4 ms·

It is possible that this is some big conspiracy to increase the number of fit, military age folks in the short term, it seems unlikely. If there were ever to b

It is possible that this is some big conspiracy to increase the number of fit, military age folks in the short term, it seems unlikely. If there were ever to be any kind of “meat grinding” war, it would be escalated to aircraft, drones, and long range missiles pretty quickly I think, with a relatively small number of infantry losses through active combat. There are also a significant number of people who believe that risky play (or the lack of it) is resulting in mental health issues in today’s young adults, who are finding themselves inexperienced in dealing with feelings of fear, unfamiliar with perseverance and delayed gratification, and are also as you have noted, physically out of shape. Just because “teenagers being fitter” would benefit the military does not mean that’s the purpose of encouraging riskier play.

reverius42 3y ago
The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine already seems to be a meat grinder, despite the existence of drones and aircraft.
- meheleventyone 3y ago
  The vast majority of the killing has always been via indirect fire. Drones and aircraft are just part of that.
- 15155 3y ago
  Our doctrine was built around aircraft, suppression of enemy air defenses, and then domination through missiles and total air superiority. We flew more combat sorties on Day 1 of Desert Storm than both of these nations have flown in two years of this conflict. Soviet (and by extension both of these nations) doctrine places emphasis on overwhelming manpower, artillery, and air defense. We have an order of magnitude more combat aircraft of all classes than both of these nations combined. We have more AH-64s that are allocated just to training than both of these nations have helicopters in active service combined. Ukraine is already giving Russia's AD systems a run for their money using our hand-me-downs from 30 or more years ago. Their aircraft have no stealth technology, ancient avionics, ancient targeting systems, last-generation anti-radiation missiles. Russian AD systems stand zero chance against modern SEAD doctrine: we can see this in effect every time Ukraine uses decoy-based saturation attacks combined with cruise missiles. They simply do not have enough capable batteries to sustain a meaningful air defense when faced with a financially-superior adversary. We have tens of thousands of AGM-88 HARMs in stock: Russia has less than 2000 estimated S-300/S-400 acquisition radars. Nuclear weapons are Russia's only real military trump card; Russia would cease to exist if confined to conventional munitions in a "peer" conflict. There exists exactly zero chance we end up in a Ukraine style meat grinder, we're deploying nuclear weapons long before that happens. Also: Ukraine isn't engaged in total war and has no ability to wage it. The United States would (and has in past conflicts) engage in strategic bombing campaigns on absolutely every single manufacturing facility, every supply chain, in every complicit nation. In a US-Russia or US-China conflict, Iran doesn't get to sell drones or any other munitions without receiving 40 tons of JDAMs on their manufacturing facilities.
  - baybal2 3y ago
    [dead]
  - circlefavshape 3y ago
    "Our"? Are you from the US?
  - joshuaissac 3y ago
    > The United States would (and has in past conflicts) engage in strategic bombing campaigns on absolutely every single manufacturing facility, every supply chain, in every complicit nation. In a US-Russia or US-China conflict, Iran doesn't get to sell drones or any other munitions without receiving 40 tons of JDAMs on their manufacturing facilities. It depends on which country it is and how many of them there are. China and the Soviet Union were both helping Vietnam, for example.
    - myrmidon 3y ago
