From: pswanson@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul Swanson)
Subject: Re: Bush's Accomplishments
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 17:17:41 GMT

In article <Bvu9qr.EJJ@eis.calstate.edu> kmitche@eis.calstate.edu (Kenneth Mitchell) writes:
>
>You probably want to keep a little quieter when you don't know what you're
>talking about. 

This is good advice.  I'm not sure how it applies to this thread,
however.
>
>While I'm unaware of any ACTUAL WARTIME FOOTAGE from a cruise missile,
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is precisly my point.  The weapons Clinton was talking about were
not cruise missles but the weapons seen in actual wartime footage.  I
should add that by cruise missle I mean cruise missles of the long range
variety.  BTW I've certainly seen various demo videos of the cruise
missles but we are talking about video from the gulf war.

>there ARE a number of videos taken from test/telemetry missiles, and one
>particularly impressive one, from an early test of the Harpoon
>anti-shipping missile, does show the missile flying in through an open
>doorway in a target ship. (Cameras aboard the target vessel also captured
>this.) 
>
>Second, destruction of a cruise missile is NOT "relatively easy", as
>they're damned small - and while they are subsonic, they are barely so. 
>
The point I was making was that they would be easy to destoy if they
were broadcasting some sort of signal.  Such a signal could easily be
used to guide a missle right to the cruise missle.  And since the cruise
missle is slow (I wouldn't call Mach 0.7 barely subsonic) and not
capable of taking evasive action it would be easily destroyed.

>Third, standard tactics (as used in the Gulf war) call for cruise missile
>barrages as the first wave in an "Alpha" strike, where the carrier's air
>wing are perhaps 3 minutes behind the missiles. The missiles are supposed
>to wake him up and get him to turn on his radars just in time for the
>"Wild Weasel" aircraft to target them with anti-radiation missiles. Also,
>over Baghdad, F-117 "stealth" fighters were in place EVEN BEFORE the
>initial missile barrage, and could easily have captured missile impacts on
>video. 
>
All of the weapons video I saw from the gulf war was from the weapons guidance
systems of the controling aircraft.  I find it hard to believe that any
bomber would be aiming at a target (which is what they would have to do
to get it on video) when a cruise missle struck.  If they are going to
fix their weapons systems on a target why not just drop a bomb?
>
>> Clinton claimed that there was video of Patriot missles going down air
>> shafts and through windows.  He was clearly wrong.  The pictures were of
>> various laser guided munitions or video guided glide bombs.  On the
>> other hand Quayle screwed up as only he can do by 'correcting' Clinton
>> to an equally incorrect munition  (the cruise missle).  And some people
>> wonder why Quayle is viewed so negatively.
>> 
>
>And we should view Slick Willie POSITIVELY because of this? 
>
No.  We should view Quayle as being in a league of his own when it comes
to saying stupid things.

Paul.
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