thedrifter
04-10-03, 06:51 AM
New military relies on 'smart' technology with boots, B-52s in the mix
By Matthew Hay Brown, The Orlando Sentinel
European edition, Thursday, April 10, 2003
ORLANDO, Fla. — Computer operators e-mailing bombing coordinates to aircraft already in flight. Strike forces leapfrogging each other in a sprint to the capital. Flying drones, spy satellites and global positioning systems that give commanders "total battlefield awareness."
Faster, lighter, smarter: Outfitting more maneuverable forces with digital communications and high-tech weaponry, Pentagon planners have made Iraq a proving ground for the hard-fought transformation of American warfare. With the fall of Baghdad on Wednesday, U.S. officials were hailing the military of the future.
"It's been a most impressive performance," Vice President Dick Cheney said. "Coming on the heels of the Afghanistan operation … it's proof positive of the success of our efforts to transform our military to meet the challenges of the 21st century."
Cheney and other officials cautioned against celebrating early. While some in Baghdad welcomed U.S. Marines, others in the capital and other cities continued to skirmish with coalition forces.
And not everything has gone according to plan or prediction. The massive bombardment intended to "shock and awe" Iraqi defenders did not inspire the mass surrenders that U.S. war planners had hoped. Guerrilla fighters have put up greater resistance than expected. Commanders resorted to rolling out the workhorse B-52 to carpet sections of Iraq with unguided "dumb" bombs.
But for proponents of transformation, the war being waged by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld within the Pentagon to reshape the military for the challenges of the future, the looming victory Wednesday still suggested a sort of vindication.
Twelve years after an international coalition drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, U.S.-led forces apparently had accomplished the possibly more difficult task of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein — with half the troops, in less than half the time, with fewer coalition or civilian casualties.
"This one was completely different," said retired Army Col. Joseph R. Cerami, editor of The Army War College Guide to Strategy. "There always has been a discussion of the tension between mass and maneuvers. The tilt now is toward maneuvers."
The war has been seen as the first test of what has been called the Rumsfeld Doctrine: using fewer and more flexible forces armed with smarter and deadlier weapons to strike more quickly at targets.
That approach stands in direct contrast to the Powell Doctrine, applied during the 1991 Persian Gulf War by then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, a Rumsfeld rival. Powell, who had served as a junior officer in the Vietnam War, counseled deploying overwhelming power to achieve clearly defined objectives.
During that first war, the U.S.-led coalition spent months building up a force that grew to about 540,000 troops encircling Iraq. They opened with six weeks of bombing, dropping more tons of bombs on than were dropped on Germany and Japan during the whole of World War II, then swept the remnants of the occupying army out of Kuwait in a four-day ground war.
In the current war, the United States and Britain have fielded about half as many troops, and many of those landed in the region after the start of hostilities. After the initial missile strike intended to kill Saddam, the air campaign and the ground invasion began roughly simultaneously. Ground units have moved quickly and spontaneously around southern Iraq, leaving open if sometimes unsecured terrain behind them.
Those forces have relied on new technology. Where four out of five munitions dropped during the first Gulf War were unguided gravity bombs, four in five in the current war have been precision-guided "smart" weapons, including missiles directed by laser or satellite.
More precision weapons means more efficient strikes, so fewer aircraft can hit more targets. U.S. officials say they also have cut down the number of civilian casualties. Iraq says nearly 600 civilians have been killed and 4,000 wounded — some by errant smart weapons — far fewer than in the 1991 war.
Computerized artillery is equipped to strike back automatically at any source of incoming fire, pinpointing the target and launching a response within 11 seconds of the attack. Digital communications allow close air support, with troops on the ground able to call in precision strikes.
"In Desert Storm, it usually took up to two days for target planners to get a photo of a target, confirm its coordinates, plan the mission and deliver it to the bomber crew," Cheney said. "Now we have near real-time imaging of targets with photos and coordinates transmitted by e-mail to aircraft already in flight."
Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, spy satellites and global positioning systems give troops on the ground new awareness of their own location and commanders at headquarters unprecedented vision of the entire theater.
"There has been a lot of writing about the fog of war," Cerami said. "I wouldn't say the fog's been lifted, but it's much easier to see through than ever before."
The coalition hasn't depended solely on new technology. With progress not so clear in the early days of the war, and retired military officers criticizing the U.S. strategy, commanders said more troops were on the way. The carpet-bombing around the city of Karbala last week recalled the B-52 attacks on North Vietnam four decades earlier.
"They started calling on the Air Force to bring out the Cold War weapons," said retired Army Col. Patrick Lloyd Hatcher, a professor of history at the University of San Francisco.
Hatcher said the deployment of the B-52s, their technology ancient by today's standards, indicated that the high-tech weapons alone were not accomplishing all that commanders hoped.
"This was supposed to be like the Afghan war as far as Mr. Rumsfeld was concerned — special forces and air power," he said. "You still need all the armor, the artillery, the infantry.
"I think he has learned his lesson. There isn't any way of stepping off into a whole new world of brave new weapons alone. It's a mix.
