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[Maximum Spin]

We simply don't have as many mines as Russia. Unlike them, we didn't produce those after the fall of USSR and while we inherited huge stokpiles in 1991...  Some were sold both officially and via corrupt means, some went bad due to neglect. Some went BOOM in storages under mysterious circumstances. Some were destroyed for Western money in wonderful projects like this

Sure, we are getting mines from the former Warsaw Pact stocks.  We are even getting some modern and cool ones but it is not nearly enough to mine such a huge front to the same extent as Russians do.

Ah, I see. That figures.

[Madman198237]

The Chieftain, a tanker and professional historian, disagrees greatly with the idea that the modern tank is no longer cost effective. There is literally nobody on the internet better placed to make that judgement, either.

Huh it's almost like aircraft carriers don't operate alone and are instead escorted, by their own submarines and destroyers and their aircraft and so on and so forth.

Mines costing "a few hundred bucks" don't kill tanks. At all. A mine that costs a few thousand at the least might immobilize the tank, but the crew and vehicle will both survive to go back into action. Also what even is this about tanks being effective in WWII because people hadn't figured out Molotovs or comparable weapons? Molotovs literally came about in WWII and testing has shown that they are of very, very, very limited effectiveness against tanks. They could occasionally make a WWII tanker bail, but only sometimes would they burn out the engine. And to get close enough to employ that thing, you've got to get past the tank's weapons, his infantry companions, his other tanks in his platoon, and any other forces in the area. Rather than go further, I refer you to the Chieftain's video on the topic.

Russia doesn't have a meaningful amount of night-vision equipment. They certainly do have some that is used on some of the tanks that are supposed to have it (most of them don't) and for elite units...but every other modern military in the world is running around with night vision given out like candy to just about every regular soldier expected to fight at all. Including the Ukrainians. That is why I say that the Russians are blind at night, because most of their forces actually are. And yes, there's been some noise about them beginning to do their own production, but I've seen a lot of skepticism about their ability to actually produce modern night vision and optical systems.

The thing about the US producing so many tanks, ships, and planes that blah blah blah is that the era of tanks, ships, and planes, in the conventional sense of those things, is basically over. If the last dozen or so wars around the world, especially the Nagorno-Karabakh war, haven't convinced you of that, you haven't been paying attention.

"The conventional sense of those things"? Do you expect wars to be fought with sticks next? They era of tanks, ships, and planes isn't over, very clearly. Those things are still used to wage war. And will still be used to wage war.


I'm also not seeing the argument for NATO not being "nimble". While the internet has cried loudly that Russia was going to crumble (and we all wished they would, realistic or not), I don't recall any major military figures in NATO or Ukraine saying this would be anything other than a bloody slog. So clearly we didn't underestimate them too badly, at least not at the level that actually matters. We understand they're able to adapt at least a bit, though it's taken them quite awhile and they're still making huge mistakes that shouldn't be made, but I'm not sure how any of this reflects all that badly on NATO's own ability to adapt.

[Strongpoint]

Tank will be obsolete when and only when there is something that can replace them in their role and the only plausible thing is that it may be - tanks but unmanned.



Also, what underestimation of Russia are we talking about? NATO expected that the Russian-Ukrainian war will be over in a week or two. They estimated that the Russian air force and missiles are nearly as effective as NATO's and will just destroy everything of military value quickly and efficiently devolving all resistance into guerilla

If NATO would attack Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian airforce and air defense would cease to exist in a few days max.

[EuchreJack]

Tank will be obsolete when and only when there is something that can replace them in their role and the only plausible thing is that it may be - tanks but unmanned.

Nah, Tanks will be obsolete when the Panzer Mecha is perfected.  Just look at those historical future simulation video games and other media!

[Starver]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Maximum Spin]

The Chieftain, a tanker and professional historian, disagrees greatly with the idea that the modern tank is no longer cost effective. There is literally nobody on the internet better placed to make that judgement, either.

I have no idea why I would trust the opinion of someone who both is a historian, one of the best known occupations for making up bullshit, and has a personal stake in the outcome.

Huh it's almost like aircraft carriers don't operate alone and are instead escorted, by their own submarines and destroyers and their aircraft and so on and so forth.

This does not work. Modern submarines frequently pass close to each other without being noticed, and even collide with things — even extremely expensive top-of-the-line American submarines from the past couple years. The sensor (and physical) environment underwater is just not the same, it's too easy to strike stealthily from a distance. Surface ships have even less hope of detecting modern submarines, and aircraft... do next to nothing in this context. Your best bet - once again - is to heavily mine the sea area where you'll be working, but this has obvious operational disadvantages and doesn't work quite as well as on land either.
No naval war has ever been fought between two countries with modern submarine fleets, but the last times that came close, it did not look good for surface ships. They're a tool that work against much weaker nations.

