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Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

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Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#111

Post by gwern »

FlowerPower wrote: post #6

"Just as Western Civilization staggered and faded after the fall of Rome, Western Civilization has never really recovered from the shock of the Great War. Cultures which endured and developed over a thousand years were wiped out, never to return again. Western culture, abstract thought and artistic development: nothing important has developed since 1919; we’re still reeling from the shock." What a load of bollocks. T…

> This is also bollocks, the mongols successfully ruled a vast area from China to Europe, the silk road was again revived, you could travel from Poland to Peking and not get robbed. The mongols collected all the taxes from such a vast region, even after Djenghis Khan died, thats some hell of organization right there.

They successfully ruled.. for a very short period of time even by empire standards, before splitting up into various dynasties and going native and whatnot.

Why did Subutai stop in Eastern Europe, after destroying all opponents and units on par with the best Western Europe could offer, and with every prospect of conquering the Holy Roman Empire and extending the Mongolian empire to the Atlantic? Because Ghengis Khan's successor, Ogedei, had died and the succession process was so ill-defined and chaotic that Subutai had to stop everything and travel a continent back to Mongolia.

Succession and peaceful transfers of power, among other things, was never something the Mongols managed to deal with competently. We can admire them for their military prowess, we can admire individuals like the sinicized Kublai Khan for being good peace-time rulers, but we can't admire them for ruling competently 'from China to Europe' because they didn't.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#112

Post by werpon »

eru wrote: post #103
hugh3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then I remembered that the military leadership and tactics during The Great War were pretty damn lousy (e.g. trench warfare) What's so lousy about trench warfare? I mean, yes, it sucks, but it's a Nash equilibrium given the technology at the time (very good machine guns, lousy tanks and aircraft). If your enemy has trenches, you need trenches too. What else would you have done?

Oh, you could have stayed in the trenches---but don't order any attacks. Just wait for your enemies to be dumb enough to attack first. Just bleed them dry with defence. (I heard that the Belgian king was held in high esteem by the normal Belgians for not ordering those suicidal attacks.)

It's actually impossible to provision such a big army when essentially every adult man is in a trench.

World superpowers would have gone bankrupt had they used this tactic.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#113

Post by rdtsc »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #42
lionhearted wrote: post #28

Actually a pretty good article, despite the inaccuracies noted here in other comments. The author uses some hyperbole and makes some errors, but still an interesting discussion regarding phalanx vs. maneuver warfare. While we're picking on individual parts, though - > For missile silos, just target the enemy’s silos with lots of missiles and you can duke it out and win (just like the phalanx). If he puts his missiles…

He misses the point entirely with missile silos. The backbone of the modern nuclear arsenal is the ballistic missile submarine. Far more mobile and far harder a target than any railborn missile.

An intermediate solution are land mobile launch platforms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2UTTKh_Topol_M

They have randomized patrol routes, so it is hard to track them, but they can launch thermonuclear MIRV warheads.

Yeah subs are a lot better but also a lot more expensive...

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#114

Post by masklinn »

hugh3 wrote: post #106
philwelch wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000 anti-ship missiles cost far less than an aircraft carrier with crew and aircraft aboard. There are a number of non-nuclear powers with the ability to launch 1000 anti-ship missiles against an American task force.

How would you launch a thousand anti-ship missiles? And how would you get that launch platform within range of a US aircraft carrier? Bear in mind that anything capable of launching a thouand anti-ship missiles will be one of the things the USAF will destroy within the first few hours of the war.

> How would you launch a thousand anti-ship missiles?

With a hundred small boats

> And how would you get that launch platform within range of a US aircraft carrier?

With civilians on board

> Bear in mind that anything capable of launching a thouand anti-ship missiles will be one of the things the USAF will destroy within the first few hours of the war.

