Are the Americans capable of accurate warfare?

[taranaki]

I have been roundly abused,called a liar for my comments on the inability of the USAF to bomb accurately.It is a fact that on several occasions in the Gulf conflict of 1991,the US forces accidentally fired upon their own troops,or their allies.It is a common enough occurence that a technical term was coined for it..."friendly fire".

Enclosed are some links to reports of personnel fired on by US forces.There have also been recent incidents of civilians being mistaken for 'terrorists',the most infamous case being a wedding party in Afghanistan.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapc...nistan.canada/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40113,00.html

http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/1205/afghanistan.html

perhaps,though,this essay is the most telling.

http://www.jamesglaser.org/2002/p20020523.html


Given the well-documented history of inaccurate attacks by the U.S.,is it fair or reasonable to call me a liar?Is it fair and reasonable to call someone a coward for telling the truth?And while I choose not to parade my military experiences around like some badge of honour,rest assured that I am opposing the horrors of war for a platform of personal experience.

There are two reasons why I chose not to ban the member concerned for his gratuitous and unwarranted attacks on myself.
One is that I believe in the right of every person to have an opinion,no matter how misinformed,ignorant or prejudiced it may be,and the other is that I wish to challenge him to come back to the forum and face facts like a man.

[GTi-VR6_A3]

while there is no way to be totally acurate and perfect in a military excercise it is alot better now that it used to be. we have laser and radar and gps guided weapons systems instead of having to frie bomb WHOLE CITIES berlin and tokyo experienced our firebombing durning the second great war and no nation however unjust thier leaders are should ever go thorough that again. i oculd go off aobut the hiroshima thing and how it saved japan from much more fire bombing but thats for another date. i do not like bush i think hes a bad leader but i dont think the administration is really as stupid as people make i t out to be. as for trusting weapons knowing what i have learned about them so far i feel alot more confident in our guided weapons than the idea of carpet bombing. vietnam and even the gulf war cant be compared because we have all new better guidance systmes.

-GTi-VR6_A3

[Cbass]

Well, they can be compared actually, because even if you have the most accurate weapons imaginable, it's the targeting errors that cause friendly fire incidents. The US was quite accurate when they dropped a 500lb LGB on a group of Canadian soldiers who were training outside of Kandahar...

And they'll be quite accurate when they are raining down on Baghdad, killing thousands.

[YogsVR4]

On occasion the USAF has bombed the wrong targets. However that does not make "inability of the USAF to bomb accurately" a true statement. Looking at information through a magnafying glass is a poor way to come to conclusions. Sherlock Holmes you aren't.

Your hatred of the US is ok. I won't suggest that you get banned for your bigotted and inflamitory writings. I am surprised that you actually pointed out that you are stopping yourself from banning because of things they write. Perhaps you're familiar with the Pot and the black kettle?













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[Darth Cypher]

Ok, Cbass, we have been pretty cool so far. I brought up the Canadian incident to bring some developments to light and I was "advised" to not talk about it. Funny how I am told not to talk about it when the Canadians were found out not to be complying with safety protocols. But still to have respect for other people on this forum (namely the Canadians) I took your "advice". Now you go and post about it breaking your own "advice". Well, if you can make a statement, I too reserve the right to counter. This is not a fight, but I felt I had to point this out. I will now continue to follow your "advice" and not talk about this anymore. And no, I am not saying the US pilots are not to blame either but like I said for an accident to happen there are a chain of events that take place to bring it about..... Ok, now I'm finished.

Now, to the topic. Yes, friendly fire is bad. It's nothing new either. It happened even in WW2 where we dropped bombs on our own troops. I know it sucks and this is a bad reason but stuff like this happens in mass warfare. It's pretty much unavoidable. But of all the countries out there we are the most accurate. And we should be since we dump all this money into our military. I think a big part of it is that a lot of people see all this media about how we can drop a guided bomb right down an elevator shaft (we all saw this clip from the Gulf War). Yes, it is very easily done, and very easily thrown off too. The laser that we used in the Gulf War era is pretty suseptible (sp?) to factors such as clouds, dust, even humidity. These can throw off the laser and we know the result of that. Now we are using satellites to aid the guided bombs to their targets. It's still not perfect but they are not as suseptible to the above named factors. Again, there is this "hype" that our guided weapons are perfect and that is not the case. We made a huge step in the right direction but we are still far from the perfect ordainance.

