Hey moron, try READING WHAT THE FUCK I SAID before you get all high and mighty. I did NOT claim that the US was using general bombardment. I did NOT claim that they are shooting randomly.Knife wrote:
They're not using supression fire you dope. They're firing on known enemy strongholds and positions. Its not like the US military is shooting randomly hoping to get the badguys to shoot back!
WHAT I SAID was that 155mm arty, even from a gun as accurate as a Palladian is a grossly unsuited weapon to use in this kind of environment. The area where the insurgents are making their stand is EXTREEMLY dense urban of relatively weak construction. The US might mark one building for attack (not that I especially trust the ability of US gunships to easily determine what is hostile and what is not frankly, given the US record of friendly fire the LAST time they tried this in this city) but its incredibly easy for the explosion to blast multiple buildings in the area even WITH a direct hit.
Firstly its often NOT the grunts positively IDing the building but gunships flying over the area and dropping flairs on what they THINK are enemy positions, God knows how accurate THAT might be. Hell the fact that the article says that they have UAV's on station watching to see if the rounds actually HIT, then call for a repeat of the fire mission says they are NOT that accurate. IIRC the Palladian has a CEP of around 150 meters (as opposed to the Crusaders 80 meters).
If you're the grunt on the ground and your looking at a heavily fortified building with unknown amount of enemy personell in it, do you want to be the guy to storm it or would you rather 'Death from the Sky' take care of the problem for you, along with you're FO.
That frankly does NOT fill me with confidence that their ordinance is accurate enough to ensure minimum civilian casualties. Especially given that what’s left of the civilian population (which is still considerable) will be somewhat grouped together and God help them if a 155mm shell lands on their roof.
The US has plenty of squad level weapons to deal with enemy infantry bunkered down in these places. Not to the same level as the Russians in MOUT gear, but still sufficient when combined with armour support to provide the fire support needed. Battlefield arty is just crazy.
Of course this all said, this entire debate is moot as its almost a forgone conclusion that apart from some diehards who will be crushed easily, most of the insurgents have melted away into the rest of Iraq and will open up dozens of fronts.
