181–190 of 212 posts
Isn’t the point of these you can launch them from Kansas while at the office and they still reach their target in a matter of minutes? No huge deployment required to get a missile boat in range, just load in the coordinates, press the btn, and go back to lunch.
https://news.usni.org/2020/02/18/navy-confirms-global-strike...
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It is politicians that keep insisting the job of the army is to get Afghanis to read and adopt liberal values. Peacekeeping is not popular in the army, for good reason. They are there to fight wars, not deliver social programs, build nations, or referee conflicts. If using language like "warfighter" can get the politicians to lay off on using the army for things other than fighting wars, then the clumsiness of the ph…
There ought to be a branch of the military that is dedicated to those goals. I can imagine there are a lot of people who might be interested in that, but not in the war fighting. Today those people either don't enlist, or enlist and hate that aspect.
Edit: Ok maybe not what it's for, but the State Department is a better fit. Nobody is ever going to trust a foreign military to do anything good in their country.
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It is politicians that keep insisting the job of the army is to get Afghanis to read and adopt liberal values. Peacekeeping is not popular in the army, for good reason. They are there to fight wars, not deliver social programs, build nations, or referee conflicts. If using language like "warfighter" can get the politicians to lay off on using the army for things other than fighting wars, then the clumsiness of the ph…
There ought to be a branch of the military that is dedicated to those goals. I can imagine there are a lot of people who might be interested in that, but not in the war fighting. Today those people either don't enlist, or enlist and hate that aspect.
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How did the US fuck over Russia in WWII? And are you aware of the billions of foreign aid many countries get from the US which is tied to issues like human rights, freedom, and democracy?
The US let the Russians break themselves fighting the Eastern front while they invaded north Africa. The North African front was basically secure while Stalingrad was happening, and if the US applied more pressure to Germany in this period, as the Russian requested, the Germans probably would not have done so much population damage to Russia. Bitterness of this fueled a lot of ideological tensions. I was also taught…
"The North African front was basically secure while Stalingrad was happening"
That doesn't make any sense. Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of Morocco and Algeria) didn't even start until Nov 8th, and Montgomery's position in Libya was hardly "secure" before November. But the Soviets were already launching counter-offensives and encircling the German army by the end of November. If you're counting from the beginning of the main Stalingrad offensives, August 1942, yeah maybe you could call the North African theater "stable", if by stable you mean that the Allies just one a defensive victory and managed to stall out an offensive into Egypt. But it's not like they could cancel their planned invasion of Algeria and Morocco and re-plan for an invasion of France in a couple months.
Plus the US would be invading mainland Europe Sept 3rd of 1943, and I really don't think they could have performed a successful invasion anytime sooner.
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Thrust is not the issue, the issue is net thrust. Essentially the missile/engine is compressing so much air that trying to get more air to produce more thrust doesn't work, you have to manage to increase efficiency, by increasing compression, without melting or blowing apart your engine Once you manage to make significant net thrust making a bit more isn't that big of deal, it's really a critical point you have to pa…
> once you manage to make significant net thrust making a bit more isn't that big of deal You’re still limited by your fuel and flight envelope. The latter which bleeds the former. Hypersonic missiles will be harder to intercept than cruise missiles. Due to their novelty, they’ll also be harder than ballistics. (Ballistic projectiles don’t continuously illuminate their flight path. That permits for subterfuge options…
As for flight envelope we know from the X-15 that not that much is required to pull 10Gs at hypersonic speeds. There is no need for much more.
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The biggest difference between hypersonics and swarms of slow missiles is that the hypersonics can get there fast enough that you might not need high-quality targeting information. That's definitely a strategic advantage! Also the 3M22 is estimated to only cost around 2 million dollars.
> that you might not need high-quality targeting information I don't see how this would work, unless of course you're talking about nuclear weapons. With a conventional warhead you still need to hit your target.
I'm curious about the PR strategies at play when governments either saber-rattle or keep secrets. Announcing breakthrough, surprising even, HAWC tech seems to clue in opponents about what sorts of countermeasures they'd want to start developing. By contrast, the US has held the high-altitude Aurora/SR-72/whatever tech very close to the vest for decades, when it's pretty much obvious that a new generation of high alti…
> contributed to the USSR bankrupting itself trying to keep up with cold war tech? Source?
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How did the US fuck over Russia in WWII? And are you aware of the billions of foreign aid many countries get from the US which is tied to issues like human rights, freedom, and democracy?
The US let the Russians break themselves fighting the Eastern front while they invaded north Africa. The North African front was basically secure while Stalingrad was happening, and if the US applied more pressure to Germany in this period, as the Russian requested, the Germans probably would not have done so much population damage to Russia. Bitterness of this fueled a lot of ideological tensions. I was also taught…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> once you manage to make significant net thrust making a bit more isn't that big of deal You’re still limited by your fuel and flight envelope. The latter which bleeds the former. Hypersonic missiles will be harder to intercept than cruise missiles. Due to their novelty, they’ll also be harder than ballistics. (Ballistic projectiles don’t continuously illuminate their flight path. That permits for subterfuge options…
These maneuvers are in the terminal phase. Knowing the reaction speed and the moment at which LOS is achieved as well as estimating the speed of the missile and it's acceleration one can calculate a relatively short period under which interception is possible. Outside of that there is basically no risk and thus no need for any maneuvers. As for flight envelope we know from the X-15 that not that much is required to p…
One, this leaves the missile, which is screaming through the atmosphere, vulnerable in a way ballistics are not. (And visible in a way cruise missiles aren’t, either.) Two, if you have a carrier strike group in the middle of the ocean, this strongly restricts how much manoeuvring can be done. The target knows where you’re ultimately headed—if you tactfully manoeuvre into a blank patch of ocean, the strike group is fine.
> flight envelope we know from the X-15 that not that much is required to pull 10Gs at hypersonic speeds
The flight envelope restriction isn’t a structural one. If you have a known target, there is only so much manoeuvring the vehicle can aerodynamically do without slowing down to sub-scram speeds. Yes, you could supercharge the engine, but that cascades through another host of factors.
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Many humans are quite aggressive. Pacifists are easily defeated by force. How can you have progress without security?
That's a straw man. The problem is tons of research and development won't happen without the state, but the main avenue the state funds development (as opposed to research) is the military. There are many possible futures, and the world is highly non-ergodic, so there is a real cost here to biasing the development of technology in this matter. "Opportunity cost" doesn't do the concept justice. We don't have to stop m…
My comment speaks directly to to above post as follows: "It really sucks that there's a 'D' for 'Defense' at the front of the acronym. Their website says they're "creating breakthrough technologies and capabilities for national security". Horrible that national security is the reason for this, when it should be human progress."
As for the world being difficult to predict, or to use your phrasing "non-ergodic", it is in fact easy to predict that security will be necessary. It is difficult to predict exactly what the threat to security will be. This uncertainty alone justifies development. Also, DARPA tech is well known for spreading outside of it originally intended remit. Ie the research itself can be of use in other areas.