At one point it was suggested by , I believe IvanR, that you can fire off the first round, hit your first target. After that point the targets scatter and pop smoke defeating the laser guidance. From that point on the guided rounds are supposedly useless.
Lets assume it works out that way, that the squad gets to pop off 1 round each, each taking out their target. From that point on the rounds are useless.
Someone also mentioned Vietnam where the theorist believed that they knew what the pilots would encounter, what the troops on the ground would encounter, and that somehow these guys in offices back in the U.S. knew it all.
There was another comment about Leonld, IIRC I just butchered his name, I read one of his books on maneuver warfare. IIRC, he made a mention about how new tech gets passed up, or not applied correctly because people want to apply it the same old way that they have used everything they had before.
I think there are some assumptions being made here. First off that the enemy's position is know, not just where they saw one soldier, but they know exactly where the whole unit is.
next is that each round in the magazine is one of these smart rounds.
That we cannot trust the spotter, even if it is a drone, which is either fully automated or a being controlled at home by an operator who has an officer watching over the operations of the drones, authorizing targets. That no matter what, we cannot trust the individuals that are responsible for helping acquire the target.
That there is, nor ever will be some sort of override, or means of the shooter to not fire, or to have absolutely no control of the shot, or a minimization of what the spotter can and cannot do.
That the enemy will respond in a predictable fashion that will always defeat a second round of smart bullets.
There is also the assumption that the one firing the rounds are going to be human.
If we try to look beyond these assumptions, or even play to them things might not be so obviously pointless.
Lets go with a UAV serving as a spotter. We could either have one that is being operated at home that has an operator and someone in command of that operator making sure they know what is going on when someone is requesting assistence to take a shot, or we could have a much smaller uav that is operated locally by a squad mate.
Since not every encounter with the enemy is going to permit the use of smart rounds, lets do away with the idea that the entire magazine is filled with smart rounds. Instead, lets mix a few smart rounds in with standard rounds. What this does is allow someone to always have a smart round available somewhere, but always able to fire away with standard rounds. It reduces costs, it reduces the number of crates of smart rounds that need to be shipped. It ensures that a lot of money is not being wasted after the first round. Lets go with the first round is always a smart one and every 3rd is also a smart round, or any other way you want to do it.
Seeing 4 people getting dropped causes the enemy to scatter and to start popping smoke. Your guided rounds are now useless. that sucks, right? Well, of course it does, but we also now know where everyone is. We know what their possible paths are going to be. There is no point in using smoke to protect yourself after the first shot if you are going to wonder out into the open to get out of there. That would allow them to fire more smart rounds and make sure they drop more of your force. The hostile force needs to either construct a series of tunnels from every position they wish to hold, or they need to use smoke to protect their retreat, making them obvious. Of course, the idea that they are going to basically light themselves up that way means that the spotter could relay the position of the smoke to other assets. The enemy has now fixed their position less they carry tons of smoke , or they go out into the open to be cut down.
Not sure how this would work, but what if there was a shooter, a spotter with a portable uav or just a designator, and a bigger, more sophisitcated uav over head? Using GPS, radar and such, could there not be a scan of the area that can be pulled up, along with new information assuming the hostiles have altered their immediate surroundings to afford themselves some protection?
Would it be possible to use some sort of sensor that the smoke does not defeat? If so could the rounds be given instructions over radio waves? Could the big uav have the processing power to take in information from the spotter, go over the known dimensions of the area that was updated before the first round is fired, to then adjust the fire of the shooter in a way that defeats the smoke?
I am assuming that the hostiles are able to see through the smoke somehow. If so, then similar methods could be used to observe them, which means targeting information could be fed to the uav to feed to the rounds of the shooter. If so then the smart rounds are back in bussiness until the hostiles start using other means to protect themselves to the point that they themselves cannot return fire. If they cannot return fire and they cannot advance, nor are the able to retreat, then a nice fat artillery round or 10 would likely eliminate them.
It seems pointless since the infantry would only end up firing 1-4 rounds at best and that things become much more dependant upon the artillery or air assets. What is the point? Well, the point would be that the infantry are not pulling the trigger as often, but neither is enemy. While they are not firing as many rounds they are also reducing the rounds that are being fired in their direction. The fewer rounds fired at them, the higher their survival rate. If thats not a good enough reason to give smart rounds a shot, I don't know what is. Not only would it increase their chances of living and avoiding life changing injury, but it could cause the opposition to surrender more often. I am sure the hostiles would have just as much a life to want to return to in one piece then our own people.
