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Building a Better Bomb
dr who and the darlix writes "There is a nice article here about carbon composite warheads being tested. They destroy their targets while minimizing collateral damage."
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Would it not be less expensive to just use what we kno works; the old fashioned Tomahawk, which proved itselv extensivly in the Gulf Wars?
And how bad is really some collateral damage?
If you look behinfd the media hype and all the people that thinks that we should all be friend you will find a *war*. That means that there will and its supposed to be some collateral damage. Casualties makes the enemy frightned and less willing to fight.
And the enemy should expect some collateral damage when they start a war, collaterall damage will in fact make them less willing to start a war next time.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
The defense establishment tried to sell the virutes of the neutron bomb with this pithy point: "It destroys humans but leaves buildings intact," minimizing collateral damage. Aping this thought, in college, some of my acquaintances developed a powerful alcoholic mixture that they dubbed "neutron punch." Their rationale? "It destroys your mind but leaves your body intact," they said.
A lawyer & digital forensics examiner. Also an expert on open source software (OSS).
"I'm not gonna fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt." - George W. Bush
These bombs aren't being designed because people like to live next to military outposts. People don't wander into potential bomb sites to look at the big guns...
What does happen is that certain militaries will deploy their equipment where the most collateral damage will be caused. The civilians are being used. When they die the occupying power can come on TV and rant about the US "murdering innocent civilians". Never mind that they stuck an AAA battery in a residential neighborhood, that's not important.
I think these bombs are a good curiosity to have but would be too expensive for general use. I hope that these bombs will make a commander think twice about using civilians as a shield. Unfortunately I think the effect will be the opposite, and military installations will get even more integrated with the populace for defense. Sometimes cause and effect really sucks...
Dear Lord. Is that site still around? I figured it just sort of disappeared ever since it was roundly discredited.
Long story made short: they accept high figures for kill estimates, but reject low figures. If we have ABSOLUTELY NO evidence of ANY deaths for a given incident, but somebody, somewhere (cough-Fisk-cough) asserts, completely without any support whatsoever, that twelve people bought farms, that web site adds 12 to their total and gnashes their teeth.
Fiction. Utter fiction. And not even interesting fiction at that.
In Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger (the book, not the movie), they had bombs with a cellulose casing to eliminate shrapnel. They used them when they wanted to make a single-bomb surgical strike look more like a car bomb.
I don't know if we really had munitions like that at the time when that book was written, but considering Clancy's attention to detail I wouldn't discount the possibility. Either way, the idea of a shrapnel-less bomb has been kicking around for a pretty long time.
~Philly
> It doesn't seem like anyone really cares about Iraq any more. The protests were heavy and numerous leading up to the war, but once it began everyone seemed to abandon the cause all but entirely.
There's a curious phenomenon at work here. IIRC, a couple of weeks before the war started the only way you could squeeze > 50% US public support out of the polls was to qualify the question with "with UN authorization", and even then the support was only about 60%. Without UN authorization it was somewhere down around 40%.
Those aren't very good numbers for a democracy to embark on a war with.
However, as soon as the shooting started the "support the troops" meme kicked in, and approval skyrocketed. I suspect it's something to do with guilt, i.e. the naive notion that not supporting the war must equate to wishing our troops harm.
> This is in stark contrast to the Vietnam war, which as far as I can tell (I could be wrong) resulted in protests through its entire duration.
I think there were no protests at all early on, though they grew to an avalanche as "the cause" caught on. And as for Iraq, there doesn't seem to be much point in protesting a done deal.
However, since the "deep support" (i.e., before the shooting started) for the Iraq war was not all that broad, and since the promised wonder of a native democracy overseeing US-built schools and hospitals and rebuilding itself with oil revenues doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight, this could still turn into a Vietnam-style political issue if the killing and dying continues. (Recall how delightedly the media were announcing four consecutive days without any combat deaths just a few days ago, and compare that to the gloomy tone of the news tonight.)
IMO things have gone much better than we had any right to expect so far, but unfortunately the fat lady hasn't sung yet. If things are still going like they are now when the elections come around next year you can look to a lot of "peace with honor" campaign rhetoric, i.e. how fast can we get the hell out without admitting we're giving up on it.
And that is where the Vietnam analogy fits in. During the Vietnam war the public was treated to a steady stream of glowing reports about the phenomenal casualty ratios, but ultimately it didn't make any difference. There's a heck of a lot more to winning a war than killing lots of people, high-tech warheads or no. Especially in a democracy.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is Slashdot, you're wasting your breath.
