Organization: Penn State University
Date: Monday, 6 Apr 1992 16:15:48 EDT
From: <TWZ101@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Tomohawks (was Re: Iraqi war)
 <1992Apr3.220325.25599@umbc3.umbc.edu>
 <NIGEL.92Apr6105024@rs733.GSFC.NASA.Gov>

     I don't understand the confusion over the reasons for Tomahawk use in the
 Gulf War; it's all very simple:

     1. When you fight a large, well-armed opponent, you use the best tools you
 have to get the job done.  Tomahawk is not some special weapon, like a nuclear
 bomb, invested with some moral threshold against its use in anything other
 than dire circumstances.  It is simply a single part of a total force package
 that was extremely useful during DS; in this, it is just like any other
 weapon.

     2. A few factual errors always seem to creep into these arguments:
          **52 Tomahawks were fired on the first night of the war, mostly
            against command and control targets, airbases, air defense radars,
            and other key sites critical to Saddam's ability to interfere with
            the air assault.  51 of these hit their targets, and this, in large
            part, was WHY only one Allied plane (an F/A-18C) was shot down in
            the first night of the war.  The most heavily defended targets that
            HAD to be hit (the AD centers, for example) had been knocked out of
            action.
          **TOMAHAWK COST:  T-LAM (Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles) cost approx-
            imately $1.1 million each.  This seems like a hefty sum on a one-
            shot missile unless you consider:
                 --the price of the one F/A-18 which was lost cost as much as
                   about 36 Tomahawks, not including the cost of munitions on
                   the plane (around $1 mil. for 2 AIM-9/2 AIM-7/plus bombs/
                   plus fuel/etc.) plus the cost of training the pilot (not to
                   mention the loss of an irreplaceable human life).
                 --unlike the one lost F/A-18, the TLAM requires little main-
                   tenance, no training sorties, no chances of losing it in a
                   training flight, etc.
                 --if the TLAMs hadn't been used, many more $35-$45 million
                   dollar aircraft might have been lost
                 --281 TLAMs were fired during the war, and had about an 80%
                   success rate for hitting their targets.  Because of their
                   flight profile (low, slow, alone) they don't risk being shot
                   down as much as a conventional aircraft, and they don't
                   require fighter escorts/ECM jamming planes/tankers, etc.
     Incidentally, someone mentioned using B-52Gs to launch air-launched cruise
 missiles.  In fact, on the first night, some 30+ ALCMs were fired from B-52s
 to strike targets in northern Iraq (the TLAMs didn't have the range from the
 southern Gulf and Red Sea to strike them, and Turkey had not yet allowed air
 strikes to be flown from Incirlik and Diyakabir).  Again, this was a combined
 arms assault when everything possible (and acceptable--no nukes) was used to
 bring about a quick conclusion to the war with as few Allied casualties as
 possible.
            O.K?
                                        --Tom Zarzecki--
                                        "Do you trust what I trust. . .?"
Newsgroups: alt.war