, you raise an interesting point. Other considerations aside, I have believed for some twenty years now that the US should be thinking very seriously about to what to do when -- not if -- other folks get these PGMs. Mortar and artillery rounds with a first-shot CEP of under 10 meters sound interesting in that respect.
Posted by: Allen Thomson | 05 August 2012 at 05:23 PM
Always. When I was in the Boy Scouts on base our Scout Master had been a O-2 pilot in Vietnam. I like his stories of calling in Naval support. How you can be accurate with a gun platform bobbing on water amazes me, gyros and all.
Posted by: SAC Brat | 05 August 2012 at 05:25 PM
You know what those battleship sailors used to say, "it shoots a round as big as a Volkswagen, and we can park it in any parking space in Brooklyn."
Did you scout master tell you how far overgross those O-2's were at takeoff? I'm amazed they could fly at all.
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 05:32 PM
Too right. What goes around comes around.
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 05:33 PM
It is truly amazing what has become available these days. The Excalibur rounds are astonishing, and GD Ordnance has successfully tested GPS guided 81mm mortar rounds.
The German veterans of WWII almost always rated the Army's artillery as the best they'd faced by far. There were tactical innovations like TOT and FOs in Piper Cubs. However, one aspect that generally gets overlooked is that the United States had the industrial capacity to produce vast quantities of dry cell batteries. Almost all small units had radios which would've been unthinkable for any other armies at the time. And according to postwar studies, the gun bunnies had unmatched response time and were very accurate.
Posted by: Neil Richardson | 05 August 2012 at 05:34 PM
Babak
The F-22 is invisible to radar and can hit you with pinpoint accuracy with PGMs at sltitudes from which you would never know they were there especially if someone else took credit. No other country has an "analogous capability." pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 05 August 2012 at 06:39 PM
Radar stealth is kind of like black magic. It's hard to quantify, but you know it when you (don't) see it. Stealth is generally optimized for the frequencies used in air intercept and missile guidance radars. Very low frequency radars can sometimes "see" very stealthy aircraft, but the air defense is still unable to engage. I concur, right now nobody has an analogous capability.
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 06:47 PM
These capabilities are impressive and damned frightening to anyone who may be on the receiving end of them. I first realized the problem when a Combat Talon easily tracked my patrol through a swamp on a cold Georgia night... and that was in 1980. What's the solution? Moscow rules. Find your cover and concealment in populated areas, preferably heavily populated, impersonal areas. The problem with this approach is that there are damned few people with the wit and self discipline to live and operate under cover over extended periods of time. A related approach is to live and operate among a sympathetic population. As Mao said (more or less), be the fish in the sea.
Posted by: The Twisted Genius | 05 August 2012 at 07:51 PM
I always liked the story that after the Kosovo war the USAF interviewed Zoltan Dani on how his group was able to shoot down an F-117 Stealth Fighter. Going after actual data to be analyzed impresses me versus the folks who like to believe their own marketing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_Dani (since I lack links to Aviation Week or Air Force Magazine)
What would be a real trick is to drop large hail over an airfield.
Posted by: SAC Brat | 05 August 2012 at 07:52 PM
Stealth aircraft would be visible to an infrared sensor in low Earth orbit, no?
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 05 August 2012 at 08:07 PM
So, if an unexplianed explosion occurs with a detonation profile corresponding to this weapon, and no other culrpit is aoround; then one is to conclude that the explosion was a US attack by a JDAM delivered by an F-22?
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 05 August 2012 at 08:14 PM
Really? Between that assumption and the IR detection from a low-orbit satellite I'm going to prescribe an immediate switch to de-caf and no more Clancy novels for six months.
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 08:19 PM
Babak
If you wish, please do so. There are actually many other such weapons. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 05 August 2012 at 08:24 PM
Maybe. But the thing about satellites in low Earth orbit is that most of the time they're somewhere else.
I.e., any one satellite can see any patch of the Earth for at most ten or twenty minutes a day, and that's giving them the benefit of the doubt. So a bunch of satellites, like the few-dozen Iridium LEO comsat constellation, would be needed to give more or less continuous coverage. Not impossible, but not easy or cheap either.
Posted by: Allen Thomson | 05 August 2012 at 08:28 PM
There was an unexplained - as far as I know - explosion in an Iranian missile base last year that demolished many building and killed several high ranking officers.
A supersonic object that is radiating its engine exhaust into the sky vertically is detectable - in principle.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 05 August 2012 at 08:28 PM
All this fancy, expensive weaponry is good, but unless you phyisically occupy the ground, preferably the high ground, kill or capture the enemy combatants and install a puppet ruler to do your bidding, you have not accomplished anything.
You get to go home without a win, just like in Vietnam, Iraq and Afganistan.
Posted by: r whitman | 05 August 2012 at 09:06 PM
Allen,
As you correctly point out there is a geometry/field of view problem and a consequent cost problem, but there is also a radiant energy problem.
Posted by: Basilisk | 05 August 2012 at 09:06 PM
r whitman,
Installing a puppet ruler doesn't always work. It has worked for the Russians in Chechnya (so far, at least). It didn't work for the US in Iraq. I doubt if it'll work in Afghanistan.
The problem with these awesome weapons and technologies is that policymakers tend to get carried away in the choices they make, not realising their considerable limitations in getting other countries and peoples to do what you want.
Posted by: FB Ali | 05 August 2012 at 10:15 PM