Loren Pechtel

If the north manages to overrun the south before we got there it would be *MUCH* harder to retake the south and we might not be willing to pay the cost. Any war strategy of the north must be based on victory before we can get reinforcements there.

Loren Pechtel

The problem is their indiscriminant use by low-tech forces. There's a mine here and a mine there, not a minefield.

In Cambodia they were used as a tax. The rebels planted them and then went to the locals--pay us for the location of the mines.

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by Loren Pechtel
The real airfield denial weapons are cratering bombs.

JSP-233 throws out around 500 high explosive charges (shaped plastic charges that float down on parachutes and turn the concrete into crazy paving), 1000 mine designed to explode in a specific direction when tipped (these destroy machinery trying to repair runways such as buuldozers) and another 1000 or so anti personnel mines. There are several other types of mine which they can deploy including both biological and chemical ones (which of course under treaty we don't develop ).

I do agree stuff is scattered to make it harder to repair. However, those are on the surface--what's the big deal? Iraq shouldn't have had any difficulty cleaning them up.

Actually they didn't, they use high pressure hoses to wash away the mines from the runways and the high explosives do hardly any damage to compacted sand, you just fill the holes with sand and re-compact it. Our denial weapons were next to useless where they actually hit the target but many did not and the mines now litter farmland on either side of the airfields waiting for the haplass tractor or harvesting human to trigger them.

Anecdote time:

In 1992 (apt because it was just after Gulf War II - the first was Iran-Iraq) I attended a live fire demonstration in Warminster (an apt name for the town which is the headquarters for the British Royal Artillery Corps). For those who have never been to one these are really a sales demo for any country that might want to buy our military hardware, they invite selected civilians and military folk to make it look like they have lots of customers which is why I was there.

During the demo they very often interspersed the commentary with statements indicating that what we were witnessing was actually deployed in GWII (anyone notice the ironicness of that monicker? ) which was sort of ad speak for "this is good shit".

Amongst the amazing collection of devices designed to kill and maim our fellow humans were the automated minefield laying equipment closely followed by the automated minefield destroying equipment. Both were deployed from trailers that could be towed behind APC's, Landrovers (or Jeeps) or even Tanks (watching a Chieftain "killing" 3 fixed targets at different ranges one after the other with perfect accuracy whilst travelling at 40 MPH over rough terrain is AWESOME!), the first used rockets to deploy a large biodegradeable net with mines at the nodes over a large area (about the size of a football field) and the second deployed a "snake" of high explosives shaped like a long ladder (also rocket deployed) which would breach a mine field (the one they had just laid) and blow a wide highway straight through the middle of it.

The funny thing is that such high tech equipment pretty much makes a mockery of any supposed attempts by the UK to ban mine usage, after all who the hell would we sell this stuff to if everyone agrees not to use it?

Amen-Moses

Ab_Normal

Would conflict be decreased if the first world countries stopped selling arms to everybody else?

Do we want or need to start a separate thread for this idea? Because it's been on my mind (what little there is of it on a Friday afternoon) as I read through this thread.

Amen-Moses

Dunno. I was just pointing out the hypocrisy, what others do with it is up to them.

Amen-Moses

Coleman Smith

Loren Pechtel said, �If the north manages to overrun the south before we got there it would be *MUCH* harder to retake the south and we might not be willing to pay the cost. Any war strategy of the north must be based on victory before we can get reinforcements there.�

���������.and that we would not use Trdent.

I am rather pessimistic about the Korean situation and believe it has a high potential for going nuclear in about three minutes.

Coleman Smith

Loren Pechtel

Yes, because the warmongers would overrun everyone else. Factories and weapon design are expensive. Defense is cheaper if you can buy your guns rather than make your own.