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War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

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Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#81

Post by DANmode »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #72
DANmode wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. So, better be Agile, and have segmented groups doing really different things in different regions, not taking 10-25 years to develop new overpriced platforms while World Wars are being fought on DJI.

This seems like precisely the opposite rhetoric our navy uses to procure funds, and is certainly the opposite strategy we have used to build the navy. It feels like we somehow got trapped forty years in the past

> somehow

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwigh...

On January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex."

In a speech of less than 10 minutes, on January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his political farewell to the American people on national television from the Oval Office of the White House.

Those who expected the military leader and hero of World War II to depart his Presidency with a nostalgic, "old soldier" speech like Gen. Douglas MacArthur's, were surprised at his strong warnings about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex."

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#82

Post by AnimalMuppet »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #74
perlgeek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least in terms of the carrier being sunk You don't need to sink a carrier to make it more of a liability than an asset. If you hit its radar systems and/or damage the surface enough that landing becomes impossible, it becomes a sitting duck. > That said, I wonder why you don't see Ukraine and Russia doing this more -- "saving up" for massive clouds of long range strike drones every couple weeks To some degree, t…

> If you hit its radar systems and/or damage the surface enough that landing becomes impossible, it becomes a sitting duck. Both of these statements are wrong. Carriers generally rely on the radar systems of their escorts and their early warning aircraft much more than their own systems. Similarly, even if the landing deck was damaged, again the carrier's escorts are its primary defense

True, but if you can't land planes, then you can only launch each plane once.

But I have a suspicion that the US navy practices damage control and recovery. Repairing a landing deck seems like a thing they would practice very extensively.

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#83

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cwillu wrote: post #69
smarm52 wrote: post #56

I thought this was common knowledge? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 > The Red force, led by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, used numerous asymmetrical tactics unanticipated by the Blue force; a pre-emptive cruise missile attack sank sixteen Blue warships and led to the exercise's suspension. The simulation was restarted with Blue forces fully restored, and Red force…

Because the point of the wargame is that it's a training exercise for everyone involved, right down to the crews of the ships involved, not an nfl game. If the free-play portion ends up not exercising a bunch of expected scenarios because of an unexpected tactic, it would be monumentally wasteful to not make a note of the lesson and then reset with a script.

Right.

Did they make a note of the lesson? Did anything change?

I mean, I guess they noticed enough to classify the results for 25 years...

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#84

Post by lukan »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #75
lukan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, if there are really 10000 in a attack at once, I am pretty sure a carrier would burn so much, it is basically scrap metal. But I suppose 1000 already, or even 100 at once would be a serious threat with grave damage. I suppose we will find out sooner or later.

And now the cost has increased again, because you need to field enough simultaneous launches to get 10k in the air at the same time. It doesn’t mean you need 10k launchers, but you still need a lot

Yeah, but those launchers are really cheap. Just a metal rail and a booster (and alternatives are possible, Iran has lots of steep mountains).

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#86

Post by fmajid »

giantg2 wrote: post #66

We're still vulnerable to low tech warfare. We keep developing expensive systems that can't be manufactured quickly. One of the main reasons for success in WW2 was the fact that we could produce decent weapons in great volume. Japan had limited resources (draw a parallel to our rare earth situation). Germany had many advanced weapons, but couldn't produce enough (draw a parallel to our missiles).

We could because we had an industrial base that knew how to make stuff, not MBAs with delusions of grandeur who are belatedly discovering that they are easily dispensed with once the Chinese have acquired the manufacturing know-how.

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#87

Post by fmajid »

breppp wrote: post #44
apelapan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatively tiny? It is a 92 million person organisation with a 1.7 trillion dollar turnover, 2500+ years of continuous operations and covering an area 1/6th the size of USA.

"2500+ years of continuous operations" I see it repeated a lot, but Iran is not a direct descendent of some Persian empire, it was conquered by Greeks, Arabs, Turks and Mongols and ruled by Arabs and Turks for most of its history. These nationalist myths are not taken seriously for western countries but that criticism usually does not extend to foreign myths

More like 5000 years, Susa is nearly as ancient as Sumer.

Also the Iranians have cultural continuity going back that far, unlike the Egyptians, Iraqis or Indians. Only the Chinese rival them in that respect.

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#88

Post by esseph »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #78
jandrewrogers wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Shahed is only useful against stationary soft targets, which an aircraft carrier is not. It also doesn’t have the kind of heavy warhead or terminal guidance required to defeat the armored structure of naval ships. Shahed doesn’t have any kind of countermeasure avoidance. Adding these would massively increase the cost. Naval anti-ship drones have been around for many decades. This is a highly evolved area of militar…

I feel like this and many other responses are missing the point, e.g. focusing on the specifics of a current Shahed drone. My main thesis is that the cost of small autonomous drones have dropped enormously over the past 20 years, and that increasingly drone swarms look like a much more capable and cost effective way of waging war than giant, incredibly expensive, slow moving targets. These giant but powerful machines…

> These giant but powerful machines (not just aircraft carriers but also things like tanks) are simply poorly suited to the future (and maybe even the present) of warfare.

There's a whole new generation of infantry fighting vehicles and tanks being designed and metal bended right now with that very threat in mind.

Not to mention tons of short range air defense supporting systems.

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#89

Post by [deleted] »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #82
CryptoBanker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you hit its radar systems and/or damage the surface enough that landing becomes impossible, it becomes a sitting duck. Both of these statements are wrong. Carriers generally rely on the radar systems of their escorts and their early warning aircraft much more than their own systems. Similarly, even if the landing deck was damaged, again the carrier's escorts are its primary defense

True, but if you can't land planes, then you can only launch each plane once. But I have a suspicion that the US navy practices damage control and recovery. Repairing a landing deck seems like a thing they would practice very extensively.

[deleted]

Re: War game exposed U.S. vulnerability to low-tech warfare

#90

Post by datadrivenangel »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

Feels like the title needs some sort of "2002" notice - the reporting is recent but the actual wargame was done in 2002 and only recently declassified. So, of course, the US military's vulnerability has only increased in spades since 2002 due to drones. All those bases in the Middle East that were supposed to help protect the countries where they were based were just ripe targets. I think more critically, most of the…

Also the wargame was flawed because the computer simulations in 2002 allowed the enemy general to put anti-ship missiles bigger than speed boats on the speed boats, and basically 'spawn' the speed boats almost next to the blue fleet.

Also apparently the motorcycle carriers were modeled as having no delay which gave them flawless realtime communications....

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