On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:54:25 +0200, Le_Forgeron wrote:

> Le 06/10/2011 19:58, Jim Henderson a écrit :
>> Guns are kinda necessary.  GPS?  Useful, but if they don't have
>> coverage for some reason, it's not a deal killer.  After all, having a
>> map also is useful, or having local knowledge of the area.
> 
> Point taken.
> But you need to train all the men to read map. Some would fails. And the
> one who succeed might engage in a big no-no: reflection.
> 
> Why waste resources to train the ground men, when all they need is to
> trust the technology. Easier to replace separate parts.

Unless, of course, the technology fails.  Not having a backup plan is 
generally not a good idea.

> Remember: CCCP soldiers always travelled as a pack of three. One that
> could read, one that could write and one to keep watch of these two
> dangerous intellectuals.

LOL

> The real interest of GPS is low flying cruise missiles (well, the one
> you fire about 500 miles aways from the target, from your boat or
> whatever, and that play hide & seek with defense radars.)

Sure, there are technologies that do depend on it.  I never said there 
weren't.

> From satellite & planes photographic analysis (on background, from the
> 1950 cold war), you get a very detailled map of position & elevation.
> But you need a GPS in the missile to actually be able to use the
> relevant data.

Or you need another way of getting the missile to the target.  Like a 
laser-guided bomb, for example - no gps there, you just have to 'paint' 
the target with a laser and the missile/bomb's guidance system homes in 
on that.

> (and military precision of GPS is not 30m... it's 0,30 m with adequate
> receivers : you need to decypher the P part, and perform dual reception
> on L1 & L2 bands to compensate the random ionospheric transmission.)

In reading something about GPS recently, 20m is the threshold I'd read 
about for military applications.  Might've been in this thread, though.

Jim

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