Misguided Weapons: Technological Failure and Surprise on the Battlefield

by Azriel Lorber

Overview

Technological failure results when one side in a conflict does not fully grasp the potential impact of known, or even familiar, weapons in the enemy’s hands. In most cases, such failure resulted from higher officials’ ignorance or their total misunderstanding of the importance and relevance of such technology and science as well as of their application to warfare. Technological failure is also the root cause of technological surprise. While operational surprise on the battlefield poses grave problems, technological surprise is far more serious, because, as Azriel Lorber explains, it often leads to disasters on the battlefield and is more difficult to recover from. In too many cases, technological failure and surprise stem from all-too-human characteristics, such as self-satisfaction, disdain for the adversary, obtuseness, and conservatism. Because these traits show no evidence of disappearing, political decision makers and military commanders should be aware that technological failure and technological surprise could happen at any time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574885286
Publisher:	Potomac Books
Publication date:	01/01/2003
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Azriel Lorber, Ph.D., is an aerospace engineer and a retired Reserve officer. In 1998-99, Lorber participated as a visiting scholar in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Misguided Weapons is his fourth book. He lives in Israel.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Prologue: Early Technological Failure: The Battle of Crecy	1
1	Predicting the Outcome of Conflicts	5
	Introduction	5
	The Importance of Quantitative Factors	6
	The Quality of Troops and Commanders	7
	Other Factors, Including Common Sense	8
	Quality vs. Quantity	10
	Lanchester's Equations	12
2	The Roots of Technological Failure	15
	The Role of Weapons	15
	The Origins of Various Misguided Attitudes	16
	Some Possible Explanations	20
	The Problems of Expanding Technology	23
	Old Knowledge versus New, and the Effects of Specialization	25
	The Problems of Cooperation	27
	The Effects of Large and Small Failures	29
	Lack of Preparedness	30
	How Do Technological Failures Occur?	33
	Some Opinions of Military Leaders	35
3	Misunderstanding the Battlefield Environment	37
	Machine Guns in the First World War	37
	The Story of the Nitrates	51
	Radars and the Battle of Britain	57
	Strategic Bombing and the Self-Defense of the Heavy Bomber	65
	The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) Confronts the Sagger Missile	76
	The Effectiveness of the Patriot Antiballistic Missile System	81
	Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1991	83
4	Misunderstanding Available Technology	86
	The Failure of Gas Warfare in World War I	86
	Early British Tank Development	90
	Drop Tanks: The German Failure	95
	The Missed Opportunity of the Snorkel	100
	The Problem of the Allied Long-Range Escort Fighter	104
	PGMs (Precision-Guided Munitions) in Vietnam	107
5	Bad Management, Worse Leadership, and NIH	111
	The Centimetric Wavelength Radar Battle	111
	NIH (Not Invented Here) and Gunnery in the U.S. Navy	122
	Plastic Armor	125
	The Sherman Tank and the Seventeen-Pound Gun	128
	The Scandal of the American Torpedoes	134
	"Window" and What to Do about It	144
	Night Operations and the Failure of Bomber Command Leadership	147
	The Japanese Atomic Bomb Project	151
6	Preconceived Ideas, Overconfidence, and Arrogance	156
	Introduction	156
	Henry Tizard and the Battle of the Beams	157
	Lord Cherwell and the Question of the V-2	162
	Enigma, Purple, and Overreliance on Preconceived Notions	164
	The Predictions of Iraqi Missile Attacks	175
	Technological Predictions about Future Conflicts	177
7	Political and Ideological Meddling	188
	Introduction	188
	Nazi Germany and Science	189
	The Waste of the Me-262	196
	How the Bomb Saved Soviet Nuclear Physics	203
8	Technological Developments and Science Fiction	207
	New Technologies and New Weapons	207
	Weapon Development Times	214
	Is It Really Science Fiction?	216
9	Technological Surprise and Technological Failure	226
	Battlefield Surprise	226
	Total Surprise and Self-Inflicted Surprise	229
	The Limitations of Intelligence Gathering	230
	The Effects of Technological Surprise	232
	Some Concluding Remarks about Technological Failure	234
	The Problem of Feedback	240
	Some Current Potential Causes of Technological Failures	242
	Lanchester's Equations and the Effect of Technological Innovations	243
	Notes	247
	Bibliography	273
	Index	281
	About the Author	293

Editorial Reviews

"I highly recommend this book to all military personnel and the politicians who have influence over military development. . . . It is a welcome addition to any military professional's library."

"Thoughtful observations on the military uses and misuses of technologies, including some that were misapplied, misunderstood, premature, or just plain ineffective."

From the Publisher

Lorber, an aerospace engineer and retired Israeli Defense Force officer, analyzes how technological failure affects the conduct of warfare and shows how human nature plays into technological issues, with case examples drawn largely from the two world wars. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews