War is hell. But itâ?ôs worse when the Marines bring out their new urban
combat weapon, the SMAW-NE. Which may be why theyâ?ôre not talking about it,
much.
This is a version of the standard USMC Shoulder Mounted Assault Weapon but
with a new warhead. Described as NE - "Novel Explosive"- it is a thermobaric
mixture which ignites the air, producing a shockwave of unparalleled
destructive power, especially against buildings.
smaw-ne sequence.JPGA post-action report from Iraq describes the effect of
the new weapon: "One unit disintegrated a large one-storey masonry type
building with one round from 100 meters. They were extremely impressed."
Elsewhere it is described by one Marine as "an awesome piece of ordnance."
It proved highly effective in the battle for Fallujah. This from the Marine
Corps Gazette, July edition: "SMAW gunners became expert at determining
which wall to shoot to cause the roof to collapse and crush the insurgents
fortified inside interior rooms."
The NE round is supposed to be capable of going through a brick wall, but in
practice gunners had to fire through a window or make a hole with an
anti-tank rocket. Again, from the Marine Corps Gazette:
"Due to the lack of penetrating power of the NE round, we found that our
assaultmen had to first fire a dual-purpose rocket in order to create a hole
in the wall or building. This blast was immediately followed by an NE round
that would incinerate the target or literally level the structure."
The rational for this approach was straightforward:
"Marines could employ blast weapons prior to entering houses that had become
pillboxes, not homes. The economic cost of house replacement is not
comparable to American lives...all battalions adopted blast techniques
appropriate to entering a bunker, assuming you did not know if the bunker
was manned."
The manufacturers, Talley, make bold use of its track record, with a
brochure headlined Thermobaric Urban Destruction."
The SMAW-NE has only been procured by the USMC, though there are reports
that some were 'borrowed' by other units. However, there are also proposals
on the table that thousands of obsolete M-72 LAWs could be retrofitted with
thermobaric warheads, making then into effective urban combat tools.
But in an era of precision bombs, where collateral damage is expected to be
kept to a minimum, such massively brutal weapons have become highly
controversial. These days, every civilian casualty means a few more
â?úhearts and mindsâ?ù are lost. Thermobaric weapons almost invariable lead
to civilian deaths. The Soviet Union was heavily criticized for using
thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan because they were held to constitute
"disproportionate force," and similar criticisms were made when thermobarics
were used in the Chechen conflict. According to Human Rights Watch,
thermobaric weapons "kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a
wide area. In urban settings it is very difficult to limit the effect of
this weapon to combatants, and the nature of FAE explosions makes it
virtually impossible for civilians to take shelter from their destructive
effect."
So itâ?ôs understandable that the Marines have made so little noise about
the use of the SMAW-NE in Fallujah. But keeping quiet about controversial
weapons is a lousy strategy, no matter how effective those arms are. In the
short term, it may save some bad press. In the long term, itâ?ôs a recipe
for a scandal. Military leaders should debate human right advocates and the
like first, and then publicly decide "we do/do not to use X". Otherwise when
the media find do find out â?ì as they always do -- not only do you get a
level of hysteria but there is also the charge of â?úcovering up.â?ù
I'm undecided about thermobarics myself, but I think they should let the
legal people sort out all these issues and clear things up. Otherwise you
get claims of â?úchemical weaponsâ?ù and â?úviolating the Geneva
Protocol.â?ù Which doesn't really help anyone. The warfighter is left in
doubt, and it hands propaganda to the bad guys. Just look at what happened
it last weekâ?ôs screaming over white phosphorous rounds.
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Comments on this repost
Re: Thermobaric Weapon Also Used in Fallujah
Submitted by sofiushka
According to a 1993 study by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency:
The [blast] kill mechanism against living targets is unique--and
unpleasant.... What kills is the pressure wave, and more importantly, the
subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs.â?õ If the fuel
deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely burned and will
probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common FAE fuels,
ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated FAE should
prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as most chemical
agents.(8)
According to a separate U.S. Central Intelligence Agency study, "the effect
of an FAE explosion within confined spaces is immense. Those near the
ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer
many internal, and thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and
crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal
organs, and possibly blindness."(9) Another Defense Intelligence Agency
document speculates that because the "shock and pressure waves cause minimal
damage to brain tissueâ?õit is possible that victims of FAEs are not
rendered unconscious by the blast, but instead suffer for several seconds or
minutes while they suffocate."(10)
Lung injuries are particularly difficult to diagnose and treat. If FAEs are
used in Chechnya, this would present an additional burden on the
ill-equipped and overburdened Chechen hospitals.
Re: Thermobaric Weapon Also Used in Fallujah
Submitted by Veteran
Vital new weapon in the war on terror. Wh ybother with CQB when you can
bring the structure down on top of the bad guys!
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