Hi All,

Been thinking about this a lot of late and would like to get your thoughts.

Do you think when inaccuracies occur with GPS guided munitions (with the obvious and sometimes unfortunate and grave repercussions) - could one assume that the error generally originates with the actual GPS device -- or is it more reasonable to assign blame to the base maps and flaws in the underlying coordinate geometry that were employed in targeting? Both?

It is interesting to me that the general public assumes the former (naivety I suppose) -- but I am interested in what the forum, being a bit more spatially minded than John Doe , thinks.

Opinions?

In my thinking, I would expect more failures are due to GPS-jamming or failures in the technology.. I would hope or expect that the U.S. military has done due diligence to ensure the target coordinates on the map are correctly aligned with the real world position that the ordnance strikes.

Eric

I am a former Technician and a current GIS Specialist/Cartographer...the data, at its worst, wont be off enough to be the cause of a "miss"...the failure usually is the hardware (GPS) or lack of signals at that strikes moment. The lack of signals usually would have to be a combination of poor data and no signal to cause a "miss"...worst case for poor data. The targets are calculated from sub-meter satelite and aerial photography...these images yield accuracy greater that a GPS could hope for even in todays technology.