Sometimes a “good enough” military technology can achieve victory over better military technologies. Such a fact probably gave very little comfort to the five-man crews of U.S. Sherman tanks who faced an uphill battle against more powerful German tanks during World War II. British tank crews gave Sherman tanks the unflattering nickname “Ronson” — a grim reference to the Ronson cigarette lighter’s ad slogan “lights first every time” and the unfortunate fact that Sherman tanks often burned after taking just one hit. But that did not stop the U.S. from supplying tens of thousands of Sherman tanks to U.S., British, Canadian and other Allied forces, tipping the scales against the smaller numbers of elite German tanks on World War II battlefields.
The armchair historian debate over the Sherman’s war legacy could blaze up once more with the new war film “Fury”, starring actor Brad Pitt as a U.S. tank commander leading a five-man Sherman crew deep within Germany in the closing days of World War II. Some historians and military history enthusiasts still scoff at the capabilities of Sherman tanks when compared with the German Panther and Tiger tanks that carried both more armor and more firepower. But the U.S. strategy of mass-producing a reliable tank in large numbers should not be underestimated, according to the book “Armored Thunderbolt: The U.S. Army Sherman in World War II” by Steven Zaloga, a military historian and senior analyst at the Teal Group Corporation. The tale of the Sherman tank’s road to victory represents a history lesson with implications for the future of warfare.
“In battle, quantity has a quality all its own,” Zaloga writes. “Warfare in the industrial age requires a careful balance between quality and quantity.”
“Overwhelming adversaries through greater numbers is a viable strategy for technology competition, and was used successfully by the United States in World War II,” writes Paul Scharre, a fellow at CNAS, in a preview for the new report titled “Robotics on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm.” ( http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNAS_TheComingSwarm_Scharre.pdf )
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2014/10/16/good-enough-us-tanks-won-wwii/#5465
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday November 13 2014, @07:09AM
The Soviet Union used the same tactic in the Cold War. They couldn't meet American technical superiority so they designed military equipment that was less complicated and simpler to make, allowing them to make more of them. Witness the MiG-21, a fast, maneuverable fighter jet but when the Israelis first got their hands on one courtesy of an Iraqi defector in the 1960's, they were surprised at its lack of fit and finish, yet it was very deadly in the right hands as the North Vietnamese proved a few years later to the detriment of U.S. Navy carrier pilots.
The AK-47 might also be considered another example of this tactic. Small number of parts, does not require very high machine tooling in its manufacture, and it'll still works when incredibly filthy. And as we know, the AK-47 is the most popular military weapon in existence.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by monster on Thursday November 13 2014, @04:12PM
Not only in the Cold War. In WWII the T34 [wikipedia.org] started as a better tank than its german counterparts (Panzer II and III) but even after the more powerful Panzer IV and V were introduced, it continued to tip the scales with its low maintenance, decent speed and great numbers. Even when the improved armor of the newer Panzers made attacking them really dangerous, the sheer volume of T34s in the offensives made the superior german tanks unable to stop them. When a better heavy tank appeared (the IS-2 [wikipedia.org] or Iosif Stalin Tank) it was more of a specialized unit than the workhorse of the army.
Anyway, both the T34 and the Sherman had been designed that way on purpose. As the Wikipedia entry puts:
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Thursday November 13 2014, @05:51PM
This theory of war focuses the rhetoric on equipment. There is a another, succinct encapsulation from the English language:
"Cannon Fodder".
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday November 13 2014, @06:44PM
I thought about writing about the T34 tank but when I think of military equipment meant to be used on the ground what I marvel at is the fact that Soviet equipment, both weapons and vehicles, were designed to operate in the Russian winter. Unfortunately for the Germans, theirs didn't, and history recorded the result.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @07:18AM
The problem is: If you plan to outnumber your enemy with robots that have a higher per-unit cost than your enemy's entire army, you might run into funding issues.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday November 13 2014, @07:47AM
We're printing the bills as fast as we can, sir!
Here are some dies. Make a couple hundred of these coins by 5.
But these are for a billion dollar coin!
Fine. Make a couple thousand.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @09:04AM
The humans will always win, because the generals will just send wave after wave of their men against the robots until they reach their preset kill limits, and shut down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @04:51PM
overflowed int?
