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> when the Japanese Navy showed up, the US Navy weighed anchor and left I'm not even an amateur pacific theater historian, but I know that this story is more n

by dmos62 7y ago

> when the Japanese Navy showed up, the US Navy weighed anchor and left I'm not even an amateur pacific theater historian, but I know that this story is more nuanced than that, and your implication that the Navy didn't cooperate sounds naive. It's true that the US armed forces suffer from high division. My canonical example is the retirement of A-10 in favor of F-35.

csours 7y ago
Of course it's more nuanced than that, but imagine you are a Marine on the beach. Do you care about the nuance, or do you care about seeing the ships leave with your supplies. When I read history, I try to imagine it with at least 3 points of view - the individual soldier, the commander, and the whole conflict. It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all the answers and they have biases. We are largely the stories we tell ourselves. One of the stories that Marines tell is that they hold fast where others retreat. Semper Fidelis. I can hold a nuanced view and still understand their viewpoint. (I am not a Marine, but I did just read Lewis (Chesty) B Puller's biography)
- arkades 7y ago
  The marine on the beach isn’t the one designing our armed forces. So I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant to the question of “why are our armed services designed in this manner?”
  - akiselev 7y ago
    Those Marines on the beach didn't just all die there. Many survived and worked up the Marine Corps ranks to become generals, left to join defense contractors, and became politicians, all of whom had influence over how the armed forces are structured. Assuming past experiences effect a person's point of view and future actions, and that society's institutions aren't created, nor operate, in a vacuum: how is their experience irrelevant?
  - danso 7y ago
    The Marine air unit existed decades before the establishment of the Air Force, as did the Army's. There's obviously overlap, but they all have different focuses and specialties too.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant This is peak HN right here. Obvious the highly nuanced perceptions of startup techbros is the only thing that’s “relevant”.
- jimktrains2 7y ago
  > It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all the answers and they have biases. That's excellent advice for almost any encounter in day to day life, including tech support. Something that the people I work with love is that if they say there is a problem, I believe there is a problem. It might not be specifically what they said, or what they said might be impossible, but if you can picture their point of view, their knowledge, and try to imagine a situation that would look like what they described you can often dive directly to the problem.
jandrewrogers 7y ago
The A-10 needs to be retired regardless because the airframe cannot be upgraded to survive in a modern air defense environment.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  This argument doesn’t make sense. You might as well say rifles need to be retired regardless because they cannot be upgraded to kill tanks. What you actually need is a full spectrum of capabilities so you can use the right tool for the job each time.
  - jandrewrogers 7y ago
    The A-10 cannot fulfill its primary role (CAS) in most modern environments nor can it be upgraded to do so, which raises the question of what it is actually useful for. This is primarily due to lack of space in the airframe to dramatically expand the onboard electrical and power generation systems, which are needed to power modern defensive capabilities. In the last half century since it was designed, most of its passive survivability has also been obsoleted by more modern air defense systems specifically engineered to reliably kill planes like the A-10. Lack of effective active and passive defensive capabilities greatly limit what you can do with it if you care about pilot safety. It has become so limited in the CAS role due to poor survivability that we can't deploy it for most CAS missions. And for the environments where it can survive, the US has many other platforms that will work for CAS in the absence of effective air defense. The A-10 was designed for a very different battlefield that increasingly no longer exists.

by dmos62 7y ago

csours 7y ago

Of course it's more nuanced than that, but imagine you are a Marine on the beach. Do you care about the nuance, or do you care about seeing the ships leave with your supplies. When I read history, I try to imagine it with at least 3 points of view - the individual soldier, the commander, and the whole conflict. It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all the answers and they have biases. We are largely the stories we tell ourselves. One of the stories that Marines tell is that they hold fast where others retreat. Semper Fidelis. I can hold a nuanced view and still understand their viewpoint. (I am not a Marine, but I did just read Lewis (Chesty) B Puller's biography)

arkades 7y ago
The marine on the beach isn’t the one designing our armed forces. So I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant to the question of “why are our armed services designed in this manner?”
- akiselev 7y ago
  Those Marines on the beach didn't just all die there. Many survived and worked up the Marine Corps ranks to become generals, left to join defense contractors, and became politicians, all of whom had influence over how the armed forces are structured. Assuming past experiences effect a person's point of view and future actions, and that society's institutions aren't created, nor operate, in a vacuum: how is their experience irrelevant?
- danso 7y ago
  The Marine air unit existed decades before the establishment of the Air Force, as did the Army's. There's obviously overlap, but they all have different focuses and specialties too.
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant This is peak HN right here. Obvious the highly nuanced perceptions of startup techbros is the only thing that’s “relevant”.
jimktrains2 7y ago
> It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all the answers and they have biases. That's excellent advice for almost any encounter in day to day life, including tech support. Something that the people I work with love is that if they say there is a problem, I believe there is a problem. It might not be specifically what they said, or what they said might be impossible, but if you can picture their point of view, their knowledge, and try to imagine a situation that would look like what they described you can often dive directly to the problem.

jandrewrogers 7y ago

The A-10 needs to be retired regardless because the airframe cannot be upgraded to survive in a modern air defense environment.

goatinaboat 7y ago
This argument doesn’t make sense. You might as well say rifles need to be retired regardless because they cannot be upgraded to kill tanks. What you actually need is a full spectrum of capabilities so you can use the right tool for the job each time.
- jandrewrogers 7y ago
  The A-10 cannot fulfill its primary role (CAS) in most modern environments nor can it be upgraded to do so, which raises the question of what it is actually useful for. This is primarily due to lack of space in the airframe to dramatically expand the onboard electrical and power generation systems, which are needed to power modern defensive capabilities. In the last half century since it was designed, most of its passive survivability has also been obsoleted by more modern air defense systems specifically engineered to reliably kill planes like the A-10. Lack of effective active and passive defensive capabilities greatly limit what you can do with it if you care about pilot safety. It has become so limited in the CAS role due to poor survivability that we can't deploy it for most CAS missions. And for the environments where it can survive, the US has many other platforms that will work for CAS in the absence of effective air defense. The A-10 was designed for a very different battlefield that increasingly no longer exists.