The US Navy has had the benefit of an 80 year period in which they've never actually come to blows with a comparable opponent.
But, like, historically speaking? Standing armies were obsolete as soon as we'd finished our first allotment of ICBMs. They're great for punching down on some Iraqis with a bunch of 70s-era legacy hardware or for swarming the Korengal Valley for a few months to play wack-a-mole with the Mujaheddin. But we have long since passed the point at which a straight-up military confrontation will do anything but liquefy hardware and human bodies at a rapid pace.
Even asymmetrical warfare is getting to be nothing but an implosion of human welfare and productive capital, as the Yemen/Saudi conflict demonstrates.
Its all just a giant black hole of waste.
One reason why the Chinese have been so adamant about not starting any fucking imperialist conflicts and focusing primarily on domestic quality of life improvements. The biggest fear modern Americans have in the modern era really does boil down to the folks on the other side of the Pacific completely lapping us in terms of living standards. After that, it'll just be China sitting on a pile of surplus luxuries and handing them out as treat baskets to the countries they favor.
Also because the US has spent better part of a decade failing to counter "ordinary" missiles and their missile defense systems are mostly just protection money paid to the empire.
They certainly could and should. But it is not a trivial problem. Maybe the best answer would be energy based weapons(high powered lasers) but the inherent problem is that the MIC doesn't like investing in new technological concepts. Instead it always prefer to redesign and iterate on existing concepts.
If you look at the history of fighters, all generations are direct evolutions of the previous one with no real difference between each of them except bigger/better performance numbers.
Even modern stealth is achieved through material science and not realy inherent on the aerodynamic design, except for a few key features which makes every stealth fighter look the same.
So my point is if the requirement is to invent something completely new then you can be sure the MIC will lobby against it. Otherwise it is always too expensive or too difficult. In the rare cases where the US actualy exercises some oversight on the military budget spending, high tech prototypes with no real chance of working in the short term are not likely to survive compared to building more F-15s/18s/35s, some better Abrams version or yet another nuclear carrier etc.
The problem is probably the fact that with current technology it's much easier to make a missile go faster than to develop a computer capable of tracking those missiles, a radar capable of keeping a lock on them despite evasion and stealth, and an interceptor capable of downing them reliably.
Missiles and engines are just improving on existing tech, which is always faster and more reliable than innovating completely new tech. By the time the US develops something capable of intercepting Mach 6 missiles, Russia and China might have Mach 8 missiles in service.
I hate to think about it, but it's probably true that the US military doesn't worry about things like hypersonic missiles or losing an entire fleet in a day because of them because their contingencies plans are just "nuke everyone".
I really hope China and Russia are researching ways to completely stop the US from firing off nukes. Like, releasing a computer virus that paralyzes nuclear middle systems or whatever.
I don't claim to be a military expert, but idk why the US isn't spending more of their R&D budget on countering hypersonic missiles
20 relatively cheaply produced hypersonic missles vs carrier group :garf-troll:
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The US Navy has had the benefit of an 80 year period in which they've never actually come to blows with a comparable opponent.
But, like, historically speaking? Standing armies were obsolete as soon as we'd finished our first allotment of ICBMs. They're great for punching down on some Iraqis with a bunch of 70s-era legacy hardware or for swarming the Korengal Valley for a few months to play wack-a-mole with the Mujaheddin. But we have long since passed the point at which a straight-up military confrontation will do anything but liquefy hardware and human bodies at a rapid pace.
Even asymmetrical warfare is getting to be nothing but an implosion of human welfare and productive capital, as the Yemen/Saudi conflict demonstrates.
Its all just a giant black hole of waste.
One reason why the Chinese have been so adamant about not starting any fucking imperialist conflicts and focusing primarily on domestic quality of life improvements. The biggest fear modern Americans have in the modern era really does boil down to the folks on the other side of the Pacific completely lapping us in terms of living standards. After that, it'll just be China sitting on a pile of surplus luxuries and handing them out as treat baskets to the countries they favor.
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carriercels coping and seething
Probably because it doesn't really matter in the event of MAD
Also because the US has spent better part of a decade failing to counter "ordinary" missiles and their missile defense systems are mostly just protection money paid to the empire.
They certainly could and should. But it is not a trivial problem. Maybe the best answer would be energy based weapons(high powered lasers) but the inherent problem is that the MIC doesn't like investing in new technological concepts. Instead it always prefer to redesign and iterate on existing concepts.
If you look at the history of fighters, all generations are direct evolutions of the previous one with no real difference between each of them except bigger/better performance numbers.
Even modern stealth is achieved through material science and not realy inherent on the aerodynamic design, except for a few key features which makes every stealth fighter look the same.
So my point is if the requirement is to invent something completely new then you can be sure the MIC will lobby against it. Otherwise it is always too expensive or too difficult. In the rare cases where the US actualy exercises some oversight on the military budget spending, high tech prototypes with no real chance of working in the short term are not likely to survive compared to building more F-15s/18s/35s, some better Abrams version or yet another nuclear carrier etc.
The problem is probably the fact that with current technology it's much easier to make a missile go faster than to develop a computer capable of tracking those missiles, a radar capable of keeping a lock on them despite evasion and stealth, and an interceptor capable of downing them reliably.
Missiles and engines are just improving on existing tech, which is always faster and more reliable than innovating completely new tech. By the time the US develops something capable of intercepting Mach 6 missiles, Russia and China might have Mach 8 missiles in service.
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Aiming my laser through ten miles of seawater to stop the hyper-sonic torpedo from sinking my aircraft carrier, but for some reason its not working.
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I hate to think about it, but it's probably true that the US military doesn't worry about things like hypersonic missiles or losing an entire fleet in a day because of them because their contingencies plans are just "nuke everyone".
I really hope China and Russia are researching ways to completely stop the US from firing off nukes. Like, releasing a computer virus that paralyzes nuclear middle systems or whatever.