"And, always remember, someone has to put a foot on the ground."
Sempers,
Roger
By Matthew Hay Brown, The Orlando Sentinel
European edition, Thursday, April 10, 2003
ORLANDO, Fla. — Computer operators e-mailing bombing coordinates to aircraft already in flight. Strike forces leapfrogging each other in a sprint to the capital. Flying drones, spy satellites and global positioning systems that give commanders "total battlefield awareness."
Faster, lighter, smarter: Outfitting more maneuverable forces with digital communications and high-tech weaponry, Pentagon planners have made Iraq a proving ground for the hard-fought transformation of American warfare. With the fall of Baghdad on Wednesday, U.S. officials were hailing the military of the future.
"It's been a most impressive performance," Vice President Dick Cheney said. "Coming on the heels of the Afghanistan operation … it's proof positive of the success of our efforts to transform our military to meet the challenges of the 21st century."
Cheney and other officials cautioned against celebrating early. While some in Baghdad welcomed U.S. Marines, others in the capital and other cities continued to skirmish with coalition forces.
And not everything has gone according to plan or prediction. The massive bombardment intended to "shock and awe" Iraqi defenders did not inspire the mass surrenders that U.S. war planners had hoped. Guerrilla fighters have put up greater resistance than expected. Commanders resorted to rolling out the workhorse B-52 to carpet sections of Iraq with unguided "dumb" bombs.
But for proponents of transformation, the war being waged by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld within the Pentagon to reshape the military for the challenges of the future, the looming victory Wednesday still suggested a sort of vindication.
Twelve years after an international coalition drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, U.S.-led forces apparently had accomplished the possibly more difficult task of toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein — with half the troops, in less than half the time, with fewer coalition or civilian casualties.
"This one was completely different," said retired Army Col. Joseph R. Cerami, editor of The Army War College Guide to Strategy. "There always has been a discussion of the tension between mass and maneuvers. The tilt now is toward maneuvers."
The war has been seen as the first test of what has been called the Rumsfeld Doctrine: using fewer and more flexible forces armed with smarter and deadlier weapons to strike more quickly at targets.
That approach stands in direct contrast to the Powell Doctrine, applied during the 1991 Persian Gulf War by then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, a Rumsfeld rival. Powell, who had served as a junior officer in the Vietnam War, counseled deploying overwhelming power to achieve clearly defined objectives.
During that first war, the U.S.-led coalition spent months building up a force that grew to about 540,000 troops encircling Iraq. They opened with six weeks of bombing, dropping more tons of bombs on than were dropped on Germany and Japan during the whole of World War II, then swept the remnants of the occupying army out of Kuwait in a four-day ground war.
In the current war, the United States and Britain have fielded about half as many troops, and many of those landed in the region after the start of hostilities. After the initial missile strike intended to kill Saddam, the air campaign and the ground invasion began roughly simultaneously. Ground units have moved quickly and spontaneously around southern Iraq, leaving open if sometimes unsecured terrain behind them.
Those forces have relied on new technology. Where four out of five munitions dropped during the first Gulf War were unguided gravity bombs, four in five in the current war have been precision-guided "smart" weapons, including missiles directed by laser or satellite.
More precision weapons means more efficient strikes, so fewer aircraft can hit more targets. U.S. officials say they also have cut down the number of civilian casualties. Iraq says nearly 600 civilians have been killed and 4,000 wounded — some by errant smart weapons — far fewer than in the 1991 war.
Computerized artillery is equipped to strike back automatically at any source of incoming fire, pinpointing the target and launching a response within 11 seconds of the attack. Digital communications allow close air support, with troops on the ground able to call in precision strikes.
"In Desert Storm, it usually took up to two days for target planners to get a photo of a target, confirm its coordinates, plan the mission and deliver it to the bomber crew," Cheney said. "Now we have near real-time imaging of targets with photos and coordinates transmitted by e-mail to aircraft already in flight."
Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, spy satellites and global positioning systems give troops on the ground new awareness of their own location and commanders at headquarters unprecedented vision of the entire theater.
"There has been a lot of writing about the fog of war," Cerami said. "I wouldn't say the fog's been lifted, but it's much easier to see through than ever before."
The coalition hasn't depended solely on new technology. With progress not so clear in the early days of the war, and retired military officers criticizing the U.S. strategy, commanders said more troops were on the way. The carpet-bombing around the city of Karbala last week recalled the B-52 attacks on North Vietnam four decades earlier.
"They started calling on the Air Force to bring out the Cold War weapons," said retired Army Col. Patrick Lloyd Hatcher, a professor of history at the University of San Francisco.
Hatcher said the deployment of the B-52s, their technology ancient by today's standards, indicated that the high-tech weapons alone were not accomplishing all that commanders hoped.
"This was supposed to be like the Afghan war as far as Mr. Rumsfeld was concerned — special forces and air power," he said. "You still need all the armor, the artillery, the infantry.
"I think he has learned his lesson. There isn't any way of stepping off into a whole new world of brave new weapons alone. It's a mix.
"And, always remember, someone has to put a foot on the ground."
Sempers,
Roger