Weapons of Choice: The Development of Precision Guided Munitions - Softcover

Gillespie, Paul G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0817353534 ISBN 13: 9780817353537

Verlag: The University of Alabama Press, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

History and deployment of smart weapons

In the United States, efforts to develop precision guided munitions-PGMs-began during the First World War and resulted in an 'aerial torpedo' by the 1920s. While World War II was dominated by large-scale strategic bombing-essentially throwing out tons of free-falling munitions in the hope they hit something important-both sides in the war worked to develop airborne munitions that could be steered toward a target. However after that war, U.S. national security policy focused on the atomic bomb, hardly a weapon that needed to be directed with accuracy.

The cost of emphasis on atomic weapons was revealed in the general unsuitability of American tactics and weapons deployment systems during the Vietnam War. Lessons learned in that conflict, coupled with rapid technological developments in aerodynamics, lasers, and solid-state electronics, brought air power dramatically closer to the "surgical strike" now seen as crucial to modern warfare. New technology created attractive choices and options for American policymakers as well as field commanders, and events in the Arab-Israeli wars, the U.S. raid on Libya, and most dramatically in the first Gulf War created an ever-increasing demand for the precision weapons.

The prospect of pinpoint delivery of weapons right to the enemy's door by speeding aircraft seems to presage war in which the messy and politically risky deployment of ground troops is unnecessary. The potential of such weapons, and their strategic limitations, made the Gulf War and Iraqi War living theater for assessing what such weapons can and cannot do and have important implications for planning for future warfare.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Paul G. Gillespie is associate professor and Director of Military History at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and coeditor of Forged by Fire: Military History for the Profession of Arms. He has appeared several times as a consultant on the History Channel’s “Modern Marvels” series.
 

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WEAPONS OF CHOICE

The Development of Precision Guided MunitionsBy PAUL G. GILLESPIE

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Copyright © 2006 Paul G. Gillespie
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-5353-7

Contents

List of Illustrations......................................................ixAcknowledgments............................................................xi1. Introduction............................................................12. The Roots of Precision Guidance.........................................103. Air Power in the Aftermath of World War II..............................394. Making Pinpoint Accuracy a Reality......................................665. Vietnam: Precision Guided Munitions Come of Age.........................966. The Aftermath of Vietnam: Gulf War and Peacekeeping.....................1237. Policy Implications.....................................................1468. Conclusion..............................................................169Notes......................................................................179Bibliography...............................................................205Index......................................................................213

Chapter One

Introduction

Why Precision Guided Munitions?

While there is perhaps some inherent value in examining any technology used by a society, clearly some choices will be more instructive than others. At the dawning of the twenty-first century, the real challenge for anyone hoping to better understand technology lies not in finding a suitable subject but in making sense of the exponentially expanding spectrum of technology that has inundated human existence. Studying an individual technological innovation may provide valuable insight, but only if a particular technology from which broader conclusions might be drawn is selected. Even among military technologies there is no shortage of potential subjects. Limiting oneself to the current U.S. arsenal, the scope and variety of high-tech weaponry is still so wide-ranging that isolating a decisive technology seems akin to selecting the largest tree in the forest. Why, then, have precision guided munitions, or PGMs, been singled out as the subject of this historical study? In order to better demonstrate the relevance of this particular class of weapons, the point of a spear provides a much more apt metaphor than the trees of a forest. If the entire armed forces of a nation are thought of as a spear, logically those personnel and weapons that directly inflict damage and determine outcomes equate to the tip, or point of that spear. At first glance this lethal tip might seem to include much, if not all, of a nation's fielded forces. However, in recent decades an increasingly select few persons and technologies have constituted the spear point.

Born in the earliest days of the twentieth century, one technology has come to dominate the battlefield like no other. The prospect of aerial bombardment began to stir controversy and interest even before the Wright brothers first demonstrated powered flight in 1903, but it was not until the First World War that aircraft emerged as a decisive weapon, capable of producing far-reaching effects. In summarizing the impact of the fledgling German air arm in the opening moves of that conflict, General Paul von Hindenburg flatly stated, "without the airmen, no Tannenberg." During the first half of the twentieth century, the industrialized nations of the world poured vast resources into the development of technologies designed to increase the effectiveness of aerial bombardment, and following World War II, no less a naval enthusiast than Winston Churchill himself was forced to conclude that "for good or ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power, and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept subordinate rank." Particularly in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the air force became the indisputable queen of battle, dominating all subsequent twentieth-century conflicts. However, even in the midst of the cold war it was realized that a nuclear-tipped air weapon had severe limitations. While a number of technologies were developed in the next half-century to increase air power's effectiveness, including improved cluster bombs, proximity fuses, penetrating warheads, napalm and other incendiaries, and stealth technology, nothing has revolutionized modern warfare in quite the same way as precision guidance. Hearkening back to Hindenburg's observation, today one might justly assert: "without the PGM, no Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, or Iraq."

One indication of the relative importance of precision air weapons is the prominence they have attained in modern military forces. Air power encompasses a variety of roles and missions, making it difficult to single out one as decisive. However, it should be kept in mind that the bulk of an air force does not actually fly or fight. For example, in today's U.S. Air Force, only about 3 percent of active duty personnel are pilots-the remaining 97 percent provide flyers with the communications, supply, maintenance, transportation, security, engineering, intelligence, medical, and other support functions that make up the long, nonlethal haft of the spear. Beyond this, most aircraft do not wield bombs or bullets, performing instead such supporting roles as training, airlift, aerial refueling, and reconnaissance. Even critical combat mission areas such as air superiority and the suppression of enemy air defenses, as galling as it must sound to the fighter ace, are actually supporting roles. After all, except in the case of a defensive war, of the sort England fought during the Battle of Britain, air-to-air combat serves chiefly to clear a path for the bomb droppers. So, while the first U.S. Air Force core competency remains Air and Space Superiority, current doctrine admits that this superiority is rarely "an end in itself but is a means to the end of attaining military objectives ... it provides freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack." In contrast, the second Air Force core competency, Precision Engagement, supports the premise that air power provides "the 'scalpel' of joint service operations-the ability to forgo the brute force-on-force tactics of previous wars and apply discriminate force precisely where required." Returning to the previously mentioned spearhead analogy, in the final analysis only those combatants and weapon systems capable of efficiently destroying valued enemy assets on the ground equate to the tip of the spear. As Vince Lombardi might phrase it, when it comes to modern air warfare, "putting bombs on target isn't everything; it's the only thing."

Not long ago, nuclear weapons-primarily bombs and missiles, but also torpedoes, mines, and artillery shells-unquestionably constituted the pointiest end of the spear. Not surprisingly, much has been written analyzing this class of weapons and the strategies and policies that revolved around them. This experience has shown that there is considerable value in writing the history of a dominant weapon-of privileging one particular "winning technology," so to speak-because of what such history reveals about society. This may seem counterintuitive to those in other disciplines, but as one respected historian of technology observed, "the purposes (ethics and values) of our society are built into the very form and fabric of our technology, and the latter does not exist in some neutral sphere divorced from that purpose." During the past...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: The University of Alabama Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0817353534
• ISBN 13: 9780817353537
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 232
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande