Posted on 02/06/2013 3:46:10 AM PST by Kaslin
Adding ladies adds yet more complication. Now we will have the young men focusing on something other than what they have to be focused on and we will have less success and more dead and wounded.
I admire the patriotisim, honor, and fidelity of the young ladies who would volunteer for this duty but combat is not the right place for them.
I agree 100% with what you are saying. Females don’t need to be in the main fight - be it support or direct - I can tell you we would have gotten alot more done without the female presence - and this notion that they should be able to join in combat is ignorant and is nothing more than a distraction...Yes, the females I served with that were MP’s did an outstanding job - but there is no place for them on the battlefield - in that, they are - the ones I have served with have sacrificed as we all did - some others been killed - some wounded - but I agree, they should be there.
Females are terrible in support as well, all of the same inadequacies are there. The only places that they don't hurt things, is where they used to be, in finance, at the hospitals, in the legal buildings, strictly office work.
At this moment in time, you are correct. Fairly soon, the battlefield won't have any places for humans except as victims. As an Air Force guy, you should be the first to recognize that we have antiair systems now that are nearly impossible to avoid or defeat - altitude, speed, maneuvering, jamming, even stealth attributes are being overcome by new systems. The air will be nearly unsurvivable soon. Standoff weapons are just an interim solution. The future is unmanned delivery, unmanned persistent airspace control, with no vulnerable links to remote piloting stations.
Like everyone else, I will remember the "white scarf in the slipstream" days with warmth (both of my Uncles were WWII fighter pilots) but the lower reaches of the atmosphere will be the province of machines in battle - and whomever has the best machines will be the winner.
All you say is possible now but they will still keep man in the loop for the foreseeable future. Robots may play a factor as far as freeing up the humans on some tasks.
The cheapest and very effective anti-missile technology is a loadmaster looking out a troop door with a chaff and flare release control. WW2 technology still being used.
A drone cannot tell the difference between a school bus full of kids or one full of people wishing to do us harm.
I am not sure how current your knowledge is. We already have antiair systems that wouldn’t give your loadmaster any chance to recognize the threat much less react to it. Chaff and flares only work on slower shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles. There are also target recognition technologies that will differentiate between different types of hostile people and friendlies/noncombatants. It’s not 100% yet, hence the wait. Robots will eventually take up all combat roles - possibly within our lifetimes. Drones are only the first rung in the ladder.
Unless things have advanced greatly in the last 5 years, we’re a long way away from taking the man out of the loop in air combat. Your analysis of air defense systems is inadequate, BTW. Not that we can discuss it in detail here...
I know a lot more than I can post here. Lets leave it at that.
Sure. Like there’s not enough to support my contentions in Aviation Week...
Your loadmaster might have a problem with a Patriot, right?
I love the “if told you, I’d have to kill you” tack..
Sorry, but I worked operational test before retiring. You don’t know enough to know what you don’t know. You can trust me, or you can at least review the history of EW enough to figure out that anything man can build, man can defeat.
I guess we could do this “urination competition” all night - you don’t know what I know either. What I am sure of is that all technology is eventually defeated by more technology. The question at hand is whether we will continue to carry delicate, irreplaceable, G-sensitive, air conditioning and oxygen-dependent payloads into next generation combat. If we don’t advance, our competitors will. The battleship sailors “knew” that airplanes couldn’t harm their ships. Billy Mitchell knew better and proved it. EW is a finger in the dike against the threat of a new generation of combat capabilites.
I think numbers are important in warfare. After all, Germany did have the technological advantage in WW2 and they lost. We did not have anything that came close to the King Panzer.
They have jet fighters, remote controlled bombs (cruise missiles) and V2s.
Small issues with the the German stuff towards the end of the war: The Nazis were so bound to their system that they ignored or delayed really important technologies while wasting huge amounts of resources on completely useless technologies. Without question, turbojet engines were a leap ahead in speed and altitude performance and would have dramatically influenced the cource of the European war. Despite this, Hitler forbade its fielding until the best aircraft available, the Messerschmitt ME-262, was converted to be a "Lightning Bomber". Wasted (thank Heaven) about a full year before they could employ the thing. They also ignored their best scientists (or chased them to us) who recommend development of a fission weapon. They fiddled around with monster howitzers, ridiculously-oversized tanks (the Maus, the King Tiger, etc.) and those tactically and strategically useless V-1 and 2s whioh did nothing at all to win their war. The US and Britain stuck to the technologies that really made a difference: heavy bombers, long-range fighters, anti-armor rockets, and lots of supremely dependable tanks, medium howitzers, and small arms. They made bad choices and they lost - always a good thing.
“EW is a finger in the dike against the threat of a new generation of combat capabilites.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I read a book a while ago, forgot the name. It claimed that in the future wars anything flying under 10,000 ft will be shot down by MANPADS. These weapons will also have the capability of defeating armored vehicles. In short, it will be foot soldiers vs foot soldiers like in the days of old.
Check out the new stuff our buddies in Israel have developed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.