Colonel Phillip Meilinger, the commander of the US Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies once stated: “Precision air weapons have redefined the meaning of mass … The result of the trend towards ‘airshaft accuracy’ in air war is a denigration in the importance of mass. PGMs (i.e. precision Guided munitions) provide density, mass per unit volume, which is a more efficient measurement of force. In another words, recent targets became small, similarly, the bombs became even smaller” (as cited in Hallion1995). Now a days, there is no room to waste ammo around specific aim point, every explosive charge should hit a pre-designated target. One of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century was that of the precision bomb, a weapon which has it’s own guidance system that can precisely acquire, track and hit preplanned target. The idea began during First World War, actually, it was only a humble trials. It became operational during the Second World War. After the Second World War, vast upgrades were made on smart bomb technology. Every conflict surprised the enemy with a new capability and guidance technology which enhanced precision targeting and counter-measured enemy jamming capability .Nations are competing to develop and procure smart bombs for several benefits ,It is apparent now that: Increasing lethality against enemy, minimizing collateral damage and achieving commander intent are three main benefits of guided bombs.
During the world wars time period, all players used huge amount of extremely massive bombs, only to ensure that at least one of these bombs could find the way to hit one target of interest, which seemed to be the core of the air raid. Those targets required enormous number of bombers, aircrews and vast amount of explosives. In contrast, two modern jets, two pilots and two smart bombs could easily hit their target with hundred percent chances of destruction. According to these facts, smart bombs showed undeniable increase in lethality against adversaries compared to conventional bombs. For example, in the summer of 1944, 47 B–29s attacked the Yawata steel works, only one bomber made it to the target area, carrying only one of its bombs. This single 500 lb. general purpose bomb hit a powerhouse located 3,700 feet from the far more important coke houses that originally was the raid’s point of interest which was one of the 376 bombs dropped over Yawata on that day. In the fall of 1944, seven per cent of all bombs delivered by the Eighth Air Force landed within 1,000 feet of their targets; even a ‘precision’ platform such as a fighter-bomber in a 40 degree dive releasing a bomb at 7,000 feet could have a circular error of as more than 1,000 feet. It took 108 B-17 bombers, piloted by 1,080 airmen, dropping 648 bombs to guarantee a 96 percent chance of putting just two hits inside a 400 x 500 feet German power-generation plant ( Hallion,1995). Conversely, in the operation Inherent Resolve(i.e. Syria and Iraq anti ISIS operation), one f-16 fighter jet with one JDAM could easily hit DAESH caging facility and kill all the terrorists within that building with almost 99 percent chances of success . Smart bombs have proved without a shadow of doubt that it’s one of the deadliest weapons of this era.
War brings damage. Some of this damage is required. In fact, the destruction of a military targets is crucial to win any war. In the other hand, weapon’s specialist are trying to mitigate accidental damage by developing weapons that produce intended damage and reduce collateral damage. Smart bombs or precision-guided munitions (PGMs) seem to enable military forces to accurately hit smaller targets. This has given rise to the expectation that fighting with such weapons reduces the extent of destruction and protects noncombatants .Additionally, bombing has become more precise. During World War II, the Circular Error Probability (cep) of bombs would have been around 1000 meters, whereas today it is more in the region of 10 meters. This means that the area at risk around the target has been reduced by a factor of 10,000. Moreover, critics acknowledge that increasing attention is paid to the issue of collateral damage. Martin Shaw admits that although there was much hyperbole bombing in the 2003 Iraq War was more discriminating than in earlier campaigns Farrell observes a convergence of norms of international law with precision military technology that has permitted Western militaries to ‘limit civilian deaths during combat because they have unprecedented capability to create discriminate destruction Precision(as cited in Zehfuss 2010), in this view, is a good thing: it reduces the number of civilian deaths in combat.
According to Christopher Coker (Zehfuss 2010) ‘Western societies can now only fight wars which minimize human suffering including on the side of the enemy. That is, war is tolerable only if it is seen as ethical in the sense of causing a very limited amount of death and suffering. Yet, despite the convincing story of increasing precision and the related reduction in civilian fatalities, it might not be as simple as that. (as cited in Zehfuss 2010). Smart guided bombs are only intended to hit their target not something else. Collateral damage is a term that is commonly used to describe the unintended damage caused after delivering weapons, usually among civilian surroundings of a military target. Schools, residents, hospitals and even graveyards are civilian surroundings. Civilian fatalities and destruction could be avoided in an armed conflict if the targeting weapon is accurate. Thus, collateral damage could be reduced by using smart weapons. In fact, military leaders, have develop some theories that define a war as is to destroy enemy’s military machine, infrastructure which supports its war effort. Moreover, military specialist are trying to developed technologies to decrease the element of collateral damage and Smart bombs development flows from this basic concept.
In short, war harms everything, but Precision-guided bombs made it possible to achieve intended destruction while reducing collateral damage. Using such weapon protects noncombatants during any conflict. Politicians often get embarrassed if a collateral damage takes place in any conflict.
With the end the Cold War tactics shifted. Loss of aircraft and aircrew became politically unacceptable, and bombing campaigns were mostly prosecuted from medium altitudes, well above the reach of AAA(Anti-Aircraft Artillery) and shoulder fired SAMS (surface to air missiles) .The latter accounted for the largest number of coalition aircraft losses in the 1991 Deseret Storm campaign (Kopp .C, 2003).Using of smart bombs gives the politician the chance to refer to the use of the force quicker than ever, unlike the full scale war that requires long debate in order to be approved by people’s representatives before going into war. The expensive, sophisticated and high risk war is something hard that a politician needs great convincing skills to get that approval. USAF Colonel Phillip S. Mellinger once stated that Aerospace power should be our weapon of choice because it is the most discriminate, prudent, and risk-free weapon in our arsenal. He also emphasized that there is a delicate balance between the desire for quick victory and termination on truly favorable terms (as cited in Hallion, 1995). Precision firepower tends to tip that balance toward rapid victory. Situations in Panama and Grenada were solved quickly using precision attacks. It is amazing how smart bombing could force any country to surrender without taking the risk of having boots on ground. For example, in 1999 U.S. President William Clinton along with NATO leaders achieved quick victory, by bombing Serbia for a couple of days. They launched an air campaign that only targeted precise marks by very precision firepower from air and land assets. Such action led Milosevic to end the Brutal killing in Kosovo within 78 days ( Hallion,1995)..Other studies conclude that Milosevic agreed to a cease-fire only when he determined that NATO was about to annihilate Serbia’s economic and civilian infrastructure. By using smart bombs, any conflict will change into risk-free intervention that achieves government objectives without the worry of people critique. 1999 Serbia victory is a great example of how precision bombs can play a key role in achieving the commander’s intent safely and without falling into political trap of not taking immediate action in demanding situations such as Kosovo ethnic cleansing, precision force encouraged U.S. military commanders to achieve strategic objectives.
Recent conflicts have proved that airpower is one of the most lethal, agile and effective force. Besides protecting friendly forces from air threats, the main goal of air power is to provide the land forces with preferable situation against enemy land forces. One of the airpower measures are the strike aircrafts which are capable of delivering smart bombs. A weapon that changed the face of the history. A lot of countries have chosen to build their own smart bombs. For example, turkey, India and Israel has made their own smart bombs which are important tools of airpower. It is used against the enemy to destroy his war machines and to kill his armed personnel. Mission success for any political leader in any country is linked to destroying the target while keeping the civilians safe. Smart bomb’s technology is the state of the art that vanishes the enemy, minimize collateral damage and gives politicians a great weapon that achieves their intent without risking their forces and apparently… ruins their political future