Subject:
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Re: Factions (and violence)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 31 Jul 2001 18:29:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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1744 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Magnus Lauglo wrote:
> >
> > In lugnet.castle, Leonard Hoffman writes:
> >
> > > the war plane itself (be it biplane, divebomber, or stealth fighter) was built
> > > with the idea of being used to strategically bomb. the first bombing raid was
> > > done by Italy before ww1 while attacking the Turkish territory of libya. i • dont
> > > know too much about the sopwith camel specifically, but im sure it either
> > > bombed enemy troops or fired on them.
> >
> > Well believe it or not, when the Wright brothers inveted the plane, they had
> > envisioned it as something that would make war less violent, because they
> > thought that it would allow generals to spy on each other and stuff, and avoid
> > needless casualties. What could they know?
>
> Well, in some ways that's perhaps true. What were the total casualties
> in Iraq compared to other wars of comparable scope? While Iraq certainly
> reminded us of what "precision" means with respect to tossing bombs
> hundreds of miles, we certainly didn't flatten Iraq to the same extent
> as say Dresden, and we sure didn't tear up the ground as much as WWI
> did.
Yes, but WWI only tore up the ground in the immediate vicinity
of, say, Passchendaele, and that was over four years of intense,
repeated bombardment. Beyond the first 30 miles or so of the
"front," levels of destruction dropped dramatically. And WWII,
for all its destruction, is remembered so for the fire and rubble.
It's worth noting that the USAF dropped more ordnance on the Ho
Chi Minh trail between 1968 and 1970 than the Allies dumped on
Germany during the *whole* of WWII--and we all know how Vietnam
turned out.
But with Iraq, I think we seriously overstated the effect of
million-dollar weapons on their military. In the end, it was
the noise and fury that softened 'em up for the groundpounders
to go and accept the surrender of conscript troops. If we'd gone
too much further we might have found out just how useless big
money weapons can be--with the result we had, it turned into
yet more big money for Raytheon et al., instead of an Afghanistan
or Viet Nam.
> On the other hand of course, one can point out that aircraft allowed a
> dramatic expansion of the scope of war because of their capability to
> reach hundreds of miles behind the front lines.
Between aircraft and submarines, war became a constant state of
mortal fear. Really, it became very primal--WWI was all about
getting around your enemy SOMEHOW because the traditional ground
method was impossible. Thus, they sailed, they tunneled, they
flew, they spied--anything possible. Three-dimensional warfare
came of age because of exigency, not because of visionary military
leaders in peacetime. Just look at Billy Mitchell and the
treatment he received in the 1920s.
best
LFB
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Factions (and violence)
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| (...) Well, in some ways that's perhaps true. What were the total casualties in Iraq compared to other wars of comparable scope? While Iraq certainly reminded us of what "precision" means with respect to tossing bombs hundreds of miles, we certainly (...) (23 years ago, 30-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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