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I think the most important lesson, it’s borderline impossible to design any good system without clear use cases. Ukraine has these use cases, also high motivat

I think the most important lesson, it’s borderline impossible to design any good system without clear use cases. Ukraine has these use cases, also high motivation to tackle them. Ukrainians are controlling battlefield with commodity computers https://en.defence-ua.com/news/how_the_kropyva_combat_control_system_helps_in_the_most_difficult_situations_fortified_positions_couldnt_save_russian_army-3646.html https://en.defence-ua.com/news/how_the_kropyva_combat_contro... They sunk multiple Russian warships with long-range naval drones https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68528761 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68528761 They recently started large-scale testing of cheap flying drones with computer vision-based target recognition on board https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/21/ukraine-rolls-out-target-seeking-terminator-drones/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/03/21/ukrain... However, US is at peace. Which is a great thing by itself, but it means it’s too easy for them to waste billions of dollars developing technologies which look awesome in PowerPoint, but useless in practice.

SteveNuts 3y ago
This was a huge problem for the Nazis too, Hitler loved hugely complex and massive “super weapons” and wasted immense amounts of money and scientific effort to build them. The allies built practical and easy to maintain equipment in great quantities.
- wavemode 3y ago
  I mean... the Allies also spent billions developing a superweapon. (And used German scientists to do it!)
  - spanktheuser 3y ago
    And it wasn’t even the most expensive. The Norden Bomb Sight cost slightly more than the Manhattan Project. B-29 development and production cost nearly 3x the cost of the fission bomb.
    - speed_spread 3y ago
      Well, if you include the cost of decontaminating the Hanford site, amongst others, the numbers grow rapidly. Once the B-29 was done, it was done.
    - dreamcompiler 3y ago
      The Norden stands out because it couldn't see through clouds, and Europe has very few cloud-free days. So it turned out to be largely useless in practice. The US didn't get much value for its money with that project.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    The Allies would have won without the superweapon though (remember, Hitler had already surrended and Japan was clearly on the ropes well before Hiroshima), and the jury is still out in whether it even sped things up.
    - hughesjj 3y ago
      I always saw the atomic bomb as more of a defensive rather than offensive tactic. We were super worried about the Germans getting there first and wanted to ensure we could respond in kind of they did
      - LtWorf 3y ago
        And then germany surrendered and it was still dropped. Twice. Doesn't hold.
        ipaddr 3y ago
        Japan was never going to surrender. They were going to fight until the end. More lives would have been lost. The bomb saved lives.
        dimask 3y ago
        It was really aimed at "allies" (soviet union), not japan.
        _heimdall 3y ago
        We had really, really bad aim if those two nukes were aimed at the Soviet Union.
        LtWorf 3y ago
        allegedly
        3y ago
  - SteveNuts 3y ago
    Sure, that’s true. I forgot to mention that most of them never saw action except the V2, which was only mildly effective (more of a psychological weapon than anything).
    - WalterBright 3y ago
      The material effect of the V2 was not in the destruction the V2 caused. It was in the massive diversion of Allied resources trying to stop it. See "Impact" by Benjamin King https://www.amazon.com/Impact-History-Germanys-V-weapons-World/dp/1885119518/ https://www.amazon.com/Impact-History-Germanys-V-weapons-Wor...
- jmspring 3y ago
