National Space Policy: NSDD-42 (issued on July 4th, 1982)

(Stuf4) wrote:

From Scott Kozel:

The fact that the Japanese were the ones who "lowered the bar" and first
conducted the firebombing of cities in that war, is crucial to
understanding why they later got the same treatment, and those cities
that you mentioned were legitimate aerial targets by the standards of
Hague, in that they were defensed cities that contained valid military
targets.

The Hague rules were never ratified by the signatories, so they were not
law.

It is clear to me that such indiscriminant bombardment was expressly
prohibited. In particular, Articles 22, 24 and 25:

http://lawofwar.org/hague_rules_of_air_warfare.htm

It wasn't indiscriminate. The "cottage industry" aspect of Japan's
military machine was well documented, whereby a considerable portion of
their military industrial output began in people's city homes and flowed
to the military factories and plants. That made the entirety of the
city a military target.

Those cities had other purely military targets. The accuracy of aerial
bombardment was not very good in WWII, so legitimate aerial bombardment
directed at a military objective could legitimately involve damage to
nearby areas.

See: The First Rules of Air Warfare, by Major Richard H. Wyman, USAF
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchr...apr/wyman.html

I suspect that these Hague articles formed the basis for LeMay's
post-war words:
--------------
"Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose
if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal..."

With the nature of the Japanese military in WWII, they undoubtedly would
have tried and killed most of a losing country's leaders as "war
criminals".

Japan had already clearly lost the war by the time that the B-29s
reached Japan in 1945, so LeMay would have had no fears of the U.S.
losing the war.

"Stuf4" wrote in message
om...
An illustration as to why, consider the case of satcom. The triad had
the capability to destroy the USSR several times over prior to satcom
(and after satcom). Yet satcom still offered new offensive strike
capability in the command and control aspects.

GPS offered new offensive strike capability in the navigational
aspects.

I would say "enhanced existing strike capability". With the exception of the
Stealth aircraft, there isn't anything the USAF can do now it couldn't do in
1973, except now they do it much better.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...14-oberg_x.htm
Author: James Oberg

"...Suppose a small asteroid was a potential threat to Earth.
We'd want to divert its orbit. But despite Hollywood's best
imaginations, we don't know how. To gain that knowledge, we
need more probes to nearby asteroids and even small-scale
experiments. Instead of going to the moon or Mars, there
could be a human mission to an asteroid passing near Earth..."

From Scott Kozel:
(Stuf4) wrote:

Notice that it wasn't the Army who got funded for GPS R&D. Notice
that is wasn't the FAA. Notice that it wasn't the USGS. Not the
Coast Guard. Not EMS 'R' US.

It was not a federal grant to Cadillac.

Just two players:

- The US Air Force,
- The US Navy.

All in all, the cost of putting up 24 GPS satellites over an 18-year
period, was a very modest cost to the federal government. The
government spent more money on Food Stamps in the same time period.

A *lot* more, I'm sure.

If GPS had such a high military justification as you assert, then they
wouldn't have taken 18 years to implement the system (even the first 10
"Block 1" satellites took 7-1/2 years to implement), they probably would
have done the whole 24 in 3 years or less.

Had this capability been considered necessary, then I would agree. A
key factor to remember here is that no one knew for sure whether GPS
would actually work (let alone work so well).

It was all a theory when that first NavSTAR was launched.

And think back to how much funding the military gave the Wright
Brothers for R&D prior to Kitty Hawk. How much to Goddard at Aunt
Effie's.

The military is slow to jump on such projects because they don't want
to waste money on technology that may not work.

Here is an excellent reference about the military aspects of
interstate highways:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ility/ndhs.htm

Its message fits in with your message, as I see it (save the
misconception part).

It uses the label "National Defense Highway System" several times, which
is incorrect, there never has been a USA highway system by that name,
and sources like that are among those who perpetuate military myths
about the Interstate highway system.

It is quite common for legislation to be known by a short title.
Often, the short title is specified within the legislation itself. So
where did this short name come from? Perhaps there were people who
noted that the term "Interstate and Defense Highways" were two
separate labels for one type of road (noting that interstate highways
are not separate from defense highways).

While we can agree that "National Defense Highway System" was not the
official title, I have no problem with its use as a short title.
(Notice also that the "One Mile in Five" reference you provided talks
of the "Eisenhower Interstate Highway System" as well as the "Defense
Highway Act of 1941".)

