Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: U.S. Ground Vulnerablity
Message-ID: <1990Aug31.030929.24575@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 31 Aug 90 03:09:29 GMT
References: <1990Aug22.025624.16870@cbnews.att.com>,<1990Aug28.030655.21474@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: The U. of MD, CP, CAD lab
Lines: 34
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
In article <1990Aug28.030655.21474@cbnews.att.com>, bakken@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Bakken) writes:

>Our troops have TOW missiles.  They have a range of 4,000 metres, 
>and I think can travel that distance in 10-30 seconds.  The
>best of Iraq's tanks can hit targets at 2,000 metres and they
>can only go 20mph when nobody is shooting at them.  They are sitting
>ducks.  

And the poor bastard who has fired the TOW has to keep his aim steady
for the 10-30 seconds of flight time, while the arty is coming down (usually
done in "softening up" before the tanks roll in), and probably being shot
at by the tank gunner ("Smoke trail ahead," "Waste him before he wastes
us!"). Since the TOW is mounted on a tripod, it's OK, when compared to
the shoulder-launched dirt-attacking Dragon...

Of course, nobody can explain why we have a wonderful launch-and-leave
SAM (the Stinger), but we're still using wires and leaving men out to be
fired on with the TOW & Dragon...

Plus, we have helicopters that have extremely complex sensing
>equipment; for a good article see today's New York Times.  A helicopter
>crew told how the tanks are sitting ducks in the desert, and they 
>bragged that they could take out 200 tanks in an hour.  

The desert plays hell on optical equipment. All that fine Saudi sand and
heat. I have a drinkin' buddy in the reserves that claims the MBF for the
Apache is 50+ odd minutes. Of course, he's prejudice, 'cuz he's a Cobra
pilot....


[mod.note:  MBF = Mean Time Between Failures. - Bill ]