Hand gun vs Chemical WeaponFollow

In a scientific sense, accuracy is how close your measurement(s) are to the true value, while precision is how little variance there is among your measurements. So if a laboratory scale weighs a 10 gram standard as 6 grams half the time, and 14 grams half the time, it's got 100% accuracy, but very poor precision.

I don't know if there's a widely accepted application of the terms to weapons science, but in common language terms, a weapon would be accurate if it hits its intended mark, and precise if its spread is highly predictable or controlled. By this definition, a GPS-guided atomic weapon could be very accurate (down to ~1 meter I guess?), but its precision would be poor, because I don't think even the experts know exactly how wide the blast will be (or how wind, rain, and other factors will spread the fallout).

That would be "everyone and everything" within a certain radius. If your goal was to hit Rhode Island and you drop an A-Bomb, you will more than likely affect outside of that radius.



Please give an example.

A naval battleship cannon and a rifle are vastly different in scale. If you miss a direct hit by some small distance, the shell could still chunk the target, where the rifle round has a glancing blow, even if the distance missed is larger in the case of the shell.

Obvious, but apparently hard for you to grasp.

Wow.

Um... But when the center point of your hit varies from the center point of the target by some statistically consistent value, then that *is* a function of the inaccuracy of the delivery system (at a given range of course). An NFL quarterback who can throw the ball at a receiver 20 yards away and consistently get that ball to a random location within a foot of his receivers hands is considered "accurate". One who can only consistently get the ball to a random location within 10 feet of his receivers hands is considered "inaccurate".

Similarly, a Syrian rocket that randomly hits a point within 100M of the center of the target area is less accurate than a US smart bomb that will randomly hit a point within 3 feet of that same center point. Regardless of the payload being delivered, that is how we measure accuracy within the context of projectiles (whether weapons or footballs). The advantage of a more accurate delivery system is that you can put a smaller payload on it and hit just what you want. The reason one might gravitate to using chemical weapons instead is because there is less need for being accurate without dealing with the significantly increased weight involved in just putting a bigger explosive in there. Being "close" is good enough in that case.

Note that this has nothing at all to do with how accurate the weapon is. If a weapon system (payload plus delivery system) is "accurate enough", then we might use the term called "effective". An inaccurate weapon can be effective if accuracy is not required. But that doesn't magically make it accurate.

What the hell are you talking about? Yes "we" (meaning the US military) put great weight on the accuracy of our weapons. But "them" (meaning folks who lob chemical weapons on scud missiles) do not.

I thought we were talking about folks launching chemical payloads on rockets that randomly hit a spot within a 5 mile diameter circle. Their weapons are *not* accurate. Using Chemical weapons on those sorts of rockets is fine because in that case you don't care how accurate they are. But that doesn't magically make them accurate. WTF?

Um... No. I said that chemical weapons are the payload of choice for people who do not have accurate delivery systems *because* they do not need to be very accurate to be effective. Dude. Seriously?

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I singed for you.

TCPs are foolproof.

Also, noone can see a system in use.

Oh they do, but the weapons never miss their mark, and dead men tell no tales.

What people are you talking about.

Inaccurate delivery of chemicalized weapons will be very ineffective.

It's easy to effectively gas people dead if you can contain them in a chamber and control the concentration of gas that fills the confined space. Otherwise it can be pretty hit or miss.

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