      Note that heavy industry can be very resilient against bombing; during WW2, the allies dropped over 30 kilotons of conventional bombs on and around the german Leunawerke, which were still running at double digit percentage efficiency; modern targetting and improved explosives would obviously help, but disabling manufacturing by bombs is not as trivial as one might assume! TL;DR 40 tons of JDAMs are not enough to achieve anything lasting.
      - mlrtime 3y ago
        Perhaps, but are they as effective as laser guided arms we had even in Iraq? I can still remember watching original video of a laser guided bomb/missle hitting the exact right spot to get to the depths of the target to later cause massive damage.
      - 15155 3y ago
        How does a WW2 unguided bombing campaign remotely compare to <30m CEP munitions, ton-for-ton?
  - 3y ago
mdekkers 3y ago
> If there were ever to be any kind of “meat grinding” war Haven't you heard? Ukraine needs 500.000 more units of meat for the grinder. Russia are likewise looking for some huge number.
- coryrc 3y ago
  According to Wikipedia, we have "some 3,700 M1A1, M1A2 SEPv2/v3 in storage". So we have literally thousands of main battle tanks we will never use we could just give them. It's a meat grinder because we're making it so.
  - 15155 3y ago
    How do MBTs materially change a conflict where every participant has (tens of) millions of landmines ready for deployment? What good do MBTs do in isolation against attack helicopters with 15km-range ATGMs?
    - AstralStorm 3y ago
      If even that. Think cheaper, like kamikaze (or not) explosive drones. (Substitute armor piercing as needed.) MBTs do not have sufficient AA or ECM capability ever. Either a specialty formation is required or something carrier sized to have a chance. Their existence is the old strategy of demolition and suppression of infantry. (At the last of which they do not quite succeed.)
    - coryrc 3y ago
      We have enough active military equipment to fight land wars with two superpowers simultaneously. We have enough of all equipment to give to Ukraine. Not lease or sell, just get them to win without losing so many people. Fuck, give them a carrier group. Rain tomahawks down on St Petersburg and Moscow. Destroy every oil terminal and arms factory.
      - 15155 3y ago
        At what point does Russia just deploy nuclear weapons?
tazu 3y ago
"Meat" is capital in wars, and the more you raise the more respectable you and your war, or special-military-operation, is.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> If there were ever to be any kind of “meat grinding” war, it would be escalated to aircraft, drones, and long range missiles pretty quickly I think That's not an escalation, it's a cooling off.
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  How so? Naively it seems to me that aircraft, drones, and long range missiles could do more harm to non military parts of a country compared to a foot army.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    It's a cooling off in two senses: First, these kinds of remote attacks don't take territory and therefore have sharply limited impact on the conflict. The ceiling on what they can accomplish is very low. Second, they are cheaper and lower-risk for the attacking party, representing a lower level of commitment to the conflict. The potential for loss to the attacker is also very low. Moving from a high-investment, high-risk, high-reward strategy to a low-investment, low-risk, low-reward strategy is hard to describe as an "escalation". > Naively it seems to me that aircraft, drones, and long range missiles could do more harm to non military parts of a country compared to a foot army. You're not alone. I have read that many people in the West were genuinely confused as to how the Tutsi genocide could have been accomplished with machetes. But foot armies are more than capable of inflicting whatever level of destruction you have in mind.