Americans were obstinately isolationist until after WWII. We still are, given a percieved lack of threat - George Bush ran in 2000 on an isolationist platform: bring the boys home, let the world look after it's own ass, the Cold War is over. After being dragged into two World Wars and Soviet expansionism threatening to drag the world into a third, it became US policy to maintain a large standing army forward deployed in Eurasia to actively deter the Soviets and Chinese and to de-militarize European states (and specifically, Germany) by assuming the majority of Europe's defense burden.
America is the reluctant Superpower. We could have had tributary states like the Soviets after WWII, and ruled half the world. We didn't. We chose the Marshall Plan, and helped western Europe and Japan rebuild as liberal democracies. If the world was such a Pollyanna place some people think it to be, Americans would want their sons and daughters back home, permanently, and wish the world to come visit, but leave us alone behind our oceans.
Derek
Learn some history: Hitler never had an interest in invading USA. His main interest were the Pre-World War I German areas and creating an empire based on Eastern Provinces (Poland, Russia). He was trying to copy the British Empire model. He also built lots of tanks and bombs and was an asshole...
Japan, probably would have never attacked if the US had not sent their gunship to Japan one century earlier.
Even an Anti-Communist like myself has to admit that the US is investing way too much into weapons and sometimes does show some strongly imperialistic tendencies. On the other hand, Germans have to thank the US for not speaking Russian these days.
1. Collateral damage is usually NOT produced by bunker-busting bombs that actually hit the bunkers. First of all, there usually isn't much to damage around the bunker, that does not happen to be another target. Second, it's usually produced by things that _miss_ the target -- what in this case will cause the same effect.
2. Last time I have checked, most of bombs that produced huge amount of damage to civilians, were dropped on civilian targets, or poorly protected military ones, to begin with. Often with the primary goal to cause massive damage to civilians.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
We bomb in the night because US forces can see in the dark, the opossing forces (largely) cannot. "Stealth" planes only attack in darkness, while they can (largely) avoid radar no one has figured out how to beat the MK I eyeball.
With few exceptions (general government) the facilities that we turn into smoking craters are manned/operated around the clock, though night attacks do reduce the risk of killing regular citizens who just might have the bad luck to be walking by the ministry of oppresion when the "care" package lands.
"More Terrorists" - It's doubtful there are more terrorists. The guerilla actions taking place in Iraq are Baath party "security" or Republican Guards forces with nothing to loose, they will probably be the first lined up and shot by the new government once it get's established. Or they desparate people who will do anything for some money, Baath party leadership is supposedly handing out money to folks willing to take a shot at an American. Or they may be a few "nationalists", but they'll calm down when they figure out we are not there to colonize or when we go home. Or they are foreigner, jihadists going to Iraq because that is where they can take a shot at an American. In this latter case, perfect. This is what we want. All those al qaida paramility camp graduates, we want them in Iraq, we want them engaging our military. The military's job is to fight these nuts on someone else's soil before they can find a way to attack civilian on US soil or elsewhere.
"More Weapons of Mass Distruction" - No, Iraq can not build any now. Terrorists have lost a big potential supplier, and they have definitely lost an actual proven financial supporter. Any new weapons in Iran or North Korea are independent events, North Korea started working on them when we were sitting at home and being all friendly during the Clinton administration.
"Carpet Bombing" - We did not carpet bomb Baghdad. Carpet bombing is the indiscriminate bombing of a broad area. You may have seen a string of bombs going off on CNN one night, they came from a single bomber, but each bomb was an independently targetted precision weapon. If you want an example of carpet bombing find a photo of Berlin in 1945.
"Send CIA in and assassinate him" - That is pure fiction, the stuff of movies, books, and video games. In the real work Saddam had excellent personal security and was in a closed highly controlled society.
"Unjustified" - The United Nations is on record saying he had the weapons but had not provided evidence of their destruction. The Clinton administration bombed him over this when he kicked out inspectors. While honest people may have honest debates about timing, about another chance, etc, your rabid emotional response merely demonstrates that political ideology blinds you.
Come on, this is flamebait and not at all funny. /. IS too Americentric (though why America would want to kill people is beyond me).
You're getting your issues confuses, which is exactly what Bush camp want. You see all the above issues have nothing to do with WOMD - the reason Iraq was invaded.
And by the way, I don't wear a tin-foil hat. But I assume you make use of a penis-extender.
"every bomb, whether dropped or not, has collaterol damage: the citizens of the nation that decided to spend tax dollars on weapons of mass destruction rather than on meaningful social programs."