  The allies also had low tech solutions that helped greatly. One such example is the Ghost Army which used decoys and the like to make it look like there was a large force. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/exhibits/traveling-exhibits/ghost-army-combat-con-artists-world-war-ii https://www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/exhibits/traveling-e... Last week, surviving members of the Ghost Army were honored in DC being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/1239871379/ghost-army-congressional-gold-medal-world-war-2 https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/1239871379/ghost-army-congres...
  - polishdude20 3y ago
    Reminds me of the time the allies literally dropped half sized fake soldiers from planes before Dunkirk or something like that.
    - vt102 3y ago
      Right before D-Day: https://youtu.be/tm2oewPDwpw https://youtu.be/tm2oewPDwpw
- dotnet00 3y ago
  The allies had their own set of "super weapons", like radars and proximity fuses. The Nazis had the issue that they wanted to field massive superweapons, but were nowhere near as mechanized as the allies, leading to them being unable to actually practically support those superweapons (and probably also why they went with such over-the-top ideas, hoping that they could do the job with a few units only and relying on scaring and demoralizing the allies into submission).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rossdavidh 3y ago
That is absolutely the most important lesson. By the way, also true of non-military software development.
wojciii 3y ago
Also .. I think that the Ukrainians are testing the prototypes on the battlefield and rejecting designs that don't work quite early. I have seen a prototype of a machine gun with auto tracking (reminded me of Aliens 2). Also the flying drone designs are made my a large number of companies to avoid the risk of one company being destroyed by a russian missile strike. I would assume that this is also common for other products for their military.
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
> However, US is at peace. Which is a great thing by itself, but it means it’s too easy for them to waste billions of dollars developing technologies which look awesome in PowerPoint, but useless in practice. It's always easier to develop weapons in wartime because the requirements and effectiveness are much easier to find, but it's not cheaper. Billions will still be wasted but it will be spent on rebuilding buildings, bridges, infrastructure and lives destroyed by the war. Ukraine has done some amazing things with cheap and boot strapped technology but the cost is the $486 billion required to rebuild the country. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-needs-486-bln-recover-rebuild-after-nearly-two-years-war-world-bank-2024-02-15 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-needs-486-bln-r...
_heimdall 3y ago
> However, US is at peace. This has always been a difficult concept for me given that we have decided to maintain a very large standing army since WWII. Where is the line really drawn between being prepared for imminent war and being at peace?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lobocinza 3y ago
  Si vis pacem, para bellum. This long period of global peace wouldn't be possible without the mutually assured destruction of nuclear conflict and the certainty that no other nation-state could challenge the hegemon and it's allies in conventional warfare.
darby_eight 3y ago
[dead]
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> but useless in practice. we are seeing them actively used, in practice, now. In Ukraine. And they work Like, WW3 quantities of cluster munitions, destined to be decommissioned and thrown out, handed over to the AFU. aging Bradleys, Javelins, Stingers, etc., designed to blow up T-72s and Hind-Ds -- and boy howdy, that's what they're doing. wait until you see what the "awesome in powerpoint" stuff can do. and remember, a sizable chunk of Ukraine's military effectiveness is NATO intelligence sharing. of those combat controllers and naval drones are sideshows without NATO mapping of Russian EW, ship, and troop movements.

