Re: GMS vs Infantry

This is funny....

Scott Uecker wrote:

> Los,
>	  Dear fella, you missed my entire point.  We ("I") have fired
guided
> missiles at infantry in ALL situations, in all cases effective.  When
people
> are trying to kill you, you use everything at your disposal.	If I was
> fearing potential tank attack before resupply I may not have had my
Marines
> fire a precious TOW round.  But if not, the cost of that same
"precious" TOW
> round pales in comparison to the cost of one of my Marines.
>	  Let me ask you a series of questions:
> 1) Have you personally ever used anything more explosive than a
firecracker
> or bottle rocket?
> 2) Have you ever fired any weapon more powerful than a shotgun?
> 3) Have you ever been shot at?
> 4) Have you ever shot at anyone?
> 5) Have you ever personally watched a man die?
> 6) Have you ever caused a man to die?
>

Sorry to make a fool out of you but....
1. Yes
2.Yes
3. Yes
4. Yes
5.Yes
6. Yes

Now that that silly horeshit is over....

>	  Unless you can answer yes to each of these questions, I would
ask that you
> refrain from arguing semantics with me to defend a point that is based
upon
> books and not reality.
>

My point is this, (arguably I didn't get into this detail in my last
post)  most all
AT weapons are Shaped charges. (Now granted this level of detail does
not extend into
the GMS descriptions we have in SG) Their explosive force is designed to
focus the
blast into a narrow jet to punch through a very narrow gap in order to
penetrate
something such as  armor or as you mentioned before, bunkers and
whatnot. They do not
use the explosives available to them in the most efficient manner to
cause a wide area
fragmentation such as a regular HE round. Now if you really have ever
seen TOWs fired
then you have witness if someone misses with a TOW round and it hits the
ground, often
you'll still find part of the round itself, namely the motor end intact
as the force
blows out in one direction. SO if you are going to sue a GMS whatever
against troops
in the open, (that's pretty much what we're talking about now point
targets like
troops in a bunker), then you have to make some amends to the
effectiveness of the
round in affecting an open formation of troops. Either drop
effecitivess, treat as an
IAVR or any number of solutions.

Sure you going to use any means at all to kill enemy troops. But guess
what, in any of
those situations you mention, the was no credible armor threat. Had
their been a
credible armor threat, then your judgment of wasting valuable AT rounds
on infantry
might be called into question. Of course all is scenario dependent.
There you are in
central Europe, 1970s facing the eastern horde, and you decide to snipe
some OPs with
a TOWs, what the hell is your AT section going to use when the enemy
armor show up?
Particularly in SG2 which tracks individual GMS rounds. SO anyway, I
think some amends
to effectiveness have to be made when fire a GMS outside of it's
designer parameters
unless your particular scfi-fi background states the GMS as a
multipurpose round. (i.e
It's HEAT and VT, etc etc)

Los

(23 years Army, last 14 US Army Special Forces)