Damage Assessment Form: Fill & Download for Free

Of the eighty-three battleship fire missions during Desert Storm, 52 had some degree of spotting support and 31 were fired blindly against map targets, grid references, or for “harassment and interdiction”.Of the missions where any spotting was available, 37 received some degree of battle damage assessment. Damage was classified as light for 40 percent of these missions, while about 30 percent of the missions inflicted “moderate” to “heavy” damaqe, or targets were evaluated as “neutralized” or “destroyed”.So, out of eighty-three fire missions, eleven inflicted more than “light damage”, “no damage”, or “results unseen” on their targets.(Source: Report to Congress on the Conduct of the Persian Gulf War, Chapter VII: The Maritime Campaign)Or, from FM 6-30 - the Manual of Indirect Fire Support, at the point the battleships were in service:-+++++8-31. 16-INCH NAVAL GUNFIRE MISSIONSAdjusting fire from the 16-inch guns of a battleship is somewhat different than adjusting that from the 5-inch guns.Characteristics. The 16-inch gun produces a significantly larger dispersion pattern than does the 5-inch. The pattern is about 150 meters (or greater) wide and 500 meters (or greater) long. The pattern depends on the terrain, target range, and number of guns in effect. The observer should expect 2 to 5 minutes between transmitting a correction and shot of the next salvo.Corrections. Because of the rather large dispersion pattern and the slow response time for each shot, observers should use bold corrections to hit the target as rapidly as possible. Bracketing is not feasible.Erratic Rounds. The observer may want to use the MPI adjustment technique. On occasion, the dispersion pattern will contain an erratic round. When determining the MPI, the observer should ignore erratic rounds and determine the MPI from those impacts which form a reasonable group.+++++

On top of the excellent answer that Peter gave I’d also like to add that it gives terrorist leaders a form of “bomb damage assessment”.Without getting into specifics, the leaked pictures could potentially offer specific information as to what worked and did not work in the design of the bomb itself allowing terrorists to potentially improve upon it for future attacks.

No. For all practical battlefield purposes, it would not.No, it’s not an Abrams. But the photo is awesome. You’re welcome. ;-)If you want a more detailed analysis, I’ll refer you to the following for your reading pleasure:What sort of damage would an A-10 Thunderbolt do to a M1 Abrams with a 1 second burst of its 30mm Avenger? (Wherein we discover that in Desert Storm, a mighty M1 Abrams was “taken out” by lowly 25mm rounds from the M242 Bushmaster mounted on an M2 Bradley.)Can an A-10 Warthog airplane take down an advanced Russian tank, like a T-90, with its Gatling gun alone? (Which includes some discussion of armor thickness and what constitutes a “kill” in battlefield damage assessment.)What caused the common misconception that the A-10 GAU-8 is effective in killing tanks? (With examples of the A-10 actually killing tanks with the Gun. Just not an Abrams, fortunately. That would be bad form.)Are there any tanks, today, that could survive an A-10 Warthog assault? (Where we discover that it’s the weapon that does the dirty work. The aircraft is simply a delivery platform.)If the A-10 can't destroy modern tanks, could it (or a successor) be upgraded with an even bigger autocannon? (Where I point out that a Cessna can kill a tank. Seriously.)(Can you tell what kind of questions I get asked a lot?)