Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: nak%archie@att.att.com (Neil A Kirby)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Sonic booms as a weapon?
Message-ID: <1991Feb7.015024.3115@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 7 Feb 91 01:50:24 GMT
References: <1991Feb6.032858.22494@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 27
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: nak%archie@att.att.com (Neil A Kirby)
In article <1991Feb6.032858.22494@cbnews.att.com> Bruce_Dunn@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) writes:
>     What might the feasibility be of using aircraft to fly at very low
>altitude and supersonic speed over enemy troops in trenches.  Would the sonic
>boom from a fighter be powerful enough to cause injuries and/or equipment
>damage.  At the very least, repeated flights at night in the days preceeding a
>battle would interrupt the sleep of the entrenched troops.

It's not cost effective...

1. The sonic boom would cause damage/disruption, but not too much against
entrenched troops.  In the open perhaps is different. I have heard a naval air
annecdote about this.  A Soviet travller kept getting in the path of a
oncoming US carrier recovering aircraft.  Two phantoms, side by side and
above mach, fly by on either side of said travller.  The result was said to
resemble a direct hit as glass and debris went flying everywhere.  

2. It only works once, per plane.  Troops in trenches tend to carry too
much SAM to make this even worth considering.  To be above mach that low,
most jets are on afterburner, and an easy IR SAM target.

3. For the same price, why not drop a stick of napalm or two while you are
there?  The jets would take a lot less SAM fire.

Neil Kirby