In this modern technological era spawned by the silicon chip, naval surface combatants, land armored vehicles and helicopters over the battlefield are obsolete death traps. Many will die before the “battleship Admirals” and the “cavalry generals” recognize the new realities.
Exactly what I was going to post.
Surface ships have to operate thousands of miles away from anything and stay very mobile and stealthy to survive.
Maybe a roll for very very small fast and stealthy vessels.
Tanks are tombs. Or turtles.
“In this modern technological era spawned by the silicon chip, naval surface combatants, land armored vehicles and helicopters over the battlefield are obsolete death traps. “
People have been predicting the last days of helicopters, tanks, aircraft carriers, etc. since forever. There’s a constant battle between offence, defense, tactics, and every element on the battlefield. For the most part weapons systems don’t go obsolete. What happens is the tactics they are used by evolve. Russian tanks took a beating because they sent them into the attack without a screen of infantry. As for things like drones attacking tanks, the tanks will be evolved with active protection systems to shoot down the drones. As for the vulnerability of ships the US navy is evolving what they call distributed systems to provide defense and offense in depth. In other words, the ship will be surrounded by a swarm of smaller elements that can help defend it or press the attack while leaving the ship out of range or offensive systems.
After I left my final job, I wrote a proposal for a system of swarm drones to protect people and installations from the type of attacks we see in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the California startup that had the technology we needed was funded by CCP princes. The companies I was working with and I had to drop it as the technology wasn’t available anywhere else. Had it worked when a drone swarm was sighted a counter swarm would have attacked them using echo-location. It was a real reach technologically speaking but if it had worked it would provide an effective counter to the threats we see today. The battlefield evolves.
Surface combatants of any type, including individual soldiers, are generally going to be hosed, unless effective anti-drone defenses are devised...