We fly thousands upon thousands of successful sorties but the people who cover the "friendly fire" incidents will rarely talk about that fact. It's like that saying "You can do a lot of things right and nobody will remember, make one mistake and nobody will forget".

A lot of people on this board like to talk about the "US propoganda". Ok, well the other side also have thier propoganda machine. With this in mind I pose this question to the board that was asked at one of my Law of Armed Conflict briefings:

You are the general in a war and you have intelligence of the location of one of the enemies intelligence centers. Now this intelligence center provides good info to the troops of the enemy that has proved effective against your own troops costing your army many personnel and equipment. You are losing troops as a result of what this intelligence center is doing. The location of this center is in a two story building. However only the first floor is the actual intelligence center (which is a lawful target). The second floor is a school (unlawful target). Now the existance of this intelligence center is costing you troops as I said before, but there is a school there too. What do you do?

If anyone in the military knows this please refrain from the answer. I'm not picking on anyone without any military experience or knowledge, I'm only trying to make a point here. This is not to insult anyone's intelligence or anything (hell I didn't get it when it was asked either). If nobody gets it, I will post the answer in a while and also tie it into the point I am trying to make earlier.

Later.

[Cbass]

Originally posted by YogsVR4
On occasion the USAF has bombed the wrong targets. However that does not make "inability of the USAF to bomb accurately" a true statement. Looking at information through a magnafying glass is a poor way to come to conclusions. Sherlock Holmes you aren't.

Your hatred of the US is ok. I won't suggest that you get banned for your bigotted and inflamitory writings. I am surprised that you actually pointed out that you are stopping yourself from banning because of things they write. Perhaps you're familiar with the Pot and the black kettle?

I don't believe Mr. T means the US is unable to bomb any target accurately, I believe he means that if you target the wrong target (eg. friendly troops), the more successful your weapons, the more of your friendlies, be they allies or your own troops, will be killed. Of course, this is just what I assume, I can't speak for him.

Darth Cypher, I brought up the Kandahar incident as a prime example of technically excellent weapons and guidance being used against friendly troops, as a result of human error. It happens, it shouldn't but it does, and it will in the future. The thing about it that inflames Canadians is they were bombed while training, they were not even in a combat area. The pilots engaged them without authorization, when they were not in any danger.

As for your question, it is obvious that the USAF would not willingly bomb a school, even to get at the intelligence centre beneath it. However, if they were not aware there was a school, there would not likely be second thoughts as to who was in the other portion of the building. It's also quite possible that the intelligence data on the school could be ommitted from their initial intel reports, removing any responsibility from the Air Force.

[taranaki]

Originally posted by YogsVR4
On occasion the USAF has bombed the wrong targets. However that does not make "inability of the USAF to bomb accurately" a true statement. Looking at information through a magnafying glass is a poor way to come to conclusions. Sherlock Holmes you aren't.

Your hatred of the US is ok. I won't suggest that you get banned for your bigotted and inflamitory writings. I am surprised that you actually pointed out that you are stopping yourself from banning because of things they write. Perhaps you're familiar with the Pot and the black kettle?

I am very familiar with the pot and the black kettle,thankyou Yogs........are you familiar with the tirade of obscene gerunds,racism,religious bigotry and personal abuse that I have been subjected to through both the P.M.system and open posting for my rather quaint belief that the U.S. HAS LOUSY FOREIGN POLICY?

