Posted on 06/21/2011 12:53:47 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Strategerist: “Or a whole bunch o’ cheap slow, unstealthy missiles that simply overwhelm the maximum engagements the target ship can manage at once.”
Yeah, there definitely is that. That was one of the big fears in the Cold War. Even though we thought our technology was better, the Soviets could theoretically overwhelm us with numbers.
I remember a science fiction short story that was about two planets. One was technically advanced but non-aggressive. The other was relatively primitive but very warlike. The primitive one kept attacking over and over in spite of losses. The technically advanced one kept designing better star ships that took them longer to design and were produced in diminishing numbers. Eventually the advanced race had one star ship that could do nearly everything versus millions upon millions of attacking ships. Yes, the end result was that the advanced race was beaten.
We need to make sure that some nation like the China can’t simply overwhelm us with thousands upon thousands of low tech missiles. They certainly have (or will have) that kind of production capability, and it would be nice not to have to resort to nukes in short order.
Stalin said "quantity has a quality all its own."
When the Navy perfects rail gun technology missiles will be in serious doubt.
Yes but sunburn is a ship launched weapon with a relatively short range.
Quite a lot of basic innacuracy too. Exocet has been out of service with the British for a decade, and sky shadow is a ground bombardment/anti runway weapon, not an antiship missile.
That is a nice idea isnt it?
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.