[sci.military] How do you define "successful"

wade@gouda.ucs.ubc.ca (Doug Wade) (02/21/91)

From: wade@gouda.ucs.ubc.ca (Doug Wade)
Excerpted from the Feb 19th Globe and Mail:
 
....." The US Navy originally said that 95% of the cuise missles have been on
target ... It later emerge that the number referred only to the proportion of
missles that left the launcher without being stuck." said Dr Arnett who is
affiliated with the AAASP Program on Science, Arms Control.
The successful cuise numbers were subsequently reduced to 85% of those launched.
However success was defined not by targets hit but by the fact that "they had
flown over the horizon", he said. 
 
Seems to me to be kind of a "loose" definition of "successful"