We've seen from history how weapons that were intended to destroy important cities also have killed thousands of innocent civilians in the process. For instance, in 2008, eleven people were killed after Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated area in Georgia. Although the casualties do not seem very big, nonetheless it still serves as an example of the collateral damage a bomb can cause.
So, as to prevent these damages, a new type of weapon called Precision-guided Munition (PGM) or sometimes called smart weapon was invented. These are designed to precisely hit a specific target, and to minimize damage to things other than the target itself.
There are several positive outcomes with the use of PGMs. The most obvious one is that military will be able to reduce civilian casualties. The effectiveness of a bomb is measured in Circle of Equal Probability or CEP which is the radius of a circle that half the shots will land in and most smart boms have a CEP of about 10m while the bombs used in WWII had a CEP of about 8km. So from these number you can clearly see how effective these PGMs are. When back in the days in order to win a war thousand of people had to be sacrficed for the good of the greater cause, these days, with the development of technology, the military won't have to risk people's lives anymore which eases the planning of an attack and also it is more easier for soldiers to attack, so there is less mental stress.
However, there are still limitations to this technology. For example a laser guided bomb which is a type of PGM might be accurate, but the conditions that need to be met in order to bomb an area accurately is too complicated. For instance, the bomb has to be released at a height, speed and angle that give it a reasonable chance of latching onto the guidance cone of light and if the climate is foggy or not very clear, then the accuracy greatly decreases, which makes me wonder whether we can really rely on this technology.
Also, it is not able to distinguish the target. What I mean by this is that if the target is a tank and for some reason there is a moving truck at the same location, then the bomb will not be able to distinguish which is the enemy and might eventually strike the truck. Finally one other limitation is that if the missiles lose their target, then they become uncontrollable. Yes, technology improved the accuracy of the missiles but at the same time we've become too dependent on them that there still problems occurring. We will not be able to ensure the people's lives during a war if there happened to be a little kid besides a tank or if the environmental conditions were not right. So we must question the reliability of the PGM and also be aware that during a war, the opponent is not naive enough to wait for us until we can use this technology.
Do you think that this technology is secure enough or should we develop it more?
As Chong explains the negative side of this technology; the complicated condition of weapon in order to be stabled, difficuly withdistinguishing the target, etc...
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I am interested in is how much do they cost those new weapons? are they reallyexpensive? if it is, it wont be easy for many countries to buy them.
Another concern is the accuracy. Although on the video it seems like a very smart weapon, but you never know when those smart weapon cause some malfunction, for example if it accidentaly hits a random house or a car of civilian and they die? Who is responsible for that? the government? or the creators of those weapon?
Though it is a smart technology to use as a weapon to protect the society, it may cause to a bad influence on taking the wrong direction of the future. As Chong just mention about the issues, the accuracy might not be the same as the accuracy as the video shown. I think that we should tested as many times before we use it for the world and its protections in society.
ReplyDeleteAs it has been mentioned the biggest risk with this PGM is how reliable it is when a target is chose. Agreeing with what sexyasian mentioned, who is responsible if one of these PGM fails, and instead of targeting a "enemy" vehicle it targets a car that was happening to drive by and kills innocent people? Despite the videos or statistics could show thats these weapons will waste less ammo and prevent more casualties, the posibility of these weapons failing and being the cause of unpredicted casualties is always possible.
ReplyDelete