Large caliber and explosive weapons: Should their use be limited?

[chucky2]

I was thinking about this on the way in to work today, and was wondering what others here on P&N thought about this:

I'd hope the average citizen understands that rifle fire etc. targeted at an insurgent/terrorist was meant for that person, and not an innocent killed.

However, I can see the problem when an Apache launches a missle into a building and it takes the whole thing out, or, "collateral damage" occurs. Or even, we call in an Fwhatever and it drops a bomb that maybe or maybe not takes out the intended target, but it also kills civs as well.

What I'm wondering is whether or not you all would see it as a good idea from a relations and perceptions standpoint to limit or even not allow the use of these larger weapons due to the risk of unwanted collateral damage?

Obviously this makes the job harder on our soldiers in the short term, however in the long term, I'd think it breed less dislike and/or hate for us in the ME, thereby paying off.

What do you all think about this?

Chuck

 

[Ronstang]

And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

 

[K1052]

What are we supposed to use, harsh language?

 

[LTC8K6]

We use much smaller weapons now than we used to because of the precision guidance. We also use far fewer bombs.

We used to have to level several city blocks in hopes we'd also take out a certain factory or building.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

Wrong. The US kicks the crap out of conventional military opponents. Indiscriminate usage of large ordnance will not help against an insurgency. Only SpecOps, Political pressure form contemporaries in the region, Intelligence gathering, active detainment and even permanent incarceration/execution of proven troublemakers, etc, will 'win' what we're wrongly calling a 'war' in Iraq. The real war ended in '03, and our military kicked ass.

 

[chucky2]

I agree with Arkaign here, we decimated the Iraqi military when we went into Iraq...truly it was not even a contest - and that was with us not going wild and just bombing everything.

My question is whether or not the use of these weapons that cause major damage and/or have the potential to travel through someone's house from hundreds of yards away should be removed from the field now that we're in a peacekeeping role instead of a conquering role?

Do we really need to be calling in artilery? Mortors? Air delivered munitions?

Is it really beneficial long term to use these - no matter how effective they are against their intended victims - simply because the cost of them harming their unintended victims is too great?

Chuck

 

[Lemon law]

Its just the nature of a Occupation vs. an insurgency to get into these problems. There is simply no way around it unless you can establish what Arkaign outlined. But then we come up against the 500,000 troops we don't have. And the insurgencies have all the aces. They pick the time and the place and will usually only attack when they have the advantages. There will always be enough scared US troops to keep the collateral damage high enough to satisfy the most bloodthirsty. And if the troops don't defend themselves, they are the ones that are going to catch the bullets. Any lack of US contribution to collateral damage can always be made up by the insurgents.

And if the US just hides in its bases to keep the insurgent opportunities low, the insurgencies engage in ethnic cleansing and the US catches the blame for not maintaining law and order. Its all why we never should have gotten into this mess in the first place, but we are going to need a political solution to get out.

These kinds of wars are always super nasty. Easy to get into but hard to get out of.

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Its just the nature of a Occupation vs. an insurgency to get into these problems. There is simply no way around it unless you can establish what Arkaign outlined. But then we come up against the 500,000 troops we don't have. And the insurgencies have all the aces. They pick the time and the place and will usually only attack when they have the advantages. There will always be enough scared US troops to keep the collateral damage high enough to satisfy the most bloodthirsty. And if the troops don't defend themselves, they are the ones that are going to catch the bullets. Any lack of US contribution to collateral damage can always be made up by the insurgents.

And if the US just hides in its bases to keep the insurgent opportunities low, the insurgencies engage in ethnic cleansing and the US catches the blame for not maintaining law and order. Its all why we never should have gotten into this mess in the first place, but we are going to need a political solution to get out.

These kinds of wars are always super nasty. Easy to get into but hard to get out of.

Yes, but when they attack, we don't have to call in an arty strike. If we can't get them with a precision guided, or via manpower alone, then maybe we should just let them go instead of risking someones kid to loose a leg when half the skin of the 1000lb'er flies 1500 yards and rips her leg off.

