Post by Dave Homewood on Jan 27, 2024 21:49:33 GMT 12
From The Press, 25th of October 1975.
Science fiction warfare
(By NEIL ROSS)
LONDON.
Startling year-2000 predictions that advances in electronics have revolutionised the nature of warfare are being made by scientists and military experts. Discoveries made on the battlefields of Vietnam and the Middle East have prompted American and Russian military scientists to embark on huge research and development programmes.
Modern warfare already depends heavily on electronics: for navigation, for radars to locate missiles and for guiding vehicles, for sonars to detect submarines, for lasers to guide bombs towards their targets. But such progress is being made in electronics that visions of future battlefields being dominated by robot warplanes, high powered laser death rays, armed space satellites and precision munitions are said to be rapidly approaching reality.
The armouries of the world’s superpowers, already stockpiled with nuclear bombs, are being flooded with new, futuristic weaponry.
The almost complete attention given to developments in strategic nuclear weapons systems has tended to obscure the fact that profound changes are being made in conventional weapons. But questions are now beginning to be asked.
Advances were so rapid that the public was hard put to keep abreast of developments in the field, even superficially. New weapon systems are emerging not because of a specific military requirement but because of the sheer momentum of the process.
The new electronic warfare falls into broad areas: weapons used in actual conflict, whether defensive or attacking, and defence-associated systems of electronic intelligence-gathering.
The laser death-ray, that weapon beloved of science-fiction, will probably be in use by the end of the 1970s.
United States spending on the laser ray weapon rose to over $100m this year and the Defence Department’s aim is to have a prototype by 1978.
Robot planes
The air weapon of the future will almost certainly be the RVP, or remotely piloted vehicle. It has become possible to build into these robot planes very advanced guidance systems, cameras and electronic intelligence devices.
The plane is radio-controlled by a pilot who sits in a safe seat on the ground, far away from the firing. But what has made RVPs so important for future wars is the parallel development of precision guided munitions (PGMs) where electronics are used to guide the bomb or shell on to the target.
Rapid advances have also been made in underwater acoustics. It now seems plausible to make the oceans acoustically transparent, revealing the whereabouts of all submarines.
Test centres
Among other projects nearing completion in secret American and Russian test centres is the astonishing development of over-the-horizon radar for ships, long range cruise missiles (200 km or more) with midcourse guidance, and laser-guided artillery shells (a 155 mm shell is being tested).
During the Vietnam war the military realised that electronics would revolutionise battles. Robert McNamara, the United States Secretary of State for Defence was persuaded that sophisticated electronics in the battlefields might bring the war to an early close. In battle, the Vietnamese were able to remain hidden for long periods under the canopy of the jungle.
No amount of scanning from the air could reveal the presence or movement of the opposition, so the electronic battlefield — code named Igloo White — was developed.
Sensors placed
Igloo White involved seeding the jungle with sensors which sent information via relay aircraft to a central computer bank. Analysis of the data was used to control gunships and other means of attacking the hidden opposition.
A vision of the battlefield of the future was given by General William Westmoreland, the then United States Chief of Staff, in an address to the United States Army Association in 1969. He said: “On the battlefield of the future, enemy forces will be located, trapped and targeted almost instantaneously through the use of data links, computer-assisted intelligence evaluation and automatic fire control.
"With the first round kill probabilities approaching certainty, and surveillance devices that can continually track the enemy, the need for large forces to fix opposition physically will be less important, With co-operative effort, no more than 10 years should separate us from the automated battlefield.”
Science fiction warfare
(By NEIL ROSS)
LONDON.
Startling year-2000 predictions that advances in electronics have revolutionised the nature of warfare are being made by scientists and military experts. Discoveries made on the battlefields of Vietnam and the Middle East have prompted American and Russian military scientists to embark on huge research and development programmes.
Modern warfare already depends heavily on electronics: for navigation, for radars to locate missiles and for guiding vehicles, for sonars to detect submarines, for lasers to guide bombs towards their targets. But such progress is being made in electronics that visions of future battlefields being dominated by robot warplanes, high powered laser death rays, armed space satellites and precision munitions are said to be rapidly approaching reality.
The armouries of the world’s superpowers, already stockpiled with nuclear bombs, are being flooded with new, futuristic weaponry.
The almost complete attention given to developments in strategic nuclear weapons systems has tended to obscure the fact that profound changes are being made in conventional weapons. But questions are now beginning to be asked.
Advances were so rapid that the public was hard put to keep abreast of developments in the field, even superficially. New weapon systems are emerging not because of a specific military requirement but because of the sheer momentum of the process.
The new electronic warfare falls into broad areas: weapons used in actual conflict, whether defensive or attacking, and defence-associated systems of electronic intelligence-gathering.
The laser death-ray, that weapon beloved of science-fiction, will probably be in use by the end of the 1970s.
United States spending on the laser ray weapon rose to over $100m this year and the Defence Department’s aim is to have a prototype by 1978.
Robot planes
The air weapon of the future will almost certainly be the RVP, or remotely piloted vehicle. It has become possible to build into these robot planes very advanced guidance systems, cameras and electronic intelligence devices.
The plane is radio-controlled by a pilot who sits in a safe seat on the ground, far away from the firing. But what has made RVPs so important for future wars is the parallel development of precision guided munitions (PGMs) where electronics are used to guide the bomb or shell on to the target.
Rapid advances have also been made in underwater acoustics. It now seems plausible to make the oceans acoustically transparent, revealing the whereabouts of all submarines.
Test centres
Among other projects nearing completion in secret American and Russian test centres is the astonishing development of over-the-horizon radar for ships, long range cruise missiles (200 km or more) with midcourse guidance, and laser-guided artillery shells (a 155 mm shell is being tested).
During the Vietnam war the military realised that electronics would revolutionise battles. Robert McNamara, the United States Secretary of State for Defence was persuaded that sophisticated electronics in the battlefields might bring the war to an early close. In battle, the Vietnamese were able to remain hidden for long periods under the canopy of the jungle.
No amount of scanning from the air could reveal the presence or movement of the opposition, so the electronic battlefield — code named Igloo White — was developed.
Sensors placed
Igloo White involved seeding the jungle with sensors which sent information via relay aircraft to a central computer bank. Analysis of the data was used to control gunships and other means of attacking the hidden opposition.
A vision of the battlefield of the future was given by General William Westmoreland, the then United States Chief of Staff, in an address to the United States Army Association in 1969. He said: “On the battlefield of the future, enemy forces will be located, trapped and targeted almost instantaneously through the use of data links, computer-assisted intelligence evaluation and automatic fire control.
"With the first round kill probabilities approaching certainty, and surveillance devices that can continually track the enemy, the need for large forces to fix opposition physically will be less important, With co-operative effort, no more than 10 years should separate us from the automated battlefield.”
