5 ms·

Damen shipyards is on record for stating that they regularly tweak warship designs to "look sleeker and meaner" because it both makes the admirals happy and als

• Judgmentality 6y ago
  > In any case it's also good military thinking. Or more likely enemies see it as posturing and strike full force, thinking they can pierce the superficial veil of technological supremacy. Come on, security theater is bullshit. How many people actually think the TSA does anything useful? If anything it lulls people into a false sense of safety, making us weaker. If our enemies are so easily deterred that our appearance matters more than our capability, then they are not enemies worth taking seriously. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-tsa-doesnt-work-and-maybe-it-doesnt-matter/394673/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-tsa... https://www.heritage.org/transportation/commentary/heres-how-bad-the-tsa-failing-airport-security-its-time-privatization https://www.heritage.org/transportation/commentary/heres-how...
  • wtvanhest 6y ago
    Hijackings were extremely common prior to flight security. TSA was another level, that was extremely frustrating throughout the 2000s, but at a minimum it prevents wildly unstable people from boarding with weapons Check out this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings
    • Judgmentality 6y ago
      I wrote a rebuttal with sources but on second thought, I think you make a good point. I should look at the data more and revisit my stance.
    • ceejayoz 6y ago
      > at a minimum it prevents wildly unstable people from boarding with weapons The TSA reliably fails penetration tests; they miss between 70% and 95% of them. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa-misses-70-of-fake-weapons-but-thats-an-improvement/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelgoldstein/2017/11/09/tsa... What's likely caused hijackings to fall off a cliff is a) reinforced cockpit doors and b) the knowledge of crew and passengers that the hijackers might be homicidal. Pre-9/11, advice was to cooperate, get the plane on the ground, and negotiate/assault, with pretty good overall results for the passengers. That is... not the advice today.
      • wtvanhest 6y ago
        Reinforced cockpit doors were not implemented on planes until around 2002. Meanwhile, hijackings fell dramatically after only basic fight security that was implemented nearly 20 years before that.
    • toyg 6y ago
      Common-er, yes; “extremely” seems a bit excessive. It’s not like there was a hijack a day. And as others said, what stopped the trend is more likely to be the fact that passengers’ cooperation is now impossible.
    • Zigurd 6y ago
      There are more-plausible theories of why hijackings are now rare. One of the most plausible is that armored cockpit doors and the policy that they should never be opened during a hijacking has put hijackers out of business. TSA security checkpoints are a gift to the business models for autonomous vehicles. If you can have your car do the driving for you, an overnight car trip will be a good alternative to flights under 500 miles ad possibly all short-haul flights in the US.
    • kens 6y ago
      I don't think people realize just how common hijackings were in the early 1970s, with sometimes two hijackings on the same day. (Between 1968 and 1972 there were over 130 US hijackings.) But after a hijacker threatened to crash a plane into a nuclear reactor in 1972, the FAA introduced passenger screening and metal detectors. Before that, there was basically no security. An interesting article: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-egyptair https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-e...
  • anonisko 6y ago
    It's not complete bullshit. Against other sophisticated actors, yeah, it's bullshit. But posturing and intimidation is important to keep less sophisticated actors in check.
    • Judgmentality 6y ago
      Who are the less sophisticated actors willing to attack a military based solely on appearance of 'not looking intimidating?' We're talking about a fighter jet, not a security guard.
      • anonisko 6y ago
        I'd see it as more about PR. If poor desperate people regularly see these kinds of badass weapons that a foreign power has, it's just going to be that much harder to recruit for organizations that violently resist oppression, because the individuals you need are fearful and demoralized. Then you need crazy things like religious indoctrination that promises rewards in heaven for fighting such an unassailable power.
        • Judgmentality 6y ago
          I guess you could make the argument the PR is effective against idiots. My point is letting the PR call the shots objectively makes us weaker (the F-35 program is a clusterfuck), so it's harming us against enemies that aren't idiots. I'm pretty sure China loves the F-35 program because they know it's an enormous weakness in the US military. But yeah, you have a point. Idiots can be harmful too, and they should also be considered as potential threats.
