Silflay Hraka

Smarter Smart Bombs

Iraq is claiming that the U.S. has targeted civilians in Baghdad. While I find the suggestion that the U.S. is deliberately targeting civilians to be ludicrous, I don’t find it beyond belief that some U.S. munition strayed off course and exploded in an area populated by civilians. The JDAM, for example, is designed to fall within 43 feet of its target only 50 % of the time, though actual performance may be better. The GPS these weapons use to guide them to their targets can be jammed, causing them to fall in unintended areas, coordinates can be entered wrongly, and I’m assuming that there may be other issues that cause them to go astray, such as stuck fins or something equally mundane.

Anyway, the whole debate about who blew up the market in Baghdad got me thinking. Shouldn’t there be a way to set up some kind of logic test for these bombs that determines whether they detonate or not? That way, even if they were off target, no harm done. For a JDAM, you could set up a test something like this:

Let radius = 21.5 feet
Let x coordinate = target latitude
Let y coordinate = target longitude
/*position representing lat and long (determined by GPS readings if available) of ordinance upon impact

If GPS readings not jammed
If position <= x coordinate + radius and position>= x coordinate – radius
And
If position <= y coordinate + radius and postion>= y coordinate – radius
Then
KABLOOEY
Else
DUD
End If
Else
DUD
End If

Anyway, if it were possible to use a test like this, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about who is to blame for civilian deaths. I am sure there are flaws in the logic. For one, if you enter in the wrong coordinates, there isn’t much you can do. It’ll detonate anyway, because it’ll think it’s on target. But, if GPS is being jammed, it won’t detonate, and if the true GPS readings of the ordinance’s position don’t closely match the target coordinates, it won’t detonate. It’s not perfect, but it seems like it should be possible. Raytheon, you guys think you can do something with this?

Gone Fishin’

Woundwort, Jawbreaker and I are down to the coast this weekend for a spot of testosterone. Will blog if we are inside and are sober enough to see the keys.

One of the most famous anti-war songs of all time,

No Man’s Land* – Eric Bogle

Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here dawn by your graveside,
And rest for a while heath the warm summer sun,
I’ve been worldng all day and I’m nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen,
When you joined the great fallen in nineteen sixteen,
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean,
Or young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene.

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the life lowly.
Did they sound the dead march as they lowered you down,
And did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back in nineteen sixteen,
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enclosed and forever behind the glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There’s a warm summer breeze, it makes the red poppies dance.
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There’s no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it’s still no-man’s-land.
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand,
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Now young Willie McBride I can’t help but wonder why
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
And did they believe when they answered the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrows, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying was all done in vain.
For young Willie McBride it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

The Most Famous Response – Steve Suffet**

My dear friend Eric, this is Willie McBride,
Today I speak to you across the divide
Of years and of distance, of life and of death,
Please let me speak freely with my silent breath. You might think me crazy, you might think me daft,
I could have stayed back in Erin, where there wasn’t a draft,
But my parents they raised me to tell right from wrong,
So today I shall answer what you asked in your song.

Chorus:
Yes, they beat the drum slowly, they played the pipes lowly,
And the rifles fired o’er me as they lowered me down,
The band played “The Last Post” in chorus,
And the pipes played “The Flowers of the Forest.”

Ask the people of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine,
If my life was wasted, if I died in vain.
I think they will tell you when all’s said and done,
They welcomed this boy with his tin hat and gun. And call it ironic that I was cut down,
While in Dublin my kinfolk were fighting the Crown.
But in Dublin or Flanders the cause was the same:
To resist the oppressor, whatever his name.

It wasn’t for King or for England I died,
It wasn’t for glory or the Empire’s pride.
The reason I went was both simple and clear:
To stand up for freedom did I volunteer. It’s easy for you to look back and sigh,
And pity the youth of those days long gone by,
For us who were there, we knew why we died,
And I’d do it again, says Willie McBride.

* That’s the Clancy Brothers singing, not Eric
** I cannot find an mp3 of the song at present. If I do I’ll update the post with it.

Update: Links to sound files are only temporary. If it’s gone, you were too late.

Parachutes in the Military

I am sure that someone much smarter than me has the answer to my question, but something has bothered me for a number of years in the military. When I was a small boy, my aunt would take me to Fort Bragg to see some of the military exercises of the paratroopers. I would hear terrible stories (which have also been reported in this war) about the paratroopers landing all over the place and having a number of injuries due to their jumps. These injuries would range from twisted ankles to broken legs, and that made me wonder, aren’t there better parachutes for the military personnel to use?

I realize there may be a number of reasons for it. Perhaps those parachutes work because they can hold up more weight, or they are more durable, but it would seem that it is much more difficult for the paratroopers to land near their targets, and they land so violently that it makes it dangerous for them to jump, especially in the dark. I wonder why they haven’t designed special parachutes for them so they can have more control over where they land, potentially putting them closer to the target than with the traditional parachutes, and that would seem to be beneficial. Also, if they could move and turn it would make it more difficult for them to be killed by enemy fire on the way down.

Perhaps cost is another issue, but it would seem that the benefits far outweigh the costs. Putting our troops closer to their targets, and allowing them to have softer landings would be helpful to the individuals as well as to our military as a whole. Just another observation which suggests that I have too much time on my hands.