Tuesday, April 11, 2017

You Get Precision! You Get Precision! You Get Precision!

Singapore is buying American guided 120mm mortar rounds:

Singapore has ordered 2,000 APMI GPS guided 120mm mortar shells. These will cost $33,000 each. Singapore needs these GPS guided mortar rounds because most of Singapore is heavily built up and you need something like guided mortar rounds to minimize collateral damage to structures and civilians, especially if dealing with possible Islamic terrorist [activity].

I noted the problems in getting this round out 6 years ago.

For our ground forces, pushing precision down the chain of command speeds up our operations.

Precision fire support was once so expensive that only aircraft could provide it. The 120mm mortar is found at the battalion level. It finally has a precision round.

So a battalion in contact can provide precision fire support from organic resources without having to request an allocation from assets not under the battalion commanders control.

And precision, as Strategypage notes, means resupply doesn't need to take place as often.

Push precision down to companies with 81mm mortars; platoons with 60mm mortars; and squads with smart grenades for a grenade launcher--like they all went to an Oprah show--and our troops will always have smart high explosive support when needed.

That will speed up operations which will help defeat the enemy and lower our casualties.

Well, until our enemies match us, of course. The race never ends.