Saw this on a blog. Reminds me of Archie Bunker.
In the following analysis, Phil Massey argues our forces in Iraq can do much to defeat the terrorist insurgency in that nation through a combination of technological ingenuity and devious trickery. All we have to do is get to work ...
A version of this essay appeared on Mr. Massey's Web site, The Flying Space Monkey Chronicles.
-- Tim Machesney
FIGHTING FIRE WITH ...
by Phil Massey
I was thinking about the situation over in Iraq. Specifically, I've noticed how so many coalition casualties are being attributed to terrorist insurgents' use of RPGs, or rocket-propelled grenades. The RPG is a versatile weapon that needs to have its sharp teeth pulled.
With these weapons, terrorists are taking down coalition Blackhawk helicopters, blowing up Humvees and other vehicles, and taking the lives of our boys and girls on the ground without hard cover. They've even destroyed an M-1 Abrams Tank. Currently, anti-RPG defenses involve adding armor to the resources being protected. I want to add uncertainty and unreliability to the weapon itself.
I propose what I consider a most elegant solution. We take away the RPGs and/or take away the will of the insurgents to use the ones they have.
Of course, I recognize that just telling them to hand over their RPGs would be in an exercise in futility. They didn't turn in their weapons in besieged Fallujah, so how do we get them to do this?
What it were to happen that routinely and increasingly, the person firing or attempting to fire an RPG got killed when it blew up prematurely? Wouldn't that give the enemy pause when it came to firing on our troops with these weapons? I think it would in a really big way. If there was one chance in 12 that the weapon I was about to use was going to turn me into hamburger, I'd probably throw the cursed thing away instead of firing it.
The shell of the RPG-7 has the explosive equivalent of a stick of dynamite; add to that the explosive capability in the booster and in the rocket assist, and you have a potent little bomb indeed. And the enemy, the very one you want to eliminate, is walking around with it!
We should develop an RPG-7 decoy round. I envision something that looks and feels just like the booster, rocket assist and/or warhead for the RPG-7 weapon except that it detonates upon launch.
We then produce several hundred of these and paint/ crate/ transport them exactly like we would the real thing and leave them in places the enemy will find them. Or, even better than that, when we find the real thing in a weapons cache somewhere, we replace some or most of them with our decoys, leave them and wait for the fun.
Were we to do this, we would plant the seed of doubt that the weapons are no longer safe (cursed perhaps?) and the enemy has more to lose than to gain by using them. Failing this, we could actually eliminate the enemy in the very act of attacking, when the decoy rounds are used in against our forces. Think about that -- we could conceivably eliminate the enemy even when they are training to attack.
Our enemies, the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq, will have their effectiveness greatly reduced if the threat of this weapon can be removed. And every time one of our decoys is used, that's one (or more) bad guy who'll never attack again.
He'll be a Really Perforated Goner instead.