Yep, nothing better to start a war on the right foot than civilian massacre.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#115

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

philwelch wrote: post #85
DrCatbox wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this kind of storytelling before, where the outcome of the WW2 is attributed to the failure of the German army on the eastern front and the discussion is focused on finding factors for that failure. However such a storytelling tends to discard or fade the importance of Russian endevaours, ingeniuity and sacrifice. Another kind of storytelling would focus in finding factors which made Russia the ultimate…

Russia's success hinged on two things: their massive geographic advantages and the use of scorched earth tactics. I don't want to minimize the fact that Russia bore a lot of casualties (more than any other country) in the process of defeating the Germans and pushing east, but frankly most wars are won and lost by the factors that existed before the first shot is fired, including population, logistics, and geography.…

The South certainly couldn't have won the Civil War in the sense of invading and subduing the North. I think odds are good they could have "won" a political victory, in the sense of dragging the conflict out with superior generalship (which they had) until people in the North got tired enough of it and the North simply gave up and recognized the Confederacy, which was all they really wanted in the first place.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#116

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

philwelch wrote: post #85
DrCatbox wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this kind of storytelling before, where the outcome of the WW2 is attributed to the failure of the German army on the eastern front and the discussion is focused on finding factors for that failure. However such a storytelling tends to discard or fade the importance of Russian endevaours, ingeniuity and sacrifice. Another kind of storytelling would focus in finding factors which made Russia the ultimate…

Russia's success hinged on two things: their massive geographic advantages and the use of scorched earth tactics. I don't want to minimize the fact that Russia bore a lot of casualties (more than any other country) in the process of defeating the Germans and pushing east, but frankly most wars are won and lost by the factors that existed before the first shot is fired, including population, logistics, and geography.…

"Russians won wars by throwing themselves in front of tanks, which was not the right mindset for a master criminal."

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#117

Post by eru »

carpo wrote: post #110
eru wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you could have stayed in the trenches---but don't order any attacks. Just wait for your enemies to be dumb enough to attack first. Just bleed them dry with defence. (I heard that the Belgian king was held in high esteem by the normal Belgians for not ordering those suicidal attacks.)

But then when they don't attack you have 2 armies sitting and waiting until the supplies run out (assuming the other learns you are not going to attack back). So when one realizes they will run out first, or another army is coming to cut their lines, or the city behind them is starving, or one side drops mustard gas into the other trench ... what do you do?

If the other guys are attacking, you wait them out. Defence was cheaper than attack in those days.

IF the other guys are also defending, you can think about, maybe, peace?

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#118

Post by JanezStupar »

Hardwired wrote: post #96
philwelch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Britain had the naval and air power to hold off Germany. Russia had sprawling territory and the winter; Britain had the English Channel. Germany would have been better served to win the North Africa campaign; that might have actually left Germany with a defensible position. On the other hand, the entire purpose of the Nazi regime was to conquer eastern Europe, enslave or exterminate its population, and resettle Germa…

Yes, if they had taken North Africa, then swept up through the Middle East they would have endless oil, and then it could have been a short hop into Russia from the South.

Well... The opera singing surrender monkeys were supposed to take care of that.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#119

Post by carpo »

eru wrote: post #117
carpo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then when they don't attack you have 2 armies sitting and waiting until the supplies run out (assuming the other learns you are not going to attack back). So when one realizes they will run out first, or another army is coming to cut their lines, or the city behind them is starving, or one side drops mustard gas into the other trench ... what do you do?

If the other guys are attacking, you wait them out. Defence was cheaper than attack in those days. IF the other guys are also defending, you can think about, maybe, peace?

Yes, peace would be the best outcome, but there is probably some overarching reason for the war that won't be solved by two armies deciding not to fight for tactical reasons.

Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea

#120

Post by kaffiene »

Androsynth wrote: post #45
masklinn wrote: post #2

In the same category, half a century later: aircraft carriers. Although I'm not sure this qualifies as "hacker", let alone "news".

This is an intellectually stimulating article, therefore it qualifies as hacker news.

It's a bunch of poorly research conjecture and hyperbole. It doesn't even rate as a well argued opinion piece
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