I'm not saying the troops shouldn't be able to use their hand carried weapons, obviously they should and what becomes of their sanely delivered use will come (there's no real way around that), I'm just questioning why we have such a large presense still of military hardware that causes such damage still in the field there.

Chuck

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Ronstang
And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

Wrong. The US kicks the crap out of conventional military opponents. Indiscriminate usage of large ordnance will not help against an insurgency. Only SpecOps, Political pressure form contemporaries in the region, Intelligence gathering, active detainment and even permanent incarceration/execution of proven troublemakers, etc, will 'win' what we're wrongly calling a 'war' in Iraq. The real war ended in '03, and our military kicked ass.

Oh yeah? Helped us a lot in WWII. By the time we ran the Germans through the ringer even the most die hard of Nazi's didnt want to fight anymore.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Ronstang
And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

Wrong. The US kicks the crap out of conventional military opponents. Indiscriminate usage of large ordnance will not help against an insurgency. Only SpecOps, Political pressure form contemporaries in the region, Intelligence gathering, active detainment and even permanent incarceration/execution of proven troublemakers, etc, will 'win' what we're wrongly calling a 'war' in Iraq. The real war ended in '03, and our military kicked ass.

Oh yeah? Helped us a lot in WWII. By the time we ran the Germans through the ringer even the most die hard of Nazi's didnt want to fight anymore.

Different era, different culture, different people altogether. You win wars by breaking the enemy's weapons, and killing their soldiers. When we took Berlin, there were still hundreds of thousands of living German soldiers. Most all of those guys had lost family members or loved ones in the war. Yet how many acts of violence did they commit after the war? Do you think it would have been different if the infrastructure was more intact? Not a chance.

Not to mention, you have a poor understanding of German philosophy at the time. The Nazi party took power with a small portion of the vote, and most German civilians cared little for their politics. Were they innocent? Hell no, but I'd say only a tiny % of the country were ever die-hard Nazis. A great deal of the population supported them during the easy earlier triumphs, and fell for Goebbel's ceaseless propaganda, but you didn't have a population at large that really felt any desire for personal vengeance or additional bloodshed.

To compare Germany to Iraq is about the most asinine thing I've ever heard. Especially to say that Germany capitulated because of indiscriminate usage of carpet bombing/etc. The population was stable because they wanted a fresh start, and because they were a part of modern western civilization. The Iraqi sects are still living 500 years ago, thriving on ancient religious hatreds.

If we bombed all the major Iraqi cities for 5 years each, reducing everything to rubble, and then tried to occupy, nutjobs would crawl out of the ashes and try to kill us AND each other. It's just a different culture. IMHO, it's an inferior culture. That's not very PC, but you know the Christian/Western Civilization had it's growing pains as well, I just think most of the Muslim world is still in the dark ages culturally.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: chucky2
Topic Title: Large caliber and explosive weapons: Should their use be limited?

Naaaaa we should just throw rocks.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Their use is already limited. Furthermore, I think we try to hard to limit their use currently and too many American lives are risked.

 

[chucky2]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: chucky2
Topic Title: Large caliber and explosive weapons: Should their use be limited?

Naaaaa we should just throw rocks.

I was hoping you wouldn't visit my thread with one of your idiotic postings, but I can see that was, sadly, too much to hope for... :frown:

Chuck

 

[maluckey]

Chucky2,

As one of the soldiers having to do the work over here, I have to argue that smaller weapons and fewer options leave me exposed. If we are to withdraw troops, give authority back to Iraqis, we on the ground need every advantage that we can get.

The AIF and AQ use rocket lauchers, RCIED's, EFP, SAM, 8inch rockets (lately), mortars of all sizes and car bombs. We need similar caliber weapons to match in order to do the job with any sort of success. We also need air support to not only see them, but to ID and kill them with relative impunity, which is an option tht we WANT to deny AIF and AQ. Evening the playing field is not a great idea. I is still a war, not a police action. Once a peace treaty is signed, then you can consider the downsizing of available armament.

