
A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trickery - echair
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/world/middleeast/11hamas.html?em=&pagewanted=all
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vaksel

      Israel has also managed to block cellphone bandwidth, so
      very few amateur cellphone photographs are getting out 
      of Gaza.
    

Is this Israel just pulling the plug on their own hardware...or is this a
technology that attacks another country's hardware?

~~~
astrec
I wonder if they've done something similar to GPS.

~~~
Rod
Smart bombs require GPS info to be precise. It would make no sense for the IDF
to jam GPS signals, though it would make a lot of sense for Hamas.

~~~
astrec
Some "smart" bombs require GPS, but not all. It's my understanding that
certainly the US military (and thus one imagines the IDF) possesses the
ability to interfere with the C/A code but not the P(Y)-code. This being the
case it would be next to useless for Hamas to attempt to jam GPS (unless
Israeli troops were carrying civilian GPS units for personal use), but
advantageous for the IDF.

~~~
Rod
You're right, not all "smart" bombs require GPS. I assumed that the IAF is
using JDAM smart bombs, which use IMU & GPS integration. I don't see why one
should use infrared or laser-guided bombs when one can use JDAMs.

The IDF could interfere with the C/A code indeed. Since Hamas seems to use
obsolete equipment, I honestly don't see what tactical advantages would the
IDF gain from jamming the civilian GPS signal.

~~~
astrec
One uses laser-guided bombs for improved accuracy. The USAF has embarked on an
LJDAM program to combine the fair condition accuracy of laser with poor
condition performance of IMU/GPS in to a single weapon system.

~~~
Rod
Those laser-guided JDAMs require the target to be "illuminated" by laser until
it is hit, right? If so, LJDAMs are not "fire & forget" kind of bombs, which
is OK, since the IAF owns the sky over Gaza anyways.

Since the IAF wants to minimize the collateral damage (at least that's what
they say), then LJDAMs would indeed make sense. I stand corrected.

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homme
What else are they supposed to do? The other side has better weapons.

Sad that humanity is still entralled to degenerate tribalism at the dawn of
the 21st century. I wonder if those delusional Bronze and Iron age cult
leaders had any idea of the damage they would be inflicting centuries hence.

Laughing in their graves: "Oh, come on, you didn't _get_ it? We thought you
could see we were bullshitting!"

~~~
ars
_What else are they supposed to do? The other side has better weapons._

What they should do is give up - they lost. And then they should work to get
the best situation possible for their people. Instead they are trying to keep
their cause alive, and who cares about the casualties. They lost and everyone
knows it - but they refuse to allow themself to admit it, and so they kill
their own people.

 _Sad that humanity is still entralled to degenerate tribalism at the dawn of
the 21st century_

What makes you think the 21st century is anything special? Humans haven't
changed in the slightest since those "delusional Bronze and Iron age cult
leaders". (That comment doesn't even make any sense since the bronze age was
before, or at the very edge of, recorded history, but whatever.)

I checked some of your other comments, and they seemed normal - this one
isn't. Are you just a troll trying to provoke responses?

~~~
homme
No, but I can see how it could be interpreted as such.

Just tired of seeing people killing and being killed for what I feel are
absurd reasons. (That comment doesn't even make any sense since the bronze age
was before, or at the very edge of, recorded history, but whatever.)*

FYI,

The bronze age in the M.E. is commonly held to have occurred between 3300-1200
BCE, directly overlapping the time period of Moses, who is said to have
authored the Pentateuch.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_age>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses>

 _

~~~
ars
That range 3300-1200 is for everywhere.

In that part of the world the bronze age was over. The bible talks about
worked iron, and it's known it was over for Egypt and the Levant as well.

The palestinians didn't exist then, when they did come along it was over for
them as well.

~~~
gravitycop
It is known that there was iron use at the time, but it is apparently
referred-to as "iron use in the Bronze Age".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_age#Iron_use_in_the_Bronze...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_age#Iron_use_in_the_Bronze_Age)