Mines costing "a few hundred bucks" don't kill tanks. At all. A mine that costs a few thousand at the least might immobilize the tank, but the crew and vehicle will both survive to go back into action. Also what even is this about tanks being effective in WWII because people hadn't figured out Molotovs or comparable weapons? Molotovs literally came about in WWII and testing has shown that they are of very, very, very limited effectiveness against tanks. They could occasionally make a WWII tanker bail, but only sometimes would they burn out the engine. And to get close enough to employ that thing, you've got to get past the tank's weapons, his infantry companions, his other tanks in his platoon, and any other forces in the area. Rather than go further, I refer you to the Chieftain's video on the topic.

Jesus you're overly literal.

[Madman198237]

You COULD trust him because he knows a whole heck of a lot more than you on the subject and has a personal stake in BEING RIGHT about whether or not tanks should continue as they are because if there is a war it's his life that's going to be on the line. And while historians may sometimes make things up, he does not and sources all his claims with period sources so on and so forth. Or you could boldly declare that with nowhere near his level of expertise or research you know better.

Modern submarines pass by each other like that because they're not running active sonar because they don't want to be spotted and tracked by their sonar emissions; running escort works different because you assume someone is hunting your obvious surface target and are prepared to spot anything that might otherwise try to track you. And warships do not typically use active sonar when just wandering around because of its deleterious effects on local wildlife, but in a combat environment you'd best believe they would. Are subs dangerous? Absolutely. But are they an automagic counter to all things not submarine? Absolutely not.

And aircraft do nothing? Clearly you've never seen how ASW works then. Sonar buoys, spotting the silhouette of a submarine if it's too close to the surface, tracking radio emissions if it is for some reason surfaced and communicating, so on and so forth the US maintains an entire fleet of ASW warplanes and helicopters for precisely this purpose. They work, I assure you.

I mean, sure I'm arguing against the literal words in the posts? But also, I'm assuming there's a reason you are raising examples and so I'm arguing against those examples to make the larger points.

[Maximum Spin]

I think we have fundamentally different approaches to the concept of defense risk.
You're thinking "look at all these ways we have of fighting against submarines!"
I think "It only takes one to get through, and one will eventually get through."

It would be different if the expense ratio were different, but a modern enemy, say China, can field a hell of a lot more submarines, drones, and torpedoes than you can field carriers with full escorts.

It's not like this exact sort of technological asymmetry hasn't happened before. This is what ended the era of ironclads, capital ships, and ships of the line. It's why we even have a class of "destroyers". The history of naval warfare is replete with this; it's part of what made the British Navy so formidable. People had arguments just like this back then, too.

[Madman198237]

Your argument would suggest that anything not completely invulnerable is useless. This is flat wrong. You need many different capabilities in your arsenal if you want to win wars. In 1914, the biggest ship was the battleship because the best tech for destroying hostile warships was the big gun, and thus the battleship carried big guns with with thick armor to resist the same. In 1944, the best tech for the job of destroying an enemy fleet became aircraft, to strike targets at longer ranges than any battleship could ever reach, and so the carrier became the most important ship of the navy. Of course, any battleship could tear a cruiser (or a carrier, for that matter, should it get into range) into tiny pieces, so why did cruisers persist? Well, because they filled other roles, of course. Granted the combined fleet other capabilities. Capabilities necessary in such great numbers that it justified fielding a smaller ship than the battleship, a ship that was more vulnerable to battleship fire and air attack and torpedoes and mines and frogmen and every other means of destroying a ship ever invented. They provide a capability, not an instant win button.

Destroyers exist because the motive torpedo came about and it was better to engage torpedo boats with something light, fast, carrying small guns suitable to the targets being engaged. The torpedo boat destroyer, specifically. It didn't make torpedo boats obsolete, though. They still claimed kills after the destroyer came about, but fewer than they otherwise would have. Same deal with subs; they don't make all surface ships obsolete, because a sub doesn't fill the same roles as a carrier, cruiser, destroyer, etc. It can't, not efficiently, because it makes too many design sacrifices to be a submarine. And yet each time such a weapon comes about---self-propelled torpedoes, air power, submarines, homing torpedoes, guided missiles, etc. etc. the cry goes up "all ships vulnerable to the new technologies are useless! We should get rid of them all because they'll all die for sure in minutes!" and it's never accurate. Sure, it's a new weapon, a new vulnerability, but that didn't mean you could get rid of the need for ships to do all the things warships have done for millennia. They just had to adapt a bit to yet another threat. Carry more antiaircraft guns, mount CIWS, use your own missiles to keep the enemy at range, etc.

[Strongpoint]

It's not like this exact sort of technological asymmetry hasn't happened before. This is what ended the era of ironclads, capital ships, and ships of the line.

None of those became obsolete because some weapon that can harm them in a cost-effective way appeared. They became obsolete because better vessels were able to do the very same job but far better.

Just because an aircraft carrier may be sunk by something doesn't make it obsolete.

[Maximum Spin]

Your argument would suggest that anything not completely invulnerable is useless.

No, I'm saying that anything that doesn't fill its role cost-effectively is useless.

Torpedo boat destroyers didn't make torpedo boats obsolete, they exist because torpedo boats made battleships obsolete in the role they had been filling. As a result, the role of battleships was rethought and new tactics and technologies were developed.

