1733

Rampant speculation:

All of this is I think the reason why we will inevitably be fielding autonomous or semi-autonomous automated platforms for our cutting-edge, high-tech warfighting against similar tech opponents. The cost of maintaining a small, bleeding edge tech level force for worst-case scenarios, in addition to a much larger lower tech force for conflicts that are much more likely to happen is getting prohibitively high. The best platforms are overkill for the most likely scenarios, and the potential risk of losing even one of them limits potential use cases dramatically. Yet the costs to not just develop but maintain and operate them to preserve their operational capability has to be paid even if they are never used.

Now, replace most of those systems with autonomous or AI operated platforms. You don’t have to train physically, it can all be done in software except for periodic validation of mechanical functions. You don’t have to constantly hone a human’s skills and reactions. You can store the systems much more efficiently and cheaply without affecting readiness. Unit cost may be high, but ultimately should be much lower than human operated systems, as you don’t have to engineer in all of that stuff to protect the meatbag. Best of all, maybe, you can actually use these things in a wider variety of circumstances because while there is technical risk in someone getting a hold of one of the systems, there is no risk to a human operator and hence much less political risk.

I actually think it is more likely we will push automation at the high end than at the low-intensity conflict level. There are tons of problems with, say, using drone swarms against insurgent camps in a forest in Iran, in terms of targeting, collateral damage, and public relations. There are far fewer of these problems with, say, fielding a flock of autonomous air superiority platforms to counter an enemy air attack on a US naval task force or Taiwan or whatever.

Finally, For all of the talk about airplanes and ships and stuff, I think that the real growth area may well be in high-tech ground warfare gear, particularly infantry related equipment. Infantry is the basic common denominator for much of what we have been doing in our wars the past several decades, and the multiplicative impact of things that enhance soldier survivability, sensing, and firepower at this level should not be underestimated. You are going to need boots on the ground, and if you can field systems that make each soldier do the work of four or five or more current soldiers, that’s a huge force multiplier. This does not, and should not, mean automation necessarily. Some things could benefit from autonomous systems, like mine/IED clearance, scouting, defensive systems perhaps. The basic job of the infantry though is harder IMO to automate than that of air superiority pilots.

1734

Good.

1735

They finally found the mighty USS Johnston. She’s resting deeper than any shipwreck ever discovered. RIP, Johnston. Absolutely fearless in the face of overwhelming odds, she did not relent.

1736

Check out the engagement of Taffy 3 if you want to hear about a badass ship giving her all.

1737

Yes, one of the great engagements in naval history, and certainly one of the high points in the history of the US Navy.

1738

The Yamato was the largest battleship in the world. She alone outweighed all the escort carriers and destroyers of Taffee 3 combined, and there were three other battleships, eight cruisers, and eleven destroyers with her.

USS Johnston: Hold My Beer.

1739

Also, Drach’s video on the Battle of Samar really conveys the bravery of Johnston and the other destroyers and destroyer escorts, all of which were sunk buying time for the carriers to escape.

1740

It’s like Thermopylae, with ships instead of spears. And more succeessful.

1741

This passage on the Japanese commander, Takeo Kurita, explains a lot:

Kurita was a dedicated officer, willing to die if necessary, but not wishing to die in vain. Like Yamamoto, Kurita believed that for a captain to “go down with his ship” was a wasteful loss of valuable naval experience and leadership. When ordered by Admiral Soemu Toyoda to take his fleet through the San Bernardino Strait in the central Philippines and attack the American landings at Leyte, Kurita thought the effort a waste of ships and lives, especially since he could not get his fleet to Leyte Gulf until five days after the landings, leaving little more than empty transports for his huge battleships to attack. He bitterly resented his superiors, who, while safe in bunkers in Tokyo, ordered Kurita to fight to the death against hopeless odds and without air cover.

