Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sergarr]

As for infantry, I can say that, if enemy's reduced to low-value infantry, he's effectively already defeated and it doesn't matter what weapon you choose to finish them off. Unguided munitions could be useful in this case, of course, but you could do the same with tank shells and IFV's autocannons, i.e. non-artillery assets, that could, in addition to doing the task of artillery, also able to advance into enemy's territory.

Cool, so it seems to me like you and guninanrunin agree about more then you thought you agreed about.

I guess so...

I think I'll slightly revise my statement of "guided weapons are better than unguided ones", by adding in that "network-directed unguided weapons can also work well, in certain situations".

[mainiac]

So I am seeing more topics you agree on.

[Sergarr]

Well, isn't reaching agreement/compromise an ultimate point of having a discussion? I mean, if you aren't shitposting, that is.

[mainiac]

Congrats.

[Parsely]

Cost doesn't seem to be a limiting factor for modern armies. If it was, they wouldn't be firing PGMs to blow up ISIS excavators every 2-3 days.

If you don't have money you can't buy weapons and pay soldiers. How is money not one of the primary limiting factors for an army?

Modern militaries themselves are usually "few in number". An order-of-magnitude larger than what insurgents usually bring, sure, but a modern military losing 10% of its assets could lose most of its fighting capability, if you choose and hit the right targets. That is, they're more vulnerable to being reduced in combat capacity than insurgents, who can just replace their losses cheap and fast.

Maybe cheap relative to a modern military but for insurgents obviously equipment modern militaries take for granted, like rocket launchers and mortars, are quite valuable to them.

No one will actually shoot down any satellites, not until the "total war" stage, which will never happen. It's just too risky to do that, too much and you may block the space for everyone due to Kessler syndrome.

That's very optimistic of you, but we're talking about first-world militaries fighting one another with their standing armies. Please assume that, for the most part, they're not pulling any punches (short of nuclear war). Destroying your enemy's satellites would be a very important part of winning.

Anti-missile missiles are guided munitions by definition, so you're actually supporting my point of view here. As for "massing your fire", that's not going to become an issue - because unguided munitions are, by definition, moving on ballistic trajectory - and thus are infinitely easier to shoot down than a ground-hugging hyper-sonic cruise missile - which is a guided munition. So again, guided munitions rule, unguided munitions drool.

I'm not saying guided munitions are better, I'm just explaining why unguided munitions still have a job. Guided munitions are still more predictable than fighters piloted by humans. Also I'm pretty sure most cruise missiles fly slower than fighters, but yeah I've read about those hypersonic cruise missiles. No doubt it would be easy enough to get an anti-missile missile flying at the same speed if you can already get a weapon with a 2000 pound payload flying that quick.

Missiles are not cost-ineffective to shoot down, because the attacker has an advantage of being able to choose where they strike, and you're not going to be able to protect everything you need to protect if your country is bigger than Estonia. With planes, F-35 are Low Observable, which makes "shoot them down" a very difficult task, especially since they can also choose where they strike and thus go around your defenses.

SAMs are expensive and often fixed installations, so you're right that they can be easy to bypass once located, but that's just one layer of a proper air defense. Surface AA covers important areas that have been built up like FOBs and other installations; we can employ our own AWACS and fighters to fill in the gaps by locating and shooting down enemy cruise missiles and hostile fighters.

As for infantry, I can say that, if enemy's reduced to low-value infantry, he's effectively already defeated and it doesn't matter what weapon you choose to finish them off. Unguided munitions could be useful in this case, of course, but you could do the same with tank shells and IFV's autocannons, i.e. non-artillery assets, that could, in addition to doing the task of artillery, also able to advance into enemy's territory.

(also, "strong front-line"? WW2 was more than half a century ago, modern warfare doesn't have "front-lines" in the usual sense of that word)

Again, these weapons have different capabilities, and thus different roles. Howitzers and tanks provide different kinds of support; indirect versus direct.

Last time I checked, their maximum "effectiveness" was "intercept of 30% of missiles". Not quite enough.

That figure is familiar. You must be talking about the scuds in Iraq. These are the best sources I've found on that:
http://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs04lewis.pdf
http://fas.org/spp/starwars/docops/pl920908.htm

There is little hard evidence I could find saying one way or another how effective the Patriot really is, but that's just one ABM system.

And I say that you'll save much more money if you fire guided munitions than unguided ones, because you will be able to destroy enemy assets faster and as a result, prevent enemy from destroying your assets. Quality wins over quantity, all modern conflicts have shown that. With quality, you save more people and equipment of your own in every fire exchange, and it all adds up, big time.

