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"If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons?" The writer stupidly
by vaadu 12y ago
"If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons?"
The writer stupidly jumps from the idea that if nukes have less than a major impact then they have no impact. Does anyone think the UK or USSR would not have surrendered if the Germans had nukes?
If the US had today's nukes on 8 Dec 1941 the war would not have lasted nearly as long. Every island stronghold, port, airfield, city and fleet would have been taken out early. the remnants would have been mopped up by the Marines.
- Sharlin 12y agoI don't think the USSR would have even considered surrendering had the Germans had two 15 kiloton nukes and used those against them.
- thrownaway2424 12y agoIndeed. The USSR was already down ~5 million people, why would it have made a difference for the Germans to kill a few tens of thousands more? That would just make the Russians even more angry.
- hackuser 12y ago> "If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons?" I just was reading about this [1]. Unguided weapons miss their targets, almost always. As a result you need to mass together and fire large numbers of them to hit even one target with any reliability. Also, because of the large numbers needed and the need to fire them near the target (because accuracy decreases as distance increases), they become a valuable target, vulnerable to the enemy. Nuclear weapons solved these problems (with a some serious drawbacks). One weapon will do the job, and its blast area is so large that accuracy is unimportant. (Modern guided weapons also solve many of these problems). [1] http://www.cnas.org/20YY-Preparing-War-in-Robotic-Age http://www.cnas.org/20YY-Preparing-War-in-Robotic-Age
- yourapostasy 12y agoI hypothesize that the ongoing refinement of modern guidance will have a far greater future impact upon warfare than is generally currently recognized. The logical direction to take this refinement is not just enhancing the metre-level precision today to centimetre-grade precision, but also high-precision remote ID. When you possess the capability to real-time ID and track a single individual human target from tens, hundreds or even thousands of miles away, and direct precise fire control upon that target, then it opens an entire new dimension to violent statecraft, with many new challenges.
- hackuser 12y agoYou would find the the linked report in my prior comment very worthwhile, I think (and FWIW, I understand it is well respected in the defense community). In it I learned that sensor (and communication) networks to detect and ID targets have been viewed as integral to guided munitions for decades -- the networks and munitions are depicted as one system.