Modern Warfare

[EgonSpengler]

For both the US Army and US Navy, the future is somewhat back to the past:

BBC News, 6 January 2017: U.S. tanks arrive in Germany to help NATO defenses
Stars & Stripes, 29 January 2016: Break out the sextant: Navy teaching celestial navigation again

The tanks are a show of resolve to Russia. Just 87 tanks is more of a speed-bump than a real force, but it sends a signal. And of course there are myriad reasons that a modern navy ship could lose communications or GPS, but Russia has made it clear that it should be at the top of any list of electronic threats.

 

[Samson]

Look at Syria now, barrel bombs and cluster munitions upon dense urban areas. Cheap and effective.

Yeah, but also remember russia in Afghanistan.

 

[Kozmos]

Yeah, but also remember russia in Afghanistan.

Sure, but there are strong arguments to be made that sanctions and foreign support of local insurgents made Russians withdraw and not the strength of asymmetrical forces vs symmetrical.

 

[red_elk]

USSR in Afghanistan was actually quite successful, despite support of insurgents by major foreign power. Syria is more difficult, but Russia has also much less commitment there.

 

[Kozmos]

Only in spite of itself. I would argue the opposite, it's much more successful today because of the lessons learned and important reorganization in light of the Soviet collapse and further experiences in Checnya. You should read the reports by your own armies instead of simply being is best, is stronk.

 

[red_elk]

You should read the reports by your own armies instead of simply being is best, is stronk.

Not sure if you understand me, I'm arguing that Russia is less successful now than it could be. Najibullah government had much more control of their country than Assad currently has, and it outlasted the USSR.
Lessons were learned, but the capabilities are also less for a number of reasons. Geographical location, to name one.

 

[Kozmos]

No, I understand you, but I'm saying by the important metrics related to warfare, Russia is more successful now than then with considerably more limitations.

 

[red_elk]

Mainly, it suffered much less casualties, because of more technologically advanced equipment and reliance on foreign ground troops (Syrian, Iranian and Lebanese) instead of using its own.
But success is measured by geopolitical metrics.

 

[Commodore]

Anyway, it failed to defeat Iran in 80-s, so despite numbers it was hardly a formidable opponent by that time

That was kinda the original point I was making. In modern warfare, numbers don't count nearly as much as they used to in previous eras.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So because the technology hasn't yet reached a point where it's commonplace that means it never will be? That logic is...interesting. There are some robots in the works right now that have some pretty impressive capabilities.

That particular line of technology has been examined and found ineffective. Robot assembly on an assembly line is an easily programmed repetitive task. Parts are machined to be effectively identical so they can be joined using identical repeated motions. Construction "in the wild" just doesn't work that way, and the programming and processing isn't worth the return.

Even the most consistently repetitive part of construction, framing for single family houses, isn't repetitious enough to produce a return. I worked at a prefab lumberyard. We banged out entire neighborhoods of framing and loaded them on flat cars a house at a time. You just take all the walls off the train car, stand them up on the foundation and attach them together, then drop all the roof trusses on in the appropriate sequence and you have framed a house. With a good crew you can fully frame out a tract in about an hour per house, average.

At the yard we had all the automation that money could buy, IF it paid for itself. We could feed 24' 2x4s into a saw that would cut and sort usable lengths with minimum waste based on data fed in from the blueprints. The standard tract, four floor plans with four mirrors for a total of eight, ten of each minimum, made this machine worth using. Any smaller order was cut by old fashioned guys with old fashioned radial saws because it wasn't worth the effort to program the machine. And again, this is at the most repetitive stage of construction with absolutely nothing unpredictable, and done at a central location. Dragging machinery from site to site that has to be able to adapt to conditions or be babysat by someone who can make adjustments just isn't practical.


And a construction site is many orders of complexity beneath a battlefield.

 

[sophie]

That was kinda the original point I was making. In modern warfare, numbers don't count nearly as much as they used to in previous eras.

Not to mention that Iran is the 17th most populous country in the world, roughly comparable with Germany, and by the end of hostilities in 1988 had an army of 600,000 soldiers. So it's not like Saddam was dogpiling Kuwait or anything like that.

