Talk:Precision bombing

(First comments)

Can I 'cut and paste' for a Public Domain source (The US Air Force Historical Studies Office) to de-stub this page? The 'Do not Copy' is a bet scary, but when its a PD source, its OK, right? --Bo 02:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This entire page reads like a sales brochure. I want to see some sources and some review. --Stacman 16:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

For the base source material go to the US Air Force's Air University. Bo 17:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

This article, except for the introductory paragraph, is a word-for-word copy of the USAF article cited at the end. It doesn't include any opposing views, so it comes close to being just a piece of propaganda. Lavidia (talk) 17:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I have added a line after the introduction pointing out that the article is just a transcript of another from an outside source. Lavidia (talk) 18:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I have checked the Wikipedia pages on copyright violations and plagiarism, and there's nothing that explicitly prohibits making an article entirely out of another from an outside public domain source, but I do think this is not right - perhaps it would be better if the borrowed text is replaced with a link to it. Lavidia (talk) 19:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• What I originally copied over, a good bit back (say October 2006) was the Air University Article (I checked to make sure it was OK to incorporate a PD article...). There have been improvements made, it is still very heavily based on the scholarly article, but is no longer 'word-for-word'.

• What 'opposing views' would be needed? The article simply defines PB and traces its history.

Bo (talk) 05:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I just checked the history, and the only change you made to the article since I did, is the above entry you made in this section. If you do or did make additions, then you will have to put all of the original text between quotes, as otherwise readers will assume your writing is also the author's. You don't seem to have read Wikipedia's guidelines and rules on citations, so I strongly suggest you do so, before you start getting into trouble. As to the character of the article, even scientific articles (i.e.: global warming) cite criticism of the theories and even data involved. In the context of this article, one could start questioning the very concept of precision bombing by pointing out that it is an oxymoron, since the lethal radius of the 1 or half ton "smart" bombs is more than 200 meters, making a discriminate attack near impossible in a city. Lavidia (talk) 23:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• There's nothing in this article about Tallboys and Grand Slam bombs? Shouldn't they be considered precision weapons? They were designed to hit single (albeit large) targets. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.4.131.140 (talk) 12:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

rant by SPA (9.5Kbs)

Your call, lads and lasses. I'm very, very new.

And angry about this so-called encyclopedia article? Or an un-researched, partisan, and downright ignorant sales pitch for the USAF, and the "fact" that the only reason it hasn't saved the world yet, is that other organisations have let the USAF down?

Take that at face value, and pull the article? Cut it to the bare (and accurate) essentials? Or read on - and I still hope the article gets pulled/cut to about 2 sentences.

His thesis - precision depends on good intelligence? Ooops, own goal, mate. Intelligence - nil; so you've missed your target, by a very, very, very long way.

My thesis - the contributor is a poor, sad, politically biased (and woefully ignorant) dingbat. And I will make a few totally scurrilous, underhand, and unevidenced assertions about the USAF and its operations, to show conclusively that this article should be withdrawn - aye, but with one subtle difference (see below).

1. "Precision bombing was used by both the Allied and Central Powers during World War I" - evidence please. Oh, sorry - the USAF pilots hadn't figured out which way up to hold the map yet, so they didn't find their way there in time; so there can't possibly be any evidence worth quoting.

2. Hey, but by WW2, USAF had at last figured out how to read (bits of) a map. This time they got to Yurp (late).

"However, it (precision bombing) was no longer widely used in World War II because it was ineffective, .... " - try telling that to other nationalities, the ones really involved in WW2, not sitting in relative comfort at 20,000 feet. Try to ...

- tell it to the families of Spaniards, Poles, Russians, or anybody else, who died under precision Stuka bombing. [Ooops, sorry; only Americans can bomb with precision. Not Nazis - my bad]

- tell it to the Poles, Ukrainians, Canadians, French, Americans and everybody else who flew with the RAF (and others? But not the USAF) on precision bombing raids. Not hiding out of sight, above the clouds, at 20,000 feet like the "world-saving" heroes of the USAF with their B17s and the like.

[Ooops, sorry; only Americans can bomb with precision. "We", the USAF, know we hit the right continent (we think so - no guarantee, though); "you" only hit a dam or a heavy water plant - coulda been anywhere.]

- tell it to the German families in the Ruhr after the Dambusters raid. [What - dams in Yurp? Well ...... me sideways! They had dams in Yurp? Always knew those TVA guys were reds-under-the-bed. Never, ever, trust these Roosevelt guys.]

- tell it to the guys who developed and used the Tallboy and Grandslams [Duh - what, where? Aaah - they're cocktails; now that the USAF guys will understand.]

3. "... since to aim for a specific target, like a bridge or a factory, was very difficult. Therefore, the best that could be achieved was strategic bombing." Ah, but we're back to the USAF's inability to understand maps and coordinates; carpet bomb everything within a "reasonable" radius - of how much? Ach - the continent of Yurp'll do.

With nasty covert implications - that the USAF [alone] won WW2.

