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Is the F35 the american Maginot line though ? As a French Im keenly aware of over investment in traditional defense when war changes shape. Never trust them to

by xwolfi 5y ago

Is the F35 the american Maginot line though ? As a French Im keenly aware of over investment in traditional defense when war changes shape. Never trust them to have done their homework, trust your enemy to have done more and alreay made your strategy obsolete.

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
Well, I’m located here in Poland and from our perspective it would seem “they” have already done their homework. They’re using a strategy in which the US/NATO doesn’t even get to use those super-weapons because no open war has even been declared (and probably won’t be). Instead it’s this state of emergency, refugee stand-offs, strategic natural-gas pipeline construction, infiltration, proxies and media manipulation etc. A hybrid-war. However, even just the fact that your opponent is not willing to escalate from words/espionage up to actual violence based on the strange high-tech wizardry you might/might-not have is a pretty good outcome. The Maginot Line is an interesting example. Sure, it functions as the defining joke of WW2 - they just walked around it. But one can imagine other side purposes for building such infrastructure before a war. For instance, just forcing your enemy to declare war against your neighbors (to pass through their territory) could already be seen as a pretty good payoff/deterrent. Or maybe having a large labor force capable of building similar infrastructure based on the experience from building that Maginot line might have been seen as valuable. Hell, maybe it was more about “jobs” and keeping the populace “loyal”. Again - I don’t know the details of the Maginot Line or that history but what I’m getting at is that there are so many unknown factors and results that might be at work behind the curtain that it’s very hard to say. Coming back to the F35 I’m just wondering how they measure the expertise and loyalty of the people who have to know how to design, manufacture and build these things. Engineers are theoretically free to work where they like - so it is of strategic importance to keep them happy and keep them occupied and making progress. Maybe this could be something happening that we don’t know about? A significant amount of money has been pumped into the project, but that money doesn’t just disappear. It goes into a huge strategically crucial supply chain. It might just be worth the political loss off face to keep that healthy and operative.
DarkUranium 5y ago
The Maginot Line worked exactly as (ultimately, but not initially[*] --- the plan changed mid-construction) intended. The intent was to force Germany through Belgium. Note that the role of a fortification is not only to help defend against an attack, but also to try to discourage an attack against it in the first place (instead forcing the enemy to attack through a different point; makes the attacks more predictable, which translates to higher concentrations of defensive forces --- bonus points if there are natural choke points or such). Ultimately, Germany was left with two options for an advance, so France had to guess which one. What happened was that France guessed wrong (IIRC, they didn't at all expect a German armored assault through the rough terrain & forests near Ardennes), and the rest, as they say, is history. [*] The initial plan was to fortify the Belgian border, too, but this was adapted to a "France helping Belgium defend against Germany" plan, after Belgium's protests that it would simply get "sacrificed" if the Maginot line was fully reinforced in the north. I've a sneaking suspicion that France wasn't quite ready to honor this quasi-defensive-plan, but that's a different topic.

by xwolfi 5y ago

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago

Well, I’m located here in Poland and from our perspective it would seem “they” have already done their homework. They’re using a strategy in which the US/NATO doesn’t even get to use those super-weapons because no open war has even been declared (and probably won’t be). Instead it’s this state of emergency, refugee stand-offs, strategic natural-gas pipeline construction, infiltration, proxies and media manipulation etc. A hybrid-war. However, even just the fact that your opponent is not willing to escalate from words/espionage up to actual violence based on the strange high-tech wizardry you might/might-not have is a pretty good outcome. The Maginot Line is an interesting example. Sure, it functions as the defining joke of WW2 - they just walked around it. But one can imagine other side purposes for building such infrastructure before a war. For instance, just forcing your enemy to declare war against your neighbors (to pass through their territory) could already be seen as a pretty good payoff/deterrent. Or maybe having a large labor force capable of building similar infrastructure based on the experience from building that Maginot line might have been seen as valuable. Hell, maybe it was more about “jobs” and keeping the populace “loyal”. Again - I don’t know the details of the Maginot Line or that history but what I’m getting at is that there are so many unknown factors and results that might be at work behind the curtain that it’s very hard to say. Coming back to the F35 I’m just wondering how they measure the expertise and loyalty of the people who have to know how to design, manufacture and build these things. Engineers are theoretically free to work where they like - so it is of strategic importance to keep them happy and keep them occupied and making progress. Maybe this could be something happening that we don’t know about? A significant amount of money has been pumped into the project, but that money doesn’t just disappear. It goes into a huge strategically crucial supply chain. It might just be worth the political loss off face to keep that healthy and operative.

DarkUranium 5y ago

The Maginot Line worked exactly as (ultimately, but not initially[*] --- the plan changed mid-construction) intended. The intent was to force Germany through Belgium. Note that the role of a fortification is not only to help defend against an attack, but also to try to discourage an attack against it in the first place (instead forcing the enemy to attack through a different point; makes the attacks more predictable, which translates to higher concentrations of defensive forces --- bonus points if there are natural choke points or such). Ultimately, Germany was left with two options for an advance, so France had to guess which one. What happened was that France guessed wrong (IIRC, they didn't at all expect a German armored assault through the rough terrain & forests near Ardennes), and the rest, as they say, is history. [*] The initial plan was to fortify the Belgian border, too, but this was adapted to a "France helping Belgium defend against Germany" plan, after Belgium's protests that it would simply get "sacrificed" if the Maginot line was fully reinforced in the north. I've a sneaking suspicion that France wasn't quite ready to honor this quasi-defensive-plan, but that's a different topic.