Davidch@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU (David Chowller) (06/27/91)
From: Davidch@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU (David Chowller)
I heard on PBS's program "After the War" (with Bill Moyers) that 70% of
the bombs dropped in the Gulf missed their targets. Does anyone know
where Moyers could have got this information from? Did the DoD release an
estimate of the accuracy of the bombs recently? Can anyone point me to such a
study? He also said that most of the bombs dropped in the conflict were not
precision weapons. Could this be because a high percentage of the tonnage was
dropped on the Iraqi Republican Guard and the rest of the Army, where precision
was not needed?
--
David C. Choweller (Internet:davec@csufres.csufresno.edu)
(UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!csufres!davec)
(BITNET:davec@calstate.bitnet)ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Allan Bourdius) (06/28/91)
From: Allan Bourdius <ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu> >I heard on PBS's program "After the War" (with Bill Moyers) that 70% of >the bombs dropped in the Gulf missed their targets. Does anyone know >where Moyers could have got this information from? Did the DoD release an >estimate of the accuracy of the bombs recently? Can anyone point me to such a >study? He also said that most of the bombs dropped in the conflict were not >precision weapons. Could this be because a high percentage of the tonnage was >dropped on the Iraqi Republican Guard and the rest of the Army, where precision >was not needed? Well, I suppose it depends on how you define a "miss". If your target is a building and that's what you aim for and the bomb lands 20 feet away in the street, that could be construed as a "miss" even though the bomb will most likely destroy or damage the target in some way. Allan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allan Bourdius [USMC Officer Candidate/Brother, Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity] ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu or 1069 Morewood Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 CMU is not a fun place. Stay away at all costs. The opinions in this post/mail are only those of the author, nobody else.
patterso@ADS.COM (Tim J. Patterson) (06/28/91)
From: patterso@ADS.COM (Tim J. Patterson) I would doubt that he acutauly had access to the BDA reports but just got a summary. The 70 % could come from all sorts of aritficial ways of counting. Since most of the bombs were dropped on areas rather than specific targets, clearly most of the bombs will not have hit a particular target such as a tank. I would dispute this presentation, since most of the bombs were dropped into areas and not onto specific targets, I would claim that the majority hit their target. Tim
ferguson@x102c.harris-atd.com (ferguson ct 71078) (06/29/91)
From: ferguson@x102c.harris-atd.com (ferguson ct 71078) In article <1991Jun27.013820.28408@cbnews.cb.att.com> Davidch@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU (David Chowller) writes: > >I heard on PBS's program "After the War" (with Bill Moyers) that 70% of >the bombs dropped in the Gulf missed their targets. I heard a similar statistic this week in a PBS series about Viet Nam. The show claimed that the USAF estimated that 20% of the bombs dropped in Viet Nam did not explode. Since there were more bombs dropped in VN than in all of WWII, that is a lot of unexploded hardware. The show claimed that there is a thriving cottage industry in Cambodia in finding and removing unexploded bombs. I don't remember the name of the program but it was about some VN-era photojournalist travelling down the Ho Chi Min trail. Chuck Ferguson Harris Government Information Systems Division (407) 984-6010 MS: W1/7742 PO Box 98000 Melbourne, FL 32902 Internet: ferguson@x102c.ess.harris.com Usenet: uunet!x102a!x102c!ferguson