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WAR - 21st Century Style
By Jim "Twitch" TittleArticle Type: Real Military
Article Date: April 06, 2001
Gone are the one thousand plane raids on enemy strongholds. No longer will five hundred fighters duel in the skies above a target. Huge fleets no longer ply the oceans while hundreds of submarines lurk beneath. Million man armies are history. Onslaughts of armor are memories. With the passing of these military operations of epic proportion is the modern battlefield that different?
Hordes of scrapped B-52s
Do More With Less
About one hundred Rockwell B-1s were built. Perhaps there are but thirty Northrup B-2s. Something less than a hundred aging Boeing B-52s still fly. Three to four thousand F-16s exist. A few hundred F-14s are around. A total of about 1,200 F-18s have been contracted. And I estimate around a thousand excellent F-15s are ready to rumble. The quantities are estimates only for it is not known at any given time how many of the number built are serviceable or still "on the books" of the various military services.
There are a fair number of combat aircraft of all types in service including transports, ASW, and "niche craft" with special roles, but nothing like the vast quantities seen in WWII. This does not mean we are spread thin.
Today's aircraft are more multi-role than ever before. One type can serve, perhaps three roles with a military branch. An F-18A/C can be used as a fighter and attack plane while the "B" can load up to 15,000 lbs. of ordnance in close support jobs and the "D" can serve as a recon ship carrying the proper optics. WWII saw fighters doing the same things.
Today the cost per aircraft is immense compared to the $100,000 fighter and $500,000 bomber of 1943. The armed services need to get their money's worth when they spend tens of millions of dollars per plane. An aircraft that can change configurations is better than its WWII counterpart.
Back Then...
Where a TBF Avenger could do little to mix it up with the enemy after dropping its bombs or torpedo an F-18B can deploy its ordnance and take on enemy fighters, if the need arises, and make a good showing of itself. While the TBF and the F-18 both have but one forward firing gun, the 20mm Vulcan is worlds apart from the Browning .50.
Gigantic quantities of bombers dropping unguided, iron bombs often took several visits to a target until recon deemed it satisfactorily neutralized. Today a handful of fighter-bombers can accomplish the same end with guided ordnance. Where strategic bombers are needed is in conflicts where bases are distant from the objective and a larger area or target demands more tonnage of even "smart weapons."
Just Need A Few
Yesterday's B-17 tonnage can be matched by a tactical-strike craft like the F-117 of today and with the relative risk of one pilot in place of ten crewmen. When huge tonnage is required the B-2 can carry 50,000 lbs of ordnance—the same as the B-52. The B-1 can tote 75,000 lbs. The short-lived B-58 Hustler was designed to deliver nuclear weapons in its needle-nosed pod but could carry conventional bombs at Mach 2. Panavia's Tornado can do the same job at the same speed but the nuke could be 500-kilotons.
This may seemingly point to the fact that we do not need strategic bombers. But indeed, the Gulf War reinforced the fact that a ship like the B-52 was quite handy in carpet-bombing which no group of fighter-bombers could match. The annihilation of the Iraqi infantry forces was hastened by the behemoths laying patches of total destruction of 1/2 mile long by several hundred meters wide. This from each aircraft.
Now
Naval forces have consolidated their variety of ships and, of course, aircraft. A missile cruiser has more destructive force than a WWII battleship did. New naval vessels are launched quite seldom compared to the frenzied production of WWII.
Quantity Not Quality
M-4 Shermans and T-34s spilled off the assembly lines like cookies during the war. They needed superior quantity since the quality was no match for German armor. Today the M-1 is the new Tiger I tank able to engage multiple targets day or night at very long ranges that Tiger commanders only dreamed of. Armor has evolved into a weapon of surgical precision as well. Tanks usually have a one-shot one-kill event at distances greater than their enemy can engage them with the technology of today.