And I find your criticism of "military myths" particularly curious,
especially since you have stated that you have a wealth of background
on the matter. Here are quotes from a speech prepared by Eisenhower
himself:

...cited five "penalties" of the nation's obsolete highway
network:
the annual death and injury toll, the waste of billions of
dollars
in detours and traffic jams, the clogging of the nation's courts
with highway-related suits, the inefficiency in the
transportation
of goods, and "the appalling inadequacies to meet the demands of
catastrophe or defense, should an atomic war come."

In case anyone missed that last point, I'll repeat it:

"the nation's obsolete highway network [has] appalling inadequacies to
meet the demands of catastrophe or defense, should atomic war come."

Other quotes from the very same webpage:

...by July 1950, the United States was again at war, this time
in
Korea, and the focus of the highway program shifted from
civilian
to military needs.


Because of the significance of the interstate system to national
defense, Fallon changed the official name to the "National
System
of Interstate and Defense Highways." This new name remained in
all
future House versions and was adopted in 1956.


Where did I find these quotes? On the very webpage that you provided:

From the official DOT website for the Federal Highway Administration:
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su10.htm


(I don't know whether you didn't bother reading the page you linked,
or whether you are choosing to ignore it.)

It was named the "National System of Interstate Highways" from 1943
until 1956 when the "and defense" was tacked on.

Quotes --

"From the outset of construction of the Interstate System, the DOD has
monitored its progress closely, ensuring direct military input to all
phases of construction".

SMK: DOD had relatively little input to the Interstate system, as the
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and its predecessor Bureau of
Public Roads (BPR) was the federal agency that led the project.

"The National Defense Highway System was responsible for building many
of the first freeways".

SMK: Wrong. The state highway departments administered the design,
right-of-way acquisition and construction of every Interstate highway
route, the FHWA provided design approvals and 90% of the funding, and
the state highway departments owned the completed Interstate highways.

"Its purpose was supposedly to allow for mass evacuation of cities in
the event of a nuclear attack".

SMK: Baloney. Highway and traffic engineers back then greatly
discounted the ability of the freeways to provide timely mass evacuation
of cities, because their traffic engineering knowledge knew of the
impossibility of throwing 3 million or more vehicles onto a metropolitan
area's freeway system and expecting anything but total gridlock. Here's
a hint: one freeway lane has a maximum capacity of about 2,000 vehicles
per hour.

"The Interstate system was designed so that one mile in every five must
be straight, usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies".

SMK: That is a myth.

See: "One Mile in Five: Debunking the Myth", by Richard F. Weingroff,
FHWA historian
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/rw00b.htm

"Was designed to move military equipment and personnel efficiently".

SMK: As a purely secondary function.

Here is a much better history of the Interstate highway system, by
Richard F. Weingroff, chief FHWA historian --

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: Creating the Interstate System
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su10.htm

"The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 primarily maintained the status
quo. Its biggest departure was in Section 7, which authorized
designation of a 65,000-km "National System of Interstate Highways," to
be selected by joint action of the state highway departments:
... so located as to connect by routes, as direct as practicable, the
principal metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers, to serve
the national defense, and to connect at suitable border points with
routes of continental importance in the Dominion of Canada and the
Republic of Mexico".

Along with the "atomic war" justification as quoted above from this
very same page, an interesting side note that comes out is that
decades before Al Gore Jr pushed funding for the information
superhighway, Al Gore Sr had pushed funding for automobile interstate
highways.

Still, GPS did not provide any new unique capability, and all 3 legs of
the U.S. nuclear triad were quite accurate in their own right prior to
GPS.

?

I just stated that nuclear warhead delivery had unreliable accuracy.
You are agreeing with that point. And then state that they were quite
accurate.

I said "quite accurate in their own right", as before GPS, U.S. ICBMs
were accurate enough to hit point hardened targets, U.S. manned bombers
were accurate enough to hit point hardened targets, and U.S. SLBMs were
accurate enough to hit cities, ports and industrial centers (but not
point targets).

I don't disagree with that. But once again...

The percentage expected to hit accurately with GPS is greater than
without. This fact is encompassed by the term "force multiplier".

I agree that they *can be* quite accurate without GPS. But this takes
a high degree of skill, and even then, the best navigators were known
to unwittingly degrade their system accuracy (if not a hardware only
problem).

GPS is a no brainer. It pumps into the system many highly accurate
fixes that keep the inertial part of the system *tight*.

...and that *is* a unique capability. It greatly increased the
percentage of bombers that could be expected to reach their targets
accurately. Same for other types of warheads.

GPS is NOT "unique", conceptually it is a "better navigation system".

GPS revolutionized navigation.

Never has there been a system that could fix your position at any
point on the globe. GPS does this with exceptionaly precision.