It's similar to how tanks already don't fill the role they were originally conceived to fill, because that became obsolete. You never see tank echelons squaring off against each other anymore, because it is inefficient compared to using tanks as fire support. The problem is that a lot of tank design still goes toward the old-fashioned idea because of a sclerotic military process, so tanks aren't being optimized for the role they actually fill. And therefore get blown up a lot. This is unnecessary, and should be considered a failure.

Similarly, aircraft carriers no longer fill their role cost-effectively, which, for one thing, is why nearly everybody uses light helicopter carriers now, but even those are becoming hard to justify. There's still a role for aircraft that can transport humans, but a lot more effort is going to move, and in the process of moving, toward using drones.

None of those became obsolete because some weapon that can harm them in a cost-effective way appeared. They became obsolete because better vessels were able to do the very same job but far better.

Why do you think that happened? The reason the better vessels which came after were better is because they were lighter and more mobile, so they weren't as vulnerable to the small craft that had been thrashing the big ships. Again, we need better vessels that can do the same job - not necessarily in literal terms, but fill the same combat role - without being blown up.

Trust me, the British Royal Navy didn't start throwing out sloops because they had more firepower to do the very same job as capital ships but better.

[Strongpoint]

Why do you think that happened? The reason the better vessels which came after were better is because they were lighter and more mobile, so they weren't as vulnerable to the small craft that had been thrashing the big ships.

No. It happened because new ships could mop the floor with older ships because they were faster, more durable, and had more firepower. Small ships had nothing to do with it.

Pre-dreadnoughts became obsolete overnight not because of some submarine or torpedoes but because of HMS Dreadnought, which was far better in everything   

Trust me, the British Royal Navy didn't start throwing out sloops because they had more firepower to do the very same job as capital ships but better.

It is exactly what happened. Post WW2 a fleet of small vessels armed with missiles provides more firepower than traditional artillery battleships of the same tonnage while being more mobile and more protected (by virtue of being a smaller target)

[Madman198237]

Torpedo boats didn't make battleships obsolete, this is a shockingly bad interpretation of history. Jeune Ecole all over again. They were wrong about torpedo boats in the late 1800s and you're wrong about torpedo boats today. The battleship DIDN'T CHANGE in response to the torpedo boat and it certainly didn't go away; the torpedo boat destroyer was invented to provide better protection than the battleship's own small guns could provide and that was that. Torpedo bulges didn't even come into existence until later as torpedoes became more powerful.

Tanks were not designed to fight other tanks, and almost never have been. They were DESIGNED for infantry support; to be protected direct-fire artillery and machine gun bunkers moving across a machinegun-swept wasteland. They can't have been designed to fight other tanks because the first tank, by definition, didn't have an opposing tank to fight. The ultimate goal of an army is to take and hold ground and that means infantry (in most combat doctrines), which means all other weapons on the battlefield are by default some form of infantry support. However, the fact is that tanks fight other tanks whether you want to or not, because tanks are protected firepower on the battlefield and that means you need a bigger gun than you need when killing infantry, and oh look at that you have those bigger guns, they're mounted on your own tanks. Solution? Obvious. Design goal? Still supporting infantry against hardened targets, but sometimes those hardened targets are on tracks and can move instant of being made of concrete and fixed in position.

You are wrong about carriers as well, other nations use helicopter carriers because they can't afford to operate larger carriers and don't have the massive need for global power projection the US has. The US has the need, and the money, and so it uses carriers, which are more cost-effective than leasing land for airbases everywhere on the globe that the US may need aircraft.


At no point did torpedo boats ever get a chance to "thrash" larger ships. They have occasionally taken them down, but never have we seen a fleet of battleships be destroyed by torpedo boat. Including some Italian shenanigans against notably unescorted battleships or docked ships, rarely have torpedo boats scored the kill on a battleship (scuttling a surrendered or abandoned ship of course doesn't count).


I feel obligated to point out that despite the media frenzy of the time, the Dreadnought, while a superior battleship than the predreadnoughts, did not obsolete them. It pushed them to obsolescence much faster than they otherwise would have gone, but predreadnoughts made up the majority of battleship fleets for years after Dreadnought was launched.

And the carrier had its time in the sun as the ultimate long-ranged ship-killing device (taking over from the battleship) before missiles arrived, and even today it retains that title because a plane can carry a missile quite a long ways before launching it, specifically it can carry it over a task force's radar horizon meaning that the carrier retains the longest-ranged awareness and strike capability of any warship. But smaller ones with just missiles and not planes are cheaper and can be in more places and so they have a place in naval doctrine as well.

[Strongpoint]

British aircraft carriers lost in WW2:

Ark Royal - Sunk by a German submarine
Audacity - Sunk by a German submarine
Avenger - Sunk by a German submarine
Courageous - German submarine
Dasher - Internal explosion
Eagle - German submarine
Glorious - German battleships
Hermes - Japanese aircrafts



I guess Aircraft carriers were made obsolete by submarines back in WW2

[Madman198237]

Your use of a list of British aircraft carriers and the inherent limited spectrum of threats and uses of a carrier in the North Atlantic and North Sea infuriates me and yet I'm pretty sure you're making a sarcastic point in agreement with me lol.