Myths pertaining to your counties Military, and its capabilities.
- Thread starter Zachowon
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CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Wait, what? I thought most people thought the US Armed Forces were overfunded and that money should go to welfare
In the military in in pop culture the Marines are treated as the elite of the normal military and are underfunded but get the job done with old equipment
Lanmandragon
Well-known member
Define "most" because the "MSM" doesn't actually represent what Americans want.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Which considering how they want it do the same amount of missions it did in the cold war(if not more) with a fraction of the GDP being spent on it shows quite frankly how our country really could do with everyone learning a lot more about both international affairs and how thin the US armed forces are actually spread and how much the DOD's budget should be based on its missions. That would really pressure the politicians to pressure our allies to pull their weight in defence spending and activity
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The US Marines are... an interesting... story in terms of equipment. Then again they originally started out as the guys that keep the sailors in line and participate in boarding actions.
Now, the thing about the US Marines is that for most of its lifespan, it was simply the above with some naval assault bits. After WW1 though... naval assault changed significantly, requiring modern equipment. But the US military has this nasty song and dance that it repeated endured during its life until the Cold War: Congress will constantly starve the US military of funds. The usual thing that happened with any modernization or budget increases is that the Marines didn't get a lot of the cash because they're there for ship/base security and the occasional naval landing at best.
That changed during WW2 where tanks are a requirement for anyone that is going to be slugging it out on solid ground, and the first tanks the Marines got were M2s (which are MG-a-Palooza because most of the tankers wanted to stuff as many machineguns as possible into a design when only three or four are enough) and like the US Army were saddled with them, but for slightly longer due to the fact that getting the M4 able to naval assault was actually harder than it initially looked...
... the thing is, a lot of the problems with the US military can be easily summed up as 'Congress was screwing over the US military, again'.
Now, the thing about the US Marines is that for most of its lifespan, it was simply the above with some naval assault bits. After WW1 though... naval assault changed significantly, requiring modern equipment. But the US military has this nasty song and dance that it repeated endured during its life until the Cold War: Congress will constantly starve the US military of funds. The usual thing that happened with any modernization or budget increases is that the Marines didn't get a lot of the cash because they're there for ship/base security and the occasional naval landing at best.
That changed during WW2 where tanks are a requirement for anyone that is going to be slugging it out on solid ground, and the first tanks the Marines got were M2s (which are MG-a-Palooza because most of the tankers wanted to stuff as many machineguns as possible into a design when only three or four are enough) and like the US Army were saddled with them, but for slightly longer due to the fact that getting the M4 able to naval assault was actually harder than it initially looked...
... the thing is, a lot of the problems with the US military can be easily summed up as 'Congress was screwing over the US military, again'.
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
Marines first wave, Army ferried in once the beachhead is up?
There is a thread on it actually...
I think it was 25 miles to 52 miles inland
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
I wouldn't see that, given that the army is kind of... slow... to mobilize. The only reason that they've even posted that is some bulb in the top brass is saying things for the budget meetings (which, in all honesty, Congress is going back to its old ways in terms of treatment of the military).
They are getting rid of thier heavy armor in place of more Amphibious vehicles.
And no the Army is not slow to mobilize...
We just take our time unless it is an emergency.
As seen months ago when the 82nd was deployed to the Iraq embassy
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
And moving equipment(which is far harder to move rapidly in sufficient quantities as compared to people ) rapidly is why we have the Maritime Prepostioning Ships in Crete, Diego Garcia , and Guam
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Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The thing is, they'll be needing that heavy armor because establishing a beachhead will need heavy defenses to prevent a counterattack pushing the beachhead back to the sea. If anything, the military needs a bigger budget than anything else... but given that people don't want the American Guarantee of Free Trade (or else) anymore...
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
Not the Marine's job. If they establish the beachhead to the point it's a counterattack, then you have Army landers coming as reinforcements. And the need of it for establishing the beachhead is better served by naval artillery and carrier air support, which both add to the defense of the beachhead just as well, the logistics hell of amphibious assaults using tanks is not worth it anymore.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Not really, given the circumstances. ATGMs are becoming more and more useless as an anti-tank (let alone antivehicle) weapon with the proliferation of ADS (both soft- and hard-kill systems) and newer ERA and composite armor systems. So the only real challenger for a counterattack for a beachhead being established is another tank. Add to the fact that IDAS is becoming more and more commonplace and can turn a normally ruinous missile barrage into a rather manageable one (at worst), the only way to do that is basically gun bombardment, which isn't really a thing anymore and especially so after the 8" L/55 autos were retired (and the one attempt to bring it back was deemed a failure), 155mm gun became a flop, and the railgun program has been reduced in funding. The 5" gun isn't as useful even with the ramjet round (which, in all honesty, I haven't heard of being used) given the circumstances.
So, essentially, to penetrate an IDAS of even half-competence, either you'll have to use stealth shells of significant size, railgun shells (of smaller but still significant size), or enough submunitions to literally 'blot out the sun' with contrails and munitions like in the webcomic 6-Commando:
So, yeah, you're going to need tanks to help with the establishment of a beachhead.
They dont think they do, as it is not thier job to provide heavy support worh armor
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Or it's a ye old budgetary bluff and the Marines are trying to get a upgrade from their M1A1 to a more current version, and it said bluff fails...well nothing says that the plan is dead like the Commandant retiring early
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
That isn't the case anymore, they need that heavy armor in a naval assault and beachhead establishment scenario as the infantry-grade options are no longer viable thanks to the proliferation of ADS and composite armor (really the only nations that aren't going for composite/explosive-reactive armor or ADS systems are either too poor to pay (and maintain) for them or North Korea). You are seeing the Marines as they were initially seen but in the meantime forgetting the technological context has vastly changed.
