“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
It’s a good thing this near-peer BS is thrown around about armies that can barely keep their troops fed in their own countries where we have the logistics to feed our troops around the world.
I’m sure there will always be a roll for infantry.
The problem of the last few wars has been using infantry to hold ground and as a police force.
You don’t win a conflict by holding on to a hill of dirt. You win by removing your enemies ability or will to fight.
Ukraine is a bad example as they’re playing by other people’s rules. Europe and the West won’t provide them weapons if they use them in Russia. Russia won’t give up ground if Ukraine cannot reach inside of Russia to remove their will or ability to fight.
It’s trench warfare stalemate a la WWI all over again.
If there is a WWIII it’ll be marked by hybrid war, hacking, air defense reacting to missle and drone attacks and the deployment of decentralized weapons.
It’s not a stretch to imagine hundreds of thousands of civilians could be killed by killware in a hacking attack without a single traditional weapon system being involved.
People aren’t going to line up in pretty little lines fire salvos at each other. If anyone starts digging a fucking trench let them have that ground. They are no immediate threat to the factories, production, and training centers. Let them dig in. Send a bomb run later to clear them out when they come out to play.
So, because some guy in the 40s had a pithy remark, a war that shows strong indications of playing out similar to WW1 and the Eastern Front of WW2 against similarly armed foes is not at all representative of future wars?
Also, unless we are willing to completely raze cities (both captured friendly and enemy), there will always be some form of “trench warfare”. That is what we saw in Fallujah and are seeing in Ukraine. It is just that, rather than run from one trench line to the other, it is pushing from a treeline into a city or from one block to another. And bombardments are only viable while you have munitions and/or air superiority. Both of which are limited resources as wars continue… which we are seeing in Ukraine.
Because of external factors, Ukraine is on a very “weird” time table. But everything that is happening is consistent with a prolonged war. Even the US only has so many stockpiled resources and can only make so many new bombs and vehicles at a time. Especially if supply lines are fucked and the entire world is scrambling to build their own.
If you want to go trench by trench or door by door go ahead.
The future of war is not dirt. But instead information.
If Australian warnings for Perl Harbor had been heeded we wouldn’t have had to build so many boats. We built 9000 boats in WWII and we’ll build more than that many drones in WWIII.
But what good are drones without information? Without targets? Without information what to they do?
Targets, tactics is only one kind of information. Real time surveillance, biometrics, the ability to strike command and control. To cut the head off the snake is worth more than clearing a city.
If you need to clear a city, you need infantry.
Did we go island hoping all the way to Japan and then go door to door? Or did we break the enemies will to fight and force a surrender?
Is it always worth going door to door and holding worthless land? Trading bodies and bullets for what? Dirt?
What would it be worth however to cripple the enemies Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, and Intelligence? Do we really need to take land in future wars as much as force a surrender out of idiots that want to start shit.
There’s a terrific documentary about how the Air Force planned to win a nuclear war before ICBMs. It’s called the power of decision. It’s not about going door to door or trench by trench however. It’s about a different kind of war where you win by removing your enemies ability to fight in a flash. Unfortunately similar can be done today in cyberspace without the assurance of MAD or the early warning of an ICMB launch.
Okay. Why didn’t the US “cripple the enemies Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillaince and Recu” in Afghanistan and Iraq and end the war in five minutes? Oh wait, we basically did. And then fought against guerillas for twenty years.
Okay, why didn’t russia do that in Ukraine? Oh yeah, they tried. The opening hours of the war involved paratrooper attacks on key airfields coupled with ballistic missile strikes against fortifications. They failed, lost a LOT of their actually competent soldiers, and then had to deal with overextended supply lines.
And yeah, russia are fucking incompetent. But even the US can fail at a mission objective. And, unless you are willing to switch to nukes immediately after, means you are now in a “real” war.
Ukraine “changed everything” except… it didn’t, really. A lot of this has been known and is the basis for a lot of the (often times batshit insane) strategies and plans of The Cold War. It is just that West Point and similar analysts love to push along topics that lead to increased spending toward the military industrial complex. And… I shouldn’t have to explain why…
And the fancy guns ARE incredibly useful. If a war can be “won” without fighting it, all the better. But that has not been the indication of the past century and the reality is: When you run out of the fancy stuff, you are back to boots on the ground.
But stuff like the M5* and (arguably) the new APC everyone hates are very much showing the realization of this. Part of it is realizing that people just don’t want to be in a standing military anymore if it means they might get shot at. But it is also acknowledging the reality of what a “real” war will be.
*: I lack the expertise to properly explain it, but even the switch to the 6.8 round is this. At a high level, the 6.8 round is less about body armor and is more about doctrine. Because even top of the line “Jack Bauer is gonna murder some fools for shooting his girlfriend” body armor is not going to have you shrugging off a 5.56 round to the chest. It might not kill or even wound, but it will take someone out of the fight long enough to capitalize. It is more about making every shot count and changing doctrine from highly skilled techniques like suppressive fire (knowing where to shoot rather than just aiming at the head when it pops out) and bounding advances/leap frogging. Which hearkens back to the days of “Well, most of them can’t hit the broad side of a barn. But when they do, things die”
Cannon fodder?
