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To: managusta
3.Given the above time frame the accuracy of JDAM will increase and enable the penetrator to strike a quarter from 65,000 ft.

If the rest of your observations are as accurate as this one, then they aren't even worth that quarter. There all sorts of constraints on a JDAM, some of them due to physics. GPS guided munitions will never be that accurate, and command or beam rider types probably won't either. Altitude has little to do with the accuracy of guided weapons, which is determined by end game effects.

Being a "wild eyed" optimist (so my employers have always told me), usualy involved in the development of those new weapons and/or support systems, rather than as a direct support contractor, as well as having served as a USAF officer back in the dark ages, and then as a reservist under Ronald Reagan, I think I'm probably as qualified to judge such things as you are likely to be.

Not only that, but I've seen this syndrome before, during the Carter years, and to a much lessor extent during the later part of Bush I. The cuts, which lead to a hollow force, are always justified pretty much as you have done. Yeh the new systems are good, but their numbers are way too small. It's not just a bunch of Mad Mullahs and Angry Ayatollahs we must be prepared to fight and overcome.

19 posted on 04/28/2006 10:59:50 PM PDT by El Gato
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To: El Gato
Snapshot of the Air Force

- 347,521 individuals are on active duty

-- 71,526 officers and 275,995 enlisted personnel

- The Air Force has 13,648 pilots, 4,432 navigators, 1,370 air battle managers and 35,467 non-rated line officers in the grades of lieutenant colonel and below.

- 21.5 percent of the current force is assigned overseas (including Alaska and Hawaii)

-- 10,913 officers and 63,739 enlisted personnel(Total 74,652 - That are fighting the WOT in Afghanistan and Iraq and manning all the US Air Force bases around the world.)

That leaves 272,852 personnel in the US, and the scheduled
force reduction calls for 40,000 over 5 yrs.

As for my prediction about the JDAM... development is being focused on Aided GPS...Inertial navigation and GPS,
Time of Arrival systems,Angle of Arrival systems, and Ultra wide-band technology including various combinations of all mentioned, in addition there are programs to add a terminal seeker.The JDAM is not a guided weapon but depends on free fall to steer. Current accuracy is about 3 meters.


Progress is not about accepting new ideas but about rejecting the old ones.


You need to join the old Colonel Blimps club with the likes of Ralph Peters and David Hunt where you guys can suck air through your teeth and scratch your heads and tell us how we cannot achieve,
1.Victory
2.Better weapons
3.Manpower reductions.
However, I thank you and respect you for your service.
25 posted on 04/29/2006 2:20:47 AM PDT by managusta ("Where would we be without rules? That's right France!")
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