(Score: 3, Funny) by M. Baranczak on Thursday November 13 2014, @06:33PM
Yeah, the evil robot lord thought he could do it on the cheap, and used the free trial version.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @02:00PM
I think that's kind of the point. They're basically saying the US/allied strategy in WWII was a zerg rush. Germany only had a population of ~40M. The US population was ~130M. We threw a bunch of cheap, lower tech, lower strength forces at their limited, higher tech forces, and buried them under a wall of manpower.
Now, the US is on the other side, trying to use tech and money to counter numbers.
(Score: 1) by spamdog on Thursday November 13 2014, @07:32AM
If I recall correctly, this was a quote by Stalin, regarding the t-34 tank.
Possibly an apocryphal story.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 13 2014, @08:41AM
No it was Stalin with the T-34. he also said the IL2 was as important as air and bread (in his threat to deal with the manufacturers who were following behind) because of how well it worked at the front. It was cheap, easy to fix, and hard to destroy, just like the T-34.
I would argue the USA is following Germany of WWII while Russia and China are following the old Soviet/American model which is a BAD idea for the USA. Instead of building "good enough" fighters that can employ the latest tech like the F-15 Stealth Eagle we are blowing boatloads on "wonder weapons" that suffer the exact same problems the Germans had with the ME262, the Panther, King Tiger, etc in that they are 1.- Extremely expensive which means, 2.- They will always be in VERY short supply, which means 3.- Parts will quickly become an issue and 4.- Maintenance will be a serious issue which adds 5.- longer downtime and shorter time in service and of course 6.- keeping it functioning even at current levels will be harder as the old gear wears out without replacement and 7.- The enemy will be able to put out dozens for every one of yours.
You would be hard pressed to find anybody who knows tanks who would say the Tiger wasn't superior to the Sherman across the board, why did it lose? because there was 25 Shermans for every single Tiger, simple as that. With those kind of odds no matter how advanced your tech is YOU ARE FUCKED. Well what about now? The F35 if everything goes perfectly (highly unlikely considering how many setbacks its had) will cost $142 million a pop for the first run, this pares up with the F22 which ended up costing $150 mil a pop...how many of the F22 did we finally end up with? 187...that's it, 187 planes for a program that cost 66.7 BILLION dollars. Now lets look at the only other countries roughly our level, Russia? Mig29 cost 29 million and they got at LEAST 1600 of those. Their stealth fighter? 50 million a pop, so they can have nearly 4 for every 1 of ours. China? Just use Russian numbers as most of their fighters are tweaks of Soviet/Russian tech, so they will likewise be able to put up dozens to 1.
Of course all this ignores the giant elephant rotting on the coffee table which is it is all pointless as the ONLY countries we will be fighting in the future will be the skill level of an NK or one of the African tribals so all this high tech wonder weapons are nothing but worthless circle jerks to keep the MOC will fed and fat, why? Because everybody with the ability to design anything where we would NEED a high tech weapon HAS NUKES and that ends the chance of anything other than backward ass proxy wars ala Vietnam. I mean can you imagine America using a stealth plane to attack Russia or China? You'd end up with cities like LA ending up craters so nobody is gonna do that, no chance in hell. Like it or not I would argue that the MAD theory is the most perfect elegant thing devised by man. After all you'll never have another WWII with huge technological equal countries like the USA and Russia, why? Because the second one of them was at real risk of losing the missiles would fly, that's why! Hell it even works for smaller fry like India and Pakistan, neither will do more than minor border clashes for fear the bombs will fall, its bloody brilliant!
If we would invest in affordable weapons we'd at least have a use for those, look at how well the F15,F16, and F18 have worked out, instead we waste billions on lame ducks like F35 which will NEVER be used against a country with enough tech to make those features useful! Oh and before somebody brings up using the F117 and B2 in desert storm? That was a joke, an excuse to find a use for the things because then as now sat images let us know to the foot where every target of interest was, a handful of cruise missiles that together were a couple times cheaper than a single F17 could have disabled every radar installation of any note and left us rulers of the sky. Instead like the F22 what you'll end up with is the stupid thing being trotted out once or twice to blow up some goat herders with AKs before it ends up in a museum, just another billion dollar boondoggle.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @01:14PM
Forgive me, sir, if I don't subscribe to your theory that there will not be armed conflict in the future. A quick glance back at both the history and the present seems to indicate that armed conflict occurs frequently (if not constantly) in human history.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Thursday November 13 2014, @02:59PM
Utter nonsense. Most military historians make fun of the Tiger for being too heavy and having low mobility[*]. Unquestionably the Sherman did have far better reliability and fine mobility. The Tiger outclassed it in hitting power and armor; simple as that. The tradeoff was that they were never able to produce more than a pitiful number of them. In battle the Tiger was in fact defeated by Shermans on numerous occasions. Maybe it took 4-6 Shermans maneuvering in concert against a single Tiger for the ambush. So what; there were plenty of them.
