Joseph Riggs wrote: > During World War 2, the US engaged in daylight precision strategic bombing, > which meant > that a bunch of bombers flew over the target in broad daylight and tried to > hit it from several > thousand feet up in the air. Their bombsites were quite good for the time, > but I still wouldn't > have wanted to live next to one of their targets. The British, from what I > understand, > conducted most of their bombing at night. Remember that this was before > infrared and > lowlight vision, and draw your own conclusions on what happened.
I don't draw my own conclusions. WW2 bombing happens to be one of the focus topics when we studied history of engineering in undergrad. So I can only repeat what the textbooks say. What they say is that all the hand wringing about precision vs. strategic bombing didn't much matter in the end. The theory is all nice and rosy, the achieved precision of either tactics was about the same. Anyway the US and UK bombing raids are closely coordinated so that together (daytime and nightime) they would exhausted the firefighters, water and finally oxygen for breathing. (btw it was before IR and laser guided bombs, but not before the radar, Britian's pride and joy. Without the radar, the bombers can't even fly to the general vicinity of the target). Good visibility and bombsights (not bombsites) only make a big difference when they are not shooting back. > Now that we have precision weapons, and special aiming systems even for > 'dumb' bombs, > we expect a lot more out of Western militaries (particularly the American > military). And so > I'd feel perfectly justified in lashing into anyone who firebombed an entire > city. But an > industrial target that directly contributes toward the military effort of a > country is still a fair > target, no matter how many civilians are around. The conclusion that the professor gave us was not that as technology develops (we were all engineering students), the civilian casualty (now called collateral damage) to military accomplishment ratio doesn't improve. From spears to muskets to machine guns to bombs to cruise missiles (ok actually when we took the course the cruise missiles haven't been used in real war yet), it hasn't really changed fundamentally. Does Iraq and Vietnam have more military targets than all of Europe and Japan during WW2? I doubt it, but after 60 years of technology advance it still take more tonnage of bombs to accomplish less. It seems pretty clear that it will end up costing more deaths per capita in Iraq and Afghanistan than it did to defeat Germany or Japan. The smarter the bombs the more people die. Why? I have some explanation, but that's important, whatever explanation is not important just the observation that smarter bombs aren't reducing civilian casualties nor increasing military accomplishment. Just a long winded way to say Graham and CB's indignation over supposed civie deaths is laughably naive. Also Prof. Eifman is definitely a legit target. Remember the "Most-wanted Iraqi" playing cards? 3 out of 52 cards were for scientists or science advisors (4 & 5 of Hearts and 7 of Diamonds). Sucks that Union can't provide decent protection to their top brain. > There is a question, of course, regarding where exactly you draw the line. > But the The rhetorics is redefined to fit the situation, the line was never there to start with, not since the dawn of civilization. -- Dr. Core -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
