rshu@ads.com (Richard Shu) (04/29/89)
From: Richard Shu <rshu@ads.com> :>From: ee.ecn.purdue.edu!rowland (Hellfire) :>From what I've read, shelling by big guns has a far larger psychological :>effect on a land army than bombing by TacAir. I can't really explain it :>but part of it is that you see it coming and can't do a thing about it :>while with TacAir it's quick without a chance to prepare for it. :>Maybe it makes no sense but I think I know what I'm trying to say. A different perspective is that you can see TacAir, you can guess where approximately where it's going to hit and you can try to fight back. There's even an SOP for small unit air defense using small arms (basically everybody shoots at one point in the path of the aircraft setting up a curtain of lead that the aircraft has to fly through). Against artillery, you often don't see the guns firing at you, therefore, you don't have a good idea of where the rounds are going to land (until they start landing) and you can't fight back directly (you just hope your own artillery/TacAir can provide suppression/counterbattery fires). Also, TacAir can only deliver so much ordnance before they have to go away. Protected artillery can lob lots of lead at large areas for a long period of time. TacAir is to artillery as a tornado is to a hurricane. Finally, if a CAS aircraft misses, he's got to maneuver around for another pass. Unless you're a very high value target, my guess is the environment is rich enough with targets that he'll just pick someone else. When artillery starts coming down on you, it's gonna stay on you until the enemy decides he's achieved the effect he wanted. :>Anyway the value of big guns for landing support can't be underestimated. :>Also big guns can switch targets very quickly while air strikes take time. Yup.