So it turns out that having the most *expensive* military tech in the world may not be the best strategy, huh?
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@artemis Fair. There's been issues with contractors and suppliers taking advantage of US military contracts for decades, which I imagine has only gotten worse.
Like, an ex of mine use to talk about how they weren't allowed to maintain a lot of their own equipment when she was stationed in the middle east for the forever wars - they had to get an approved maintainer through the contracted company to do repairs and shit (at high cost, often slow).
Which seems... absurd to me.@miss_rodent
Yep. The corruption isn't new. Just worse than ever! -
@woozle
I would be interested. -
@artemis Fair. There's been issues with contractors and suppliers taking advantage of US military contracts for decades, which I imagine has only gotten worse.
Like, an ex of mine use to talk about how they weren't allowed to maintain a lot of their own equipment when she was stationed in the middle east for the forever wars - they had to get an approved maintainer through the contracted company to do repairs and shit (at high cost, often slow).
Which seems... absurd to me.@artemis (also, the "american system" of manufacturing was literally designed around preventing exactly that sort of problem...
*in 1820* yet, here we are again, somehow.) -
So it turns out that having the most *expensive* military tech in the world may not be the best strategy, huh?
Who could have known that having very expensive equipment & arms/ammunition that take a long time to make might not be an advantage?
@artemis i was watching a video on how well the US tanks were doing in Ukraine. Aside from the fact 90+% of them have been destroyed, one little nugget of info made me understand so much about US military doctrine and it's overwhelming weakness.
An M1 Abrams tank, if you fill the fuel tank in the morning, and it sits idling all day (to power target systems and weapons etc...) by sundown the tank is empty, even if it doesn't move. How do you provide the logistics for that madness ?!??
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Frankly, the entire military-industrial complex IS a con. That huge military budget sure has gone to a lot of boondoggles & overpriced crap, huh?
This has been true for a while, but just like everything else right now, we are reaching the point where the bottom is going to fall out because everything has been so eroded over time.
@artemis I've heard that the pattern with really powerful empires (Heinlein described them as "water empires", but I think we fit the pattern one way or another) is that they erode from within until they are so weak that the smallest push from outside can topple them. (I'm given to understand that this is what happened to the Romans.)
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Frankly, the entire military-industrial complex IS a con. That huge military budget sure has gone to a lot of boondoggles & overpriced crap, huh?
This has been true for a while, but just like everything else right now, we are reaching the point where the bottom is going to fall out because everything has been so eroded over time.
@artemis Oh, it always has been. See also the F-104 Starfighter.
That plane was so bad it got the nickname "widowmaker" from the Germans because so many pilots died flying them. The reputation was so bad that the US (or Lockheed?) paid for an entire Top Gun knock-off movie to be made about them to try and salvage their reputation.
Fix the problems? No. Just make a movie about how awesome our fancy plane is.
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Iran appears to be using shortwave radio to send cyphered messages. It's an old school Soviet method of communication. And guess what? It works. None of it goes through a computer, so there is nothing to hack. It's inexpensive & easy to do, & you can just keep changing frequencies when your opponents start interfering with the one you're using.
All the fancy spy equipment the US has? Not meant to deal with that simple, low-tech tactic.
@artemis Also, it doesn't have to be old tech, or even non-digital, to be decisive: see, for example, how Ukraine has been using drones against the Russians.
(This also relates to a 1988 SF novel (I'm fulla those, aren't I) -- David's Sling -- about a battle to convince the US military to use mass-produced cheap weaponry when their entire model is based around gigacontracts handed out as political favors. #TASAT)
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@woozle
I would be interested. -
@artemis Oh, it always has been. See also the F-104 Starfighter.
That plane was so bad it got the nickname "widowmaker" from the Germans because so many pilots died flying them. The reputation was so bad that the US (or Lockheed?) paid for an entire Top Gun knock-off movie to be made about them to try and salvage their reputation.
Fix the problems? No. Just make a movie about how awesome our fancy plane is.
