Now that its underway, a quick look at the holes.
The visuals are amazing. Any of the networks with ’embedded’ crews are returning live, unfiltered reality into people’s living rooms. So far, we haven’t seen a reporter doing a stand-up in real danger. The prediction from the cynical side, is that before this is all done, the image of a reporter doing a stand-up, then having their head explode in a bloody cloud, just as the camera goes to snow, will be burned into our collective retinas. That is the danger and the thrill of live television in a war zone.
Watching the tactics early this morning (0200) of a squad clearing an area near the port of Oum Quasa (?) is a lesson in how military doctrine works. It seems time consuming and very, very slow, but it is how you do it safely when there are people shooting at you. Walking across open fields in urban areas is a simple statement: “I Am An Idiot. Please Kill Me Now.”
Keep in mind, for those without the knowledge, that a simple rife can fire a chunk of lead about a kilometer. Or, from one end of a city block to another, with accuracy and lethal effects. Staying more than a city block or two away from people with guns puts you in a ‘safe’ position. Tanks, mortars and artillery can throw very large pieces of metal, further.
For those who watched the three tanks clear the buildings near Oum Quasa and saw little jets of dust pop up as you heard a gun sound from the tanks, here is the explanation: Each of those little puffs was probably a .50 calibre machine gun round. .50 cal means the bullet is a half-inch across and a bit longer than your driving finger. .|.. Those bullets go through things like concrete block walls, cars, and sandbags like red chillies through your insides. Of course, those tanks were firing a few hundred of those things every minute. There is a high likelihood of at least one of those pieces of lead hitting the Bad Guys, causing big, bloody holes to appear in their bodies.
For the big bangs, you saw or heard, odds are it was an 80 or 120 mm mortar. 80 or 120 millimeters being the diameter of the shell, perhaps not quite as long as your arm from elbow to fingertip. Inside the head of the shell is more explosive, about the size of your clenched fist, designed to blow a hole the size of a big garden shed in whatever it hits.
Lob one of those things into a high-rise and you essentially turn a one-bedroom apartment into a big smoking hole. If you were a neighbour of that one-bedroom apartment, you would most probably be severely injured, or at least, have to do some underwear laundry with a hellish ringing in your ears.
If you watched the first ‘Shock and Awe” show live, many of those things you saw blowing up were 2,000 pound bombs and Cruise Missiles. In perspective, the Oklahoma City bomb that took out the Murragh Federal Building was estimated at 5,000 pounds of not-so-great explosive. Divide by two and that gives you the approximate force of laser-guided bombs or cruise missile explosives that are of much higher quality in a smaller weight and pack a very intense wallop. That bang is contained in something more or less three times the size of the propane tank on a backyard gas barbecue.
This is the kind of bang that can take four or five regular suburban houses in a block and turn all of it, land, furniture, trees, windows, pets, people and dishes, into a deep, smoking hole that leaves no trace there was ever anything there. It all just disappears. Park one or two in a 10-storey office building and expect the building to fall over.
Bigger than that, we’re getting into exotic weapons. The ones I’ve described are run-of-the-mill ordinance that flings about regularly, giving the enemy a Bad Day. The rule of thumb is to not make bigger holes than you need to make. This will, hopefully, convince those who are shooting at you, to give up, or stop shooting at you and run away as quickly as possible in a pink Toyota pickup truck.
Make well-organized holes in enough things and all the Bad Guys give up. Then you can go home.
RoadDave 