 

[Commodore]

That particular line of technology has been examined and found ineffective. Robot assembly on an assembly line is an easily programmed repetitive task. Parts are machined to be effectively identical so they can be joined using identical repeated motions. Construction "in the wild" just doesn't work that way, and the programming and processing isn't worth the return.

Again though, that's right now. Just because it isn't worth it now, doesn't mean it won't be in the future. To keep in the context of the thread, there was a time when military officers thought tanks and aircraft were "ineffective". And at the time, they were right, tanks and aircraft were ineffective initially. However, both came to dominate the battlefield in the mid-20th century and onwards. The same will probably be true for robot soldiers. They will be absolute garbage in the first war they are used, but will become the next big thing in the wars that follow their initial showing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That was kinda the original point I was making. In modern warfare, numbers don't count nearly as much as they used to in previous eras.

Would WW2 count as "current" era? Numbers weren't a major deciding factor in many battles then.

I don't think numbers were the big deciding factor in many battles in WWI either, though it would be fair to say that in WWI there were no big deciding factors in most battles.

The Mongol "hordes" may have been large in numbers, but they ravaged most of a continent, and the population of that continent was certainly larger than their hordes.

The Roman Legions didn't outnumber the Gauls.

I think "the better technology generally wins" has pretty much always been true.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Again though, that's right now. Just because it isn't worth it now, doesn't mean it won't be in the future. To keep in the context of the thread, there was a time when military officers thought tanks and aircraft were "ineffective". And at the time, they were right, tanks and aircraft were ineffective initially. However, both came to dominate the battlefield in the mid-20th century and onwards. The same will probably be true for robot soldiers. They will be absolute garbage in the first war they are used, but will become the next big thing in the wars that follow their initial showing.

They do have the advantage of competing on a different field than the theoretical construction robot. A construction robot is going to have to prove profitable to be successful. A war robot just has to "save lives."

However, for the few who really profit from wars, and thus have the biggest say, these war robots are going to have to pay off somehow and that will be really hard to do. I just read that the US expended, on average, 250,000 rounds per kill over the last fifteen years. In the Viet Nam era the military spent on ammunition more than half of what NASA spent to put a man on the moon. These kill bots are going to have to be really expensive and really expendable to attract the people who matter.

 

[Commodore]

Would WW2 count as "current" era? Numbers weren't a major deciding factor in many battles then

Sure they were. WWII was all about numbers. It was about the side that could crank out the most tanks, bombs, ships, and planes and get them to the battlefield.

The Mongol "hordes" may have been large in numbers, but they ravaged most of a continent, and the population of that continent was certainly larger than their hordes.

The Roman Legions didn't outnumber the Gauls

Sure, but those are exceptions, not the rules for their given eras. In most battles up until around WWI, it was a pretty safe bet to put your money on the numerically superior force carrying the day.

 

[Commodore]

They do have the advantage of competing on a different field than the theoretical construction robot. A construction robot is going to have to prove profitable to be successful. A war robot just has to "save lives."

However, for the few who really profit from wars, and thus have the biggest say, these war robots are going to have to pay off somehow and that will be really hard to do. I just read that the US expended, on average, 250,000 rounds per kill over the last fifteen years. In the Viet Nam era the military spent on ammunition more than half of what NASA spent to put a man on the moon. These kill bots are going to have to be really expensive and really expendable to attract the people who matter

My guess is the first few generations of combat robots will be nothing more than unmanned ground vehicles controlled by an operator half a world away from the actual fighting. It takes a lot of expensive tech to make that happen and it theoretically saves lives since only the machine itself is put in danger.

 

[red_elk]

That was kinda the original point I was making. In modern warfare, numbers don't count nearly as much as they used to in previous eras.

"Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not."

It has always been like this, since invention of sword and bow. Numbers can be considered as just another force multiplier in addition to technology and training.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Why then you can invade Libya or Yugoslavia, but can't do the same to North Korea?

We could, any time. We're still at war with North Korea, only under conditions of a cease fire. North Korea has a very large force pointed directly at Seoul, so the first thing that would burn in renewed aggression is a very populated capitol. We're leaving that decision to South Korea, who is also still at war with North Korea.

 

[r16]

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,28467.0.html
from a site ı regularly check

 

[red_elk]

We're still at war with North Korea, only under conditions of a cease fire.

By these standards, WW2 is not over yet, because Russia is still at war with Japan since 1945.