In message , phil hunt
writes
On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:25:54 +0000, Paul J. Adam news@jrwlyn
ch.demon.co.uk wrote:
Getting a machine to tell a T-72 from a M1A1 from a Leclerc is hard
enough in good conditions

You don't have to. You have to be able to tell whether it's a
vehicle or not, and if it is, is it in an area likely to be occupied
by own forces.

#1 sounds easy until the enemy starts deploying decoys and disguising
targets. #2 still requires not only significant navigation, but some
noticeable amounts of real-time intelligence gathering and
communication.

_Someone_ has to reliably determine whether the 'US tanks to our front!'
message is a feint, a hasty raid or the real invasion; work out where
those tanks will be by the time the missiles arrive: and reliably get a
message back to the launch unit. This has to be reasonably proof against
deception, EW, jamming, and blunt attack.

More to the point, it rules out most resistance and makes life for
refugees short and nasty, since "general area of enemy forces" will
contain both own forces trying to fight (unless these missiles are your
only resistance) and civilians fleeing.

: doing so in the presence of camouflage,
obscurants and when the crew have run out of internal stowage (so have
hung lots of external gear) and maybe stored some spare track plates on
the glacis front ('cause they need the spare plates and they might as
well be extra armour) gets _really_ tricky. Do you err on the side of
"tank-like vehicle, kill!" or "if you're not sure don't attack"?

I'd tend to err towards the former. note that it's a lot easy to
spot a moving vehicle than a stationary one.

Own forces retreating and fleeing refugees make equally good targets. Of
course, you can implement "this way = friendly, that way = enemy" logic,
but then if the US is retreating or your own forces advancing when the
missiles arrive...

Would it not be embarrasing to have a successful armoured raid broken up
by your own missiles?

Indeed. Maybe some form of IFF?

If you can get the IFF feature robust, reliable and not compromising own
forces for under $10k per missile, let everyone know!

Key problem is that going up against the US loses you your comms and
observation

I doubt that that is true, assuming a competent comms network.

Landline telephone need landlines and exchanges, easily targeted.
Cellular telephone needs masts and repeaters, ditto. Broadcast radio is
vulnerable to jamming, eavesdropping and spoofing (or simply "bomb the
emitter".

A comms infrastructure that is robust, secure, and prompt is not easy
even for the UK or US to guarantee, let alone a Third World nation under
attack by opponent(s) with air superiority.

DR is patchy at best unless you've got good inertial guidance systems
(non-trivial). Celestial only works on clear nights

Or during daytime.

And if it's cloudy? Or can you only fight in good weather?

- so you're limited
to fighting wars after dark on cloudless nights with no flares in the
sky. LORAN is a radio broadcast and therefore not survivable against a
US-style opponent.

If you have lots of transmitters, many of which are dummy
transmitters, and many of which are only turned on for a short time,
using frequency hopping, it's rather harder to destroy the network.

You'll run out of transmitters before the US runs out of weapons. LORAN
needs _large_ transmitters and that makes it a lot easier to simply
blast everything that looks like a LORAN station.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk