[OT] Military (non-political) discussion of Iraq war

[Alpha Kodiak]

I don't know if the walking tank concept is such a great idea, even if the artwork looks cool. The best design of a tank is something that is low to the ground and can dig itself in so that it is hard to hit. The walker concept would allow for movement across tougher terrain, but its upright stance would make it pretty easy to hit. Even if they are extremely well armored, something will be developed to penetrate their armor. I would want to be in something that is both well armored and hard to hit, rather than in something that stands out like a sore thumb.

[Baron Munchausen]

Which only emphasizes the point. Maybe the 'standard' tank will never be completely obsolete. Maybe it will only be complemented by 'battle suits' or 'mechs' or whatever.

[klausD]

The real observation to be made here is that the 'highly irregular warfare' of the future, where terrorists do their best to attack where our defenses ain't will not be won with heavy weapons. I suspect that the very dangerous merging of police and military that we've already begun to see will continue in the attempt to cope with this problem. We'll have 'SWAT' teams getting more and more heavy-duty and high-tech, and police legal powers getting more and more crazy - as already demonstrate with the 'Patriot' and 'Patriot II' acts.

Well I think this is one of "military" actionswe will see in the future. But it depends on the type of armies which are battling against another. If one army is technologically very superior (like the US army is now) then the other only can do guerilla and media warfare to have a minimum chance of surviving (not winning) The alternative to this "illegal" kind of warfare is only giving up.

But we will see a more conventional warfare (like a high tech WW2 war) if the armies are equal in technology. This could be if china closes up to the US in financial and technological capacity the next 3 or 4 decades.

It is IMO wrong to assume the every war in future will be one of a unconventional mixture of police and military action like it is now in Iraque and several other conflict regions.

In history there has been often a mixture like the above. (romans peace keeping activities in germania and so on) The only difference is that today the media is bringing the cruel war to everybodies home TV and by doing this making the "home front" somewhat discomfortable and angry.

bye
Klaus

sorry for my bad english

[Baron Munchausen]

I made no claim that there will not be conventional wars in the future. I was merely reinforcing the point TerranC was trying to make that tanks would not be 'obsolete' in the future but merely reserved for special situations. There are many situations in which they are not useful. Defending against terrorism is definitely one situation where they are not useful.

Guerilla style wars arise when one or both sides either cannot or do not want to engage in fully armed combat. The current situation with Al Qaida and related Groups is a case of one side being unable to fight -- they would if they could, but the many proxy wars during the Cold War were an instance of both sides not wanting to 'risk it all' in full scale warfare even though they were quite able to.

[ April 13, 2003, 01:53: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[geoschmo]

I'd like to see the tank become obsolete. Not because we found a more efficent means to kill each other, but because we founds ways to not need to kill each other in the first place.

Geoschmo

[Loser]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I'd like to see the tank become obsolete. Not because we found a more efficient means to kill each other, but because we found ways to not need to kill each other in the first place.

Geoschmo

Well I have some good news for you Geoshmoe. It comes in two stages.

1. Democracies do not make war with each other. Of course, we don't really have any real Democracies (thank goodness), but these close approximations of Democracies don't make war with each other either.

2. Following Industrialization and Urbanization all countries move toward Democracy and greater degrees of civil liberty. Now, unless you're talking about a frontier-minded, New World country, you might not get everything these wacko Americans think of as civil liberties (guns? for everyone? yeah, that's a great idea!), but not every country needs that chaos.

So, take heart. It might take a while, but humanity is making progress.

On an odd note, Industrialization and Urbanization also lead to falling birthrates. This has progressed in some counties, like the US, to the point where population would be declining, if it weren't for incoming immigrants from relatively un-urbanized countries.

I'm not sure how that works out, but humanity seems to be making progress of some sort. Horay for our team.

[Aloofi]

Originally posted by Alpha Kodiak:
I don't know if the walking tank concept is such a great idea, even if the artwork looks cool. The best design of a tank is something that is low to the ground and can dig itself in so that it is hard to hit. .

Yeah, I agree. A walking tank would probably never be implemented. More likely research will go towards a hover tank, maybe based in superconductor tech.

But IMHO, the tank of the future will be a digger tank, capable of traveling and fighting underground, and then somebody will develop digger torpedos as an infantry anti-tank defense.

Then there is the danger of nuclear proliferation. If nukes end up in the hands of most countries around the world, and if they are used, I can easily see people moving to live underground, maybe the development of entire underground cities, thus making underground warfare a must for the future.

On the infantry side, it seems Power Armor will be the the next thing, an armor with hydraulic strenght enhacers so infantry can run faster, jump higher, and carry heavier weapons. Power armor have the potential of rendering tanks obsolete because of its movility and smaller size, though I agree that a tank will always be better armored than any infantry armor suit, and a tank with a highly mobile turret will probably be able to target Power Infantry.
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[Aloofi]

Have you guys seen the XM-29 assault rifle?
Its absolutely awesome, it fires HE 20mm rounds and conventional 5.56mm. It have selective detonation distance, laser ranger, thermovision, etc.
Biggest problem I see in the limited info avaliable is the weight, 18 lbs, though they are promising to get it down to 14, which still too much in my opinion.
If you match this toy with the Land Warrior......

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Aloofi:
Have you guys seen the XM-29 assault rifle?
Its absolutely awesome, it fires HE 20mm rounds and conventional 5.56mm. It have selective detonation distance, laser ranger, thermovision, etc.
Biggest problem I see in the limited info avaliable is the weight, 18 lbs, though they are promising to get it down to 14, which still too much in my opinion.
If you match this toy with the Land Warrior......

I've heard of it, but not seen any detailed information. This 'remote detonation' thing promises another revolution in combat. It amounts to the ability to shoot around corners even without special payloads. Once you can fire tear-gas or other fancy stuff it becomes really powerful. One article I remember reading said that the troops equipped with this in combat exercises regularly achieved victory over equal forces with zero casualties on their own side. While exercises and 'real life' often have synchronization problems, there is some value in tests like this or they would not be done.

At 14 pounds it is a bit heavy, but it's not so different from other 'special' weapons like machine guns or anti-tank missiles carried by a few specialist soldiers in a unit.

Combine this with some of the other new technology, like the light/soft body armor that is actually able to stop military rounds (in use right NOW in Iraq! Any more questions why our casualty rate is so low?), and US troops will become unbelievably superior to other armed forces. Until and unless other countries develop comparable technologies. This would be good if the current administration weren't so scary. Right now I'm not so sure it's 'good'...

[ April 15, 2003, 17:54: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Wardad]

Our presence will be needed for some time.
There is a lot of unexploded ordinance to clean up.

http://www.twistedmonkey.org/view/fu...281/0/2/?sort=