Precision Weapons��A 200 Year Evolution or Revolution?

Matt Caffrey

Air Command and Staff College

Air University

Bio

• Lt Col USAFR AF/XOOC (CHECKMATE)
• Professor of Wargaming and Campaign�Planning, Air Command and Staff College
• Co-author Gulf War Fact Book
• Originator of the Connections Conference
• Designer of Several Air Force Wargames
• Originator of the Commercial Wargames db

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The Caffrey Cycle

History

Theory

Doctrine

Strategy

War

My Thesis

Precision has always been an

American value, and it will play a

key role in creating a better world

Colonel Roots

• Lead expensive
• Game free

• Effective range 200+ yards
• Rate of Fire 1 to 2 minutes per fire

Roots of British Way of War The Battle of Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt

Early Guns vs Men-at-Arms

Pike, Sword and Shot

The Brown Bess

• Effective range 40 to 80 yards
• Rate of Fire 3 to 5 fires per minute

The Shot Heard Around the World

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Was a precision shot

The Limits of Precision

Strategy overcame technology

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Precedent, not name lead to stay at Fort Washington

The Reaction

• Washington
• Bunker Hill unique
• Beat British at their own game
• British
• No more Bunker Hills
• Avoid American strength
• Put British strength against American weakness

Was this the end of the story or the beginning?

The Cycle

• Casualty rates at historical norm
• New Technology emerges
• Technology is exploited in weapons, etc..
• Casualty rates increase
• New tactics/operations/organizations evolve
• Casualty rates may increase and or decrease
• Tactics / operations / organizations mature
• Casualty rates return to historic norm
• New Technology emerges

Military Technical Revolution

• Scientific/technical advance
• Item (weapon, vehicle, comm) that exploits that advance
• Tactics, operational concept that best employs item.
• Organization that facilitates tactics/ operational concepts

Impacts of Relative MTR Position

America’s Revolutionary MTR

America had a potentially decisive advantage

• Both sides know of the technology
• Initially the US had the weapons in numbers
• US started to evolve tactics and organization
• Saratoga
• Cowpens

However, war won old fashioned way before evolution reached a decisive level.

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Civil War Casualties�Equivalent to Today's Population

1860 population 32 M - casualties 714,000

1990 population 250 M - casualties 5,500,000

Mini Ball --� Maxi Impact

Parallel Evolution

Attrition Fill or American Way of War

1917�Evolution Toward Precision

Never Again!

Never Again!

A universal reaction

• Ground Theorists
• Fuller
• Hart
• Guderian
• Air Theorists
• Douhet
• Trenchard
• Mitchell

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Revolutions In Military Affairs�Concept Driven

• Concept Pull
• Procedures that implement concept
• Organization that facilitates procedures
• Technology that enables / facilitates

The Birth of the Concept

High Altitude Daylight Precision Bombing

Procedures to Implement the Concept

• Study of America’s Industrial Web
• A new kind of Intelligence
• Independent Air Campaigns

Organization That Facilitates Those Procedures

An Independent Air Force

Enabling Technology

Enabling Technology

Discouraging Precursors

• German alternative (Blitzkrieg) works real good
• Battle of Britain demonstrates defense possible
• Early British efforts tragic comedy
• Bomb blockaded docks as Muse crossed
• Driven from day
• Germans could not determine target through plot of where bombs dropped

Early Operations Frustrating

• Early advantage squandered in small raids
• “Diversions” produce mixed results
• Contribute to “Sunny Stalingrad”
• Right idea at wrong time

Bloody Middle Period

• The thinking enemy
• Lots of radar controlled AAA
• Bomber Destroyers
• Wolf tactics
• The price
• Bloody battles
• Bloody campaign
• about 60,000 KIA for UK and US

Decisive Conclusion�Conventional View

• Divert
• Anti Aircraft Artillery (AAA) 15,000
• Ammunition 50 million rounds
• Soldiers/Airman “Hundreds of thousands
• Destroy
• 10,170 Tanks
• 14,860 Artillery

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Decisive Conclusion�Conventional View

• Devert
• Anti Aircraft Artillery (AAA) 15,000
• Ammunition 50 million rounds
• Soldiers/Airman “Hundreds of thousands
• Destroy
• 10,170 Tanks = 1/3 of production
• 14,860 Artillery

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Decisive Conclusion�New View

• Germany ran on coal
• 98% Power
• 98% RR
• Germany’s coal fields concentrated
• 2/3 Ruhr, 1/3 Silesia
• After USSR took Silesia 100% from Ruhr
• Bombing of rail yards “blockaded” coal
• Germany stopped.

Victory in The Pacific

• A-Bomb
• Victory for Airpower
• Defeat for precision
• Hansel’s lament
• A-Bomb’s long term effect on view of Airpower
• “If they had had any crude oil.”
• The A-Bomb’s other casualty - precision

Then Came Korea

• First Phase, Survive
• The lost art
• Kenny was right
• Second Phase, why bomb what your about to own
• Third Phase, Survive
• Fourth Phase, a search for answers

Then Came Korea� A Search For Answers

• Another Strangle?
• Shovels beat bombs
• Guided Weapons
• Strategic Attack?
• Dig deep
• Indirect approach
• Air Pressure
• Food
• Forward dumps

Vietnam

• Rolling Thunder
• The Bankruptcy of Precision
• Lingbacker I & II
• The New Hope
• Smart Bombs
• Smart Targeting
• Smart Planning
• The Fall of Freedom
• The price of the old method

Never Again - the 1980’s

• Denial
• War back in the War Colleges
• Toward AirLand Battle - victory without nukes
• Rise of the fighter generals + counterforce SAC
• + cheaper electronics
• “The Air Campaign”

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Trend toward smart weapons

From Evolution to Revolution

The Gulf War

An Revolution in Military Affairs?

• Concept - precision warfare
• Technique - strategic suppression through parallel attack
• Organization - Joint/Combined Air Component Commander
• Enabling technology - smart bombs, including anti-radiation missiles

The Gulf War

• Counter attack started where most wars end - the enemy’s capitol
• Enemy made deaf, dumb and blind
• “Even a B-52 is stealthy when radar is down”
• Smart bombs could be dropped above AAA
• Enemy “hollowed out”
• Estimates of 20,000 casualties never happened

The Gulf War

Evolutionary?

• Smart Bombs did evolve over time
• Inside out attack works - again
• Systems attacks work - see I told you
• Interdiction works - again
• Highway of Death - again

Revolutionary?

• The minnie ball & the PGM?
• Agincourt or Vimmy
• Russian GHQ - Franco Prussian War
• Parallel Attack
• Strategic Paralyses
• The Trend of Millennia Reversed!

The Gulf War

Are Smart Weapons the Future?

• Most bombs dropped in Balkans were smart
• Real price lower than conventional
• Price keeps coming down
• Guidance “cheaper”
• Bombs can be smaller
• CNN factor increasing the price of a miss

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Or Is Smart War What’s Needed?

The Chinese Embassy bombing shows, smart (precision) bombs are only as good as:

• Smart intelligence
• Smart campaign planning

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Future talk will argue precision is the American way of war -- and we are right!

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