[Some hints - try it with a map, next time; don't worry, continents are pretty hard to miss with your tactics. Friends are visibly marked (see below). - there were just a few others involved - the various armies and infantries, navies, air forces, merchant marine services, and resistances, with all their various nationalities and origins; they weren't sitting comfortably on their arses at 20,000 feet, out of harm's way. - and you might try visiting an embassy - I can think of several - and try telling a bunch of real, world-wide, veterans (Egyptian, Senegalese, Gambian, Yemeni, Adeni, Indian, from my personal knowledge) in a monthly queue to collect a disgusting pittance of a war pension, that the USAF won the war for them. I am in the fortunate position of being able to translate pretty accurately their reaction - it won't be pretty or printable.

- oh, and Kraut civvies don't matter. After all, "we're the USAF, saving the world."]

4. How many Allied ships were sunk by aircraft during WW2? Ah, but that was German pilots. That doesn't count as bombing with precision - hey, they're not USAF (hmm - they could read maps and communicate, but let's not mention USAF inadequacies again).

5. You will note that out of common decency, I have deliberately not mentioned any, ummm, extremely accurate and precision attacks on any US fleets anywhere, any time. I did not say Pearl Harbour. It did not happen. It is a conspiracy. There were no Japanese planes within a continent's distance. They couldn't read maps either, and actually bombed coal mines in Worksop, in southern France.

• • • • - and God alone knows how much precision (and not-so-precision) bombing there has been since WW2.

6. How many times have the Israeli air force demonstrated precision bombing? Never once. [At least in this article. They're not USAF. It was neither Syria nor Iraq, but Australia they hit. (Mustn't mention map-reading again, nor intelligence, tain't fair with the USAF, poor ignorant sods.)]

7. Come on - I'm trying to be fair. Look at the good things the USAF have done. I haven't referred to the number of British servicemen killed by the USAF, and their "precision" tactics (!) in Iraq or Afghanistan? Nor Afghani wedding parties?

Precision bombing? My arse. I suspect your article writer would have difficulty hitting potato chips with tomato ketchup. Pretty much sums up US air operations - with the delicious overtone that the USAF can't ever admit they've ever made a mistake.

[Ooops, sorry! On several occasions I've mentioned, the USAF were not using bombs, but missiles. Bombs are easy to target with precision, but missiles go off uncontrollably, in any direction. I shouldn't confuse the two.]

[Ooops, sorry! The guys behind desks at computers told the USAF that the Al Ameriya structure was a command-and-control bunker. So it couldn't ever be a bomb shelter full of 408 non-combatant women and children. And they weren't incinerated by laser guided USAF bombs. It's all lies put about by the world's press. Anyway, the USAF wasn't responsible - it was the geeks back home; USAF were just the guys who "precision" bomb where they're told to]

[Ooops, sorry! It is at least "possible" that wedding party annihilated by the USAF in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, early July this year, were indeed militants involved in previous mortar attacks on a Nato base. You never know what women and children can get up to these days.

Oh, woe is me! I've brought up an example of the USAF using missiles again - far too uncontrollable. Now, if the USAF had used precision bombs, it'd be a different story. Nobody left within miles to tell the world about the US and its military operations.]

[Ooops, sorry! Ummmmmm, the elephant in the room. The section called "The leverage of precision weapons: historical experience through Vietnam"

All sorts of vacuous evasions of anything to do with Vietnam, apart from one absolutely prize sentence - "The modern precision weapon era may be said to have begun in May 1972, when laser-guided-bomb-armed McDonnell F-4 Phantoms perfunctorily took down the Paul Doumer and Thanh Hoa bridges in North Vietnam, as part of a larger campaign that shattered North Vietnam’s invasion of South Vietnam in the spring of that year."

I hope to goodness that the guy who is at the origin of this Wikipedia article never actually got paid for it.

If he did, there's a, ummmm, bit of uncomfortable historical fact about his "shattered North Vietnam invasion of South Vietnam"? I really do apologise; I can read [so I know that the modern precision era predates 1972], and I can read maps [so that excludes me from ever flying USAF killing machines] ------- so it is perhaps unfair on my part to remember media coverage of the evacuation from the US Embassy in Saigon? ROFLMAO.

Hmmm - you've got the idea that I'm just a little annoyed at such egregiously partisan propaganda being published in Wikipedia?

And I'm guessing that that the contributor of this article will be a bit miffed at my scurrilous, underhand, and unevidenced assertions about the USAF. Aye, but there is a huge difference - I happily describe accurately my unfounded opinions as "scurrilous, underhand, and unevidenced." I am windng the him up. Hey - but I'm NOT using Wikipedia to propagate brain-curdling fantasy, idiocy, and outright lies.

Try this lot. Read the section on "Future directions in precision weapon development and use" Brain-curdling? Fantasy? Or political and partisan propaganda and lies? Pretty much the same in my book.

I quote - "But after the war, inspectors learned that Iraq had, in fact, no less than ten major nuclear research facilities; eight uranium mining, production, processing, and storage sites; twenty-four uranium enrichment sites; nine weaponization sites; and seventeen other sites devoted to supporting Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. In sum, what had been known had been targeted and much had been destroyed, but there was simply much more that was unknown and, thus, escaped attack."

It's there. That's a quote from the current Wikipedia article.

