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From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Computerized Counter Battery Artillery
Message-ID: <1991Feb8.012658.15884@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 8 Feb 91 01:26:58 GMT
References: <1991Feb7.012842.329@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold)
> Why is it every time the Iraqi's light up their arty, we hear how the Harriers
>   went in and shut them up with a few cluster bombs?  I thought our artillery
>   batteries were equipped with a sophisticated system which detects incomming
>   rounds, backward computes the launch locations, and then sends off the data
>   to nearby guns which commence a counter-battery mission even before the
>   enemy rounds hit the ground?  Why don't we hear about this system being 
>   used?

At this point, Iraq does not have very good intel/recon of allied lines
and positions, so it conducts "recon by fire", meaning it takes a couple
of shots in the hope that the allied artillery will return fire and give
away its location.

So the counterbattery radar data is used to target strikes by aircraft
(response time should be only minutes anyway).  They are also using the
battleships to suppress artillery; if in range, the BBs fire on the
coordinates provided by the counterbattery radar.