WAR TECHNOLOGY -- BOWS VS. LASERS 

The war in the Persian Gulf wasn't between the Allied Coalition and Iraq but between antiquated military technology and the technology of the new age. This is probably the first time there has been so devastating a difference since that day, not so long ago, when men with bows and arrows first faced men with rifles. Both of these historic events were unfair contests. Today technology has the power to change whole game plans, to alter the rules and to up or downgrade the players.

In war, as in business, those with the best information usually win. The best information provides the best instruments of war. In fact the Coalition/Iraq war was not dissimilar to the North America "business war" with Japan and other Asian countries. One side gathers more information and utilizes it in a more superior fashion while on the other side, in the board rooms of the major national companies, still stuck in obsolete information gathering and dissemination techniques, wonders what has hit them. Isn't it interesting that the U.S. spends well over half its national R&D budget for the military and wins. Japan spends more than half its R&D budget for the civilian consumer market and wins. So the results are not surprising.

Communications won this war because the Coalition knew what was going on. Iraq at times didn't even know where the war was!

As with any product the most advanced technology (as pointed out by author and visionary, Arthur C. Clarke -- the movie 2001, 2010, and more than 50 books) is indistinguishable from magic. The Iraqis, in many cases, also didn't even know what hit them. They should have phoned Detroit. GM, Ford and Chrysler know how it feels.

The first time I knew the Allies would win quickly was when I studied their new use of radar reflection as a direct missile highway to the enemy's radar base. Here's the way it works. The U.S. sends out slow fighters they want to get picked up by radar. This plane is detected by Iraqi radar at the radar's maximum effective distance. The slow fighter turns away, but immediately behind him filling his radar slot, follows a faster, more sophisticated fighter whose instrumentation knows when they are locked into enemy's radar. The enemy thinks it is playing with an older plane and may not notice the profile has changed slightly (Much like what happened when Korean Airlines Flight #007 was shot down by the U.S.S.R., over the Kurile Islands a few years ago when the airliner replaced a U.S. tanker plane with a similar profile, on the Russian radar screens).

The new age fighter then fires its missiles that track the returning radar signal back to the source of emission thus blowing up the radar site that originated the initial sighting. Each radar site can only do this once. After other radar bases hear the results operating staff become reluctant to even try it. This, to my knowledge, is the first time this particular technique has been used since radar was perfected. Futurist Arthur C. Clarke was involved in developing original radar during World War II. Besides the heavy air bombardment, supported by the largest floating guns in any world navy, the Allies were able to use portions of the electromagnetic spectrum to do what again what has never been done before in wartime: see beneath the desert. During the early days of the war, when temperatures were cool and even cold (as one who visited the Sahara earlier this year I can confirm near-freezing desert temperatures at night). During these cold temperatures the buried Iraqi tanks and crews could remain relatively well hidden from normal human vision.

However, as desert daytime temperatures heated up mid-to-late February something else started to happen. Strong daytime sun rays penetrated the sand down to the buried tanks which absorbed the sun's infrared rays. As the desert surface cooled rapidly in the evening, infrared detectors (from both satellite and patrolling aircraft) showed a distinct outline of radiating infrared waves sent back from the warmed up tanks. The picture is extremely clear. Bombing aircraft were able to fly over, or even direct from a distance, a whole battery of military equipment that pinpointed the underground outline of these tanks and dropped their military missiles to make almost assured direct hits on the tanks and troops at that location. Tank commanders had limited choice. They could stay and get bombed while underground or they could come out and be strafed on the surface by pilots who could clearly see them but which they could not see, although they certainly could hear them overhead. In such chaotic situations death comes on swift wings.

The Coalition Forces, mainly the U.S. Stealth bombers, still didn't use all their tricks. Two squadrons of Stealth aircraft flying at mach II or III over Bagdad could have levelled the city without firing a shot or dropping one bomb - just by the concentrated shock waves created by their supersonic speed. It would have been the modern version of Joshua, and Gabriel with his horn - both of whose biblical characters carry big weight in the Moslem Koran. The same bombers could have diverted the Tigris and Euphratea rivers causing considerable chaos along the downstream route. U.S. satellites can provide considerable topographical information - in effect telling them how to move rivers - and much more. DARPA (Defense Army Research Projects Agency) is the U.S. military research agency that has been working on this, and many other military projects. They are largely responsible for the development of various techniques and equipment used in the Gulf War. DARPA is still open for business because one day's laser beams are tomorrow's arrows. Just as I was finishing this column another strange report flowed in via satellite from an electronic magazine. The Bagdad TV and radio stations went off the air an hour prior to the Coalition dropping the first bomb? Sounds like the Coalition used EMP, dispatched an Electro Magnetic Pulse to "fry" the electronic innards of the Bagdad TV station and prevent it from sending out any information seconds after the "new" game commenced.

More information: Victor H. Rice, Deputy Director, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) 1400 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22204-2308. Phone: 202/694-5469.

* * *

< previous | chapter index | next >
back to Main Chapter Listing
back to Home Page