“atomic cannon,” to shoot nuclear shells. It was just barely road-transportable.
But it was hardly out of its testing before the U.S. had a shell that could be fired from an ordinary 8-inch gun or howitzer. Then there was a still smaller atomic shell that fit the 155 mm cannons. Innumerable rockets, bombs, and shells have been designed for nuclear explosions. There are even nuclear depth charges.
One that seemed to arouse particular horror was a weapon the news media called the “neutron bomb” and the U.S. military called an “enhanced radiation device.” The neutron bomb will explode, but the explosion is, for a nuclear weapon, nothing much. What it does is project massive amounts of neutron rays that would kill everyone and everything in an area while leaving buildings, vehicles, and all man-made property unscathed and uncontaminated with radiation. It was probably this single effect — killing without destroying property — that led the public to view the neutron bomb with such horror.
None of these weapons have ever been used, and everyone in the world devoutly hopes that they never will be. One reason is that even use of the small “tactical” nuclear weapons might induce an enemy to respond with something bigger, like an ICBM. The other is the largely unknown danger of the fallout from a number of tactical nukes.
Although they have been used only twice in history, nuclear weapons have decisively influenced both warfare and all international relations.
Chapter 50
High Tech and Low: The Future of Warfare?
In 2003, U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq with an array of weapons that the troops of World War II would have considered miraculous. There were planes that couldn’t be seen, even with radar; bombs that could see a dot of laser light and steer themselves into it; and bombs that could fly hundreds of miles without a pilot and — more amazing — land right on the building they were aimed at. There were planes that needed no pilots and could send television pictures of what a pilot would have seen, making themselves the eyes of people in a headquarters hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. Those Remotely Piloted Vehicles, or “drones,” could act as well as see. One of them in Yemen identified a terrorist suspect and killed him with a rocket.
Individual grunts in Iraq could see in the dark, using night vision goggles that enormously amplify any ambient light. Thermal imaging equipment let them see would-be ambushers from inside tanks and other vehicles in the darkest dark. Sensors picking up vibrations in the ground let them locate any enemy attempting to sneak up on an encampment.
There are a host of guided antitank missiles — some guided by wire or fiber optic, others that fly towards reflected laser light. One type has its own laser in its nose that searches an area of 328 square yards for a tank, locates it, and steers toward it. This particular system, the British MERLIN, is not a rocket, but a mortar shell. Most of the wire-guided missiles merely require the operator to keep the target in his sights: the missile automatically steers itself into the target. Others, though, once fixed on the target, follow it like a bloodhound while the operator takes cover. One rocket, the Swedish BILL system, flies above a tank and dives into the vehicle’s thin top armor at the appropriate time.
The American Javelin does that, too. The javelin is carried and fired by one man, and it’s a “shoot and scoot” type. The operator puts the tank in his sights, fires the rocket and the missile does the rest, following the tank if it tries to take evasive action. Then there’s the French antitank weapon that picks a target and fires itself. It’s really a modern version of the “trap guns” that 18th-century landowners used to discourage poachers. The weapon is set up to cover a gap in a minefield, a bridge, or some other key point. When a vehicle of the proper bulk enters the space being covered, it fires an antitank rocket.
Antitank weapons do not rely entirely on the shaped charge, which has been made less effective by laminated armor. The ancient solid shot is back, but with improvements. There’s discarding sabot shot: a dart- shaped piece of very sharp depleted uranium (DU) that is much smaller than the bore of the gun that shoots it. It is encased in a “sabot” of the proper diameter for the gun. The shot, therefore is much lighter than a regular shell of the proper diameter.
Because it is so light, it leaves the gun with a terrific muzzle velocity. As soon as it leaves the muzzle, the sabot drops off so wind resistance does not hinder the flight of the DU shot. In some versions, the sabot, traveling through a rifled barrel, imparts its stabilizing spin to the shot. In others, fired from smoothbore guns that also fire shaped charge shells, the shot is fin-stabilized. Depleted uranium, the metal American solid shot is made of, is harder than tungsten and so heavy a piece the size of a golf ball weighs 2 pounds. When it strikes something hard, it throws off extremely hot sparks that have an incendiary effect.
The Coalition forces have, as we’ve seen (see Chapter 40) several types of improved armor for tanks and other vehicles. In the Iraq War, the troops themselves have vastly improved body armor — what the news media erroneously call “flak jackets.” Flak jackets were worn by flight crews in World War II. As the name indicates, the jackets — fabric covering metal plates — were designed to protect the wearer from antiaircraft shell fragments. “Flak” is an abbreviation of Fliegerabwehrkanone, German for “antiaircraft gun.” Flak jackets would stop shell fragments but not bullets. In the latter part of the Korean War, infantry got armor jackets. These were made of nylon and were lighter than the aircrew armor. They would stop shell fragments and bullets from a .45 caliber pistol, but they wouldn’t stop bullets from an M 1 carbine or any more powerful rifle — and all other military rifles were more powerful. The new armor will stop bullets from the AK 47 and its modifications — the universal weapon of the Iraqi guerrillas.
Stopping enemy fire is good. Becoming invisible to the enemy is even better. “Stealth” fighters and bombers are designed to present a minimum profile to enemy radar and are covered with material that greatly reduces radar reflec-tion. In the Gulf War of 1991, some U.S. planes carried radar jamming equipment, forcing the Iraqi radar operators to turn their radars up to full power.
That made it easy for other planes to release radar homing missiles from a considerable distance. The missiles then rode down the radar beams and destroyed the radars. In the Gulf War, in spite of all the television footage showing missiles flying into buildings, only about 7 percent of the munitions were “smart” weapons. In the Iraq War, about 70 percent were. Ordinary aerial bombs — the archetypical dumb weapons — became smart by adding a global satellite positioning navigation device and connecting it with movable tail fins.
Some planes, notably the British Harriers, are able to take off straight up and land almost straight down by using movable jet nozzles. Helicopters, of course could always do that, and in the Iraq War there were more and bigger helicopters than ever. One division in that war, the 101st Airborne, is built around helicopters. Parachutes in the 101st had gone the way of gliders. Helicopters carried the 101st troopers, artillery, and vehicles. They fought enemy tanks, destroyed enemy artillery, and strafed enemy infantry. The helicopters carried standard machine guns, the variable-rate chain guns, modern Gatling guns, automatic cannons, and rockets. Helicopter pilots have an aiming device built into their helmets: they can train their weapons on a target just by looking at it.
In the Iraq War, the Iraqis had neither planes nor helicopters, but Coalition forces had antiaircraft guns ranging from the shoulder-fired Stinger to rockets that could knock down enemy aircraft scores of miles away.
The formal part of the Iraq War was over in three weeks. The American forces, which made up the overwhelming majority of the Coalition troops and did by far most of the fighting, lost only 122 troops. The formal war was followed by the guerrilla war. Because of that, as this book went to press American losses approached 1,400.
That calls for a look at “dumb” weapons — the kind guerrillas use.
In 1962, a young officer serving as an adviser to Vietnamese troops stepped on a punji stick smeared with excrement. The sharpened bamboo spike penetrated the sole of his boot and passed entirely through his foot and the instep of the boot. As a result, Captain Colin L. Powell was laid up quite a while in an army hospital. Some men who had the same experience died of the infection incurred.
The punji stick was a favorite improvised weapon of the guerrillas in Vietnam. Some were placed behind trip
