Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Darth Wagtaros]

They failed to achieve the objective set forward by the Commander in chief of the US Army.  The US intelligence report says so.

In the past, when an army ceded the field at the end of the day, not matter if the battle seemed like a tactical draw, it meant a loss.

I'm counting this one as a loss for the US.

A fuckton of military expenditures for not achieving its goals.

Well, since it allowed you to sound obnoxious and superior, the cost was worth it.

If this was 1943, you would be crowing that the US lost the war to Germany because the last B-17 bombing run did not force the Germans to surrender.

Don't forget Kasserine Pass.  Hitler himself said we were like the Italians, which is about as vile an insult as has ever been levied against any nation. 

[Hansmeister]

Heard an interesting argument the other day, that being on good terms with Ukraine going forward is a very useful thing indeed.
Ukraine has built up a huge amount of expertise and data in military drones and AI.
Russia will be sharing theirs with China. The west and friends need Ukraine to share theirs.
This looks probable for Europe. For the US as things stand....
In a complete turnaround the US might soon find its military hopelessly out dated.

The U.S. Army is pretty badly out of date when it comes to equipment. Virtually its entire vehicle fleet is archaic by now.  No drone defenses, most even don't have the trophy system against anti-armor weapons. M1 and M2/3 are over 40 years old, the M1 is too heavy and too difficulty to maintain in the field (it has somehow become the Kingtiger), while the M2/3 have reached the end of their expected lifetime and have little room left for upgrades anyway. The M109 Paladin is a museum piece, hopelessly outdated artillery. The HMMWV has also reached the end of life cycle, the JLTV is more suitable to SOLIC environments. The Army doesn't won hardly any anti-drone weapons, and no low-cost drones that can be mass-produced. HQ elements are far too static and highly vulnerable to drones and rockets. The Apache has been rendered obsolete by and their function can be done better by drones.

So the Army needs:
- a Main Battle Tank replacement
- a new IFV (I think the Rheinmetall Lynx will get the nod)
- a SpH replacement (the Army is looking at the Rheinmetall RCH155)
- a new close-in ADA system
- new mobile command posts for battalion/brigade/divisions
- new lightweight vehicles (the infantry squad vehicle will address a part of this)
- whole new families of drones for every echelon

Ideally the Stryker would be replaced as well with a better wheeled armored vehicle such as the Boxer, but that would also mean the Army would have to convince the Air Force to replace the 75-year-old Hercules with a more capable heavy lift aircraft, ideally the Airbus A400M (would have to be manufactured under license, probably by Lockheed Martin).

Alas, the Army is usually the worst funded of the services so I don't expect much of an improvement.

[crazy canuck]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

[viper37]

They failed to achieve the objective set forward by the Commander in chief of the US Army.  The US intelligence report says so.

In the past, when an army ceded the field at the end of the day, not matter if the battle seemed like a tactical draw, it meant a loss.

I'm counting this one as a loss for the US.

A fuckton of military expenditures for not achieving its goals.

Well, since it allowed you to sound obnoxious and superior, the cost was worth it.

If this was 1943, you would be crowing that the US lost the war to Germany because the last B-17 bombing run did not force the Germans to surrender.

But in 1943, the US kept pressing their advantage.  They did not stop.  Had they turned around and gone back to the US claming victory, allowing Germany to rearm, it would be a different thing.

[viper37]

Heard an interesting argument the other day, that being on good terms with Ukraine going forward is a very useful thing indeed.
Ukraine has built up a huge amount of expertise and data in military drones and AI.
Russia will be sharing theirs with China. The west and friends need Ukraine to share theirs.
This looks probable for Europe. For the US as things stand....
In a complete turnaround the US might soon find its military hopelessly out dated.

The U.S. Army is pretty badly out of date when it comes to equipment. Virtually its entire vehicle fleet is archaic by now.  No drone defenses, most even don't have the trophy system against anti-armor weapons. M1 and M2/3 are over 40 years old, the M1 is too heavy and too difficulty to maintain in the field (it has somehow become the Kingtiger), while the M2/3 have reached the end of their expected lifetime and have little room left for upgrades anyway. The M109 Paladin is a museum piece, hopelessly outdated artillery. The HMMWV has also reached the end of life cycle, the JLTV is more suitable to SOLIC environments. The Army doesn't won hardly any anti-drone weapons, and no low-cost drones that can be mass-produced. HQ elements are far too static and highly vulnerable to drones and rockets. The Apache has been rendered obsolete by and their function can be done better by drones.

So the Army needs:
- a Main Battle Tank replacement
- a new IFV (I think the Rheinmetall Lynx will get the nod)
- a SpH replacement (the Army is looking at the Rheinmetall RCH155)
- a new close-in ADA system
- new mobile command posts for battalion/brigade/divisions
- new lightweight vehicles (the infantry squad vehicle will address a part of this)
- whole new families of drones for every echelon

Ideally the Stryker would be replaced as well with a better wheeled armored vehicle such as the Boxer, but that would also mean the Army would have to convince the Air Force to replace the 75-year-old Hercules with a more capable heavy lift aircraft, ideally the Airbus A400M (would have to be manufactured under license, probably by Lockheed Martin).

Alas, the Army is usually the worst funded of the services so I don't expect much of an improvement.

Don't worry, the Pentagon budget cuts will make money appear out of thin air by forcing all army branches to be more efficient.

