Yes you can dictate the terms of war and force others to react to you. Consider this historical lesson from Vietnam:
Target: Thanh Hoa bridge.
Weapon: Dumb bombs.
Result: Structure still stands
Now let's try with PGMs, this time against the Paul Doumer Bridge using laser guided bombs.
4 F-4s, 8 laser guided bombs, 1 destroyed bridge. Thousands of tons of dumb bombs left the bridge standing. 8 PGMs put it out of action.
Notice the craters? Those are from dumb bombs missing their target.
Another example is American ECM gear. Early in the conflict SAMS:
Took a heavy toll, as this F-105 finds out. However the Americans, as they always do, developed cutting edge solutions to existing and upcoming problems. One way they mitigated the SAM thread was through tactics such as
Wild Weasel missions to force launches and destroy SAM batteries, but they also did it with technology - in Vietnam this was the
ALQ-71 ECM pod:
Carried by fighter aircraft, ECM pods jammed enemy radars by emitting high powered radio signals. Though effective when carried in large, close formations in level flight, an ECM pod was of little value in the small, constantly maneuvering formations used by Wild Weasels. Furthermore, ECM pod signals interfered with the equipment used to find SAM radars, and it hung on a wing pylon that otherwise could have carried an additional Shrike missile.
F-105F Wild Weasels carried ECM pods because of a standing order that all tactical aircraft flying over North Vietnam had to carry at least one ECM pod, but most Wild Weasel crews did not even turn them on. The F-105G introduced internal ECM jamming equipment located in blisters on both sides of the aircraft's belly, thereby eliminating the need to carry an external pod on a pylon.
AGM-45 Shrike was another cutting edge solution to the SAM problem. It is an Anti-Radiation Missile:
As a result of new tactics, which the Vietnamese and their Russian advisers adapted to and dictated as well, technology and experience the
SAM threat declined as the Vietnam War progressed.
Being on the cutting edge means you can dictate the terms of a fight in ways your enemy can't react to.
And if this Vietnam example doesn't do it for you, maybe the entire
First Gulf War will, it was a clinic in what a cutting edge force can do.
i was browsing through some videos on youtube and i noticed that the houthi rebels basically have the saudis in some type of stalemate in yemen, there were also videos of the houthis have the upper hand in some of the exchanges with the saudis capturing there equipment(they shot down a few AH-64s), Saudi is probably the biggest investor in military goods in the mid east and all there equipment is top of the line trailed and tested, but here they are unable to quell a group of rebels who are far behind them in a technological sense, I know guerrilla warfare is a completely different game, But with the advanced AH-64, F-15s. Eurofighters, Bradley IFVs, and dozens coupled with the fact they've had the US and thousands of other instructors training there army.
You'd think they would have made a large dent against the houthis. and this isn't the only example of such a thing happening, egypt had a similar issues against certain terrorists groups in there own country, like i said its uncoventional warfare, but if you look at the arms the fighting groups are equipped with the gap is so huge it isn't even worth comparing. Iran has a pretty bad army, airforce and navy, nothing has been added to it, even the arms they manufacture are 60s replicas of what the US provided them, but i'm pretty sure should the iranians find themselves in direct conflict with the saudis the iranians would win basically on sheer determination. So is cutting edge technology really that much of a game changer?
Technology isn't the Saudi's problem, it's tactics, doctrine, morale and training. They have the tech, but were unproven in real terms - then again so was American gear and American soldiers in the First Gulf War. Their superior training and tactics won the fight against a well trained but poorly tactician-ed Iraqi Army which made a series of blunders.