His forces had already been mauled badly by sub and aerial attacks before he reached Samay. His flagship Atago was torpedoed and sunk, along with another heavy cruiser. He was rescued from the water and transferred to the Yamato, which then suffered multiple aerial attacks and was damaged enough to limit her speed. The battleship Musashi was put out of action. All of this was before he ran into Taffy 3. And, he was convinced that the task force’s escort carriers were in fact the heavy carriers of the American third fleet.

Also, the sense is that he understood that the Japanese navy was largely finished for lack of fuel; and he was right: after retiring from Leyte, the fleet returned to Japan and was never really used again. Late in life he said he knew at the time that the war was lost, and objected to killing all his men in a pointless action.

1742

The Japanese Navy had the lion’s share of Japan’s smart leaders during the war I think. While it shares some of the blame for Imperial Japan’s warmongering, certainly, the Navy was a lot more realistic and a lot less enthusiastic about expanding the war in China to include taking on, well, everyone else pretty much.

In a lot of ways the US-Japan naval war is one of the very few times in relatively modern history when two roughly equivalent navies fought an extended large-scale war. You really have to go back to the Napoleonic era and the British and French to get another example. WWI doesn’t do it, as the Germans basically made one or two attempts to challenge the Royal Navy and spent the rest of the time in port except for submarine activity.

1743

I guess they understood that the fuel bunkers had to be filled, and that — ultimately — they would not be.

1744

Heh,yeah. That, and the Navy had learned from the Royal Navy and even from the Americans, two very strong sea powers. They understood I think the degree to which logistics and materiel factors dictated success or failure, regardless of enthusiasm or courage. They had no illusions about the quality of their opponents, unlike the Army, which seemed to dismiss Allied soldiers as inferior.

I’ve always found it interesting that the leader we went after and killed, Yamamoto, was certainly the most strategically significant of the Japanese commanders, but was far less personally deserving of his fate than most of the Army leadership, many of whom were bona fide war criminals.

1745

While true, the problem is we’re going to go bankrupt just trying to fly them coupled, with with abysmal ready status. One hour of flight time costs more than what 40% of people make here in an entire year.

1746

This is an issue with a lot of first-line modern weapon systems, globally. The Russians and Chinese both have some very good systems, equivalent or even superior to those found elsewhere, but they are so expensive to buy and operate that neither nation can afford to field many. If you poke around in the force configurations for either country, you can find a smaller high-tech core around which the much larger much less impressive military structure is built. The Russians even have a fair number of advanced systems they only export, as they can’t really afford to field them in any numbers.

1747

All this talk of deployment costs reminds me of Starsector and makes me unreasonably happy.

1748

Afaik the Su-57 does not require the elaborate recaulking and taping up that the F-22 and F-35 do to maintain their skin. The downside of that is of course less than perfect stealth from all aspects.

Stealth is really good, but I often wonder if it’s worth the price of admission.

1749

Certainly seems to me like a capability worth having, but to limit the usage of it to missions where it’s actually useful.

1750

IIRC, the idea for the original stealth aircraft was that they’d be a special-purpose, limited use sort of thing, for doing stuff like the initial disruption of enemy air defenses, precision strikes deep into heavily defended airspace, stuff like that. The idea of making stealth a baseline characteristic of whole segments of the air inventory seems to have come later.

1751

I think the idea in military circles is that long term Industrial Age warfare is a thing of the past - basically there will be an initial engagement and then the victor of that engagement has effectively “won” the war, and all the boots on the ground is just applying that victory. This is because I suppose the idea is that military equipment and stockpiles will be depleted a order of magnitude faster than they can be expended. Once your front line Air Force is gone you won’t be able to rebuild it until the war is over, which will between major powers probably be measured in weeks.

This is all premised I think on the idea that there will never again be really a “world war” style war vs millions of poor *%#£€ infantry, because in those numbers the infantry will just die by the hundreds of thousands against modern weapon delivery systems. In theory a China could actually make a stalemate by being willing to absorb millions of causalities initially and depleting the enemies’ advanced weapons by sheer attrition, but in that war situation it’s probably going to be hard for one side not to go nuclear, so nobody wants that scenario to obtain.

1752

That’s really what we should have gone for. Russia does some things smarter than we do.