SwiftVets.com

[Arty Guy]

Another alleged war crime testified to by Kerry is the use of "harrassment and interdiction" fires. I can remember other anti war folks also saying this was against the rules.

H&I fires are an artillery tactic I can speak to. These are fires usually done at night when the enemy is moving. I remember my father talking about this artillery tactic in Italy in WWII. It is more useful in a relatively static front such as existed in Italy for several months for the first half of 1944. What this involves is firing unadjusted, but registered, fires at suspected or known enemy transit points such as road junctions or bridges which you believe the enemy uses at night for resupply and movement of units.

Every night in Viet Nam we would fire a program of H&I fires. Frankly I thought it was a waste of ammunition. The VC knew we did this and we worked off of the same target list. They did not know the precise timing, but they probably knew the target locations since these targets were almost always in designated free fire zones. But I digress....

Referring to my other thread on free fire zones, I don't see anything in the Hague conventions that rules these out as long as you are not bombarding an undefended inhabited area. Since they were done at night, all the civilian population was supposed to be home in bed under curfew. Anybody moving at night in a free fire zone was a legitimate target.

Thoughts anybody?