Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: lenochs%drcoa1.decnet@drcvax.af.mil (DRCOA1::LENOCHS)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Weapon selection
Message-ID: <1991Mar15.040039.9604@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Mar 91 04:00:39 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (william.b.thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 56
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: "DRCOA1::LENOCHS" <lenochs%drcoa1.decnet@drcvax.af.mil>
    Kevin Broekhoven wrote a piece about selection of weapons and targets.  
    As a preamble, let me recommend the current (13 March) 'Newsweek' 
    issue.  A great piece on some of the behind the scenes stuff.  Also, I 
    am going to use the US point of view for this discussion.  Other 
    nations may have other priorities in their decision making process.
    
    Kevin sez:
    >i.e. why choose "air" bombardment over sea or land bombardment?  
    >Concentration of firepower? Command & Control? Protection of 
    >weapons-delivery "assets"?  
    
    The protection of delivery vehicles and (more importantly) their crews, 
    and getting the most effective weapon on the target are the two key 
    ingredients.  
    
    >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.
    
    The amount of tube artillery and/or rockets that would be needed to 
    equal an air strike is *enormous*!  A Mk-82 iron bomb is a 502 pound 
    warhead.  An F-15E can carry 24 of them (total throw weight = 12,048 
    pounds).  Even with a 200 pound warhead on a 155mm (which I doubt), it 
    would take 60 rounds to equal one F-15E run.  (Artillery experts, 
    please step up and take your spot on this one.)  A B-52 can carry over 
    100 Mk-82s.  That is a throw weight of 50,200 pounds.  You'd need a 
    *lot* of tubes to put all those rounds on the target in the same amount 
    of time.  
    
    The logistics of artillery demand moving the propellant to the gun as 
    well as the warhead.  Because of the short (relatively) range of 
    artillery vs. airplanes, more assets are used up moving projos than 
    iron bombs.  (I will not argue the maintenance aspect.  Artillery 
    wins.)
    
    Granted, once set up, the arty can continue firing, but return fire 
    limits the amount of time any one gun will remain stationary (of its 
    own free will!!).  
    
    >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.
    
    ?!?!? What'd he say ?!?!?
    
    Loyd M. Enochs (ex-USAF) - Dynamics Research Corporation - Andover, MA
    Munitions Maintenance, 1974-1980 - Computer Programmer/Analyst, 1980-1987