POLICE STATE / MILITARY - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon |
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by David Hambling defensetech.org Entered into the database on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 @ 17:03:44 MST |
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War is hell. But it’s worse when the Marines bring out their
new urban combat weapon, the SMAW-NE.
Which may be why they’re not talking about it, much. This is a version of the standard USMC Shoulder
Mounted Assault Weapon but with a new warhead. Described as NE - "Novel
Explosive"- it is a thermobaric
mixture which ignites the air, producing a shockwave of unparalleled destructive
power, especially against buildings. A post-action report from Iraq describes the effect of the new weapon: "One
unit disintegrated
a large one-storey masonry type building with one round from 100 meters.
They were extremely impressed." Elsewhere it is described by one Marine
as "an awesome piece of ordnance." It proved highly effective in the battle for Fallujah. This from the Marine
Corps Gazette, July edition: "SMAW gunners became expert at determining
which wall to shoot to cause the roof to collapse and crush the insurgents fortified
inside interior rooms." The NE round is supposed to be capable of going through a brick wall, but in
practice gunners had to fire through a window or make a hole with an anti-tank
rocket. Again, from the Marine Corps Gazette: "Due to the lack of penetrating power of the NE round, we found that
our assaultmen had to first fire a dual-purpose rocket in order to create
a hole in the wall or building. This blast was immediately followed by an
NE round that would incinerate the target or literally level the structure." The rational for this approach was straightforward: "Marines could employ blast weapons prior to entering houses that had
become pillboxes, not homes. The economic cost of house replacement is not
comparable to American lives...all battalions adopted blast techniques appropriate
to entering a bunker, assuming you did not know if the bunker was manned." The manufacturers, Talley, make bold use of its track record, with a brochure
headlined Thermobaric
Urban Destruction." The SMAW-NE has only been procured by the USMC, though there are reports that
some were 'borrowed' by other units. However, there are also proposals on the
table that thousands of obsolete M-72
LAWs could be retrofitted
with thermobaric warheads, making then into effective urban combat tools. But in an era of precision bombs, where collateral damage is expected to be
kept to a minimum, such massively brutal weapons have become highly controversial.
These days, every civilian casualty means a few more “hearts and minds”
are lost. Thermobaric
weapons almost invariable lead to civilian deaths. The Soviet Union was
heavily criticized for using thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan because they
were held to constitute "disproportionate force," and similar criticisms
were made when thermobarics were used in the Chechen conflict. According to
Human Rights Watch, thermobaric weapons "kill
and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area. In urban settings
it is very difficult to limit the effect of this weapon to combatants, and the
nature of FAE explosions makes it virtually impossible for civilians to take
shelter from their destructive effect." So it’s understandable that the Marines have made so little noise about
the use of the SMAW-NE in Fallujah. But keeping quiet about controversial weapons
is a lousy strategy, no matter how effective those arms are. In the short term,
it may save some bad press. In the long term, it’s a recipe for a scandal.
Military leaders should debate human right advocates and the like first, and
then publicly decide "we do/do not to use X". Otherwise when the media
find do find out – as they always do -- not only do you get a level of
hysteria but there is also the charge of “covering up.” I'm undecided about thermobarics myself, but I think they should let the legal
people sort out all these issues and clear things up. Otherwise you get claims
of “chemical weapons” and “violating the Geneva Protocol.”
Which doesn't really help anyone. The warfighter is left in doubt, and it hands
propaganda to the bad guys. Just look at what happened it last week’s
screaming over
white
phosphorous rounds. |