US Military Hardware, The best? Options

[*kryogenix*]

I think so. Although I think some countries may have some equipment that is better (Israel comes to mind immediately), as a whole, our military-industrial complex is a force to be reckoned with.

It's funny though, cause unless I'm getting things wrong, it seems like we're still stuck fighting the Cold War. I don't think things like the F/A-22 and more cruise missiles should be made. I don't see the arguement for the F/A-22, if they wanted an untouchable fighter, the USAF would have chosen the YF-23, it seems unnecessary to spend $120 million on something that performs marginally better than the F-15. Speaking of which, in order to get the F/A-22, the airforce tried to make it seem like we were in need of a better fighter by staging a mock battle with the Indian Airforce. The Indians won, and the airforce used it as evidence to support the need for the F/A-22. Of course, the fight was rigged. The F-15's were outnumbered, were not able to use AWACS and had dumbed down technology. Now onto the subject of cruise missiles. They're pretty nifty because you can hit the enemy from thousands of miles away. I think it would be better if we went back to shore bombarding guns and battleships. Although we'd have to get closer to the shore in order to use them, shells are cheaper to produce and guns can deliver more ordnance than cruise missiles. They can also be reloaded at sea, unlike missiles.

So I guess the questions are

1) Do we have the best military?
2) Do you believe that there are kickbacks and pet projects in the military?

[sadolakced acid]

japan's pretty good at adapting new technology right now, but at creating new things?

and james, as far as those new ideas, they seem to be more of improvements on existing techonogly. Although, that's not what i was specifically mentioning.

our troops have good equipment. but it's all just improvements on WWI style weaponry.

our military is very ready to pwn people at WWIII, if it's anything like WWI or WWII. but it's not going to be.

and that is why we lack new ideas.

[*kryogenix*]

japan's pretty good at adapting new technology right now, but at creating new things?

and james, as far as those new ideas, they seem to be more of improvements on existing techonogly.    Although, that's not what i was specifically mentioning.

our troops have good equipment.  but it's all just improvements on WWI style weaponry.

our military is very ready to pwn people at WWIII, if it's anything like WWI or WWII.  but it's not going to be.

and that is why we lack new ideas.

Yeah, I agree. That's what I've been alluding to in my posts. We're still stuck with the mentality that wars are going to be like they were in the past. We need something that can fight even though there aren't any front lines. That's why I think the Merkava is better than the Abrams, and why I don't think the F/A-22 is a good investment., this is a problem with the weapons that we're building today; we're still stuck with the previous mentality that there will be front lines and that civilians won't be mixed in with the enemy.


About saying it's just an improvement... pretty much everything is an improvement from the rock. We started off by hitting each other with rocks, then we sharpened those rocks, then we started throwing those rocks, then we put those rocks in cylinders and propelled them with gunpowder.

The hypersonic bomber is different from anything ever made before. I don't think we've had anti ballistic missile systems before (or anything that could do anything more than just detect the ballistic missile launch).

Explain that. It doesn't matter if little infantryman Jim Bob was a 4.0 student in high school. Soldiers in the U.S. Military have the best training of any fighting force in the world. Sure we've got our bread and butter units, but most of our combat forces are better trained and equipped than any of our adversary's or allies.

It doesn't matter if the Jim Bob's of our military can take out 3 enemy guys for each Jim Bob that dies when the enemy has 5 times as many people as us. We need as many advantages as we can get for combined arms tactics and force multipliers to work out.

I don't know if that would be the best route to go. Accuracy is a major issue in today's world. Everytime a baby gets found in a pile of rubble, the media creams its pants with front-page stories of the inadequecies of todays military and how it's full of baby killing hicks from Alabama or high school dropouts from California. Battleships are way to innacurate; unless the target is completely military, civilian structures are bound to get hit and bam, sudden media bonanza.

That arguement would work if we weren't developing low yield nuclear warheads for use against bunkers. Battleships do more than just blow stuff up. The enemy pisses its pants when they see something that big. The Vietcong would not negotiate unless battleships were out of range from them. They're very useful for gunboat diplomacy.

[*mipadi*]

I don't think we've had anti ballistic missile systems before

I disagree. We've had things that were incapable of shooting down incoming missiles since the beginning of civilization.

Out of curiosity, you've mentioned that weapons such as the F-22 and other ones that aren't good at discerning targets from civilian (i.e. lack capabilities in urban combat) aren't a good investment; what would you suggest the military invest in?

[*kryogenix*]

I disagree. We've had things that were incapable of shooting down incoming missiles since the beginning of civilization.

You mean capable?

[*mipadi*]

You mean capable?

Since when have we actually shot down an ICBM missile in a test that wasn't rigged?