That's only true if you believe it's not possible to have a justified war. Your "meaningful social programs" wouldn't be so meaningful if the world had allowed Hitler to take over...
Well, just don't forget that if France, US and other europeans countries of that time had given some money to meaningful social programs in Germany after WWI there wouldn't have been such thing as Adolf Hitler and WWII.
US people were clever enough after WWII not to repeat that mistake and spent *lot* of money to make sure Europe would have a viable social basis.
Too bad, GWB is not that bright regarding third world and terrorist countries nowadays. It's exactly the same problem if you look at it closely.
-> no money for social initiatives, lots for weapons and economic = social disaster = autoritarian regimes = terrorism.
If the US spent a tenth of the money they litteraly bombed over Afghanistan and Irak to build schools and train teachers, we'd probably get rid of terrorisms in not much more time than it took for Europe to rebuild after WWII.
You just have to see what Talibans and BinLaden supporters do : they attack universities and oppress students, this is where the US and other rich countries should """strike""".
But, with the current Bush foreign policy we are most probably currently heading for many more of disasters.
The same is true for France and African countries such as Congo, Soudan, Cote d'Ivoire and a lot of thers as well, of course.
It's not like the US are the sole responsible of the mess our planet is : we all - the rich ones - are.
(I'm french btw)
A few months back, I saw a tech article about another type of bomb they are working on, that is very related - Small bombs!
Reminds me of a British invention, inert bombs - laser-guided 1,000lb blocks of concrete.
No word yet on if they'll be anvil-shaped.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Of course, given the world we live in a certain amount of military spending is required, and as a Canadian I am very grateful that the Americans are so keen on defense spending that we can spend most of our taxes on education and health care. The other nice spin off from military spending is the huge amount of R&D the military does which eventually trickles down to civilian uses.
Anarchists never rule
Tell me, if wealth is a zero sum game, then how did it come to pass that essientially every American lives in comfort unheard of 200 years ago?
How is it a zero sum game when the number one health problem of the poor in this country is obesity- TOO MUCH TO EAT!
If such large numbers of Americans live with comforts only vaugely aproximated by the wealthiest people 200 years ago, were did we steal all that money from? There aren't enough people on the planet to steal all that money from!
So I disagree; wealth is not a zero sum game. The large middle class in america, and even our 'poor', have been lifted out of a farming existence by the massive creation of wealth, and everyone in this country is better off for it.
Every equation must be balanced; mustn't it? So how can general motors, for example, take steel, plastic, and leather, and turn it into a $50,000 cadillac?
Effort. When you work, you add value; wealth- and it's more than the worth of what you ate that day, and the gas and wear and tear on your car so you could get to work. With millions of americans and their hard-core work habits, we add a tremendous amount of wealth every day to the economy.
Socialists whine about the accummulation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, yet despite the occasional ups and downs of the economy, life gets better for citizens of a capitilistic country every year. That's because more wealth is created than the wealthiest 0.01% suck up.
It's effort that adds wealth to the equation.
Remember that money is an abstract, a tool used to simplify trade. It's only valuable because we believe it has value. And we have more money in circulation now that 50 years ago because we had to print more to increase the supply, as the wealth we create every day continues to strain the money we have in circulation.
Chew on this: If wealth is a zero sum game, then how come pretty much every American, and hundreds of millions of people worldwide, are immuserable better off than the aristocracy 200 years ago?
Who the fuck did we take all that money from?
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
"Of course, given the world we live in a certain amount of military spending is required"
Definitely, but excess military spending often leads to more military spending. We make bombs. They make bigger bombs. Now we need even bigger bombs.
"and as a Canadian I am very grateful that the Americans are so keen on defense spending that we can spend most of our taxes on education and health care."
It's an enviable position to be in, at least until Dubya decides he wants your oil or North Korea lobs one towards Detroit and falls a bit short.
"The other nice spin off from military spending is the huge amount of R&D the military does which eventually trickles down to civilian uses."
Some of it trickles down, but Reagan's SDI ("star wars") is a prime example of what can go wrong with that kind of thinking. What did Joe and Mary and their two kids get in return for the investment of their tax dollars in that program?
I certainly agree with the parent poster. The US *has* taken a high-handed approach, and *has* been able to convince its own citizens to ignore many of its own excesses and abuses.
What I get from this post is that you're upset at being presented with the fact that *you* may also be guilty of helping along the same killing of civilians that you find distasteful, and would be happier having it not brought up. You find it easier, more comfortable, to avoid it that way.
May we never see th