How easily/quickly could a modern air force destroy the vital infrastructure of a major city?

How easily/quickly could a modern top tier air force with PGMs destroy the vital infrastructure of a major city (like NYC or LA) similar to what happened to Baghdad in the Gulf War?

This is of course assuming no regard for civilian casualties and little to no opposition whatsoever.

How many planes and tons of munitions would it require?
 
That depends upon what you consider "vital infrastructure".

If you just want to destroy high-tension electrical lines, lay carbon fibres over them .... like the USAF did during the Gulf War.

A large enough electromagnetic pulse could destroy most of the electronic and electrical infrastructure. Newer EMP generators (e.g. high pulse microwaves) do not need nuclear blasts. They can also be focussed far more precisely on say ... cell phone towers. On the con side, electronics manufacturers are steadily improving shielding.

Hacking into computerized control systems is more technologically challenging, but makes it much easier to rebuild after the war.

Destroying oil pipelines and natural gas pipelines requires competitively few bombs, but those bombs need to be extremely precise.

Dropping bridges and highway interchanges also requires precise bombs. .... same for railway lines.

To confuse police and firefighters jam their radios by broadcasting too much false-news and static.

Destroying water works requires precise, deep-penetrating conventional munitions.

Destroying sewers requires even more precise and deeper-penetrating conventional munitions.

Numbers of planes and bomb tonnages depend upon how big the city is and how well transportation systems are diversified. Keep in mind that modern air forces prefer to sit back allowing drones, cruise missiles and artillery to do the dirty work.
 

trurle

Banned
To make the city unlivable, the simplest way is to disable roads. Without road vehicles, repairing any other damage would become nearly impossible.
Therefore, fastest way would be to deploy ground-attack planes & helicopters and strafe anything moving. In 6 hours, the streets will become the jumble of burning vehicles, and the city activity will be paralyzed. By the way, PGMs are not needed. City is large target, and even "missed" shots will do damage.
 
The one thing is water. Hit the waterworks, or the water supply. The city may well become unlivable in two days, or four days in countries where stores have lots of bottled water for sale. It will take a week or two if it's the wrong (rainy) season in the wrong region of the world.

The type and number of ammo needed depends on how the water utilities work. Some cities, even today and even in advanced countries, rely on one big reservoir and one big pipeline. Easy job. OTOH if you are attacking a city in winter far North or South of the Tropics, there's all that snow. You'll need lots of aircraft sprinkling the snowed surfaces with lots of chemicals.

Note this, and nearly all the other proposals in the thread amount to crimes of war under Geneva IV 1949 and subsequent Additional Protocols 1977.
 

trurle

Banned
The one thing is water. Hit the waterworks, or the water supply. The city may well become unlivable in two days, or four days in countries where stores have lots of bottled water for sale. It will take a week or two if it's the wrong (rainy) season in the wrong region of the world.

The type and number of ammo needed depends on how the water utilities work. Some cities, even today and even in advanced countries, rely on one big reservoir and one big pipeline. Easy job. OTOH if you are attacking a city in winter far North or South of the Tropics, there's all that snow. You'll need lots of aircraft sprinkling the snowed surfaces with lots of chemicals.

Note this, and nearly all the other proposals in the thread amount to crimes of war under Geneva IV 1949 and subsequent Additional Protocols 1977.
Likely not going to work. I have an experience of living in large city through the water outage. Water tanker truck comes and people from high-rise apartments line up with buckets. Nobody leaves, at least not for 4 days i observed.
 
Likely not going to work. I have an experience of living in large city through the water outage. Water tanker truck comes and people from high-rise apartments line up with buckets. Nobody leaves, at least not for 4 days i observed.

