Before I start this article I want to send all our prayers out to those people feeling the effects of the hurricane in Florida. Military Swarm Attacks Some of the ideas about warfare harken back thousands of years. After humans discovered throwing a stone could kill people, they later developed machines to throw stones. They realized if they could throw a lot of stones at once they could do a lot more damage. The same was true for firing an arrow, soldiers realized it made a lot more sense to fire thousands of them at once at oncoming troops rather than firing individual arrows trying to pick off soldiers. This idea has penetrated modern warfare, the idea of sending out or firing a lot of things at once. The United States is developing drones which they believe will be able to overwhelm a target, because of the sheer number of drones which would be sent in. The idea of overwhelming firepower is certainly nothing new. Nations have been firing cannons in fusillades for hundreds of years. In World War II the Soviets fired huge cannon barrages against the invading Germans. The Soviets had thousands of cannons and sometimes they would fire many of them all at once. It’s not only cannons which are used this way, but as anyone watching World War II newsreels can tell you bombs were also used this way. The United States and Britain would send hundreds of bombers over a target and each plane would drop its load of bombs often at the same time. In those days, all bombs were what is known as dumb bombs. This meant we had no way of guiding them once they were released. Even with the Norden bomb site, which was said to be the most accurate one in the world since it was a crude computer, we still missed the target a lot of times. The B-24 Liberator bomber in World War II could carry 8000 pounds of bombs, so if we are talking about 500-pound bombs that would mean it could carry sixteen. The B-29 Superfortress could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs for short distances and 12,000 pounds of bombs for a 1,600-mile trip. I’ll let you do the math on the amount of 500 pound bombs this equals. As we were developing missiles which carried nuclear weapons, scientists figured out how to not only have one warhead but multiple warheads on each missile which could take out many targets at once. It is said US forces have the ability to launch a nuclear missile which has ten warheads, but the number of warheads are limited by treaty. The Russian forces are similarly limited as far as the number of nuclear warheads on a missile by the same treaty. While this sounds like a great idea, it doesn’t stop either country from launching flocks of nuclear missiles each one carrying a nuclear warhead. Some of our B-52 bombers are cruise missile carriers and can carry as many as 20 cruise missiles at a time. The same planes are also capable of carrying 51 750 pound bombs. It is easy to see that even the ancient B-52 bombers can overwhelm a target and if you put a few of them together, let’s say five, you now have the ability to launch one hundred cruise missiles simultaneously. The ability for a massive drone strike is being increased. The United States is developing tiny drones which they hope to be able to launch by the thousands. They probably won’t be able to carry bombs of any sort, but they may be able to inflict serious harm on a population or on an enemy’s army. Think about how annoying a swarm of mosquitoes can be, now picture is swarm of tiny drones each one equipped with some sort of poison which can be injected and you have a real recipe for trouble. There are probably a lot of other uses for drones like this, such as spying on the enemy or maybe even filming their equipment. At the current rapid pace of development scientists and engineers are realizing many more things these tiny drones can be used for. Currently a new type of submarine is being developed by the United States. It is one which will be able to carry many underwater vehicles and I presume many underwater weapons. It may be capable of a swarm attack when it is developed. During World War I the allies and the axis would each try to overrun the others trenches with a swarm attack of soldiers. The idea was to overwhelm the forces in the enemy trenches. The problem with this tactic was the machine gun would cut down the soldiers at an alarming rate. Yes, there was cannon fire, rifle fire and all sorts of other weapons being used, but the machine gun with it swarm of bullets was the principal weapon for stopping one of these attacks. There are a lot of weapons we don’t think of as being capable of launching a swarm, but think about this, a couple of hundred years ago some cannoneers decided to not load their cannon with a ball, instead they loaded it with chain which broke up into little pieces when the cannon was fired sending out a swarm of deadly shrapnel fire from each gun. This idea was later adopted in hand grenades when modern grenades had a metal spring inside of them which broke into many pieces when they exploded. As you can see the idea is to get as much deadly material out there in one shot as you can. What does this type of thinking mean if there is another war? It seems to me even though we have seen much devastation over the years during war time, it might just pale in comparison to the devastation we might see in another war. It’s unfortunate when we see a village or town wiped out and so many people dead, but what if one side decides to launch weapons which will take out ten villages at a time or more? This seems to be the way we are going. It is almost like we have a death wish which will never be satisfied until we can wipe ourselves off the face of this planet. |
