381–390 of 490 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My point is that we should all be fighting against war. By what, asking nicely?
Yes. Be very persuasive. But restrict yourself to persuasion. The way is for the antiwar people to be more successful than warriors and turn war into the losers' choice. I refuse to arm myself, refuse to serve in militaries and refuse to support war as much as i am able. If antiwar people are successful, war will evolve out.
It's clear that this is an exciting topic for techies. But keep in mind what this all is made for: Destroying and killing. We are talking about war machinery, and technical discussions about those tend to romanticize all that technology much too often. If we'd only pour 10% of the investments that today goes into war machinery into peace research and conflict prevention, then this world would be a much safer place. T…
If you get everyone to decide this, yes.
But if you do this and your aggressive neighbor doesn't, your decision to forgo military spending can make the world less safe. Some parts of Europe are remembering this now.
A comically silly question. I bet 99% of HN has played a game with Class called or refered to as "tank." Its not a matter of do tanks have a future just what the format will be. Even in a made up fantasy games the concept of a military unit with heavy armoring is always going to have a place. Same as real life.
the future of warfare , according to most of the RAND papers i've read, is in cheap/commodity available 'nodes' , part of a 'system of systems' that can all interconnect cheaply and provide good data without being valuable assets themselves.
in a future where any group can destroy any one thing quickly and without hopes of defense (hypersonic missiles, for example) it becomes increasingly more risky and less valuable to shove a lot of effort and value into a single strong piece of equipment -- 'distributed warfare' is going to become increasingly common, and it's one of the few strategies that remains viable in a future without sufficient anti-air defenses.
It's clear that this is an exciting topic for techies. But keep in mind what this all is made for: Destroying and killing. We are talking about war machinery, and technical discussions about those tend to romanticize all that technology much too often. If we'd only pour 10% of the investments that today goes into war machinery into peace research and conflict prevention, then this world would be a much safer place. T…
> If we'd only pour 10% of the investments that today goes into war machinery into peace research and conflict prevention, then this world would be a much safer place. If you get everyone to decide this, yes. But if you do this and your aggressive neighbor doesn't, your decision to forgo military spending can make the world less safe. Some parts of Europe are remembering this now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean has it changed the calculus on the battlefield for tanks? Ukraine are pleading for, and using, mostly anti tank missiles to destroy Russia's tanks, aren't they? Why if swarms of expendable drones are better and cheaper?
I think it did pretty decisively in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we'd only pour 10% of the investments that today goes into war machinery into peace research and conflict prevention, then this world would be a much safer place. If you get everyone to decide this, yes. But if you do this and your aggressive neighbor doesn't, your decision to forgo military spending can make the world less safe. Some parts of Europe are remembering this now.
You seem to have missed the "investment into peace research and conflict prevention" part of my post. Ironically, that's the part that you quoted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we'd only pour 10% of the investments that today goes into war machinery into peace research and conflict prevention, then this world would be a much safer place. If you get everyone to decide this, yes. But if you do this and your aggressive neighbor doesn't, your decision to forgo military spending can make the world less safe. Some parts of Europe are remembering this now.
You seem to have missed the "investment into peace research and conflict prevention" part of my post. Ironically, that's the part that you quoted.
The war in Ukraine doesn't provide sufficient evidence that modern combined arms operations are outdated. Russia deployed combat troops significantly short on man power, leading to a situation where attacks had far more armor than infantry. See https://warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-built-for-purpose-the-... for example. It's been known since the Spanish Civil War that tanks are vulnerable to anti-tank teams when not…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we'd only pour 10% of the investments that today goes into war machinery into peace research and conflict prevention, then this world would be a much safer place. If you get everyone to decide this, yes. But if you do this and your aggressive neighbor doesn't, your decision to forgo military spending can make the world less safe. Some parts of Europe are remembering this now.
You seem to have missed the "investment into peace research and conflict prevention" part of my post. Ironically, that's the part that you quoted.
The "we" in your original statement is doing a lot of work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. The key point is, a weapon system becomes obsolete when something else does its job better, not when it becomes more vulnerable. When something valuable becomes more vulnerable, you protect it better. When it becomes less valuable because something else does the job better, then you get rid of it. As of right now, nothing does a ground offensive like a few dozen tanks advancing at top speed with appropriate supp…
There must have been _some_ intersections of time/technology and/or cost/efficiency where this didn't hold? Where a weapon system became _so_ vulnerable that, despite being the best at its job, it still wasn't good enough. As an example, is there a point where hypersonic weapons become so effective that aircraft carriers are [temporarily?] retired? Surely the cost (time, money, human lives) that goes into the weapon…
In fact, it looks like the US has 11 active aircraft carriers [1]. It seems that they are all near port right now [2], this might be the reason.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_t... [2] https://www.marinevesseltraffic.com/vessels/USS-George-H.W.-...