3 ms·

it is limited to smaller militaries. Mainly because the "bigger military" I'm referring to doesn't purchase commercial products. They purchase from specially ve

it is limited to smaller militaries. Mainly because the "bigger military" I'm referring to doesn't purchase commercial products. They purchase from specially vetted and procedure following "defense contractors" that charge a 100x premium. They'll never be using such a product. Russia is not a "big military" not when China spends 4x as much as them. And China is a small military too, they spend around 4x less then the next biggest military. You'll have to guess what I mean by "smaller militaries" from these details I've provided.

holoduke 3y ago
If you count artillery units or tank units Russia and China are not small. One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones. In a real war price is what counts. That's one reason why Europe and the US cannot win the Ukraine war. Everything is just too damn expensive. It's not a military show or a bunch of sandal terrorists anymore. It's real.
- dmurray 3y ago
  > One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones. Wait, what? Are the Russian tanks better, or is Russian manufacturing so inefficient they cost 20x more? Or should this be the other way round.
- secondcoming 3y ago
  > One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones I assume you got that the wrong way around! Tanks are regularly exploding in Ukraine due to being hit by cheap drones.
- corethree 3y ago
  Let me spell it: out every military is small compared to the one where spending is equivalent to all of them combined. It's just there's a lot of patriotism on HN if I say such inventions are useless for only a single military it's viewed as an attack.
- iammjm 3y ago
  >One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones. That's just not true. Not sure what tanks are you referencing, but let's take the "flagships" Russian T-90 and a German Leopard 2, which are in a similar category and have similar capabilities. Their basics models both cost roughly the same. > That's one reason why Europe and the US cannot win the Ukraine war. We'll we've been fighting this war for over 2 years now. You don't always need a tank to destroy an another tank. To destroy a 5 mln $ tank you could also use a 500$ drone with an RPG round rigged to it.
mcv 3y ago
Are you saying only the US counts as a large military that won't use cheap drones, but every other country in the world probably will?
UncleEntity 3y ago
> Mainly because the "bigger military" I'm referring to doesn't purchase commercial products. Though...the individual solders do bring those products to the battlefield. I actually got an award during the '03 Iraq invasion for using my personal GPS to rejoin my convoy after breaking-down, getting stuck in the sand and basically committing mutiny when I got tired of my platoon sergeant driving around in circles for some unknown reason. Truth be told I was using a map I pulled out of a burn barrel and a cheap compass but everyone was so happy when we reappeared (we had all the fuel) that I don't think they really cared 'how' and just assumed I was using the GPS. And it's not like I bought the GPS unit specifically to navigate around in the desert but just brought it along because I already owned it and thought it might come in useful -- which it did on multiple occasions because our platoon leaders loved to get lost, I'd regularly walk up to their humvee to see what kind of navigational shitshow they were involved in and be "yeah, were still 10 clicks away from what you're driving around looking for". Can't really complain too much since they never got lost well enough for anyone to get a mountain in Phoenix renamed after them as we were driving around the exact same roads at the exact same time that incident did happen. Anyhoo... the US military has a more bottom-up friendly approach where any random Joe can come up with an idea or novel usage of something and it will get incorporated into operational doctrine as opposed to other militaries which are all about a top-down approach to 'innovation'.

holoduke 3y ago

If you count artillery units or tank units Russia and China are not small. One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones. In a real war price is what counts. That's one reason why Europe and the US cannot win the Ukraine war. Everything is just too damn expensive. It's not a military show or a bunch of sandal terrorists anymore. It's real.

dmurray 3y ago
> One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones. Wait, what? Are the Russian tanks better, or is Russian manufacturing so inefficient they cost 20x more? Or should this be the other way round.
secondcoming 3y ago
> One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones I assume you got that the wrong way around! Tanks are regularly exploding in Ukraine due to being hit by cheap drones.
corethree 3y ago
Let me spell it: out every military is small compared to the one where spending is equivalent to all of them combined. It's just there's a lot of patriotism on HN if I say such inventions are useless for only a single military it's viewed as an attack.
iammjm 3y ago
>One Russian tank costs the same as 20 German ones. That's just not true. Not sure what tanks are you referencing, but let's take the "flagships" Russian T-90 and a German Leopard 2, which are in a similar category and have similar capabilities. Their basics models both cost roughly the same. > That's one reason why Europe and the US cannot win the Ukraine war. We'll we've been fighting this war for over 2 years now. You don't always need a tank to destroy an another tank. To destroy a 5 mln $ tank you could also use a 500$ drone with an RPG round rigged to it.

mcv 3y ago

Are you saying only the US counts as a large military that won't use cheap drones, but every other country in the world probably will?

UncleEntity 3y ago

> Mainly because the "bigger military" I'm referring to doesn't purchase commercial products. Though...the individual solders do bring those products to the battlefield. I actually got an award during the '03 Iraq invasion for using my personal GPS to rejoin my convoy after breaking-down, getting stuck in the sand and basically committing mutiny when I got tired of my platoon sergeant driving around in circles for some unknown reason. Truth be told I was using a map I pulled out of a burn barrel and a cheap compass but everyone was so happy when we reappeared (we had all the fuel) that I don't think they really cared 'how' and just assumed I was using the GPS. And it's not like I bought the GPS unit specifically to navigate around in the desert but just brought it along because I already owned it and thought it might come in useful -- which it did on multiple occasions because our platoon leaders loved to get lost, I'd regularly walk up to their humvee to see what kind of navigational shitshow they were involved in and be "yeah, were still 10 clicks away from what you're driving around looking for". Can't really complain too much since they never got lost well enough for anyone to get a mountain in Phoenix renamed after them as we were driving around the exact same roads at the exact same time that incident did happen. Anyhoo... the US military has a more bottom-up friendly approach where any random Joe can come up with an idea or novel usage of something and it will get incorporated into operational doctrine as opposed to other militaries which are all about a top-down approach to 'innovation'.