New U.S. technology should decrease civilian casualties

I gotta get me one of those. You think they'd have them at Walmart.

 

Whoa!

 

We have only one prototype ABL (airborne laser), and it's designed to destroy fighter jets and incoming ballistic/cruise missiles, not people on the ground... And it's pretty expensive, f4p.

But as for your assessment and the article, hotdogeater, I think you're pretty on target. This will not be like Vietnam, and we won't have exactly the same problems as the Soviets had there.

Personally, even without the Landwarrior system and OICW (neither of which are really ready for production and will not be issued to all or even many of our troops) I'd take one of our infantry over 10 battle-hardened mujahadeen any day. These guys - our SF, Rangers, SEALs, and 82nd troops - are superbly trained, better trained than any infantry force in history ever has been. These are not illiterate Russian kids who were rushed through training, given a gun, and sent into the mountains. These guys are extremely dangerous, and they are experts at guerilla warfare.

Anyone who gets into a gun battle with a Ranger is in deep trouble, no matter how experienced they are.

Also, there's been alot made of the fact that we can't take our armored forces and use them in Afghanistan like we did in Iraq. That's irrelevant, because we don't need any tanks there anyway. Any tanks the Taliban sends against our infantry are dead - our infantry have a number of ways to take on armor, and are very vood at it. But it will be primarily infantry v infantry, and while we will take some losses, there is no doubt in my mind who will win.

 

Oh, just one interesting tidbit on the IOCW / Landwarrior system: our troops can shoot around corners accurately with it. They can literally sit in a trench, pop the gun out of the trench (leaving their bodies protected), and snipe at people a half-kilometer away. This is an extremely important asset in urban / infantry warfare...

 

They almost certainly have some Stingers left over, but probably not many. They also have quite a few SA-7 family (including some SA-19s, about the equivalent of a Stinger) shoulder-launched SAMs left, too. These really aren't much of a threat to our fixed wing aircraft (fighters, bombers, and the like), but they are a serious threat to helicopters.

The Soviets lost alot of helicopters in Afghanistan. We lost over 1,000 in Vietnam. Helicopters are quite vulnerable, and we will probably lose some.

 

Glad to see this post- I was wondering if Afghanistan would become the new Vietnam.
On one hand, you have an impassioned, fanatical group that defeated the frikkin USSR at the height of it's power. That is amazing to me. But, they also had the backing of many mideast countries, and most of all the USA. This operation will not be easy, but they won't have the financial/arms backing of a superpower. In fact, I don't think anyone would dare help them now, except Iraq, which I hope they do give us the excuse to take them on directly.

Still, I have my doubts. In Vietnam we had far, far superior technology and air support. Most of the latest technology won't be available. And, recently I read an article in which the Pakistanis reminded the US that it was our own CIA which trained these guys to be the best guerilla force on the planet. Somebody referred to their elite as the CIA all-stars. And, they are on their own turf.

I do think that this a winable war, but that would be attributed more to the fact that they will have no allies or major financial or arms supplies from allies, certainly nobody of note.

 

We must have some secret weapons as well....but then again, perhaps they do as well....War is scary.

 

PhiSlammaJamma -

We do have some "secret weapons", alot of them, but they're all pretty much in the protorype stage at this point. For example, it has been reported that we have sonic weapons that can induce anything from nausea and vomiting to instant death. We have directed EM weapons that can do the same thing, as well as destroy electronics as well. We are currently in the process of arming all kinds of robotic platforms...

The problem is that these weapons are mostly untested and at prototype stages, and are not ready for production. That's not to say that they won't be used. Landwarrior, for example, is still in development, and we can't arm everyone with it yet. But we have a decent number of systems, and many components of the system that can be given to fairly large numbers of troops. Those sets we do have will be used, and I'm sure that overall development will be drastically sped up now.

But the E-8 JSTARS was a prototype (2 prototypes, actually) in the Gulf War, and we used that with great effect. This might turn out to be the perfect opportunity to actually test some of the more exotic gadgets we've been making...

 

That's weird, I was just thinking the other day if it was even possible to develop those types of weapons. How exactly would something like that work. I would think you don't just hold up a little gadget and push a button.

 

My understanding is that there are 2 forms of the sonic weapon - 1 is directional, and the other is omnidirectional. The directed one is exactly that - a gadget you hold up and press a button. Well, actually, it's pretty big and is mounted on a truck or HMMWV, but you get the picture. The other one is supposed to be like a "super fence" - you secure a series of these gadgets on the ground around a perimeter or in a line, and anyone who tries to cross it goes from headache to death the closer he gets... EM weapons of all sorts have been around for a while, we've just never really had them as perfected as we have them now. For example, our next MBT (our next tank) will have an EM rail gun as its main armament, which will be able to penetrate anything that our current guns can't.

 

Damn.. We need a sonic weapon that will instantly give orgasms... Can you imagine what this would do to the enemy?

Plus women all over would love it.