SteveNuts 3y ago

This was a huge problem for the Nazis too, Hitler loved hugely complex and massive “super weapons” and wasted immense amounts of money and scientific effort to build them. The allies built practical and easy to maintain equipment in great quantities.

wavemode 3y ago
I mean... the Allies also spent billions developing a superweapon. (And used German scientists to do it!)
- spanktheuser 3y ago
  And it wasn’t even the most expensive. The Norden Bomb Sight cost slightly more than the Manhattan Project. B-29 development and production cost nearly 3x the cost of the fission bomb.
  - speed_spread 3y ago
    Well, if you include the cost of decontaminating the Hanford site, amongst others, the numbers grow rapidly. Once the B-29 was done, it was done.
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    The Norden stands out because it couldn't see through clouds, and Europe has very few cloud-free days. So it turned out to be largely useless in practice. The US didn't get much value for its money with that project.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  The Allies would have won without the superweapon though (remember, Hitler had already surrended and Japan was clearly on the ropes well before Hiroshima), and the jury is still out in whether it even sped things up.
  - hughesjj 3y ago
    I always saw the atomic bomb as more of a defensive rather than offensive tactic. We were super worried about the Germans getting there first and wanted to ensure we could respond in kind of they did
    - LtWorf 3y ago
      And then germany surrendered and it was still dropped. Twice. Doesn't hold.
      - ipaddr 3y ago
        Japan was never going to surrender. They were going to fight until the end. More lives would have been lost. The bomb saved lives.
        dimask 3y ago
        It was really aimed at "allies" (soviet union), not japan.
        _heimdall 3y ago
        We had really, really bad aim if those two nukes were aimed at the Soviet Union.
        LtWorf 3y ago
        allegedly
        3y ago
- SteveNuts 3y ago
  Sure, that’s true. I forgot to mention that most of them never saw action except the V2, which was only mildly effective (more of a psychological weapon than anything).
  - WalterBright 3y ago
    The material effect of the V2 was not in the destruction the V2 caused. It was in the massive diversion of Allied resources trying to stop it. See "Impact" by Benjamin King https://www.amazon.com/Impact-History-Germanys-V-weapons-World/dp/1885119518/ https://www.amazon.com/Impact-History-Germanys-V-weapons-Wor...
jmspring 3y ago
The allies also had low tech solutions that helped greatly. One such example is the Ghost Army which used decoys and the like to make it look like there was a large force. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/exhibits/traveling-exhibits/ghost-army-combat-con-artists-world-war-ii https://www.nationalww2museum.org/visit/exhibits/traveling-e... Last week, surviving members of the Ghost Army were honored in DC being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/1239871379/ghost-army-congressional-gold-medal-world-war-2 https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/1239871379/ghost-army-congres...
- polishdude20 3y ago
  Reminds me of the time the allies literally dropped half sized fake soldiers from planes before Dunkirk or something like that.
  - vt102 3y ago
    Right before D-Day: https://youtu.be/tm2oewPDwpw https://youtu.be/tm2oewPDwpw
dotnet00 3y ago
The allies had their own set of "super weapons", like radars and proximity fuses. The Nazis had the issue that they wanted to field massive superweapons, but were nowhere near as mechanized as the allies, leading to them being unable to actually practically support those superweapons (and probably also why they went with such over-the-top ideas, hoping that they could do the job with a few units only and relying on scaring and demoralizing the allies into submission).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rossdavidh 3y ago

That is absolutely the most important lesson. By the way, also true of non-military software development.

wojciii 3y ago

Also .. I think that the Ukrainians are testing the prototypes on the battlefield and rejecting designs that don't work quite early. I have seen a prototype of a machine gun with auto tracking (reminded me of Aliens 2). Also the flying drone designs are made my a large number of companies to avoid the risk of one company being destroyed by a russian missile strike. I would assume that this is also common for other products for their military.

helsinkiandrew 3y ago

> However, US is at peace. Which is a great thing by itself, but it means it’s too easy for them to waste billions of dollars developing technologies which look awesome in PowerPoint, but useless in practice. It's always easier to develop weapons in wartime because the requirements and effectiveness are much easier to find, but it's not cheaper. Billions will still be wasted but it will be spent on rebuilding buildings, bridges, infrastructure and lives destroyed by the war. Ukraine has done some amazing things with cheap and boot strapped technology but the cost is the $486 billion required to rebuild the country. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-needs-486-bln-recover-rebuild-after-nearly-two-years-war-world-bank-2024-02-15 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-needs-486-bln-r...

_heimdall 3y ago

> However, US is at peace. This has always been a difficult concept for me given that we have decided to maintain a very large standing army since WWII. Where is the line really drawn between being prepared for imminent war and being at peace?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lobocinza 3y ago
Si vis pacem, para bellum. This long period of global peace wouldn't be possible without the mutually assured destruction of nuclear conflict and the certainty that no other nation-state could challenge the hegemon and it's allies in conventional warfare.

darby_eight 3y ago

[dead]

red-iron-pine 3y ago

> but useless in practice. we are seeing them actively used, in practice, now. In Ukraine. And they work Like, WW3 quantities of cluster munitions, destined to be decommissioned and thrown out, handed over to the AFU. aging Bradleys, Javelins, Stingers, etc., designed to blow up T-72s and Hind-Ds -- and boy howdy, that's what they're doing. wait until you see what the "awesome in powerpoint" stuff can do. and remember, a sizable chunk of Ukraine's military effectiveness is NATO intelligence sharing. of those combat controllers and naval drones are sideshows without NATO mapping of Russian EW, ship, and troop movements.