Yeah. Where does the tank truck come from? Note I mentioned hitting the water supply if necessary. Also, in the situation you described, people expected the water outage to end, sooner or later, probably sooner than later. In this situation, the outlook is that the enemy air force will keep at it.
 

trurle

Banned
Yeah. Where does the tank truck come from? Note I mentioned hitting the water supply if necessary. Also, in the situation you described, people expected the water outage to end, sooner or later, probably sooner than later. In this situation, the outlook is that the enemy air force will keep at it.
In my particular case, water was from artesian aquifer. Some pipes in water distribution center ruptured so trucks were tapping directly to the boreholes, i suspect. Yes, it is a sort of robust supply. Many cities need pumps and filters to make a potable water.

Regarding expectations..if you believe in terror tactics, the fastest way to depopulate city would be to drop leaflets like:
"Dear citizens. This city will be destroyed by nuclear strike within 2 hours, and anthrax spores will be distributed soon afterwards. Please do not panic. Find the nearby temple and make your last prayer, then go into open space and await the incineration."
(just kidding)
If talking seriously, some people will run away at slightest indication of trouble. But the most laborious ones will keep working, even if aliens will promise an orbital bombardment by direct telepathic transmission.
 

SsgtC

Banned
It depends. Are you trying to make the city uninhabitable or just make life REALLY unpleasant for anyone living there? Because if you want it uninhabitable, one ICBM or SLBM and you're done. If you just want it unpleasant, well, you've got options. You could deploy the bulk of, say the USAF and conduct a good old fashioned strategic bombing campaign including carpet bombing because fuck that grid square or you can conduct a precision campaign and take out important targets like water, sewer, electrical and other infastructure with PGMs.
 

SsgtC

Banned
I'm asking about a precision bombing campaign on a large/modern city without the use of WMDs.

Ok. So what type of time frame are you wanting to do this in? Because that will affect which aircraft types are used and how many of them.
 
Take the electric network out and you've taken everything else out.

Pretty much everything in a modern city needs electricity to work - the water distribution system is controlled and monitored by a room full of computers somewhere, food supplies are controlled and ordered via computers, same goes for fuel supplies (domestic, industrial and vehicle), hospitals, dental and GP surgeries, pharmaceutical supplies, literally everything you need to live relies somewhere along the line on electricity (bearing in mind you're not going to take your bow and arrow into the forest and supply your family with fresh venison every day in New York or London).

A couple of recce aircraft to find the sub stations and then a handful of strike aircraft with PGMs can shut down a modern city in hours.

Even if most or all of the above have UPS back ups, they only last for as long as there's fuel for the generators - once the electric is cut you only need to keep a couple of aircraft in the air hitting fuel trucks whenever the try and move and the back up plans are useless.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
Take the electric network out and you've taken everything else out.

Pretty much everything in a modern city needs electricity to work - the water distribution system is controlled and monitored by a room full of computers somewhere, food supplies are controlled and ordered via computers, same goes for fuel supplies (domestic, industrial and vehicle), hospitals, dental and GP surgeries, pharmaceutical supplies, literally everything you need to live relies somewhere along the line on electricity (bearing in mind you're not going to take your bow and arrow into the forest and supply your family with fresh venison every day in New York or London).

A couple of recce aircraft to find the sub stations and then a handful of strike aircraft with PGMs can shut down a modern city in hours.

Even if most or all of the above have UPS back ups, they only last for as long as there's fuel for the generators - once the electric is cut you only need to keep a couple of aircraft in the air hitting fuel trucks whenever the try and move and the back up plans are useless.
The truly important infrastructure has on-site back-up generators.
 
The one thing is water. Hit the waterworks, or the water supply. The city may well become unlivable in two days, or four days in countries where stores have lots of bottled water for sale. It will take a week or two if it's the wrong (rainy) season in the wrong region of the world.

The type and number of ammo needed depends on how the water utilities work. Some cities, even today and even in advanced countries, rely on one big reservoir and one big pipeline. Easy job. OTOH if you are attacking a city in winter far North or South of the Tropics, there's all that snow. You'll need lots of aircraft sprinkling the snowed surfaces with lots of chemicals.

Note this, and nearly all the other proposals in the thread amount to crimes of war under Geneva IV 1949 and subsequent Additional Protocols 1977.
If a country is willing to destroy a city do they really care about the Geneva rules?
 
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