  • HPsquared 6y ago
    Human factors are real.
  • landryraccoon 6y ago
    One angle you're missing is the effect appearances have on your own soldiers, not the enemy. Battles and wars can be lost because of poor morale. Maintaining high morale and combat readiness in your very-human fighting force is critical to achieving victory. If soldiers feel happier and more ready to fight with cool looking equipment rather than shoddy looking gear, then it's easily a good investment.
• sandworm101 6y ago
  Sun Tzu didnt have stealth aircraft. In many ways, if they see enough of you to be intimidated then they can see enough of you to kill you. The f-35 wants to make the kill before the target even realizes it is in danger, let alone sees the aircraft comming. I doubt Sun Tzu would have encouraged his spies or saboteurs to stand out from the crowd.
  • stretchcat 6y ago
    The enemies of America are presumably meant to see American stealth aircraft in movies and TV shows, not over their capitols. However, I think these airplanes are indeed designed foremost for function. The similar appearances of the B-1 and Tu-160 suggest that when two planes are designed using similar technology with similar mission requirements, they tend to have a lot of similarities. (In the years since they were initially designed, the way these aircraft are used has changed. But they were initially designed to meet similar requirements.)
    • asdff 6y ago
      How many decades will it be before we see an F35 used in film?
      • stretchcat 6y ago
        F-35's have been depicted in numerous Hollywood movies already, though it seems not always in the most positive light. To get an actual F-35 filmed for a movie would probably require the cooperation of the US military though, so probably the next time a sufficiently aggrandizing American war movie calls for one? The US military has helped out Hollywood like this many times before, if they think the movie shows them in a good light. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-aug-21-la-ca-military-movies-20110821-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-aug-21-la-ca-mi... https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-f-35-stealth-fighters-movie-appearances-have-been-flop-54512 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-f-35-stealth-figh...
      • dragonwriter 6y ago
• pjc50 6y ago
  Used to be done with uniforms. Hence the Pope's guards with Michelangelo uniforms, and the Nazis with Hugo Boss.
  • stretchcat 6y ago
    I could be wrong, but IIRC Hugo Boss was one of the companies that made Nazi uniforms, but did not design those uniforms.
• Animats 6y ago
  That was an issue with US guided missile cruisers when vertical launch came in. The launchers just show as little hatches in the deck. There's usually a modest gun turret, the only visible weapon. There are some Close In Weapons System units, but they just look like machine guns. The USSR built ships with much more visible armament on deck, facing outward. Partly because it looked fierce, and partly because they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch straight up and come back down on the ship.
  • doovd 6y ago
    > they didn't quite trust their missiles not to launch straight up and come back down on the ship. This sounds like some ridiculous cold war propaganda, source?
    • Animats 6y ago
      Wikipedia has that, but it's uncited. The USSR and Russia were late getting into vertical launch from surface ships. When they did, it was with larger missiles than the US used, but fewer of them. There were some interesting designs, such as a missile that carried a torpedo, a ramjet-powered missile, and a missile which operated in a group of other missiles with one of them in charge. The USSR built some giant nuclear-powered battlecruisers to carry all those large weapons, and put large vertical launch tubes on some aircraft carriers. Now, like everybody else, Russia mostly uses vertical launch in new systems.
    • stretchcat 6y ago
      I'm under the impression the Kirov-class battlecruisers have vertical launch tubes. On the other hand, the concern seems somewhat warranted: https://youtube.com/watch?v=V88sUJKgOsk https://youtube.com/watch?v=V88sUJKgOsk
    • chipsa 6y ago
      It's an artifact of the technology they use. US launchers are hot launch: the motor ignites in the cell, and then leaps out under its own power. This has some disadvantages with having hot exhaust inside the ship. Soviet launchers used a cold launcher. They pushed the missile out first, then ignited the motor after it was out of the cell. This is good for reducing exhaust impingement. But you can end up with a live missile not actually going up if the motor igniter fails. Angling the launcher ensures your live missile lands in the water, instead of on deck. I've seen video of this, but having no luck searching for it.