Tanks are now a vital component of any military, and the technological context is starting to shift in such a way that the only thing that can kill a tank is another tank if you need it dead immediately. To say otherwise is a folly at the highest order. As I said here:
You have to take into account the technological context, and with the current technological context being, essentially, 'infantry are becoming only useful in holding ground or annoy vehicles' as armor and APS improves...Not really, given the circumstances. ATGMs are becoming more and more useless as an anti-tank (let alone antivehicle) weapon with the proliferation of ADS (both soft- and hard-kill systems) and newer ERA and composite armor systems. So the only real challenger for a counterattack for a beachhead being established is another tank. Add to the fact that IDAS is becoming more and more commonplace and can turn a normally ruinous missile barrage into a rather manageable one (at worst), the only way to do that is basically gun bombardment, which isn't really a thing anymore and especially so after the 8" L/55 autos were retired (and the one attempt to bring it back was deemed a failure), 155mm gun became a flop, and the railgun program has been reduced in funding. The 5" gun isn't as useful even with the ramjet round (which, in all honesty, I haven't heard of being used) given the circumstances.
So, essentially, to penetrate an IDAS of even half-competence, either you'll have to use stealth shells of significant size, railgun shells (of smaller but still significant size), or enough submunitions to literally 'blot out the sun' with contrails and munitions like in the webcomic 6-Commando:
So, yeah, you're going to need tanks to help with the establishment of a beachhead.
... but going into that would derail this thread and get warnings/points sent out like rain.
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
For a counterattack. As in after the beachhead is established. As in the Army is already being unloaded. With their tanks.
For establishing the beachhead, you want just sheer firepower. Until we miniaturize to 60 ton main battle tanks, they're not worth the space for the initial amphibious assault, and that is all the Marines do. Maybe a dedicated light tank design, as a self-propelled mortar, but definitely not a main battle tank.
And if we're talking a serious offensive where missiles don't work, then this technology will be countered by just resuming the antitank rifle modified as needed to have infantry be throwing the same shells tanks go at each other with.
If that tech comes about, then there's also not much in the way of downsizing the actual warhead of an 8" shell to proven anti-tank functions, and use all the extra space to turn it into a guided and armored projectile to just brute-force past economical active defenses.
The biggest thing behind me dismissing those anti-missile guns is that we can just make a bigger missile they can't break. That fragmenting cluster swarm is a lot of space to bolt on slabs of metal to keep it from being pierced, letting you use just one airgapped guidance system instead of a giant pile of them and save on warhead and electronic costs. Or at least soak fire before fragmenting to buy valuable time. Or just get the anti-tank warhead on target with a breachless rifle, possibly partly rail-accelerated to reach the needed velocity.
The calculus of a projectile is based on the target. If your target is a main battle tank tricked out to the gills, then your price range is millions per unit. How much armor do you think we could throw on a TOW with a doubled per unit price? Five times the price? Twenty? How much can those little impactors deal with, and how does the system scale that? They're a system designed for paper-thin aerodynamic skins, because there's never been a need to armor your missiles before, so no gram is wasted on that. Not hard to double or triple the cost of a missile to give it protection from infantry-level fire like those systems use.
At the very least, you ought to be making that fancy splitting missile a half-dumb drone with targets marked before launch by a hardwire terminal and fully airgapped when actually in use, so there's a use case where the big fancy launch platform is reusable. Micro-bombers, not cluster missiles. Also, the entire point of an automated drone is that you can shut off the recievers from accepting orders until conditions covered by normal operational security are handled, and a failure there means no amount of cyber security will work because they literally have all the procedures to plug in proper orders, no need for hacking... Except for the possibility of mountains of failsafes to hack through to get it to fire on the ideally-visually identified allies, and pointedly not using a wireless IFF in the system to avoid that hack.
Tight-beams that require the signal come from an allied position also greatly complicate hacking, because you have to be between the drone and the base to intercept the signal and then have to send the false signal from the same physical direction as the base, and as a bonus they are much more friendly to being amplified to just brute force through EM interference and sheer distance. You don't know cyber security, because Rule One is don't run wireless and Rule Two is passwords for everything. Specifically because that is basically required for the battlefield hacking you think will get rid of drones. Punch in the numbers on the launcher, it loads into the missile, missile has no signals received while in flight, ideally not even GPS.
Same procedure works for drones of the automated variety, and if their task is just "fly this path and launch missiles at these points", then a cruise missile based drone can throw out mini-missiles from literally opposite directions to add tracking delays to those precious defenses you're hawking about. Same-direction volume of fire to out-dakka a machine gun is the absolute worst way to deal with the problem. Simultaneous multi-direction bombardment, armored projectiles, baffling equipment, the same system but made to shoot the defensive gun on the other tank, lot of shit we could dump into for bypassing with the cost of having enough warheads downrange to just overwhelm the defense. And if it takes naval artillery to have the space by using fully external propulsion, that'll be procured again.
There's a fuck of a lot of ways to try to kill a tank we don't use, because the missiles are currently better. They stop being the best, we start looking at all the stuff we've shelved for not being as good in current conditions and look into making a replacement from them. Pretty damn big log of backups to test, there. If we need to switch to a recoilless rifle to replace the TOW, we'll do it without question. Incindary or explosive granular impactor, perhaps, applying enormous force transfer to very likely get at least partial penetration, then have it ignite to armor-melting temperature or explode inside the spaced and composite armor to completely ruin a massive section of the passive defenses, if not end up fully penetrating and then igniting or detoning inside the vehicle to have a highly likely crew kill or machinery destruction.