Artillery is terrifying, as you say. Maj Dick Winters (WW II vet of Band of Brothers fame) once said, "God, I hate it."
Posted on 03/02/2010 12:21:35 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Ever since the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey cast doubt on the efficacy of aerial bombardment in World War II, and particularly after its failure to bring victory in the Vietnam War, air power has acquired a bad reputation. Nowadays, killing enemies from the skies is widely considered useless, while its polar opposite, counterinsurgency by nation-building, is the U.S. government's official policy. But it's not yet time to junk our planes. Air power still has a lot to offer, even in a world of scattered insurgencies.
More... Military aviation started off splendidly in 1911, when the Italians pioneered aerial bombing in Libya. But since then it has often been a great disappointment because the two overlooked conditions of success in 1911 have been absent: the barrenness of the Libyan desert, which allowed aviators to see their targets very clearly, and the total lack of an enemy air force or anti-aircraft weapons that could interfere with their attacks.
Through all the wars since, the 1911 rules have held. Aerial bombing works very well, but only if the enemy must move in open, arid terrain and has no air force or effective anti-aircraft weapons. These conditions emphatically did not apply to World War II until the very end. And Vietnam was full of trees, as well as brave men: hence the failure of tactical bombing in the south, while the strategic bombing of the north was strongly resisted and there were too few good targets anyway.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
yitbos
When you want to bring the enemy to his knees the answer is artillery. Artillery is the only way to truly deliver “shock and awe”.
^
Artillery is terrifying, as you say. Maj Dick Winters (WW II vet of Band of Brothers fame) once said, "God, I hate it."
Artillery might not be effective against fearless robot soldiers, snipers, moving mines, and flying drones.
... hence the failure of tactical bombing in the south ...
Failure? It saved us a number of times and I'm sure others were even happier to have it. Could "tactical" have been confused with "strategic"? Other than that I agree with the article’s assessment of bombing. Even our B-52s did a great job bombing Iraqi massed formations - a tactical use.
Strategic bombing wasn’t very effective in North Viet Nam, but it wasn’t seriously applied. Instead of being used to hinder the enemy’s ability to wage war it was used to “send a message”. Facilities would be bombed and destroyed. A bombing halt would be declared and damage repaired. No wonder it didn’t do much good. “The message” was clear - just hold out until we tire of it.
Some folks have never seen ARC-LIGHT bombing,,,
They can never understand what happens or how it looks...
“hence the failure of tactical bombing in the south,”
I don’t think it was a failure. True, air power alone didn’t defeat the VC and NVA, but it was never our thought or intention that it would. CAS, at least in I Corps, proved invaluable time after time to assist the grunts in achieving their objectives, or giving them respite from attack.
Prof. Luttwak doesn’t seem to consider combined arms a valid warfighting doctrine.
TC
It was awesome - I just wished we knew when it was coming but no one ever told us what was happening.
Nope. We loved Tac Air.
...or how it feels, even from miles away, either on the ground or in the air.
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