RE: Its Doctrine, Scouting and Tactics not Fighters

--- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Not totally true, you can have conventions that
> prohibit such things.  Just look at the whole MAD
> doctrine - no one could stop a nuclear missile, and
> the US had such weapons before the Russians, and
> yet, we didn't go ahead and slag all their military
> bases.

Actually, during the time period where the US had
nukes and the Russkies didn't, we were delivering them
by B-29.  Which are eminently interceptable.  We never
had enough to guarantee we'd wipe out the Russians
until they also had enough to seriously hurt us.

> Even today, an ICBM could theoretically carry
> conventional or kinetic kill warheads and with a CEP
> of 100 meters or less, you could hit an aircraft
> carrier in dock with a spread of 10 warheads. The
> newest American carriers are $4.5 billion a pop not
> including aircraft.  Taking the MX for example, the
> cost at time of deployment in 1986 was 70 million
> per missile, not including warheads.	Thus for a
> cost of under 100 million, you can disable or
> destroy a ship worth 45 times that.  And yet, the US
> doesn't routinely fire ICBM's at capital ships.  The
> reason is that you don't want your intentions
> mistaken for something larger - a nuclear attack,
> which would end up up with both sides slagging each
> other in minutes.

Uh. . . the USN is AFAIK the only nation operating
serious capital ships[1] other than France (1) and
Russia (I'm not sure how many of them are actually
operational).  During most of the Cold War the USN was
the only nation that operated capital ships.
 
[1]Defining capital ship as "aircraft carrier capable
of carrying a significant air wing".  Battleships et
al are currently downgraded to amphibious warfare fire
support and cruise missle launchers.

Furthermore, given a 30 minute flight time, that
carrier you're shooting at did move a significant
distance, probably at least 10-20 nautical miles. 
Your ballistic missle is not capable of in-flight
course corrections.  That's the definition of the word
"BALLISTIC."  Have some sense.

On the gripping hand, both the US, the Soviet Union,
and France designed, built, tested, and deployed
operationally a variety of nuclear weapons for
shooting at carriers, battleships, oversided missle
cruisers with delusions of Godhood (Kirov), and tiny
pointless jeep carriers (Kiev).  The Soviet Union
built a number of aircraft with the sole intent of
using them to launch overwhelming numbers of
nuclear-armed cruise missles at US carriers.  See:
Backfire.

> At one time or another various weapons were banned
> simply because people thought they were too
> atrocious or easy to use - crossbows in Medieval

Crossbows were notionally banned by Papal bull for use
against fellow Christians.  I can, however, find no
record of any one actually NOT using crossbows.  Every
major and minor principality used crossbows on a
regular basis, with the exceptions of backwater dumps
like Scotland.	Even the English supplemented their
native longbowmen with crossbow-toting mercenaries on
occasion.

> Europe, firearms in Feudal Japan, 

Firearms were banned in Feudal Japan because Tokugawa
had no desire to permit ANYONE to build a power base
and the only way to do so _quickly_ (creating a
Samurai swordsman/archer takes about 2 decades) would
have been peasant musketeers.  

dum dum or hollow
> point bullets, 

Militarily useless--they are banned because they cause
more damage than is necessary.	It doesn't hurt anyone
to give them up.

biological, chemical and nuclear
> weapons, 

Every major power has nuclear weapons and the stated
intent to use them if anyone threatens their
existence.

>and now land mines are on the table.  So

Land mine are only on the table for those nations that
weren't really planning to use them in the first
place.

> there is precedent for conventions that ban the use
> of certain tactics or weapons, despite how useful
> they are in warfare.	

You haven't mentioned a single case where a truly
useful tactic or weapon was banned.

John

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th!