Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!mips!apple!veritas!amdcad!amdcad!military
From: carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Gulf Lessons re length of preliminary bombardment
Message-ID: <1991May23.063048.17791@amd.com>
Date: 21 May 91 19:01:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: amd.1991May23.063048.17791
References: <1991May20.052128.21457@amd.com> <1991May21.024354.13558@amd.com>
Sender: military@amd.com
Organization: Technophiles Inc. - Engineers with Attitude
Lines: 38
Approved: military@amd.com


From: carroll@cs.uiuc.edu (Alan M. Carroll)


>From: bwoodman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Robert H Woodman)
> tedrick@triangle.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick) writes:
> >But it may be that the optimal length of time, in certain cases, is a
> >month or more. This is because, such lengthy bombardments can cause
> >near universal psychological casualties, amongst the target population,

> While I could agree with that reasoning to a point, I would add that there
> were some apparently unique factors in the Gulf war that may not apply to all
> future wars.
> [ Various points ]

It's important to keep in mind that the goal is to lower overall
costs. The costs are (roughly) the sum of the costs of N days of
bomardmen followed by the cost of the actual attack. The unique fact
of the Gulf War is that the Coalition air supremacy and the basically
inneffectual Iraqi air defense made the cost of bombardment almost
nil. This had several major benefits for the Coalition:
 + Low cost, in terms of planes / pilots lost, so operations could be
continued without regard to cost.

 + Morale boost for Coalition air forces.

 + Moral loss for Iraqi soldiers, who could tell that their AA was
useless, and probably started looking forward to the ground attack,
because that would mean no more bombardment. I think the fact that the
Iraqis couldn't strike back in anyway (either through artillery, AA,
or air combat) was a significant factor in their demoralization. A
ground force able to do noticeable damage to the attacking air force
might have held up much better.

-- 
Alan M. Carroll          <-- Another casualty of applied metaphysics
Epoch Development Team   
Urbana Il.               "I hate shopping with the reality-impaired" - Susan