For years, American military hardware has been the butt of bitter jokes, taxpayer complaints and congressional investigations. To judge by the cost overruns and testing mishaps, the U.S. arsenal seemed to consist of planes that spun out of control, tanks too cumbersome to maneuver and spare parts with Tiffany price tags. What a difference a war makes. Now that U.S. Patriots are chasing down Scuds and laser-guided bombs are nailing targets in Iraq, the once derided weaponry has become the star of the war. Suddenly, everybody is a weapons buff.
For military planners, the apparent success of their high-tech equipment in the early weeks of the battle is sweet vindication. Though Operation Desert Storm still relies in part on armaments of Vietnam War and even World War II vintage, the Pentagon has staked its reputation on its state-of-the-art showpieces. For 40 years, it has pursued a sometimes controversial doctrine that says the best way to counter a potential adversary's superior numbers is with superior technology. Now military experts are watching the payoff with excitement but also apprehension. The high-speed electronics and precision engineering that make the new weapons so effective also make them vulnerable.
The most visible symbol of the U.S.'s technological edge -- those pinpoint strikes on Iraqi targets -- actually represents some fairly straightforward bombing. The key technology is a simple laser detector on the nose of a glide bomb that is electronically linked to adjustable fins in the bomb's tail. All the pilot has to do is point a pencil-thin laser beam at his target and push a button. A stabilizing computer keeps the beam locked in place, freeing the pilot to pitch and roll as necessary to evade enemy fire while the bomb rides along the beam's reflection, flying into the target like a moth to a flame.
The real technological marvels in the U.S. missile array are the sea- launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that smashed Iraqi air-defense systems early in the war. Packed with advanced electronics and several different guidance systems, they are essentially flying computers capable of sailing through the goalposts on a football field from a range of several hundred miles. They can also perform dizzying acrobatics, as witnessed by U.S. reporters who, before they were ousted from Iraq, watched with amazement as a Tomahawk streaked below their hotel windows and made a pair of swooping 90 degrees turns to avoid the Al Rasheed in downtown Baghdad.
The secret of the Tomahawk's precision flying is a two-step guidance system. First, a radar altimeter compares the topography of key landmarks along the missile's flight path with detailed contour maps stored in its computer memory. Then, as the Tomahawk approaches its target, a small digital camera, acting as an electronic eye, compares the view from the nose cone with a library of images prepared from satellite photos. If the missile sees that it is even slightly off course, it makes adjustments.
One of the biggest uncertainties before the war started was how the Patriot system would fare. The antimissile missile is guided by a sophisticated phased-array radar consisting of more than 5,000 radar antenna elements that can detect and track 100 targets at a time and follow any given one far more rapidly than the rotating cone of conventional radar. But the system had never been tested against a Scud.