Ukraine's Security Service utilized underwater drones to strike a Russian submarine in Novorossiysk, causing critical damage and impacting its operational status.
War is a great driver of technological innovation.
The airplane was first flown in 1903. When WWI broke out, airplanes were nothing more than fruit crates with wings, with a canvas covering and the equivalent of a lawnmower engine. They could literally tear themselves apart doing acrobatic flying. The first time they tried to mount a machine gun in front of the pilot, he shot up the propeller.
By the end of the war, only a few years later, they had aluminum frames, turbocharged engines, and machine guns that were synced to the crankshaft, and fired between the propellers. They could handle the twists and turns of the most acrobatic dogfight. Without the war, it’s doubtful that the aviation industry would have been as motivated to advance so quickly.
Very true. And the more I learn about post-War plane development the more I see that a lack of field experience meant stupid designs and terrible planes
The main goals of a live wargame like this are to 1) learn lessons, and to 2) get everyone simulated combat experience. This means you need to run as many scenarios as possible and to make sure every unit gets to participate.
If Red team sinks all the landing ships on round one, does that mean your infantry doesn’t get to war game and learn lessons (after all, the infantry are all ‘in lifeboats’)? Fuck no. You take extensive notes on what red team did, restart the war game, but this time mandate the infantry land. It would be a colossal waste to not learn lessons in your infantry unit or to not allow them to accumulate simulated combat experience simply because their boats sank in the first round.
The US spent trillions of dollars over decades to do what the Ukrainians have done with some fancy remote controlled toys
War is a great driver of technological innovation.
The airplane was first flown in 1903. When WWI broke out, airplanes were nothing more than fruit crates with wings, with a canvas covering and the equivalent of a lawnmower engine. They could literally tear themselves apart doing acrobatic flying. The first time they tried to mount a machine gun in front of the pilot, he shot up the propeller.
By the end of the war, only a few years later, they had aluminum frames, turbocharged engines, and machine guns that were synced to the crankshaft, and fired between the propellers. They could handle the twists and turns of the most acrobatic dogfight. Without the war, it’s doubtful that the aviation industry would have been as motivated to advance so quickly.
Very true. And the more I learn about post-War plane development the more I see that a lack of field experience meant stupid designs and terrible planes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002 keeps amusing me.
The main goals of a live wargame like this are to 1) learn lessons, and to 2) get everyone simulated combat experience. This means you need to run as many scenarios as possible and to make sure every unit gets to participate.
If Red team sinks all the landing ships on round one, does that mean your infantry doesn’t get to war game and learn lessons (after all, the infantry are all ‘in lifeboats’)? Fuck no. You take extensive notes on what red team did, restart the war game, but this time mandate the infantry land. It would be a colossal waste to not learn lessons in your infantry unit or to not allow them to accumulate simulated combat experience simply because their boats sank in the first round.
That will always be funny. "Stop! We shouldn’t learn and adapt. We just want to show off with a live fire parade!
Spending those trillions was the point, that it bought the world’s most powerful military was a bonus.