Smart Bombs
In the article “Smart Bomb” from Encarta Encyclopedia, Walter Boyne says that a Smart bomb is an informal term referring to a bomb equipped with devices to guide it precisely to a selected target. Smart bombs are officially known as Precision Guided Munitions. They differ from free-falling general-purpose bombs, which are sometimes called Dumb Bombs. The term Smart bomb is sometimes used to refer to guided air-launched or ground-launched cruise missiles, such as the Tomahawk. Although these are technologically self-propelled missiles and not bombs (1p). Smart weapons permits the accurate destruction of military targets with a small number of bombs, rather than through mass or carpet bombings using numerous General-Purpose bombs. Smart bombs where used to great effect during the Persian Gulf War, where precision bombing took out important targets with a minimum of excess damage to surrounding areas (Boyne 1p). Most Smart Bombs are simply general-purpose bombs that have been fitted with a guidance device in the nose and a small control module in the tail. ... According with Tom Harris, in his article “How Smart Bombs Work,” from the magazine How Stuff Works. When an airplane drops a smart bomb, the bomb becomes a particularly heavy glider. ... This adjustment process continues until the smart bomb reaches its target, and the fuze mechanism sets off the explosive. Smart bombs generally have proximity fuzes, which set off the explosive just before the bomb hits the target, or impact fuze (2p). The main difference between different types of smart bombs is how the sensor system actually “sees” the target in the first place (Harris 2). ... In the article “Profile of a Smart Bomb” from NPR Special, Liane Hansen states that the problem with Electro-Optic weapon systems is that they require a laser to be on target, in the case of infrared guided weapons, and you have to have good weather too.