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1/30/1991: first combat use of another failure-prone weapon system - FASCAM mines #gulfwar30 #desertstorm30
Developed in the 1970s, FASCAM, or Family of Scatterable Munitions, were artillery-delivered mines ejected from 155mm projectiles. The antipersonnel mine is "ADAM" for Area Denial Artillery Munition, and the antivehicle mine is "RAAM" for Remote Antiarmor Mine System
image source: May-June 1978 edition Field Artillery Journal 'Submunitions Of The Future' by Maj. William Whelihan https://web.archive.org/web/20181201004621/http://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin/archives/1978/MAY_JUN_1978/MAY_JUN_1978_FULL_EDITION.pdf
So on Jan 30. 1991, 5th Battalion, 11th Marines fired 360 155mm rounds of RAAM (long duration) and ADAMS, per this source: https://books.google.com/books?id=-oaMBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA308&lpg=PA308&dq=desert+storm+raams+adams+155mm&source=bl&ots=pkoRoAK9k2&sig=A8HG_IFEJNR8nYQe_oL3VC_5moU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX1Z38nbnUAhWJIVAKHc8HA4AQ6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=desert%20storm%20raams%20adams%20155mm&f=false
A post-war assessment by @dupuyinstitute said this about the event: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/m-4minesgulfwar.pdf
Based on the MGRS converters I could find online, the grid they gave puts the first use of FASCAM here where the yellow thumbtack is:
I wanted to know if the Marines who fired the only acknowledged FASCAM mission in history thought they were "effective," so in June 2018 I tracked down senior leadership with direct knowledge of the fire mission and 5/11's assessments afterwards
Direct quote: "I’m not in position to comment on effectiveness of FASCAM as I have no way of knowing if the mines prevented the Iraqis from attacking or if they never intended to attack through that area anyway."
Prior to war, the @USGAO noted serious reliability problems with the ADAM mine side of FASCAM https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1060760.pdf
In September 1984, individual ADAM mines were already being converted into the hand-thrown M86 Pursuit Deterrence Munition for use by SOF http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a251007.pdf
The @USGAO noted more problems with ADAM in October 1984 too https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a147351.pdf
Even after the [insert shrug emoji here]-level performance of FASCAM during Desert Storm, Uncle Sam still stockpiled a heck of a lot of them here in 1995, according to @USGAO https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-89/html/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-89.htm
![Even after the [insert shrug emoji here]-level performance of FASCAM during Desert Storm, Uncle Sam still stockpiled a heck of a lot of them here in 1995, according to @USGAO https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-89/html/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-89.htm](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtAC0Q6XMAI3zFZ.png "Even after the [insert shrug emoji here]-level performance of FASCAM during Desert Storm, Uncle Sam still stockpiled a heck of a lot of them here in 1995, according to @USGAO https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-89/html/GAOREPORTS-NSIAD-95-89.htm")
This is the artillery planning guidance for FASCAM use in 1999: https://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/mcwp3_16_4.pdf
In August 2018, the Joint Munitions Command told me that ADAMs had been live-fire tested in 2018 while RAAM had last been live-fire tested in 2015
By February 2020, Uncle Sam's inventory of ADAMs projectiles had dwindled significantly:
This from JMC in March 2020 helps explain a lot about the mentality behind weapons engineering and design in general: they were never built with demil in mind https://www.dvidshub.net/news/365362/jmc-meets-munitions-demilitarization-challenges
So, happy #gulfwar30 everybody. Cheers to the 30th anniversary of a weapon that was expensive to build, didn't work very well the one time it was used in combat, produced a lot of duds, and now costs a ton of money to demil while producing special kinds of hazmat. Huzzah