 

[Harabec]

I think you are confusing 2 completely different things:

1. Tactical battle decisions. When you fight, you need to A) win the battle B) with as little casualties as possible on your side - in that order. (when you try to reverse that order, everything goes to the trash. Lebanon, 2006 is a good example).

2. Strategic political decisions. Who you fight. Where you fight. When you fight. Thats what makes the news and is the politicians' job.

 

[datalink7]

These weapons are already heavily limited. The effect is less civilians dead, but it has also cost soldiers lives in return.

 

[StageLeft]

Historically speaking, the US army already is quite hamstrung by their preferred avoidance of killing civilians. Do you think that in the war of 1812 people were going out of their way to avoid collateral damage even if it meant they may not get the bad guy? Or in the battle of hastings or WWI or anything else?

 

[maluckey]

The Iraqis kill most of the bystanders to get their man, and nobody complains much. They pay the families and it goes away.

The only time the CF has real issues with collateral damage is if they miss the target entirely. So long as we tag the bad guy, everything tends to be forgiven in this crazy place.

 

[The Green Bean]

Originally posted by: chucky2

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Its just the nature of a Occupation vs. an insurgency to get into these problems. There is simply no way around it unless you can establish what Arkaign outlined. But then we come up against the 500,000 troops we don't have. And the insurgencies have all the aces. They pick the time and the place and will usually only attack when they have the advantages. There will always be enough scared US troops to keep the collateral damage high enough to satisfy the most bloodthirsty. And if the troops don't defend themselves, they are the ones that are going to catch the bullets. Any lack of US contribution to collateral damage can always be made up by the insurgents.

And if the US just hides in its bases to keep the insurgent opportunities low, the insurgencies engage in ethnic cleansing and the US catches the blame for not maintaining law and order. Its all why we never should have gotten into this mess in the first place, but we are going to need a political solution to get out.

These kinds of wars are always super nasty. Easy to get into but hard to get out of.

Yes, but when they attack, we don't have to call in an arty strike. If we can't get them with a precision guided, or via manpower alone, then maybe we should just let them go instead of risking someones kid to loose a leg when half the skin of the 1000lb'er flies 1500 yards and rips her leg off.

I'm not saying the troops shouldn't be able to use their hand carried weapons, obviously they should and what becomes of their sanely delivered use will come (there's no real way around that), I'm just questioning why we have such a large presense still of military hardware that causes such damage still in the field there.

Chuck

I agree with chuck. If less destructive weapons were used by the US there would be more support for the US efforts in the muslim world. Now, people just feel that America doesn't care for muslim lives and that really pisses people off.

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

We could could still win wars, but you're right about one thing.. the PC crowd is more worried about (mis)perceptions of brutality than actually engaging and destroying the enemy without hesitation.

I'm pretty damn sure that Patton would retire if he were alive and told to fight under the same restrictions we adhere to every day.

Others would call it progress...

Our enemies know our limits and restrictions, and they use them to their full advantage. The ambushes they set in crowded civilian areas are just one good example of how they are using these restrictions against us... It's Guerrilla Warfare 101, and they have most of the advantages. Further restricting our options would make things even worse, and more of ours would die...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: chucky2


What I'm wondering is whether or not you all would see it as a good idea from a relations and perceptions standpoint to limit or even not allow the use of these larger weapons due to the risk of unwanted collateral damage?

Obviously this makes the job harder on our soldiers in the short term, however in the long term, I'd think it breed less dislike and/or hate for us in the ME, thereby paying off.

What do you all think about this?

Chuck

I think there is no point to doing it. The enemy will continue to create and disseminate propaganda that vilifies are forces regardless of the truth or facts. If there is very little or no collateral damage, they will stage a pallywood style production that makes it appear there was. This already happens, so production would just ramp up to fill the void. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, so better to at least do your best to frag the bad guys, by using sufficient firepower to get the job done.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: Ronstang
And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

We could could still win wars, but you're right about one thing.. the PC crowd is more worried about (mis)perceptions of brutality than actually engaging and destroying the enemy without hesitation.