The AH-64 Apache
Rotary wing combat craft have changed the face of war with their hover ability and flying tactics unknown until Vietnam. They too are loaded with technology and are very precise in their interdictions. The 30mm chain gun carries 1,200 rounds and its sixteen Hellfire guided missiles or seventy-six 70mm unguided rockets can wreak more devastation than a squadron of WWII ground-attack planes could. The black boxes allow the ship to fly at night at high speed in NOE (nap-of-the-earth) mode to pop up and strike the enemy.
Even the infantryman will soon be using "smart weapons." He will carry a virtual weapons system capable of seeing in thermal, night vision and distance modes. His weapon's info system can relay data to command instantly for real-time reconnaissance and immediate strategy modifications as directed by command. Gone are the days when all types of navigation, land, sea and air, was mostly dead reckoning. Even the grunt will now have a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) nav system in his gear. Satellite in recon have dramatically improved since their early days due to continual optical improvements and especially computer enhancement.
Modern Paratrooper
But with all the techo-weaponry, people will be doing the same basic things in the field that their WWII counterparts did. The grunt will still be in harm's way getting cold, wet and dirty, sweating, and being scared. Seamen will still be under threat of attack by submarines and aircraft. Tankers will still be vulnerable to ever-increasing numbers of AT weapons; many being inexpensive TOW style launchers in the hands of enemy infantry units. In the sky above, pilots will have to fend off smarter SAMs and guided AAA even if they meet less aerial opposition.
All military forces will have the ability of one shot one kill. This means that they will be exposed to the enemy in less real time overall. Certainly there will be exceptions, but as a Marine Recon going out for two week forays into enemy territory my comrades and I were always ready to get back even if to a crummy forward fire base. Seeing what's going on in enemy-held areas, working up a strategy and carrying it out will involve less folks in the hot zones at any given time.
USS Nimitz-Core of the Fleet
The main question remains "is the modern battlefield that different from those of WWII?" I feel the answer is mostly "yes!" but partly "no." People in combat still go through the same feelings, reactions, and emotions as they always have. Going into a hot spot today continues to have the possibile percentage of injury or death no matter how much technology is behind you. The percentages are greatly reduced though.
The U.S and its Allies have no desire to get into prolonged sieges and don't have to. We are seeing "get-in-and-get-out" scenarios all the time. A squad can now recon with better info harvesting abilities than a company could in WWII. A small battle group surrounding one aircraft carrier is usually sufficient presence in a battle area. Armor can ingress with fewer vehicles and succeed so those epic tank battles are memory. Combat aviation exposes a pair of fighters where a squadron was deployed in WWII.
Does It Exist?
The Future
Does the mysterious Mach 6, 100,000-foot plus ceiling Aurora replacement to the SR-71 exist? It may have been clandestinely flying since the 80's from fabled Groom Lake where the SR-71s were based in the 60's.
All this doesn't mean that casualties will cease. People will still be killed and wounded but the total numbers will be dramatically reduced as we saw in the Gulf War.
On the horizon are remotely-piloted vehicles of all kinds in design and in testing. RPV recon aircraft have been around a long time and smaller examples were used in the Gulf. Other vehicles have been envisioned in the robot role but so far A.I. has yet to beat human eyes and brains in the field. The day when sci-fi battle-bots detach human presence from war is a long way off. It is interesting to imagine that, some day in the future, conflicts may be solved by governments' top dogs playing a futuristic, virtual version of Nintendo. Perhaps in the next century.
Bibliography:
Batchelor, John H.
Tank
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970
Green, William
“The World Guide to Combat Planes Vol. 2”
Doubleday & Co., N.Y. 1967
Gunston, Bill
The Encyclopedia of Modern Warplanes
Aerospace Publishing Limited, London, 1995
Heppenheimer, T.A.
“Revealed! Mach 5 Spy Plane”
Popular Science, Nov. 1988
Popular Science N.Y.
Weeks, John
Assault From the Sky
G.P. Putman's Sons N.Y., 1978
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