Come on, where's the evidence? References? Citations? Or is it as "precision" as his map-reading of Yurp, and his "blue-on-blues"? What planet is this contributor on?

Suggestion, friend - just do a google on "CIA intelligence Iraq" or anything remotely similar, and you'll find that the Bush and his Blair poodle lied, lied, lied, and lied again - before, during, and after the war.

This article is about as much use as a google on "Roswell Iraq". If there's one thing worse than propaganda, it's ignorant and stupid propaganda.

Get rid of it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Yardsmyth2 (talk • contribs) 00.51, 28 August 2008

Your critique of the speech - as I pointed out above, it is just that, not a real article - is fair in your own terms, that is, as a rant. But I think it extremely unfair to ignore the RAF's contribution to the mass bombing of Germany. It was, after all, RAF Air Marshall Arthur Harris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Travers_Harris), who conceived area bombing and set the stage for the massive fire bombing of large German cities like Hamburg and Dresden. And he went about his job with such zeal (egged by Churchill), that he was knighted soon after WWII, and made a baronet at Churchill's insistence. So one could say that area bombing was invented by the RAF, and licensed by the USAF, based on principles developed by the Germans for the Spanish Civil War (remember Guernica?). Lavidia (talk) 23:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

This is an unhelpful rant by a one-edit contributor, followed by and a reasoned reply (which is more than it deserves). I've collapsed both, but am in two minds whether they should simply be deleted. Xyl 54 (talk) 18:27, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Merge?

How about a merge to Precision-guided munition, at least until someone puts some research into this? Is there a body of research into smart-bombing as a military strategy, the way there is, say, for strategic bombing? csloat (talk) 05:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

• I think that a merge is the wrong thing to do. Much of the munitions-oriented material proably belongs in the PGM article, if it is not there already, but there was a lot of theory and effort put into the concept during WWII, and I would rather see this article reduced and the built up again, than to see it merged altogether. Robert A.West (Talk) 02:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Waffle

Too much waffle about "will to fight" and other such nonsense. I was expecting to read an article about precision bombing, not background material for those of a particular political pursuasion.

Very shoddy work for an encyclopedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.129.219.241 (talk) 10:27, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge from surgical strike

The surgical strike article is basically a quick summation of precision bombing with a passing mention of surgical strikes sometimes referring to assassinations. I propose merging that information into this article. Gobonobo ^{T C} 08:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Surgical strike is also used for certain ground operations and isn't exclusive to airpower, while precision bombing (or bombardment to use an earlier term) really is.Intothatdarkness (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Biased Paragraph

I removed this paragraph because it seemed too biased. It came right at the end of the "Gulf War" section.

Given the nature of precision weapon warfare, education of decision-makers as to their capabilities and limitations is critically important. (And, beyond this, it is particularly true for air warfare in general, for air power has some unique attributes and advantages, though, in one critically important respect, it is like other forms of military power: it should be used to achieve decisive effects, not as a means of merely sending signals or "feel good" sporadic blows). With the rapidly changing state of such technology, it is incumbent that military and defense organizations offer interested individuals opportunities to become acquainted with the broad capabilities of modern military systems. This is particularly true for precision weaponry, for such weaponry has already demonstrated that, in particular circumstances, cherished notions of how wars are to be fought and the enduring value of such military constructs as the linear battlefield are questionable at best or even archaic.

There may be more paragraphs like this throughout the article; I haven't read the whole thing.

Dr. Hipopotamo (talk) 18:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Possible Merger with Precision Bombing (From Surgical strike)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to not merge on the basis of net opposition Klbrain (talk) 12:08, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

---

It's been pointed out to me, that perhaps - although Surgical Strike in itself can be considered a unique term, it isn't necessarily mutually exclusive of Precision Bombing. As a result, it may be better considered to merge the two articles, outlining the use of term, "Surgical Strike" within Precision Bombing. I'll let this be up for discussion at current to see other ideas in regards to the issue - even though I had expanded on this section a tad, I do believe in my own opinion, this to be a more desirable decision. Thoughts in regards to merging Surgical strike into this article here? Kartovskiy (talk) 21:56, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

• I'd disagree with this merge, for the reasons already given (above} and because, as this article has multiple issues, putting more stuff into it isn't going to improve matters. In fact I'm in two minds whether it needs deleting and being completely re-written. Any thoughts on this? Xyl 54 (talk) 18:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

No to merge. A "surgical strike" is a move to excise a problem in one go and is not exclusively linked to bombing. A first glance, some distinct culling of the current content is required rather than addition. There seems to be too much of the essay or lecture about it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I've given some of the more lecturing sections some "area bombing". GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:26, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Possible Discussion Regarding Norden Bombsight

Perhaps it would be worth to discuss how the Norden Bombsight helped? At least in the US, where the doctrine developed, the Bombsight was quite relevant even though later studies have proven that it wasn't as effective, its worth to discuss it since it was believed at the time to be a bit of a holy grail. For my reference to this I believe the Bomber Mafia by Max Gladwell is a book that discusses this (I am aware though that its a controversial book within its field) Chefs-kiss (talk) 02:09, 18 November 2022 (UTC)