DENIS SMITH wrote:

Having done quite a bit of IR during my stint with
Uncle S I can tell you that given the verticality of
much of the terrain (with many caves) there wouldn't
be much to see.  Any cloud cover would render IR
somewhat useless, and the lack of targets (vehicles
etc) makes it tough.  The only way to nail these guys
is with humint.

Too bad. BTW did they ever perfect that GPS controlled
para glider?

Paul Lamar

Run a bunch of Boeing Darkstars....SAR snap shots real time

uploaded...you

can count the humps on a camels back in any light/weather...

http://www.abs.net/~maddock/LO/UAVs/TierIII-Darkstar.htm

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/darkstar-99a.html

http://www.af.mil/lib/afissues/1997/app_b_16.html

The best stealth in UAVs.....To bad I think they didn't order them

instead

going for the longer range but much less stealth Global Hawk.

Cheers!

Cool stuff for sure, but I'm not sure how stealth will help us fight people
who's most advanced weapon is a 10 year old stinger missile which we
provided. All our Gee Whiz stuff is designed to defeat the modern nation
state. It seems rather silly to send a 2 billion dollar stealth bomber to
drop a $50K bomb on some mud huts, camels, and a $10K artillery piece. If we
are talking economic warfare, we'd loose in a hurry. Global Hawk should work
fine. A-10's, C-130's, B-52's maybe, but IMHO this is the time for SF to
shine. Conventional forces would be doomed, and ineffective in Afghanistan
(ask the Russians). Unfortunately this will not make for a good fireworks
show on CNN, and will no doubt bore the public to tears. We'll probably bomb
some Taliban installations for PR and CNN fireworks, but the real war will
go unreported and unknown for the next 20 years.

Monty

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