INDCJournal: An Artillery Duel Goes High-Tech <strong><em>(UPDATED)</em></strong>

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November 12, 2004

An Artillery Duel Goes High-Tech (UPDATED)

Posted by Bill

Fighting in Fallujah from California ...

Launched from a site near Baghdad, the Predator UAV carried a Hellfire missile. Its crew and its video feeds were back in California. A few weeks earlier, the Watchdogs had employed Predator to hit a moving pickup with a mounted machine gun�one robot leading another robot to the target. NFL games on television allow the viewer to see the same play from different angles. But the digital pipes for battlefield imagery weren't large enough to permit the Watchdogs and the Predator crew in California to see each other's video. Instead, the Predator and Pioneer crews used e-mail chat and GPS coordinates to align their platforms.

... finally gives way to a local airstrike:

A truck had pulled up and five men had walked inside, carrying something in their arms. Three dogs had trotted up.
"Supper time. They're changing shifts," Sgt. Roneil Sampson, an imagery analyst, said. "Domino's delivery."

"Cleared hot," Neumann said. Impact was less than a minute away.

Word had spread to the off-duty crew and over two dozen Marines had squeezed into the small op center, murmuring back and forth.

"I like dogs. Get out of there dogs."

"Stay in there, muj. You're almost in paradise. Don't leave now. Don't leave."

The courtyard door opened, and a man walked to the truck and slowly drove away.

"Boot muj sent out to get the Coke. Luckiest bastard on the planet."

Both video screens suddenly flashed bright white, as if a fuse had blown. There was a collective Damn! from the watching Marines. The center of the roof was now a huge black hole.

"That's a shack," Neumann said. "Now that's what I call a shack!"

"I feel sorry for the dogs," someone shouted.

"Great job, Watchdogs," Neumann said. "Great job."

That article was written by Bing West, a former Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the Reagan Administration. With co-author Maj. Gen. Ray Smith (Ret.), he wrote a largely first-hand, blow-by-blow account of the Marines' invasion of Iraq and charge to Baghdad called "The March Up." I highly recommend it.

UPDATE:West seems to be writing a series for Slate; other installments can be found here and here:

Marines are keenly aware of war's human toll. The sergeant had no idea what that young Iraqi was thinking. He didn't like killing someone's son. But Marines don't wear their emotions on their sleeves, and they have zero sympathy for the jihadists trying to kill them. If America needs a hard job done, the Marines will do it, and they won't lose their humanity in the process or any sleep over pulling the trigger. Yes, they are "the world's most lethal killing machine." That's what America needs in battle.

Posted by Bill at November 12, 2004 11:47 PM | TrackBack (1)

Comments

Iraq May Get Killer Drones, Army UAVs designated specifically for combat.

And, of course, there's the Navy's X-47B unmanned combat aerial vehicle.

Posted by: conelrad at November 13, 2004 12:52 AM

Just remember this, enemies of America. The sky is filled with our satellites. Below them are our aircraft, turning silent, tireless circles looking for you. These satellites and aircraft are all machines. They will never tire, waver, or blink. They are incapable of either mercy or pity. When they find you, they will kill you. You cannot scare them, you cannot chase them away. If you manage to destroy one, another will take its place. Soon enough there will be machines on the ground and in the water, all tirelessly looking for you.

Somewhere, in sunny California, there are a few men sitting behind video consoles issuing orders to these machines. Sometimes they work long hours. Still, at the end of the day they leave, to do whatever they want in the freest country on the planet. They do not live in fear. It is you who live in fear.

Heed these words, enemies of America. You are losing. There is still time to surrender and be treated humanely. If you continue to resist, machines will hunt you down and tear you apart when you least expect it. Sleeping, driving, eating, defecating. You are human, and they are not. Give up while you still can, because an army of machines is coming for you, without pause or remorse.

And pray that we don't send in our actual human soldiers. Where the machines do not care, they do.

Posted by: Noah D at November 13, 2004 11:06 AM

Re: Noah D's comment,

Kipling's poem "Screw-Guns" comes to mind. (As I understand it, they were artillery pieces that could manage steep inclinations and get up in the hills where normal artillery couldn't go).

    Jest send in your Chief an' surrender --
              it's worse if you fights or you runs:
    You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves,
              but you can't get away from the guns!

If Kipling had been alive today, he would have written much the same thing about the UAV's.

P.S. If you want to read the rest of the poem, Project Gutenberg's got the whole thing (fifth poem down), along with plenty of Kipling's other works.

Posted by: Robin Munn at November 13, 2004 08:01 PM

"If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting."
Gen. Curtis LeMay

"Screw 'em. If they want to live they can by-God surrender."
Dan Patterson

Kipling had it about right, just as the 82nd did at Bastogne. Too many good men have sacrificed too much to allow the Fascists to win. Screw 'em. M O A B

Dan Patterson
Winston-Salem, NC

Posted by: Dan Patterson at November 14, 2004 02:24 PM

Bing West's book The March Up is indeed a fine read. West proves that the words "astute" and "prose" and "far-thinking" do indeed belong in the same sentence with the word "Marine."

Posted by: Beldar at November 14, 2004 03:11 PM

It reminds me of two scenes in two very different films: "Patriot Games" where CIA analysts watch, via satellite, SAS squads wipe out the terrorist camp, and, in diametric opposition to it, the scene in the foolish film "The American President" where Michael Douglas obsesses about giving the order to take out an enemy target (why the hell would a President micro-manage a military operation, ala Jimmy Carter/Clinton?) Hey, when we have professionals running the show we get professional results! Hoo-RAH!

Posted by: mistercalm at November 15, 2004 10:44 PM