I would argue that there needs to be a balance of quality and quantity. This is what I was arguing earlier with conscription. There is a place for highly trained special forces and there is a place for the career rifleman. That is why modern militaries make use of both.

Blowing up the entrance in a right way will make them useless for any logistical purpose. Of course, that would be quite difficult to do with unguided munitions - but with guided ones, it's much easier. And of course, there could be other weak spots, as well.

A precision bomb built to detonate inside the structure is the best way to take out an enemy inside a built-up area or in prepared positions. What I'm saying is that it's not always possible to use those weapons in some situations.

you know there's some irony in Russian arguing against an American that guided weapons are better than unguided ones

Guided weapons aren't better than unguided ones. That is not what I'm saying. The weapons have different jobs and should be used in different situations. Using one should not preclude the use of the other. That is what I'm arguing for. To me you're saying that unguided weapons are useless because precision weapons exist, but I'm saying both have pros and cons and are valuable in different contexts.


Guided Artillery - Use it to destroy relatively small, valuable targets.
Pros
- More accurate than unguided weapons

Cons
- Can be spoofed (e-warfare)
- Require timely and accurate intelligence to use properly
- Expensive [1]

Unguided Artillery - Use it to destroy relatively large targets where discrimination isn't necessary.
Pros
- Cheap [1]

Cons
- Less accurate than guided weapons
- Require timely and accurate intelligence to use properly

((Just because I listed more cons, it doesn't mean I think they outweigh the others.))

[Sergarr]

Cost doesn't seem to be a limiting factor for modern armies. If it was, they wouldn't be firing PGMs to blow up ISIS excavators every 2-3 days.

If you don't have money you can't buy weapons and pay soldiers. How is money not one of the primary limiting factors for an army?

Because "don't have money" doesn't apply to a first-world military. Modern military budgets are already very low, and it's still more than enough to cover up all the costs. In any situation where the budget would be strained, if there was a serious conflict, they would just get a loan and continue spending as much as possible. So money isn't a bottleneck here. The real bottleneck is in how intensely you can apply said money to your enemy, and guided munitions win here, because they pack more money (and thus, more effectiveness) per a standard loadout (i.e. the maximum optimal amount of shells you can store near a launcher device). Same with network-related stuff - you effectively add the money of your network system to every action took with its help, and thus raise the density, as well.

Modern militaries themselves are usually "few in number". An order-of-magnitude larger than what insurgents usually bring, sure, but a modern military losing 10% of its assets could lose most of its fighting capability, if you choose and hit the right targets. That is, they're more vulnerable to being reduced in combat capacity than insurgents, who can just replace their losses cheap and fast.

Maybe cheap relative to a modern military but for insurgents obviously equipment modern militaries take for granted, like rocket launchers and mortars, are quite valuable to them.

Idk, I guess?

No one will actually shoot down any satellites, not until the "total war" stage, which will never happen. It's just too risky to do that, too much and you may block the space for everyone due to Kessler syndrome.

That's very optimistic of you, but we're talking about first-world militaries fighting one another with their standing armies. Please assume that, for the most part, they're not pulling any punches (short of nuclear war). Destroying your enemy's satellites would be a very important part of winning.

Militaries serve the interests of the public, of the government, and no government is interested in potentially losing access to space for a millenia. Moreso, modern militaries will "pull" their punches, because we're not living in 20th century and modern people are no longer accepting mass murder of civilians in order to win. With satellites, the potential risks of being known as a "nation that fucked up space for everyone" would heavily outweigh any potential gains due to such actions. It would almost certainly cause an international embargo of a state that did it.

-skipping-

you know there's some irony in Russian arguing against an American that guided weapons are better than unguided ones

Guided weapons aren't better than unguided ones. That is not what I'm saying. The weapons have different jobs and should be used in different situations. Using one should not preclude the use of the other. That is what I'm arguing for. To me you're saying that unguided weapons are useless because precision weapons exist, but I'm saying both have pros and cons and are valuable in different contexts.


Guided Artillery - Use it to destroy relatively small, valuable targets.
Pros
- More accurate than unguided weapons

Cons
- Can be spoofed (e-warfare)
- Require timely and accurate intelligence to use properly
- Expensive [1]

Unguided Artillery - Use it to destroy relatively large targets where discrimination isn't necessary.
Pros
- Cheap [1]

Cons
- Less accurate than guided weapons
- Require timely and accurate intelligence to use properly

((Just because I listed more cons, it doesn't mean I think they outweigh the others.))

Well, I did say that unguided munitions are still useful against insurgents, didn't I? And later, said that network-directed unguided weapons could also work, in certain situations. It's just that... the fact that "weapons have different jobs and should be used in different situations" does not contradict the fact that "outdated weapons have no place on modern battlefield".

