Matxer's SPMBT Tips

[Grumbler]

But if JDAM is the supreme conventional weapon, why is the US selling this technology to Saudi Arabia ?

Politics. About 1/3 of the support for the guerrillas in Iraq comes from the KSA. The State department is trying the age old middle eastern custom of buying them off. It worked for the Brits and the French, so they figure it will work for the US.
I'm not so sure, since the British and French experience was that the Saudi's didn't stay bought. Anyway, the techs think that they can degrade the JDAM's enough to prevent them being used on Israel OR US troops. I'm not so sure about that, but they might be right. My thoughts are anything that one nation/state can screw up, another can unscrew, and vise versa.
It's like the biometeric passports and ID cards. Joe 6-pack will not be able to fake them, but any terrorist will, since the terrorists get their documents from other nation states, which do have the resources to create fake documents, no matter how difficult that is.
Also keep in mind that JDAM's have changed CONVENTIONAL warfare more then any other weapon. More then the Machine gun or tank, more then gunpowder. Not sure that it matters in the real world. The US Army has lifted the bar so high on conventional warfare that I have my doubts about there being any large conventional battle for the rest of the Pax America.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article..._fail.html

This guy is pretty much in the 10 ring. The rest of the 21st century wars will be fought out like Iraq is being fought out today.
With guerrillas, killing them isn't the problem, it's finding them. So logically any farther military advances will be in the field of targeting and recon. We already have many ways of making an bad insurgent a good (dead) insurgent. What we need are better ways of finding them. That is why Robots will become more and more important.
Sensors can be fooled. The most reliable way to find the guerrilla is by sending someone out to die. Better that the someone is a Cyberdyne Systems 1000 then a Alabama moms son mark II.
Sorry I wandered so far afield here.