It is incomparable to INS systems for the aspects previously
mentioned: INS is totally incapable of measuring position. It must
be told where it is, and only from there can it tell you where you
have gone (maybe).

GPS tells you where you are.

It also was vulnerable during the Cold War, as the satellites couldn't
be hidden, the Soviets knew exactly where they were, and their
hunter-killer satellites could have quickly destroyed enough so as to
heavily degrade or even neutralize the GPS system.

....or a more radical approach:

The Soviets could build their own sat-nav system!


~ CT

From Scott Kozel:
(Stuf4) wrote:

Imagine during the biggest, most recent raid on Baghdad...

All of a sudden turning off GPS the constellation.

This would have had an effect reminiscent to that scene in a new Star
Wars episode where in the heat of battle, all of the robot warriors
instantly become useless.

Give it up, troll. The 1991 Gulf War utilized smart bombs without GPS,
so your assertions are false, as usual.


(By "biggest, most recent raid on Baghdad", I wasn't exactly thinking 1991.)


~ CT

From Ami Silberman:
"Stuf4" wrote
An illustration as to why, consider the case of satcom. The triad had
the capability to destroy the USSR several times over prior to satcom
(and after satcom). Yet satcom still offered new offensive strike
capability in the command and control aspects.

GPS offered new offensive strike capability in the navigational
aspects.

I would say "enhanced existing strike capability". With the exception of the
Stealth aircraft, there isn't anything the USAF can do now it couldn't do in
1973, except now they do it much better.

I recently posted one example of a new capability provided by GPS:
------
GPS was designed from the outset to create new capability for
offensive strategic forces. Consider, for example, the planning of
the route taken by a B-52. The Strategic Air Command had a
requirement for how often navigational fixes needed to be available
for updates of the nav system to prevent the INS position from
wandering off.

One consequence was that missions planned over the open ocean had to
periodically be within radar fix distance of identifiable land points.
GPS eliminates that constraint, creating new capability for mission
planning.
------

There are other examples which are more significant, such as GPS-aided
inflight INS alignment.


~ CT

From Scott Kozel:
(Stuf4) wrote:

The Hague rules were never ratified by the signatories, so they were not
law.

I have explicitly stated:

"There are many who would say that these Rules of Air Warfare are
irrelevant no matter what."

....yet they are still used as an international standard. I stated
early on that these air warfare guidelines were created by
extrapolating the rules of land and sea warfare, documents that have
been ratified.

It is clear to me that such indiscriminant bombardment was expressly
prohibited. In particular, Articles 22, 24 and 25:

http://lawofwar.org/hague_rules_of_air_warfare.htm

It wasn't indiscriminate. The "cottage industry" aspect of Japan's
military machine was well documented, whereby a considerable portion of
their military industrial output began in people's city homes and flowed
to the military factories and plants. That made the entirety of the
city a military target.

Those cities had other purely military targets. The accuracy of aerial
bombardment was not very good in WWII, so legitimate aerial bombardment
directed at a military objective could legitimately involve damage to
nearby areas.

I point out Tokyo firebombing, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You respond
with a concern about accuracy not being very good.

Area bombing was, by definition, indiscriminate. Families with young
children were targeted. A popular theory at the time, "thanks" to a
guy named Giulio Douhet, was that if you kill the non-combatants, a
country's will to fight would collapse.

See: The First Rules of Air Warfare, by Major Richard H. Wyman, USAF
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchr...apr/wyman.html

I found it interesting to see Wyman refer to "German terror bombing
against England". I expect that he'd speak of the "collateral damage"
done at Dresden, etc.


I suspect that these Hague articles formed the basis for LeMay's
post-war words:
--------------
"Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose
if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal..."

With the nature of the Japanese military in WWII, they undoubtedly would
have tried and killed most of a losing country's leaders as "war
criminals".

At issue here is the grounds for being tried. In LeMay's case, it is
the willful targeting of non-combatants (women, children, etc).

Japan had already clearly lost the war by the time that the B-29s
reached Japan in 1945, so LeMay would have had no fears of the U.S.
losing the war.

I agree with that point. Now notice that LeMay isn't quoted as saying
that he had no concerns about being tried as a war criminal. Knowing
that he was expecting to win the war, I take his statement as an
expression of conscience.


~ CT

(Stuf4) wrote in message . com...
From Ami Silberman:
"Stuf4" wrote
An illustration as to why, consider the case of satcom. The triad had
the capability to destroy the USSR several times over prior to satcom
(and after satcom). Yet satcom still offered new offensive strike
capability in the command and control aspects.

GPS offered new offensive strike capability in the navigational
aspects.