I'm pretty damn sure that Patton would retire if he were alive and told to fight under the same restrictions we adhere to every day.

Others would call it progress...

The way we fights wars might have changed, but so have the wars we are fighting. If you want to use the Army as the big, green police machine, you have to ACT like the police...WWII methods aren't going to work any better securing Baghdad than they would in fighting crime in New York. Being anti-PC has been a conservative position for a long time, but it's a bumper sticker philosophy...what is the NEXT sentence after "...engaging and destroying the enemy without hesitation."? It's all impotent whining; modern, urban warfare is difficult, and just being able to blow stuff up at random would certainly be simpler...but would it be EFFECTIVE? Our goal here isn't just to kill the enemy, it's to help the Iraqis back to their feet...blowing them up is hardly going to move things in that direction.

It made Kerry quite unpopular with pro-military folks during the 2004 election, but his point is worth brining up again...fighting terrorism is about police and intelligence, not the military. In some ways, you're right, the military doesn't like the restrictions they are operating under today, because this isn't what the military was designed to do. The military is still exceptionally good at what it does, all the noise about the military losing its way misses the point. For all the arm waving about China building their military power and Russia getting back to their old Soviet ways, a war with either country would hardly be less one sided than our invasion of Iraq. The problem is that the military doesn't DO that kind of thing any more, being the world's police force is difficult...but the answer isn't to just start carpet bombing Baghdad.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: Ronstang
And people wonder why the US doesn't win wars anymore.

We could could still win wars, but you're right about one thing.. the PC crowd is more worried about (mis)perceptions of brutality than actually engaging and destroying the enemy without hesitation.

I'm pretty damn sure that Patton would retire if he were alive and told to fight under the same restrictions we adhere to every day.

Others would call it progress...

The way we fights wars might have changed, but so have the wars we are fighting. If you want to use the Army as the big, green police machine, you have to ACT like the police...WWII methods aren't going to work any better securing Baghdad than they would in fighting crime in New York. Being anti-PC has been a conservative position for a long time, but it's a bumper sticker philosophy...what is the NEXT sentence after "...engaging and destroying the enemy without hesitation."? It's all impotent whining; modern, urban warfare is difficult, and just being able to blow stuff up at random would certainly be simpler...but would it be EFFECTIVE? Our goal here isn't just to kill the enemy, it's to help the Iraqis back to their feet...blowing them up is hardly going to move things in that direction.

It made Kerry quite unpopular with pro-military folks during the 2004 election, but his point is worth brining up again...fighting terrorism is about police and intelligence, not the military. In some ways, you're right, the military doesn't like the restrictions they are operating under today, because this isn't what the military was designed to do. The military is still exceptionally good at what it does, all the noise about the military losing its way misses the point. For all the arm waving about China building their military power and Russia getting back to their old Soviet ways, a war with either country would hardly be less one sided than our invasion of Iraq. The problem is that the military doesn't DO that kind of thing any more, being the world's police force is difficult...but the answer isn't to just start carpet bombing Baghdad.

Edit: The fact that everyone keeps making comparisons to WWII really makes my point for me. Anyone with any concept of military history really think the conflicts of today are AT ALL comparable with the war against the Axis? Anyone at all willing to stand up and make that comparison?

 

[palehorse]

Sorta OT, but...
I think it's very telling that everyone assumed it was Blackwater who fired indiscriminately during their recent engagement, and not the insurgents themselves. Very few members of the media have speculated on the possibility that the insurgents/terrorists setting the ambush may have been the ones who fired the shots that killed any civilians.

Even a large number of our own countrymen were quick to assume that US personnel were the ones in the wrong... It's very indicative of the PR War being waged by our enemies - and the fact that they are winning on that front.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
The fact that everyone keeps making comparisons to WWII really makes my point for me. Anyone with any concept of military history really think the conflicts of today are AT ALL comparable with the war against the Axis?

Anyone at all willing to stand up and make that comparison?

There is no comparison to WWII.

Our efficiency at killing is night and day.

That also goes for folks called "insurgents" as well.