Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

search.informit.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 72 posts

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#31

Post by bluGill »

jokoon wrote: post #27

Isn't it easy enough to make ammunition for modern rifles? I'm not a gunsmith or gun engineer, but it doesn't sound difficult to reuse casings and make ammunition. Of course, one would still need to make: * pointy bullets with steel scraps and some cast/mold and some coal-powered oven (you see a lot of youtube guys melting metal with not that much equipment) * gunpowder and a primer, and might not require a lot of ch…

The best marksmen in competitions make there own bullets because they want to control all the variables. So yes bullets are easy to make and you can buy the equipment for affordable prices from many suppliers.

Factory ammo is just as cheap (even though labor is free, and equipment costs are not counted at all for the make your own) and takes less time so militarizes use it as does anyone who doesn't need the best quality.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#32

Post by credit_guy »

> A current example is the oil industry, which some argue could require as much as US$100 trillion over coming decades just to replace ageing and rust-affected infrastructure.

This aged like milk. 15 years later, and the US extracts 2.5 times more oil.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#33

Post by sornaensis »

dmoy wrote: post #6
MichaMeier wrote: post #2

Modern military technology seems to become too costly. Recent conflicts in the middle east seem to indicate that low-cost approaches can have some terribly effective successes against much more sophisticated militaries.

The US military has known this for a long time, it just chooses to bury its head in the sand and ignore it. See e.g. MC02 where they lost to opfor with what was literally like a cheaply thrown together zerg rush, and then just reset the scenario for a do-over.

MC02 had a lot of problems but calling it a zerg rush exposes your ignorance-- it was a very sophisticated and well-coordinated surprise attack. The people running the wargame rejected the outcome as a likely tactic to be used by the hypothetical adversary and guess what, they have been proven right, see: the war in iraq. The iraqi army completely failed to hold initiative against the coalition or organize coherent resistance nevermind launch a coordinated surprise attack ahead of the invasion.

The other aspect that is missed in criticisms of this particular wargame is the fact that there were specific doctrine elements that were to be tested-- now the claimed outcome of those can be debated, for instance the fact that opfor had many restrictions on how they were allowed to employ their anti air defenses-- but a wargame is NOT meant to be a giant game of paintball where when one side gets hit they just pack up and go home, that would be incredibly wasteful. In many cases you have formations planning and training for months to participate in the exercise. The purpose is testing out many different aspects of doctrine, and often times that involves 'ignoring' results of one part of the wargame.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#34

Post by genman »

suoduandao3 wrote: post #25
genman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no, it is not what happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In Vietnam there was constant foreign infiltration by the enemy and they used quite nasty "tactics" to gain local influence. Afghanistan is not much different. In principle the side that was more willing to instill more terror into local populace won. The same problems of logistics also do apply to the local opposition. If you run out of weapons or ammu…

The best rebuttal I've heard to this line of thinking is: "Some say we lost Afghanistan because we weren't willing to be brutal enough. Well, the Russians were willing to be brutal enough, yet they also lost Afghanistan."

In both cases, Vietnam or Afghanistan, US won, until it lost its sight and pulled out, leaving everything on the shoulders of a demoralized and ill-equipped local governance. Now this was unfair fight because this replacement was not willing nor capable to project any actual force and they crumbled fast. This is what I was talking about. Afghanistan government resistance failed because they were terrified about the perspective of them losing in the fight and then receiving the wrath of Taliban. This perspective looked real enough for them after Taliban had broken the agreements and no US retaliation followed. Finally all of it spiraled into humiliating cowardly escape of the remaining US forces. US lost because their top of the command was irresolute coward who didn't understand the consequences of his policy, short term nor long term. One bombing raid against Taliban positions may have changed everything. Now we got war in Ukraine and greatly worsening situation in Middle East and Africa because the enemy understood very quickly what the US leader really is and took their changes. We are lucky that Taiwan was not lost and this is only thanks to the bravery of Ukrainians, but all of this is again on the edge because of the insurmountable stubbornness and stupidity of US politicians.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#35

Post by genman »

thriftwy wrote: post #30
suoduandao3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best rebuttal I've heard to this line of thinking is: "Some say we lost Afghanistan because we weren't willing to be brutal enough. Well, the Russians were willing to be brutal enough, yet they also lost Afghanistan."

I don't think so why there is this underlying assumption that Russians were "brutal", but when USSR took their forces from Afghanistan, they actually left a secular regime there that has survived for a few years and actually significantly outlived the USSR itself. Maybe it would hang around longer if USSR was intact and assisting.

