The Drone Pilot next door
Bombardier
day he sits at a compiuter in Nevada and attacks taret in...well a
long way away in a war zone.He has a lot of interesting stories to
tell. I invited him to join us on RAM but got a very polite refusal.
But when he found out I bombed Germany in a B-26 with a Nordern
bombsight he had a zillion questions. But he pointed out that I could
never acheive the high accuracy that he can today. He said he could
attack a single house and on demand just blow off the door lock and
never miss. Wow. I was very impressed. But I pointed out politely that
you couldn't destroy Berlin one doorknob at a time. He allowed that I
did have a point there. I'll keep working on him to join us on RAM I
might change his mind.
Art Kramer
344 BG 494 BS
England France Belgium Italy Holland Germany
www.tinyurl.com/artkramer
Willie the Wolf Bombardier
David E. Powell
Good luck, it would be a new perspective on a lot of things here,
though there is the issue of how much he could say about what he is
doing....
John Szalay
61b08f...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
> He moved in about a month ago with his wife and two sweet kids. Every
> day he sits at a compiuter in Nevada and attacks taret in...well a
> long way away in a war zone.He has a lot of interesting stories to
> tell. I invited him to join us on RAM but got a very polite refusal.
> But when he found out I bombed Germany in a B-26 with a Nordern
> bombsight he had a zillion questions. But he pointed out that I could
> never acheive the high accuracy that he can today. He said he could
> attack a single house and on demand just blow off the door lock and
> never miss. Wow. I was very impressed. But I pointed out politely that
> you couldn't destroy Berlin one doorknob at a time.
> Art Kramer
>
FWIW:
Normaly I see the media as a bunch of fools, however once in a while
they produce something of substance..
60 Minutes, among others have done segments on the program recently.
13 minute segment rather good..
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5004882n
older but still informative
guy
> Willie the Wolf Bombardier
Hmm interesitng, get him in here by all means.
The fundemental difference though is that if he gets it wrong he
costs the tax payer X.
If you and your crew had got it wrong you would, bluntly, have been
dead. (thank God you got it right)
Guy
Bombardier
>
> - Show quoted text -
Always be gratefull for little favors
Art Kramer
344 BG 494 BS
Bombardier
>
> - Show quoted text -
I am sure he would be discreet.He is that kind of a guy. and he is
really smart.
Art Kramer
344 BG 494 BS
Ian B MacLure
61b08f...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
> He moved in about a month ago with his wife and two sweet kids. Every
> day he sits at a compiuter in Nevada and attacks taret in...well a
> long way away in a war zone.He has a lot of interesting stories to
> tell. I invited him to join us on RAM but got a very polite refusal.
> But when he found out I bombed Germany in a B-26 with a Nordern
> bombsight he had a zillion questions. But he pointed out that I could
> never acheive the high accuracy that he can today. He said he could
> attack a single house and on demand just blow off the door lock and
> never miss. Wow. I was very impressed. But I pointed out politely that
> you couldn't destroy Berlin one doorknob at a time. He allowed that I
> did have a point there. I'll keep working on him to join us on RAM I
> might change his mind.
Had your acquaintance been up on his history he would have realized
that your response was mired in the past. Had PGM's been available
to the Allies in WWII then the mass raids on ball bearing plants and
other high value targets would have been unecessary. Being able to
take out key parts of your enemy's infrastructure would have
shortened the war considerably.
Ask any Vietnam era mud-mover how having things like JDAM would
have made their lives much easier. They could probably have dropped
the bridges that were the bane of many pilots existence on the first
go round.
IBM
Bombardier
> Bombardier <artkr...@aol.com> wrote in news:d5cf056c-c7f0-4020-b25d-
> 61b08f22d...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com:
Of course my response was from the past. I am an 84 year old WW II
vet.. You are shedding light on the obvious.
Ad absurdum per aspera
weapons might not have made a difference in WW2 unless available in
WW2 amounts. What a few or even a few dozen drones with a few
Hellfire missiles aplece would have accomplished at Kursk is an
excellent question (what they might have accomplished at Midway is
quite another!)
