JDAM's replacing artillery in some situations

Strategy Page:

The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to redefine the use of airpower. Since World War II, the air force increasingly emphasized their ability to hit targets farther in the enemy rear, thus crippling the ability of the enemy ground and air forces to continue fighting. But the recent introduction of better, and cheaper, smart bombs and sensors, has changed the way air power is being used. The ability to drop bombs with greater accuracy, in any weather, has made it safer for both the bomber and friendly troops. The GPS JDAM or, in clear weather, laser guided bombs, keep the bombers out of range of ground fire, and put the bombs down with greater accuracy, more of the time, than ever before. After sixty years of fearing your own bombers, because of the pre-GPS rate at which less accurate bombs hit the good guys, troops are enthusiastically calling in air power more and more. It’s gotten to the point where artillery units are complaining that the air force is putting them out of work. That’s exactly what has happened, with many artillery units being converted to infantry.

...
Airpower is most potent when there are ground troops to fix the enemy. Ground troops force the enemy to be at places they probably would not be at if US troops were not therefirst. At the battle of Khe Sanh in Vietnam the communist forces were destroyed by US air power while the communist threatened the base. In Vietnam the enemy adopted a tactic of hugging the US forces in order to avoid an airstrike. With the JDAM's that tactic will not work.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more