@faithisleaping @artemis any time a general beats the US in a wargame by something as simple as relaying intel on bikes or something his side gets handicapped so hard in order to get an egostroking US victory, so no one actually sees how to fight
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Okay, okay, one more example, just for fun.
The sober comment of a NATO commander afterwards: “We’re fucked.”
Exercise: Ukrainian drone pilots wipe out NATO battalions
During the "Hedgehog 2025" exercise in Estonia, NATO troops were clearly shown their limits in a duel with Ukrainian drone teams.
Militär Aktuell – Militär News & Analysen zu internationalen Krisen, Streitkräften & der Defence-Industrie (militaeraktuell.at)
US has burned through ‘years’ of munitions since start of Iran war
Rapid depletion of stockpile including Tomahawk missiles raises pressure on Trump over cost of conflict
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@woozle
I would be interested.@artemis
Seems to be this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)
@woozle -
@artemis
Seems to be this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)
@woozle -
The US is a hollow nation. Hollowed out over decades. In the coming years, everyone is about to find out that there is not much left.
We haven't quite reached the point where they try to strip the last of the drapes & furniture out of the White House to sell, but it feels like we're close, doesn't it? They are stealing & grifting absolutely anything & everything that they can.
@artemis yeah we've been chewing on this for a few months now (the military part)
and on the whole hollowing-out thing for quite a while
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@artemis (also, the "american system" of manufacturing was literally designed around preventing exactly that sort of problem...
*in 1820* yet, here we are again, somehow.)@miss_rodent Nothing quite like a regime that altogether ignores the existing system.
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So it turns out that having the most *expensive* military tech in the world may not be the best strategy, huh?
Who could have known that having very expensive equipment & arms/ammunition that take a long time to make might not be an advantage?
@artemis Iran builds 100 missile per month, US produces maybe 20 interceptors per month. Not difficult math there.
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Iran appears to be using shortwave radio to send cyphered messages. It's an old school Soviet method of communication. And guess what? It works. None of it goes through a computer, so there is nothing to hack. It's inexpensive & easy to do, & you can just keep changing frequencies when your opponents start interfering with the one you're using.
All the fancy spy equipment the US has? Not meant to deal with that simple, low-tech tactic.
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Iran appears to be using shortwave radio to send cyphered messages. It's an old school Soviet method of communication. And guess what? It works. None of it goes through a computer, so there is nothing to hack. It's inexpensive & easy to do, & you can just keep changing frequencies when your opponents start interfering with the one you're using.
All the fancy spy equipment the US has? Not meant to deal with that simple, low-tech tactic.
@artemis see also "Train derailed by penny on track."
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Iran appears to be using shortwave radio to send cyphered messages. It's an old school Soviet method of communication. And guess what? It works. None of it goes through a computer, so there is nothing to hack. It's inexpensive & easy to do, & you can just keep changing frequencies when your opponents start interfering with the one you're using.
All the fancy spy equipment the US has? Not meant to deal with that simple, low-tech tactic.
The world changed, and the US military's plan didn't. We've seen how cheap and powerful consumer tech has gotten, military grade is a waste at this point compared to cheap easy to make good enough tech.
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Frankly, the entire military-industrial complex IS a con. That huge military budget sure has gone to a lot of boondoggles & overpriced crap, huh?
This has been true for a while, but just like everything else right now, we are reaching the point where the bottom is going to fall out because everything has been so eroded over time.
@artemis The Pentagon failed 7 audits in a row, and is currently unable to account for 63% of its budget.
63%.
I don't think this money is going into weapons or geopolitical strategy meetings.
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It's not a great time to be a "military superpower." All of your equipment costs too much, is overcomplicated & over-engineered & everyone involved is complacent & overconfident.
This is like in Stargate when the Asgardians ask the humans for help because "we're too smart to think of the silly things you humans do, like using projectile weapons."
@artemis The US had also fired the people who knew their jobs and fancy equipment doesn’t replace competence.
