Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!cbnews!military From: kevin@ccs.QueensU.CA (Kevin Broekhoven) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: ordinance delivery systems: logistics/doctrine Message-ID: <1991Mar13.000742.4022@cbnews.att.com> Date: 13 Mar 91 00:07:42 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (william.b.thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 88 Approved: military@att.att.com From: kevin@ccs.QueensU.CA (Kevin Broekhoven) Recent events in the Gulf must have impressed all of us with the importance of "fire-power" and "air-power" as critical elements in the prosecution of a modern war. My limited understanding of warfare is that since the invention of fire-arms, a major theme of military theory has been command, control, and "concentration" of fire-power on unfriendly targets. I'm wondering how military doctrine chooses the method of delivery of this awesome modern fire-power to the enemy, and to what degree economic considerations affect these decisions. i.e. why choose "air" bombardment over sea or land bombardment? Concentration of firepower? Command & Control? Protection of weapons-delivery "assets"? (why do these guys sound more like accountants than warriors?) In more detail, my questions are: 1. To what extent do the realities affecting transport of commercial goods affect the transport of military "goods" on the scale we saw in the Gulf War? For bulk transport, there is a commercial advantage that favours sea over land over air. Looking at the cost of munitions, air-dropped "dumb" bombs must be cheaper than artillery, which in turn must be cheaper than "smart" bombs or any type of missile. I would expect then, that the cheapest way to hit a target would be via large calibre artillery mounted on a sea vessel like a WWII battle ship; if the target was out of range of sea-based artillery, I would expect the next cheapest way would be to truck your ordinance overland to an artillery unit and deliver it by howitzer; if the target was out of range of either of these two delivery methods, then you would go to a flying bomb-rack like a B-52, delivering dumb bombs; and only if all of the above were impractical, to a fighter/bomber with missiles/smart bombs. The impression I got from CNN was almost the reverse. The majority of the action was from expensive fighter/bomber delivery systems, and multiple rocket launcher systems. I got the impression that the battle ships fired their guns on very limited occasions, rather than cruising up and down the Kuwaiti coast, wreaking havoc on the large Iraqui formations on the beach, which were vainly waiting for an amphibious assault. Also, I got the impression that very limited use was made of field artillery, that it was used to harrass the troops defending the "Saddam line", rather than being used to deliver major amounts of destructive fire-power. Could anyone imform me as to whether my impressions are correct, or whether some other aspect of military technology/stragegy dictated the use of air-power over cheaper systems. (obviously, strategic targets deep in Iraq were out of range of land and sea based artillery, my question relates to the "Saddam line" and Iraqui forces based near the Kuwati beach) 2. On a related note, I was puzzled by CNN coverage of US and British field artillery. On at least two types of self-propelled, and towed artillery, the gun would fire, the barrel would decline, perhaps to a horizontal positon, the crew would reload, and the barrel would again incline and be fired. My naive expectation would have been that after communication with a forward spotter, and a few marker rounds, that the gun would go into action "for effect", perhaps using an auto-loader to deliver a number of rounds onto the target. If multiple shells are going to be fired at a target, I would expect them to arrive in a single-modal, bi-variate x-y Gaussian distribution; the number of rounds used to destroy a target being calculated using the methods of quality-control for a stationary single target, or operations research (OR) to incapacitate a dynamic or multiple-point target. Was the decline/incline activity a requirement for re-loading? For re-calibration between shots at the same target? Or were they so accurate that they were destroying a target with each shot, and aiming at another target? Or were other off-camera artillery pieces contributing to the salvo? thanks in advance for any info on these topics, Kevin Broekhoven Computing Centre applications programmer Queens University K7L-3N6 (Canada) Bitnet, NetNorth: BROEKHVN@QUCDN IP: kevin@ccs.QueensU.CA (130.15.48.9) X.400: Kevin.Broekhoven@QueensU.CA Bell: (613) 545-2235 fax: 545-6798