All facts point out to the constantly decreasing percentage of unguided munitions being used in modern conflicts, and for past 30 years, there's been a correlation between "side that uses primarily unguided munitions in combat" and "side that loses horribly". Desert Storm, Invasion of Iraq, Insurgency in Iraq, Civil War in Syria - in every conflict, the side that has used more guided/network-directed munitions has either won, or was definitely winning until the opposite side started using even more guided/network-directed munitions.

[Parsely]

All facts point out to the constantly decreasing percentage of unguided munitions being used in modern conflicts, and for past 30 years, there's been a correlation between "side that uses primarily unguided munitions in combat" and "side that loses horribly". Desert Storm, Invasion of Iraq, Insurgency in Iraq, Civil War in Syria - in every conflict, the side that has used more guided/network-directed munitions has either won, or was definitely winning until the opposite side started using even more guided/network-directed munitions.

I'm saying your correlation is wrong, because in none of those fights you name was the military in question fighting a military that had technological parity with the other. The Russian military for example has e-warfare, anti-missile, and anti-fighter capability at least in the same neighborhood as the US army (again for example), which means guided weapons can actually be countered, which means that unguided weapons actually have a place in a first-world on first-world conflict.

EDIT:
Also, if people are crazy enough to nuke each other then they're crazy enough to pull a Planetes and cut off space. Kessler Syndrome is a long-term effect and people and governments are known for ignoring the long-term consequences of their actions in order to effect a short-term benefit.

[Morrigi]

Guided munitions are only issued in limited numbers. The vast majority of shells in the inventories of the world powers and fired on the battlefields they're involved in are still good old-fashioned high explosive. Besides, guided shells are primarily intended for use against vehicles.

Unguided shells are mostly useless. Guided shells and, generally, guided munitions are so much more effective at their jobs that everyone who can use them, uses them. ATGM missiles in Syria are used against infantry on a regular basis, and that's among a third-rate military. A first-rate military would use (and uses - look at how modern NATO fights) significantly more guided munitions than unguided ones, because firing unguided munitions is literally a waste of time and manpower, when you have guided munitions available.

All these "inventories" of unguided shells are mostly wasting storage space, and the only reason why they're still there is because 1) utilizing shells is really costly and dangerous, and 2) sometimes, you can modernize those into guided ones, like with JDAMs.

Unguided artillery munitions cause 70-80% of combat casualties in conventional warfare, and it's been like that since at least WW1.

[mainiac]

All facts point out to the constantly decreasing percentage of unguided munitions being used in modern conflicts

Anything that was previously technologically nonviable is going to become more common.  Tablets used to be 0% of computers.  Now they are a growing share of computers.  It does not follow that non-tablet computers aren't still a viable technology.

[Helgoland]

- Cheap [1]

I think you quoted a tabletop RPG manual there

[Parsely]

- Cheap [1]

I think you quoted a tabletop RPG manual there

I was hoping everyone would be too lazy to trim the address. If people can sell 105s for 400 bucks on the internet surely the prices can't be far off. I hope I can find a 2016 report on how much they actually cost though.

[Strife26]

  Fixed Fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man. [quote/]

[mainiac]

I thought that was a lament about the existence of war and not a strategic assessment?

[Culise]

I thought that was a lament about the existence of war and not a strategic assessment?

Understandable, but it's important to remember that this was said by General George Patton; the only lament he had about war was that it came to an end. That said, it's also worth remembering that Patton's primary ethos to war was to go for the grapple whenever possible, and like Guderian and Rommel, he never met a logistics tail he couldn't outrun.  It's understandable that he would loathe any sort of static defense on a matter of pure principle, rather than practicality. 

EDIT:
I suppose I should touch on the main point during the World War 2 era, though, rather than snarking at the expense of a long-dead general.  By contrast to Patton's claims, hedgehog defense tactics proved highly useful initially in the Eastern Front (albeit with its own caveats here) and by the British in Egypt and Burma, and if the Soviet forward fortifications had all be completed to the level of the Brest Fortress in 1941 (or the Stalin Line maintained and not denuded in preparation for construction of the Molotov Line), these similarly would have bound up large numbers of German forces in the initial advance of Barbarossa just as Brest had.  The major flaws in the Maginot Line, the classic illustration of this adage, was varied: a gap between the French and Belgian lines, the Belgian neutrality declaration between 1936-1938 that disrupted joint military preparations between it and France, the failure to establish a proper aerial defense system in the Belgian lines, and the over-commital of the reserves too early, based on stolen military plans that had since been superseded and bad assumptions in the French High Command.

[mainiac]

Understandable, but it's important to remember that this was said by General George Patton; the only lament he had about war was that it came to an end.