Laser Guided Bombs

Factual Questions
1

I know there are two types of guided bombs. One type is where the weapons officer on the plane literally flies the bomb into the target. The other is a bomb which flies towards the target based on laser light reflected off the target either by the laser emitter on the plane or an infantryman.

Would it be possible to decoy the bomb away from critical targets by having non-critical targets installed with a laser which targets the non-critical or dummy target itself? Or are laser guided bombs “tuned” to a particular type of laser and only if you were using the same laser would that work?

“Glitch … Window, large icons.” - Bob the Guardian

2

The easiest way to screw with laser-guided bombs is to have bad weather. What they didn’t tell you during the Gulf War is that if it were cloudy over Bagdad, the LGB’s were no smarter than the bombs dropped in World War 2 (bacause water vapor absorbs the laser energy pretty well). That’s why the Balkan conflict was so much harder…alot more wet weather = much-less-smart bombs.

–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

3

The “signature” of the targeting laser is such that a bomb will only see that particular laser.
Sort of the same idea is used in remote controls. The TV remote has little chance of affecting the VCR because the frequency or “flicker” rate and the modulation or “on/off ratio” is different.
I suppose if the frequency and modulation of the bomb/targeting laser system were known, you could make the bombs home in on an empty field, but getting that info from the military might be somewhat difficult. Also, the system may be capable of changing parameters for each mission, in which case the “target” would never know what to transmit to attract the bomb.
All in all, it seems rather unlikely that the system would be used if it were that easily fooled.

FixedBack

“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.”~~G.K.Chesterton 1908

4

Thanks for the info FixedBack!

5

That brings up an interesting question. Last night the History Channel devoted three hours to the Gulf War. But I didn’t see a single bit on the soldiers who were painting all of those targets. We know they were there; Bernard Shaw even noted the sound of the helicopters extracting the ops guys from the outskirts of Baghdad on the first night of the war.

Has our government acknowledged that we used “painters” extensively in the Gulf War? What percentage of smart bombs were guided to the target by soldiers in the field?

6

Well, I could be wrong about this (considering the vast amount of my knowledge of modern warfare is from Tom Clancy novels and flight sims), but you can paint a target from either the plane dropping the bomb, a wingmans plane, or probably with some helicopters near the target area.

So we didn’t necessarily have to have a bunch of commandos with lasers on the ground.

7

I believe Hensecker is right. The target is generally “painted” by the firing aircraft. The laser is used to determine range, this is fed into the fire control computer. The gunner then fires the weapon and continues to paint the site while he “flies” the weapon to it’s target.

Spotters are used when a weapon is deployed OTH (over the horizon) to take out specific targets. Usually when the target doesn’t rate an expensive cruise missile or if the decision not to violate airspace is made. A good depiction of this appeares in Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger .

Smart bombs can have other guidance systems onboard that are able to compensate (somewhat) for bad weather, haze, smoke and other battlefield conditions. But they do play hell on the “precision” of this modern ordinance. Regardless of this, they are considerately more accurate than WWII ordinance under any condition. I think Diceman is referring to “mission effectiveness” rather than accuracy.

8

Well, finally a topic which I can claim to be an expert on. :wink:

First off, LGBs(Laser Guided Bombs) are not new, nor “cutting edge” technology and will be phased out over the next several years. Any ideas to confuse the laser targeting will be in vain with the next wave of technology. The new bombs named JDAMs are guided using GPS. Military GPS is rumored to be accurate to a matter of inches (the GPS we use in cars and recievers are good to 6 ft IIRC) and is virtually immune to weather, battlefield conditions and an possible counter action.

This said, few LGBs are “flown” into the target, most don’t even support it as an option. The cruise missle uses Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation (DSMAC) guidance. This basically means that it has a series of infared and visual cameras which it matches to high definition 3D maps stored in memory and navigates by comparion the current visual to the map of the target. New models are beginning to replace this with GPS because its cheaper, easier, and more reliable.

Most LGBs are guided using a “lased” target, and no your theory is not valid. Each weapon uses a different laser signature, its reasonable to compare it to different radio stations. You could only simulate the signal if you knew precisely what the laser was set at, it is also possible the signal has a code included, but I can’t say for certain if this is possible or true. It is typical that the target is illumniated by a soldier on the ground, it is possible to do so via aircraft in flight (not necessarily the same aircraft that is firing), but doing it from an aicraft doubles the distance traveled by the laser, and decreases the power of the signal. It also doubles the chance the signal will be obscured by weather and battlefield conditions. The vast majority of times the weapons are dropped from altitues and/or distances that make illuminating the target from air impossible. The point being, that ground based soldiers are the most common method, and is therefore the most secure of tactics and information. So to answer the question, yes the government wholey admits their use and existence, but is hard pressed to allow any information out about them. You can see how the tactics of SeAL and Marine troops would be very sensitive, and the government is likely to deny which mission they were used in and the timeframes of their placement and extraction, as well as any equipment and tactics they use. Better totally silent, and not allow for any bad guys to learn anything to risk lives and the most fragile piece of our bombing system. The technology is less sensitive to certain information being shared because it takes a massive amount skill and money to assemble it, but the tactics of men can be easily counter acted if they are comprimised.

In summary, the entire system is out the door anyways so its soon to be moot. Ground based laser illumination is typically done by soldiers. The laser signal cannot be easily simulated, but if it were the proposed theory might work, assuming the signal isn’t coded, which it may be. Anything else?

9

As I recall, a whole bunch of SEAL teams when into Iraq just before the hostilities. They were probably painting the highest-priority targets from the ground.

10

I can only add that during the planning phases for the attacks on Baghdad the Checkmate office was very concerned about collateral civilian casualties. Besides the 2 failure modes, “no guide” and “lose guide”, they were also concerned about lasing the wrong target. This was assuming that the pilots would be doing the lasing. There was no mention of ground-based lasing, although that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.