“Victory is gained not by the number killed, but by the number frightened.” – Arab Proverb.

the Hummer guys won every sinkex I’ve seen. Last one, the “bombardier”, a guy about 6’5 and about 120# whom we called SKELETOR had bruises all over his body for about a week from the feat. But oh so proud.

Heh. Reminds me of many a pleasant day spent at the mining range on the coast of Maine, between Sabino and Small Point.

There was a tower at each location, with an air-to-ground radio set up, and a transit. The P-3 on the mining run would swing by, and the tower crews would set the transit sights on the tail of the aircraft. As the TACCO called the drops, the assistant in the tower would read off the coordinate from the transit. By comparing the two bearing lines, you could easily plot each drop on the map.

Some enterprising TACCO’s discovered that the accuracy of their drops could be much improved by delivering certain comestibles of the beef & hops-derived beverage group to the tower crews before they departed for the range, along with, of course, the CORRECT bearing lines to be transmitted to the aircraft. In the clear. So everyone could hear.

Lovely days, those, with the surf crashing upon the rocky shore, the aroma of sizzling steaks on a charcoal grill mingling with the salt spray of the breakers, and the throaty roar of allison turboprops in the close-by overhead.

Life, sometimes, could be awfully good.

In WW-II the Germans developed and used radio-guided bombs – The Fritz X and the Henschel Hs293. Although limited in use, both were used successfully as anti-shipping precision guided bombs. The Allies developed but never used the WW-II developed GB serious of bombs which included the various uses of TV, infrared, or light-contrast for bomb guidance. But the VB-1 Azon – which was an azimuth-only guided bomb – was used in both WW-II and Korea.

Smart bombs or precision-guided-munitions (PGM’s) saw extensive use in the later Vietnam years. Their use was only limited by the lack of enough appropriate targets to justify their use. The Air force used the laser-guided Paveway system and an electro-optically guided bomb. The Navy made widespread use of the TV-guided Walleye. Even Navy F-4′s working in tandem used a then classified but very effective system for manual laser target designating and the dropping of laser-guided bombs. And it was 4 LGB’s that finally finished the notorious Thanh Hoa bridge, after losing many crews there for seven years in prior attempts .

But bullets are still bullets and despite jamming or decoy, just go mostly and nicely where pointed.

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