In any other forum,in any other thread,in any other context on AF, the 'person with strong beliefs' who submitted those messages would have been unceremoniously shown the door a long time ago.However,it would appear that we have an unwritten agreement amongst the users of this board to the effect that we counter 'biggots' with out own'strongly held opinions',and we don't complain or take our personal prejudices outside of this forum.To date,I am pleased that nobody has reported a single post in this forum to the moderators,and because of this we can say pretty much what we like without being censored.Nobody is ever going to get banned for holding an opinion and espousing it vigorously in this forum,unless they accompany their comments with the kind of language that would make a Marine flinch.And even if when that has happened to me ,I have chosen to treat it as a hallmark of extreme ignorance rather than stoop to the level of censorship by denial of access.My point is,that if anybody wants to tell me that I am an idiot for believing that there is no evidence to justify invading Iraq on the grounds of 'self defence',then go to it....
I will defend your right to free speech in this forum,regardless of how blinkered and judgemental your thinking is.Just don't expect me to put up with it like a cringing Sunday-school teacher.I respect your rights,but not your opinoins.

[GTi-VR6_A3]

you knwo what T i stand with you on one of your arguments. i do not believe there is any justification for a war on iraq for the reason of self defense that is just absurd. they are not threatining anything of ours at the moment. but i do believe that they should disarm. there is no reason that i want a war and nyone that does in my opinion is a sick person. but if iraq will disarm it is my belief that someone should disarm them. hell yeah i want it to be a coalition if it happens but if it is only america and the uk i iwll support it.

-GTi-VR6_A3

[Cbass]

On the grounds that it is an unjust war, I am against it. On the grounds that it will revitalize the US, and subsequently the Canadian economies while I go to school and run a small business, I support it.

I may be somewhat of an idealist, but I'm much more a realist. This will give me the opportunity to get my degree, and to move to Ireland, and for that, I thank G.W. Bush...

[GTi-VR6_A3]

Originally posted by Cbass
On the grounds that it is an unjust war, I am against it. On the grounds that it will revitalize the US, and subsequently the Canadian economies while I go to school and run a small business, I support it.

I may be somewhat of an idealist, but I'm much more a realist. This will give me the opportunity to get my degree, and to move to Ireland, and for that, I thank G.W. Bush...

way to take it in the good light hahaha or the cynical one whatever good luck wiht skool and ireland man. and we all know this arguing isnt personal

-GTi-VR6_A3

[Darth Cypher]

Yes, it happened in training but remember we really don't have Afganistan all that secured yet. And they aren't having thier live fire exercises too close to the base obviously. Maybe there were al-quada there or not. I think the video tape even showing ground fire directed at them. But who knows, it's still in trail. But the point is though they were training they were doing so in a war zone.

Before I answer the question I asked yesterday let me first say that the Air Force is not going to play anything off. If that was so we wouldn't even be going to trail much less holding it against our pilots for putting themselves in danger.

Now the answer to the question though believe it or not is to bomb the intelligence center/school. But here's the trick, you do it at night when school is out. And of course all the media is going to say is that we bombed a school. Propoganda plays both sides. Scary thing is that saddam resorts to tactics like these in war.

It's not propoganda (like what you said in another thread that is locked), it's fact. He did put turrets on hospitals, parked his fighters next to historical sites. Hell, he practices the scorched earth thing with the oil fields. I don't believe in the incubator thing though, I think that one is one of them "urban legends" sort of thing.

There was nothing made up of the oil fires after the Gulf War. Nor of the negative impact on the environment that it caused. Of course with the possibility of a new war with Iraq we are going to take measures to help prevent (or be prepared in advance) for when he does it again. Of course people are saying that we are doing it to prevent the "wasting of the oil" which will prevent us from hording it all. Seems to me that we can't do anything right. Granted we don't want the oil to go to waste but it's not from a greed of oil. We have plenty of other sources for our oil and we don't need Iraq's. We don't.

[Cbass]

Originally posted by Darth Cypher
There was nothing made up of the oil fires after the Gulf War. Nor of the negative impact on the environment that it caused. Of course with the possibility of a new war with Iraq we are going to take measures to help prevent (or be prepared in advance) for when he does it again. Of course people are saying that we are doing it to prevent the "wasting of the oil" which will prevent us from hording it all. Seems to me that we can't do anything right. Granted we don't want the oil to go to waste but it's not from a greed of oil. We have plenty of other sources for our oil and we don't need Iraq's. We don't.

There are many other nations that will SELL the US oil at $25-$30 a barrel, but if the US invades Iraq, and take an "active part" in their new government, they will be buying oil at cost. That comes out to about $5 barrel, by the time it reaches Texas for processing.