And the big beautiful bill will solve every revenue problem in the US.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Depends on what Moscow tells Washington to do.

[grumbler]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Yeah, you'd hope that the US would realize that the MBT has gone the way of the battleship, and that drones (and shitloads of reserve drone pilots) are a better investment.

But I doubt it. It's still planning to build another six or so carriers.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Yeah, well admirals plan for the last war and all that.   

[Tonitrus]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Yeah, you'd hope that the US would realize that the MBT has gone the way of the battleship, and that drones (and shitloads of reserve drone pilots) are a better investment.

But I doubt it. It's still planning to build another six or so carriers.

I remember long ago reading some sci-fi novels with the silly-even-if-cool idea of submarine aircraft carriers.  But submarines as large unmanned aerial drone carriers feels like not so silly of an idea.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Yeah, you'd hope that the US would realize that the MBT has gone the way of the battleship, and that drones (and shitloads of reserve drone pilots) are a better investment.

But I doubt it. It's still planning to build another six or so carriers.

I remember long ago reading some sci-fi novels with the silly-even-if-cool idea of submarine aircraft carriers.  But submarines as large unmanned aerial drone carriers feels like not so silly of an idea.

I remember some with that.  WarBots or something. 

[Tonitrus]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Yeah, you'd hope that the US would realize that the MBT has gone the way of the battleship, and that drones (and shitloads of reserve drone pilots) are a better investment.

But I doubt it. It's still planning to build another six or so carriers.

I remember long ago reading some sci-fi novels with the silly-even-if-cool idea of submarine aircraft carriers.  But submarines as large unmanned aerial drone carriers feels like not so silly of an idea.

I remember some with that.  WarBots or something.

The is exactly the onea I was thinking of. 

(it was silly that the "warbots" were shown as cyborg-looking things on the novel cover, but were actually just regular tanks/armored vehicles with semi-autonomous capabilities)

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Yeah, you'd hope that the US would realize that the MBT has gone the way of the battleship, and that drones (and shitloads of reserve drone pilots) are a better investment.

But I doubt it. It's still planning to build another six or so carriers.

I remember long ago reading some sci-fi novels with the silly-even-if-cool idea of submarine aircraft carriers.  But submarines as large unmanned aerial drone carriers feels like not so silly of an idea.

Ace combat games have actual drone carriers in at least one of their iterations (7, the only one I played).

[jimmy olsen]

Heard an interesting argument the other day, that being on good terms with Ukraine going forward is a very useful thing indeed.
Ukraine has built up a huge amount of expertise and data in military drones and AI.
Russia will be sharing theirs with China. The west and friends need Ukraine to share theirs.
This looks probable for Europe. For the US as things stand....
In a complete turnaround the US might soon find its military hopelessly out dated.

The U.S. Army is pretty badly out of date when it comes to equipment. Virtually its entire vehicle fleet is archaic by now.  No drone defenses, most even don't have the trophy system against anti-armor weapons. M1 and M2/3 are over 40 years old, the M1 is too heavy and too difficulty to maintain in the field (it has somehow become the Kingtiger), while the M2/3 have reached the end of their expected lifetime and have little room left for upgrades anyway. The M109 Paladin is a museum piece, hopelessly outdated artillery. The HMMWV has also reached the end of life cycle, the JLTV is more suitable to SOLIC environments. The Army doesn't won hardly any anti-drone weapons, and no low-cost drones that can be mass-produced. HQ elements are far too static and highly vulnerable to drones and rockets. The Apache has been rendered obsolete by and their function can be done better by drones.

So the Army needs:
- a Main Battle Tank replacement
- a new IFV (I think the Rheinmetall Lynx will get the nod)
- a SpH replacement (the Army is looking at the Rheinmetall RCH155)
- a new close-in ADA system
- new mobile command posts for battalion/brigade/divisions
- new lightweight vehicles (the infantry squad vehicle will address a part of this)
- whole new families of drones for every echelon

The drone defense criticsm is on point, but does anyone have an army vehicle fleet that is better?

[Hansmeister]

The drone defense criticsm is on point, but does anyone have an army vehicle fleet that is better?
[/quote]

Germany is undoubtably the leader in armored vehicles, but they have so few of them. This is supposed to change as they are planning to increase their armored fleet by 2,500 vehicles, but I somehow doubt that'll end up happening in the end.

[Hansmeister]

I wonder if funding priorities will change now?

Yeah, you'd hope that the US would realize that the MBT has gone the way of the battleship, and that drones (and shitloads of reserve drone pilots) are a better investment.

But I doubt it. It's still planning to build another six or so carriers.

The Navy is in some way worse off because their planning cycle is so much longer and thus will take decades to change. Unless an enemy accelerates the process by sinking our current fleet. The entire carrier battle group concept is horribly obsolete. Giant moving targets just waiting to be swarmed by drones. Carrier enthusiasts keep talking about how incredibly difficulty it is to sink a carrier, but while true it is also irrelevant. Even minor damage can force a ship having to go into drydock for repairs and due to the lack of capacity that would take the ship out of commission for years, essentially render them unavailable (while also delaying the building/refurbishing of the fleet). This is why the Navy often just scraps ships damaged in accidents since it would be too disruptive to the production schedule to interrupt new ship construction to facilitate repairs.