I believe the article misses the point that America, through it's complete dominance of the air and seas, has made naval warfare largely irrelevant for 99% of countries - hence their lack of will or desire to build them. The world saw centuries of naval proliferation up to WW2.
Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
41–50 of 165 posts
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#42Actually 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.
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You are mistaken. The only reason domestic unrest is a more likely danger for a world power is because the country we are speaking of already has missile silos and stationary bases in the first place. Actually, I think you're mistaken, but let's think this through - There's 200 countries in the world, roughly. Call the current world powers America, China, UK, Russia, and maybe a couple other European countries. In…
You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing. > And usually, there's considerable advance warning before attacks so you could prepare. The key word is "usually". How usually is usually? When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning? There was none. True, major attacks are rare, but when they do come, I would say about 50% of them are without warning. Yes, they are usually preceded by som…
>You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing.
Side note from the referee: writing is a form of thinking things through, and even if it isn't you're distracting from the issue. 5 yard deduction and 2 minutes in the penalty box, plus parent gets a free shot.
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You are mistaken. The only reason domestic unrest is a more likely danger for a world power is because the country we are speaking of already has missile silos and stationary bases in the first place. Actually, I think you're mistaken, but let's think this through - There's 200 countries in the world, roughly. Call the current world powers America, China, UK, Russia, and maybe a couple other European countries. In…
You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing. > And usually, there's considerable advance warning before attacks so you could prepare. The key word is "usually". How usually is usually? When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning? There was none. True, major attacks are rare, but when they do come, I would say about 50% of them are without warning. Yes, they are usually preceded by som…
"When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning?"
Stalin had plenty of advance warning - there were even people defecting from the German ranks and telling them that the Germans were coming (they were probably shot for their troubles).
Even after the invasion started Stalin refused to believe the reports coming from frontline units for a long time after the invasion started.
See: http://www.simonsebagmontefiore.com/stalincourtredtsar.aspx
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#45In 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.
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#46This is not exactly convincing. Battleships, far from being a ridiculous idea, were a logical and necessary step for any navy wishing to project power at sea. They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. While the Battle of Jutland may seem silly, the alternative would have been a…
"Manoeuvre warfare is fantastically effective when the circumstances allow for it, but the available conditions, technology and personnel can sometimes make it ineffective. For instance, the German Blitzkrieg was extraordinarily effective against the static French defences in 1940, but the same forces and tactics came unstuck in 1941 when faced with a vicious winter and the Russian scorched earth style of defence." N…
Not just running out of fuel but general supply line issues.
Blitzkrieg (around which the German forces had been designed) was predicated on the assumption that you could quickly overrun a territory before the defenders could react to it. Which works fine in Poland and, to a degree, France (though that was partly due to some interesting internal politics in France at the time) but where's the first defensible border you could run to and hold in Russia? The Urals. Waaaaaaay too far to go. Even if you're starting from Konigsberg (as was then) and aiming at Moscow, that's still further than the whole width of France.
Germany was faced with supply lines that grew too long and a front that rapidly fanned out and thinned their forces. They ended up moving supplies by rail but had to lay their own rails as they went because the pre-existing Russian lines didn't match what they had and could feed from Germany. They needed supplies at such a rate that they couldn't afford the track time of sending cars back, so cars were abandoned at the front instead. The supply lines just became too long to service.
Then partisan campaigns started breaking out in captured territory requiring manpower to keep that land placid enough to support the front. Yet more supply issues.
Then.... winter came. German troops were faced with weather so cold that when they were fed soup it froze on their spoons before they could get it into their mouths. Yet Russian troops would hide in the snow all day and come out to attack by night. No doubt helped by convict armies which had regular army guns trained on them from behind and were under no illusions that returning in any condition to still fight would have them shot by their own side.
I don't believe there's been a single successful western land invasion of Russia since the Vikings. The country has demonstrated itself well able to simply absorb and tire out attackers by going back into the ample available space, safe in the knowledge that if they could somehow overcome the horrendous logistical challenges, they'd be so weak by the time winter came that it woudln't matter anyway. A brutal strategy, but apparently effective.
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#47This is not exactly convincing. Battleships, far from being a ridiculous idea, were a logical and necessary step for any navy wishing to project power at sea. They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. While the Battle of Jutland may seem silly, the alternative would have been a…
> They were so heavily armoured and gunned that for a long time, from the late 19th Century to just before WWII, the only realistic defence against a battleship was another battleship. German U-Boats demonstrated battleship's obsolescence during very early WWI (U-9 sank 3 battleships in under an hour in September 1914...), and this was confirmed in the early 20s with aerial torpedoing (which Admiral Percy Scott had p…
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Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#48He also misrepresents the view of Victor Davis Hanson-- I think he's referring to "Carnage and Culture", which has a much more nuanced (and thus far different) argument.
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't take even a minute to think through before writing. > And usually, there's considerable advance warning before attacks so you could prepare. The key word is "usually". How usually is usually? When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning? There was none. True, major attacks are rare, but when they do come, I would say about 50% of them are without warning. Yes, they are usually preceded by som…
"When Nazis attacked the USSR, was there an advance warning?" Stalin had plenty of advance warning - there were even people defecting from the German ranks and telling them that the Germans were coming (they were probably shot for their troubles). Even after the invasion started Stalin refused to believe the reports coming from frontline units for a long time after the invasion started. See: http://www.simonsebagmont…
Intelligence information is speculative and absolutely cannot be compared to an official warning.
Re: Battleships: a ridiculous but awesome idea
#50I've observed a principle that militaries build to win the last total war they fought. This is why guys like Billy Mitchell ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell ) were ignored about the importance of air power leading up to WWII. The status quo was to gear up for another WWI, complete with entrenched and barely mobile front lines. But of course the German Blitzkreig, a brilliant archetype of maneuver warfare…
I don't know how much I agree with the statement "even the Cold War was really just the US and Russia building to re-win WWII until Russia ran out of cash". Not that it matters for this discussion, because I think its clear that the U.S. military is still trying to design itself for a Cold War scenario, and encountering huge problems when faced with asymmetrical opponents.