Most of the problems they had to solve were inherently extensive as
well as intensive. And not only were there more than one of most
enemy assets, but a lot of things didn't stay bombed unless there was
an effective followup raid fairly soon -- one of the problems after
Schweinfurt, no?
If implemented with WW2 technology they might also not have worked
very well. Both sides tried various PGMs, specifically including
drones and glide bombs, but my (mis)understanding is that it almost
but not quite worked out well.
If you got one working you'd want to concentrate them on high value
targets and make the most of the element of surprise -- presumably
they'd be controlled with simple radio in those days, which the enemy
would figure out how to jam before long. (Practical spread-spectrum,
like error-checking digital datacomm, microprocessors and even
transistors, comsats and the means to launch them, and lasers, was
embryonic.)
--Joe
David E. Powell
Homing torpedoes were also tried with varying degrees of success. US
antisubmarine ones were a sign of things to come.
In a lot of cases, scientiests and miitary people had the ideas, but
the technnology to try and make them reality was in very early
stages.
There were radio guided bombs in WW2 used by the Axis in the
Mediterranean and some highly classified Allied techniques to jam
them.
Most of WW2 was fought by people like Art flying over a target, using
the bomb sight while optically aimed guns fired up at him. That's what
they had and they produced it. Arguably the Allies didn't produce some
more futuristic designs because the production lines were already
turning out great aircraft in 1944 and 1945, with schools and front
line units turning out people very skilled at using them. As that was
so effective, upgrades and the like of existing planes and gear were
the main focus.
Ditto even in Germany where planes like the Bf-109 and FW-190 were
upgraded and produced through the course of the war.
Ian B MacLure
5ea36b...@y9g2000yqg.googlegroups.com:
[snip]
> Of course my response was from the past. I am an 84 year old WW II
> vet.. You are shedding light on the obvious.
The most obvious point is that was then, this is now, a distinction
I'm not certain you have grasped.
IBM
Bombardier
> Bombardier <artkr...@aol.com> wrote in news:c7036114-2606-40e5-b4ad-
> 5ea36bc13...@y9g2000yqg.googlegroups.com:
>
> � � � � [snip]
>
> > Of course my response was from the past. I am an 84 year old WW II
> > vet.. You are shedding light on the obvious.
>
> � � � � The most obvious point is that was then, this is now, a distinction
> � � � � I'm not certain you have grasped.
>
> � � � � IBM
Brilliant. That is the sort of stuff that makes America great.
Paul J. Adam
> It is interesting, though, how many contemporary high technology
> weapons might not have made a difference in WW2 unless available in
> WW2 amounts. What a few or even a few dozen drones with a few
> Hellfire missiles aplece would have accomplished at Kursk is an
> excellent question (what they might have accomplished at Midway is
> quite another!)
It's easy to underestimate the scale of fighting back then. Given that
there were something over five thousand tanks involved at Kursk, a
hundred or so knocked out by UAV-launched Hellfires isn't likely to
radically change the outcome.
> If implemented with WW2 technology they might also not have worked
> very well. Both sides tried various PGMs, specifically including
> drones and glide bombs, but my (mis)understanding is that it almost
> but not quite worked out well.
> If you got one working you'd want to concentrate them on high value
> targets and make the most of the element of surprise -- presumably
> they'd be controlled with simple radio in those days, which the enemy
> would figure out how to jam before long. (Practical spread-spectrum,
> like error-checking digital datacomm, microprocessors and even
> transistors, comsats and the means to launch them, and lasers, was
> embryonic.)
The Germans had some success with guided bombs (Hs293 - okay, that was
powered - and Fritz-X) but jamming the control frequencies and shooting
the control aircraft while it flew a constrained course to guide the
weapon were both very effective countermeasures. The US got the Bat
anti-ship guided bomb into service but by 1945 were severely short of
targets, which also meant less chance to use it and debug it.
Both sides developed homing torpedoes with useful results.
(Unfortunately, the German homing torpedoes got their users an awkward
problem: the speed band that made an ASW escort least vulnerable, was
also the best speed for using the new and extremely lethal Squid
anti-submarine mortar... previously, captains had preferred higher
speeds which degraded its performance, and now slowing down to avoid
German Zaunkoenigs meant they got even better results from their own
sensors and weapons)
--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.