I would say "enhanced existing strike capability". With the exception of the
Stealth aircraft, there isn't anything the USAF can do now it couldn't do in
1973, except now they do it much better.

I recently posted one example of a new capability provided by GPS:
------
GPS was designed from the outset to create new capability for
offensive strategic forces. Consider, for example, the planning of
the route taken by a B-52. The Strategic Air Command had a
requirement for how often navigational fixes needed to be available
for updates of the nav system to prevent the INS position from
wandering off.

One consequence was that missions planned over the open ocean had to
periodically be within radar fix distance of identifiable land points.
GPS eliminates that constraint, creating new capability for mission
planning.
------

There are other examples which are more significant, such as GPS-aided
inflight INS alignment.


~ CT

Hmmmm, who was it who was saying CT doesn't know what he's talking about? :-)
LaDonna

(Stuf4) wrote:

From Scott Kozel:

If GPS had such a high military justification as you assert, then they
wouldn't have taken 18 years to implement the system (even the first 10
"Block 1" satellites took 7-1/2 years to implement), they probably would
have done the whole 24 in 3 years or less.

Had this capability been considered necessary, then I would agree. A
key factor to remember here is that no one knew for sure whether GPS
would actually work (let alone work so well).

Three satellites would have been sufficient to fully test the concept.

They started launching in 1978, and by the time they were finished in
1996, the Cold War had been over for five years. That shows that they
put hardly any priority on GPS.

It uses the label "National Defense Highway System" several times, which
is incorrect, there never has been a USA highway system by that name,
and sources like that are among those who perpetuate military myths
about the Interstate highway system.

It is quite common for legislation to be known by a short title.
Often, the short title is specified within the legislation itself. So
where did this short name come from?

It came from the writer of www.globalsecurity.org. I've never seen it
anywhere else.

While we can agree that "National Defense Highway System" was not the
official title, I have no problem with its use as a short title.

I have a big problem with that very misleading name. It suggests that
"national defense" is the sole purpose of the Interstate highway system,
when that is and was only a minor role. It doesn't include the very
predominant "Interstate", which is the one system-related word that is
on the red-white-and-blue shield highway route markers.

Commonly used "short titles" such as "Interstate System" and "Interstate
Highway System", are appropriate and accurate, and implicitly would
include the transportation of all types of vehicles, people and cargoes,
both civil and military.

And I find your criticism of "military myths" particularly curious,
especially since you have stated that you have a wealth of background
on the matter. Here are quotes from a speech prepared by Eisenhower
himself:

...cited five "penalties" of the nation's obsolete highway network:
the annual death and injury toll, the waste of billions of dollars
in detours and traffic jams, the clogging of the nation's courts
with highway-related suits, the inefficiency in the transportation
of goods, and "the appalling inadequacies to meet the demands of
catastrophe or defense, should an atomic war come."

Of the "five penalties" cited in one Eisenhower speech, four were purely
civil and only one was for defense; and each of those four "civil
penalties" were -huge-.

Because of the significance of the interstate system to national
defense, Fallon changed the official name to the "National System
of Interstate and Defense Highways." This new name remained in all
future House versions and was adopted in 1956.

Like I said, the system was officially named "National System of
Interstate Highways" when it was first established by Congress in 1943,
and the "and defense" was tacked on in 1956, the year that final
approval for construction occurred and actual construction began.

Where did I find these quotes? On the very webpage that you provided:

From the official DOT website for the Federal Highway Administration:
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/summer96/p96su10.htm

(I don't know whether you didn't bother reading the page you linked,
or whether you are choosing to ignore it.)

Of course I read it, Stuffie. You found the word "defense" in there,
and think you can make that the main justification for the Interstate
system, when in fact it was a minor element.

I said "quite accurate in their own right", as before GPS, U.S. ICBMs
were accurate enough to hit point hardened targets, U.S. manned bombers
were accurate enough to hit point hardened targets, and U.S. SLBMs were
accurate enough to hit cities, ports and industrial centers (but not
point targets).

I don't disagree with that. But once again...

The percentage expected to hit accurately with GPS is greater than
without. This fact is encompassed by the term "force multiplier".

By itself it doesn't do anything, and it wasn't completed until well
after the Cold War had ended.

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

(Stuf4) wrote:

From Ami Silberman:

With the exception of the
Stealth aircraft, there isn't anything the USAF can do now it couldn't do in
1973, except now they do it much better.

I recently posted one example of a new capability provided by GPS:

GPS was designed from the outset to create new capability for
offensive strategic forces.

Bullcrap. They wouldn't have taken 18 years to implement (i.e. launch)
the GPS system if there was any such intended design.