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Sounds like the same problem Germans had during WW2: weapons are too advanced and as a result very easy to fuck up when they see action, expensive to make, and
by m0zg 7y ago
Sounds like the same problem Germans had during WW2: weapons are too advanced and as a result very easy to fuck up when they see action, expensive to make, and impossible to repair. Same with planes: all that nice anti-radar coating loses effectiveness after a just few combat sorties.
Military gear needs to be simple as a shovel, and not require a PhD to operate and repair. It also needs to be cheap and easy to manufacture (for some definition of "cheap" and "easy", given that this is an aircraft carrier), so you could make more of it if needed, reasonably quickly. None of the stuff the US military industrial complex has been producing for the past several decades fits this description even remotely.
What was wrong with the older, tried and true systems? Sure, they were slower, but nobody else in the world has anything that comes close anyway, and won't have it in the foreseeable future.
- Gustomaximus 7y agoRussia has an interesting solution. With much equiptment design an advanced model and a simplified monkey model. The monkey model is used for 1) export (to avoid sharing tech) and 2) so they have a verison they can manufacture quickly and cheaply in war. This under the theory wars tend to be won very quickly, or via attrition. So if both sides fail to blitz each other, Russia is well placed to churn out machinery fast for the attrition component. For the same reason they stack their army with officers (or used to) giving them the ability to bring in civilians and split officers into multiple groups if they want to ramp up man-power fast.
- mschuster91 7y ago> Sure, they were slower, but nobody else in the world has anything that comes close anyway, and won't have it in the foreseeable future. China has a billion people combined with (thanks to spionage) modern aircraft. Give them a decade and they'll build their own aircraft carriers.
- m0zg 7y agoYeah, and they could land people on the moon, too. One day. Maybe.