Possibly, but Russia internally felt that they lost. And this was significant contributing factor to the collapse of their empire.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#36

Post by hef19898 »

genman wrote: post #19
hef19898 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asymetric warfare is very different from the near-peer conventional warfare we see in Ukraine. One cannot occupy a region milotarily if a large enough portion of the local population is hell bent to oppose that accupation. That's what happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Ukraine is what happens ofnthe imvasion force is met by defenders capable of stopping the invasion. And the war in Ukraine cannot be fought with low…

Actually no, it is not what happened in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In Vietnam there was constant foreign infiltration by the enemy and they used quite nasty "tactics" to gain local influence. Afghanistan is not much different. In principle the side that was more willing to instill more terror into local populace won. The same problems of logistics also do apply to the local opposition. If you run out of weapons or ammu…

The US were extremely willing to cut North Vietnamese supply lines, including illegal operations in neighbouring countries. The only thing not tried was flattening cities in the North by air (that approach didn't work in WW2 neither, so no big loss). True so, the South received billions in support from the US, including a full troop deployment for years. The North did the same from China and the USSR. Still, at the core, it was as much a conventional as it was an unconventional war. One the US lost. The Vietnamese did deploy a ton of cutting edge weapons so, from top notch fighter jets to air-to-air missiles.

And no, you do not win those kind of wars by brutality. People love to believe that, it just doesn't work that way.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#37

Post by hef19898 »

genman wrote: post #34
suoduandao3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best rebuttal I've heard to this line of thinking is: "Some say we lost Afghanistan because we weren't willing to be brutal enough. Well, the Russians were willing to be brutal enough, yet they also lost Afghanistan."

In both cases, Vietnam or Afghanistan, US won, until it lost its sight and pulled out, leaving everything on the shoulders of a demoralized and ill-equipped local governance. Now this was unfair fight because this replacement was not willing nor capable to project any actual force and they crumbled fast. This is what I was talking about. Afghanistan government resistance failed because they were terrified about the p…

The US lost in Vietnam, in fact the Paris treaty came as close to unconditional surrender as it gets without using the term.

Same in Afghanistan, NATO lost hard after being slowly kicked out of the country.

In both cases, none of the US or NATO strategic goals were achieved, while almost all of the opposing sides were. If you think the US won in Vietnam, Iraq won the Gulf War (number two, in the 90s).

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#38

Post by genman »

genman wrote: post #22
dgan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Ukrainian conflict shows the opposite?

Russian genocidal war against Ukraine is not yet settled and the weapons used there are in constant evolution. If anything it is the response of Israel to the 7th October genocide that shows that expensive weapon systems in the hands of competent military still triumph any low cost approaches.

I see that many downvoters don't like that the things are named properly by their intent - I take it as showing support to the genocide in both cases.

It still remains a fact that the genocidal war started by Russia has not yet been decided and both, attacking and defending sides are trying to figure out the weapon systems to accomplish their military goals and these weapon systems are going through rapid development and "field testing".

It also remains a fact that low tech weaponry used by the terrorist organizations in Gaza has had very limited effect against the well equipped and highly motivated IDF.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#39

Post by thriftwy »

genman wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so why there is this underlying assumption that Russians were "brutal", but when USSR took their forces from Afghanistan, they actually left a secular regime there that has survived for a few years and actually significantly outlived the USSR itself. Maybe it would hang around longer if USSR was intact and assisting.

Possibly, but Russia internally felt that they lost. And this was significant contributing factor to the collapse of their empire.

I think it was different and more like the Vietnam fallout, "with the new reconassiance data, it turns out we fought against ourselves"

The idea which ended both wars was that continuing this war is a war crime against our own nation even as we continue to score victories.

Re: Lasers or Longbows? A Paradox of Military Technology (2010)

#40

Post by jcgrillo »

jokoon wrote: post #27

Isn't it easy enough to make ammunition for modern rifles? I'm not a gunsmith or gun engineer, but it doesn't sound difficult to reuse casings and make ammunition. Of course, one would still need to make: * pointy bullets with steel scraps and some cast/mold and some coal-powered oven (you see a lot of youtube guys melting metal with not that much equipment) * gunpowder and a primer, and might not require a lot of ch…

Steel, cast iron, etc. won't be great as a projectile because (1) it's not dense enough (2) it's not soft enough.

(1) is important for ballistic properties and carrying energy to the target (2) is important because you want to be able to fire the weapon more than once without destroying the barrel's rifling.

Now you might argue that some kind of sabot or patch could work to mitigate this. But you'll still have a density problem. Would have to test it to find out how badly it impacts performance.

Post reply on HN