Even though we are only mentioning bombs and artillery here this is an all inclusive effort to improve accuracy at all levels of command and with all military weapons. The mandate from the military is to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The reason for this is that the Taliban fighters will get as close as they can to innocent civilians touse them as human shields.

 Bombs and artillery are not necessarily designed to kill by direct hits although they certainly can and will. Each bomb dropped and each artillery shell lobbed at the enemy has what is called a CEP or circular area of probability. This means that when fired at or dropped on a target even in the best conditions they will not necessarily hit it but will land in close proximity to it. Just getting close is usually good enough to get significant damage from the blast and shrapnell. Mortars have a wider CEP because they have such a high trajectory. The mortar shell flies so high that it is subjected to more factors like wind, air temperature, etc. which influence where it will land before it hits the ground. 

Most of the error caused when artillery is used are caused by inaccurate coordinates given by the forward observer. The FO has to be extremely careful to identify the right target and to get its location exactly right. Sometimes crew error is the cause of mishaps but believe it or not this is fairly rare. A good Fire Direction Center and a Good Forward Observer can get the artillery to land close to the target without collateral damage.