Also, if we are talking about an environment where there might be civilians, but an absolute need to take the shot, would you rather have a chance of missing a target by yards, or by inches? The less the rounds stray, the more control the shoot has over them. It does not mean they need to take unnecessary risks by firing into a crowd while relying on the adjustments to ensure the civilians are safe, it just means the rounds are not going to be as wild as they would without the guidance. Things are not going to be perfect out there, so the less of a chance someone is ordered to take a shot that might hit a civiilan instead of the actual target, the less stress that shooter needs to be under. it also helps reduce the chances of such taking place, meaning that individual is not going to go through the rest of their life thinking that they shot a civilian on accident, but shot not the less. That is a huge psychological load off of them.
That is just thinking of a spotter, a uav, and some infantry. That is rather conventional ...
What if we reduced the risks to our own people by making use of smart rounds, uavs, and ground based drones. 1 soldier is going to make use of a single weapon, but a single soldier could end up operating a few ground based drones. Each drone could be equipped with more then a single weapon. Instead of the hostiles looking for the muzzle flash of the shooter, they would end up looking for where the fire is coming from only to find that there is a drone instead of a flesh and blood soldier. Sucks for them, but is good for our people, right?
One of the problems people have with fully automated , armed, uavs is that no one is responsible for pulling the trigger. People worry that we are going to have a skynet scenario on a smaller scale where a drone goes around shooting anyone. With such a set up we still have an individual in the loop that needs to pay attention to what is going on. Now, we could give the drones standard rounds, or we could change that so that they have a mix of standard and smart rounds. We could even have one weapon with nothing but smart rounds and another with standards.
A single soldier could operate a drone that has 1 or 2 machine guns, or control 2 or more such drones at a time. Adding such firepower to every unit would increase their lethality while reducing the risk to the actual people. Either the drones are going to mow the opposition down with ease, or it is going to scare the heck out of them. If the enemy has x amount of RPGs on hand, they might fire them at the softies, or they might try and take out the drones. Most likely they will realize that the drones are probably going to take more of a hit then the softies and choose to fire the rpgs at them. Great, you just forced them to burn some of their stock on hand. That is now x amount of rpgs that would have been fired at softies that could have been killed or seriously injured. You might lose a drone or two, but those are replaceable, right? Again, the enemy might just get smart and give up, or do something stupid and get caught in the open and eliminated one way or another...to bad they didn't surrender...maybe their friends will think about it twice though.
Also, if one side has these rounds and the other does not, that is going to kick their moral down a notch. They will know at long range they are much more likely to catch a round then their targets will from them. That smoke isn't going to be super effective forever, that means someone is going to have to lug around more means of generating such smoke. something is going to be left behind in order for that smoke, or they are going to be weighted down, which might get them killed or hurt.
The point should not to look at a new piece of gear as something to defeat everything all of the time. The point should be to push the enemy to respond in a manner that hurts them, so that you can do something else to hurt them for reacting. no smoke? get decimated by smart rounds. Use smoke but don't run for it? get shelled as you just gave away your position with absolute certainty. Want to mix in with civilians and force someone to take a shot? Might go the way you planned it. Keep forcing them to react to you. Get inside their head, look at their options, look for ways to beat those options. Beat those options and you beat them, hopefully by forcing them to crack and feel that there is nothing they can do but surrender or die in a futile manner. HOpefully they will surrender so that one day they can go home when the fighting is over.
The question shouldn't be what we think on a forum, engineer, or someone that worked in the field, or someone else. It should come down to what those risking their butts for whatever their country asks of them if they will prefer to almost ensure the elimination of 1 target for each of them out there before the enemy knows they are there, or would they prefer to face 100% of their force with standard rounds? Chances are they are going to realize if you drop 4 out of 10 hostiles, that is 4 fewer weapons being fired at them, which translates into x^4 fewer rounds being fired at them. It also removes some capabilities that the enemy would have otherwise. The question should be if they want to up their chances of survival, and the chances of those to their left and their right, or should someone at a desk decide that the project isn't going to autowin the war for them, therefore it should be ignored. Don't rely on it, but work it into the available options is the way to go.
