Threatdown: More-accurate artillery concerns general

Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment and soldiers from the Afghan National Army take part in a firefight Feb. 13 near Marjah, Helmand province, Afghanistan. The troops were attacked by insurgents while patrolling the area. Officials are concerned that enemy fire could become a bigger threat in the future.


More-accurate artillery concerns general
By Dan Lamothe - dlamothe@militarytimes.com
Posted : Tuesday Apr 20, 2010 12:02:55 EDT

Mortars and rockets fired at forward operating bases in war zones are rarely aimed with precision, but the Marine Corps’ top combat development officer is concerned they could become a bigger threat in the future.

Lt. Gen. George Flynn, deputy commandant for combat development and integration, said that as technology improves, “nonstate actors” will be able to obtain more precision-guided artillery and other weapons.

“The proliferation of precision really does bother me,” said Flynn, who commanded numerous artillery units before becoming a general officer. “We talk about it as an organization: What would we do if the enemy gets precision? Right now, when you’re out at … a forward operating base and they’re lobbing rockets and mortars at you, you’re worried about it, but imagine if they could hit everything they aimed at all the time, and every time they took out your” combat operations centers.

Flynn made his remarks during Marine Corps Systems Command’s advanced planning brief to industry April 6. They also appeared to interest Brig Gen. Michael Brogan, SysCom’s commander.

“Frankly, that’s the first time I heard him talk about the proliferation of precision, so our challenge now will be to figure out how to counter that” threat, Brogan said, adding that there may be possibilities in electronically jamming the guidance systems an enemy would use.



unhappycamper comment: "proliferation of precision" is a nice turn of phrase, don'tcha think?

At some point the enemy acquires the same technology.

world's weapons markets - it is just a matter of time before the "nonstate actors" have some very accurate and devastating stuff. I hope we will be out of Afghanistan long before then, but given the history of other nations fighting in that country one never knows
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