To quote Patton
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
It’s a good thing this near-peer BS is thrown around about armies that can barely keep their troops fed in their own countries where we have the logistics to feed our troops around the world.
I’m sure there will always be a roll for infantry. The problem of the last few wars has been using infantry to hold ground and as a police force.
You don’t win a conflict by holding on to a hill of dirt. You win by removing your enemies ability or will to fight.
Ukraine is a bad example as they’re playing by other people’s rules. Europe and the West won’t provide them weapons if they use them in Russia. Russia won’t give up ground if Ukraine cannot reach inside of Russia to remove their will or ability to fight.
It’s trench warfare stalemate a la WWI all over again.
If there is a WWIII it’ll be marked by hybrid war, hacking, air defense reacting to missle and drone attacks and the deployment of decentralized weapons.
It’s not a stretch to imagine hundreds of thousands of civilians could be killed by killware in a hacking attack without a single traditional weapon system being involved.
People aren’t going to line up in pretty little lines fire salvos at each other. If anyone starts digging a fucking trench let them have that ground. They are no immediate threat to the factories, production, and training centers. Let them dig in. Send a bomb run later to clear them out when they come out to play.
So, because some guy in the 40s had a pithy remark, a war that shows strong indications of playing out similar to WW1 and the Eastern Front of WW2 against similarly armed foes is not at all representative of future wars?
Also, unless we are willing to completely raze cities (both captured friendly and enemy), there will always be some form of “trench warfare”. That is what we saw in Fallujah and are seeing in Ukraine. It is just that, rather than run from one trench line to the other, it is pushing from a treeline into a city or from one block to another. And bombardments are only viable while you have munitions and/or air superiority. Both of which are limited resources as wars continue… which we are seeing in Ukraine.
Because of external factors, Ukraine is on a very “weird” time table. But everything that is happening is consistent with a prolonged war. Even the US only has so many stockpiled resources and can only make so many new bombs and vehicles at a time. Especially if supply lines are fucked and the entire world is scrambling to build their own.
If you want to go trench by trench or door by door go ahead.
The future of war is not dirt. But instead information.
If Australian warnings for Perl Harbor had been heeded we wouldn’t have had to build so many boats. We built 9000 boats in WWII and we’ll build more than that many drones in WWIII.
But what good are drones without information? Without targets? Without information what to they do?
Targets, tactics is only one kind of information. Real time surveillance, biometrics, the ability to strike command and control. To cut the head off the snake is worth more than clearing a city.
If you need to clear a city, you need infantry.
Did we go island hoping all the way to Japan and then go door to door? Or did we break the enemies will to fight and force a surrender?
Is it always worth going door to door and holding worthless land? Trading bodies and bullets for what? Dirt?
What would it be worth however to cripple the enemies Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, and Intelligence? Do we really need to take land in future wars as much as force a surrender out of idiots that want to start shit.
There’s a terrific documentary about how the Air Force planned to win a nuclear war before ICBMs. It’s called the power of decision. It’s not about going door to door or trench by trench however. It’s about a different kind of war where you win by removing your enemies ability to fight in a flash. Unfortunately similar can be done today in cyberspace without the assurance of MAD or the early warning of an ICMB launch.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?426926-1/the-power-decision#
Okay. Why didn’t the US “cripple the enemies Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillaince and Recu” in Afghanistan and Iraq and end the war in five minutes? Oh wait, we basically did. And then fought against guerillas for twenty years.
Okay, why didn’t russia do that in Ukraine? Oh yeah, they tried. The opening hours of the war involved paratrooper attacks on key airfields coupled with ballistic missile strikes against fortifications. They failed, lost a LOT of their actually competent soldiers, and then had to deal with overextended supply lines.
And yeah, russia are fucking incompetent. But even the US can fail at a mission objective. And, unless you are willing to switch to nukes immediately after, means you are now in a “real” war.
Ukraine “changed everything” except… it didn’t, really. A lot of this has been known and is the basis for a lot of the (often times batshit insane) strategies and plans of The Cold War. It is just that West Point and similar analysts love to push along topics that lead to increased spending toward the military industrial complex. And… I shouldn’t have to explain why…
And the fancy guns ARE incredibly useful. If a war can be “won” without fighting it, all the better. But that has not been the indication of the past century and the reality is: When you run out of the fancy stuff, you are back to boots on the ground.
But stuff like the M5* and (arguably) the new APC everyone hates are very much showing the realization of this. Part of it is realizing that people just don’t want to be in a standing military anymore if it means they might get shot at. But it is also acknowledging the reality of what a “real” war will be.
*: I lack the expertise to properly explain it, but even the switch to the 6.8 round is this. At a high level, the 6.8 round is less about body armor and is more about doctrine. Because even top of the line “Jack Bauer is gonna murder some fools for shooting his girlfriend” body armor is not going to have you shrugging off a 5.56 round to the chest. It might not kill or even wound, but it will take someone out of the fight long enough to capitalize. It is more about making every shot count and changing doctrine from highly skilled techniques like suppressive fire (knowing where to shoot rather than just aiming at the head when it pops out) and bounding advances/leap frogging. Which hearkens back to the days of “Well, most of them can’t hit the broad side of a barn. But when they do, things die”