reverius42 3y ago

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine already seems to be a meat grinder, despite the existence of drones and aircraft.

meheleventyone 3y ago
The vast majority of the killing has always been via indirect fire. Drones and aircraft are just part of that.
15155 3y ago
Our doctrine was built around aircraft, suppression of enemy air defenses, and then domination through missiles and total air superiority. We flew more combat sorties on Day 1 of Desert Storm than both of these nations have flown in two years of this conflict. Soviet (and by extension both of these nations) doctrine places emphasis on overwhelming manpower, artillery, and air defense. We have an order of magnitude more combat aircraft of all classes than both of these nations combined. We have more AH-64s that are allocated just to training than both of these nations have helicopters in active service combined. Ukraine is already giving Russia's AD systems a run for their money using our hand-me-downs from 30 or more years ago. Their aircraft have no stealth technology, ancient avionics, ancient targeting systems, last-generation anti-radiation missiles. Russian AD systems stand zero chance against modern SEAD doctrine: we can see this in effect every time Ukraine uses decoy-based saturation attacks combined with cruise missiles. They simply do not have enough capable batteries to sustain a meaningful air defense when faced with a financially-superior adversary. We have tens of thousands of AGM-88 HARMs in stock: Russia has less than 2000 estimated S-300/S-400 acquisition radars. Nuclear weapons are Russia's only real military trump card; Russia would cease to exist if confined to conventional munitions in a "peer" conflict. There exists exactly zero chance we end up in a Ukraine style meat grinder, we're deploying nuclear weapons long before that happens. Also: Ukraine isn't engaged in total war and has no ability to wage it. The United States would (and has in past conflicts) engage in strategic bombing campaigns on absolutely every single manufacturing facility, every supply chain, in every complicit nation. In a US-Russia or US-China conflict, Iran doesn't get to sell drones or any other munitions without receiving 40 tons of JDAMs on their manufacturing facilities.
- baybal2 3y ago
  [dead]
- circlefavshape 3y ago
  "Our"? Are you from the US?
- joshuaissac 3y ago
  > The United States would (and has in past conflicts) engage in strategic bombing campaigns on absolutely every single manufacturing facility, every supply chain, in every complicit nation. In a US-Russia or US-China conflict, Iran doesn't get to sell drones or any other munitions without receiving 40 tons of JDAMs on their manufacturing facilities. It depends on which country it is and how many of them there are. China and the Soviet Union were both helping Vietnam, for example.
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    Note that heavy industry can be very resilient against bombing; during WW2, the allies dropped over 30 kilotons of conventional bombs on and around the german Leunawerke, which were still running at double digit percentage efficiency; modern targetting and improved explosives would obviously help, but disabling manufacturing by bombs is not as trivial as one might assume! TL;DR 40 tons of JDAMs are not enough to achieve anything lasting.
    - mlrtime 3y ago
      Perhaps, but are they as effective as laser guided arms we had even in Iraq? I can still remember watching original video of a laser guided bomb/missle hitting the exact right spot to get to the depths of the target to later cause massive damage.
    - 15155 3y ago
      How does a WW2 unguided bombing campaign remotely compare to <30m CEP munitions, ton-for-ton?
- 3y ago

mdekkers 3y ago

> If there were ever to be any kind of “meat grinding” war Haven't you heard? Ukraine needs 500.000 more units of meat for the grinder. Russia are likewise looking for some huge number.

coryrc 3y ago
According to Wikipedia, we have "some 3,700 M1A1, M1A2 SEPv2/v3 in storage". So we have literally thousands of main battle tanks we will never use we could just give them. It's a meat grinder because we're making it so.
- 15155 3y ago
  How do MBTs materially change a conflict where every participant has (tens of) millions of landmines ready for deployment? What good do MBTs do in isolation against attack helicopters with 15km-range ATGMs?
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    If even that. Think cheaper, like kamikaze (or not) explosive drones. (Substitute armor piercing as needed.) MBTs do not have sufficient AA or ECM capability ever. Either a specialty formation is required or something carrier sized to have a chance. Their existence is the old strategy of demolition and suppression of infantry. (At the last of which they do not quite succeed.)
  - coryrc 3y ago
    We have enough active military equipment to fight land wars with two superpowers simultaneously. We have enough of all equipment to give to Ukraine. Not lease or sell, just get them to win without losing so many people. Fuck, give them a carrier group. Rain tomahawks down on St Petersburg and Moscow. Destroy every oil terminal and arms factory.
    - 15155 3y ago
      At what point does Russia just deploy nuclear weapons?

tazu 3y ago

"Meat" is capital in wars, and the more you raise the more respectable you and your war, or special-military-operation, is.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> If there were ever to be any kind of “meat grinding” war, it would be escalated to aircraft, drones, and long range missiles pretty quickly I think That's not an escalation, it's a cooling off.

master-lincoln 3y ago
How so? Naively it seems to me that aircraft, drones, and long range missiles could do more harm to non military parts of a country compared to a foot army.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  It's a cooling off in two senses: First, these kinds of remote attacks don't take territory and therefore have sharply limited impact on the conflict. The ceiling on what they can accomplish is very low. Second, they are cheaper and lower-risk for the attacking party, representing a lower level of commitment to the conflict. The potential for loss to the attacker is also very low. Moving from a high-investment, high-risk, high-reward strategy to a low-investment, low-risk, low-reward strategy is hard to describe as an "escalation". > Naively it seems to me that aircraft, drones, and long range missiles could do more harm to non military parts of a country compared to a foot army. You're not alone. I have read that many people in the West were genuinely confused as to how the Tutsi genocide could have been accomplished with machetes. But foot armies are more than capable of inflicting whatever level of destruction you have in mind.