Posted on 04/13/2025 5:06:46 AM PDT by hardspunned
Totally not true. Europeans hate Trump, hate MAGA and hate the USA in general like spoiler little teenagers mad at Daddy.
“The days of massed armored attack are over regardless of the quality of the equipment.”
Doubtful. What is more likely is anti drone tech. Also the success of the drones is due to the overall poor tactics of both sides. It’s hard to imagine a US force operating at the ponderous pace, degrading into WWI trenches, not gaining air supremacy etc. Drone operators would get annihilated.
Imagine if the Japanese had introduced the first mass pilot guided cruise missiles at Midway. With the Japanese resources available at the time, the kamikazes would have sunk all US carriers encountered. In reality, the carrier has been obsolete in a peer warfare situation since Okinawa.
Over engineering to unnecessarily precise tolerances is as German as sauerkraut. There are exceptions, but overall it’s a noticeable national trait. Along with “Alles muss in ordnung sein”.
My Benz drove like a dream. But it developed an untenable electrical problem. Some chip would switch on when it was off and drain the battery. I brought it in more than a few times to the dealer for diagnosis. They never could pin it down, each time, wanted more $$ for an even more extensive diagnosis. The last time I brought it in they told me they might have to replace the master computer, which cost about what the car was worth at that point.
I coped with this problem for almost two years before I finally had enough and sold it back to the dealer. No matter how well it drove, I needed a car that would start reliably. I have one now — it’s an old 2003 Lexus with 200K miles on it. But it seems indestructible and, in theory, should last to 300K+ miles if well cared for.
I thought about buying a new car, but decided against it. Apparently it is very common for any car build after 2012 to have these problems. Modern cars simply use too many chips that are fundamentally unreliable. I also don’t like how small the engines are on many new cars.
The Germans used larger aircraft in 1943- Bf-110/Me-410s, Ju-88s, etc to fire large cannons such as the 50mm BK-5 and 20mm, 30mm, and 37mm auto cannons. Once the P-51 was pressed into long range bomber escort missions, the German heavy bomber destroyers became easy meat for them. The Germans made significant technologic progress on guided missiles - the Wasserfall and the Ruhrstahl X-4 - but it was too late. The Germans did employ air-to-air rockets such as the R4M and 210mm Werfer-Granate unguided rockets, but allied P-51s made short work of fighters carrying these heavier weapons.
also why weren’t the big guns of the battleships equipped with “shotgun” shells for air defense?
why the Germans didn’t develop air to air cluster rockets to explode in their midst.
We did but elected not to use it in Europe as unexploded ordinance could be copied by Germans. First used in pacific where they could fall in ocean.
This was a big decision.
“Imagine if the Yamato had been able to effectively defend itself against relentless American air attacks and had gotten close to the Okinawa battlefield.
They did. The few they fired were not nearly as effective as the Japanese thought they would be.”
These shells caused significant wear on the gun barrels. ofc when you are on a suicide mission that becomes less of a concern.
Land based laser defenses, like Israel's forthcoming "Iron Beam," offer even greater cost effectiveness in theory, but aren't yet ready much less proven. What people will dream up to beat their simple line of sight and speed of light physics I don't know. But I wouldn't bet against something being found.
IIRC either Yamato or Musashi fired their main guns against torpedo formations hoping to knock some down via splashes. Lacking air cover, they couldn’t stop the air assault, but it took an huge amount of it to put them under. I doubt if Taffy Three, for all its incredible bravery, could have stopped the latter. Thankfully it was gone before then.
The big advancement in drone technology is old tech. There’s been some limited success in jamming drones on both sides. The Russians are now widely using fiber optic drones with a reported range of 10km to effectively counter the electronic jamming. Regardless, drones in this war have been the machine guns of WWI.
Bkmk
Significant wear... Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that as well.
However, if you are environmentally aware, you will want your gun barrels to be easily recycled along with your armor plates... to save the Okinawan flitting sea crabs delicate habitat.
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