But the mission of the tank in the US Army at the time was not considered to be dueling with enemy tanks, but infantry support, and it was extremely good in that role. For defeating enemy tanks there were anti-tank guns and tank destroyers. The US 90 mm and the British 17 pounder anti-tank guns were very capable of dealing with Tigers.
The tank destroyers had very thin armor, but fully capable gunnery (much more suitable than the Sherman's for killing heavy tanks), and were fast and maneuverable as hell.
By spring 1945 the US and Britain were bringing on line heavy tanks that could duel with the Tiger on equal or superior terms. So it isn't that we couldn't produce them; they just weren't considered a priority, and the destruction of the Wehrmacht in France proved the decision making to have been very effective.
Essentially all the German, as well as US and British tanks used GASOLINE. Certainly the Tiger did. As such, if you hit any of them in the fuel tank they would burn. Duh. And one man with a cheap bazooka or Panzerfaust who got close enough could knock out any of them with one shot. And the armor on the underbelly and the roof was practically paper thin on all tanks. Mines and air attacks decimated tanks including Tigers.
The Russian T-34 used DIESEL FUEL and as such was a little harder, though hardly impossible, to set afire. But more importantly it had the reliability, mobility and production of the Sherman while being more than a match for anything but a Tiger.
[*] This is the consensus, but it is rather trite and silly. Nobody ever ridicules the US M-1, and it is heavier than the Tiger. (Looking at the M-1's battle record you would have to be stupid to criticize it.) As for mobility, yes, a lot of bridges could not support the Tiger and that was a limitation (which the excellent Panther medium tank addressed). The intention was for the Tiger to be able to ford a stream completely submerged except for a snorkel, and that capability was developed and tested. In the event it doesn't seem to have been enough of a problem that the Germans ever bothered to actually utilize this capability in the field.
As for cross-country speed and grade climbing, the Tiger was hardly the helpless slug that many picture it as. Nor was the ground pressure unduly high; it had wide tracks.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday November 13 2014, @10:45PM
DaFuq? If you consider losing a dozen Shermans to take down a single Tiger a "success" I'm sure fucking glad your ass is just an armchair general! The Germans nicknamed the Sherman the "Ronson" because it would erupt in a fireball on the first hit. And you can't seriously be bringing up the hellcat, can you? The TD that the military brass fought like hell to NOT deploy and which were always in such short supply as to be a non issue? Look up "Killer Tanks The Sherman" or frankly any other major documentary on allied tanks of the western front and you'll find the brass did NOT want to field anything but the Sherman which was getting bitchslapped by the Tiger because they had cranked out so many of the things that the Stalin quote applied!
I'll never forget a quote in killer tanks from a PAK-88 commander in Italy who had set up a perfect killbox on a hill where the Shermans had to go single file. It was perfect, he could hit them, they couldn't hit him, and the road was so narrow they had nowhere to dodge, it was a slaughter ...he ended up having to retreat, why? "I ran out of rounds before the Americans ran out of Shermans" simple as that. Like it or not the Americans won because the Germans couldn't affect our manufacturing, we could crank out 25 to 1 and most of our parts were interchangeable while nearly everything they had was incompatible, but as far as quality and firepower on the ground? The Americans blew ass, a Sherman would have difficulty taking out a STUG or Panzer 4 from 42, much less anything they were fielding by 44. The western front if it proved anything was that control of the air trumps everything as even our grasshoppers had bazooka mounts and could take out tanks while BF109 and FW190s were getting eaten alive by the Thunderbolts and the Mustangs. If you would have taken airpower out of the equation? You probably would have had a different story on BOTH fronts, which is why Stalin threatened to have the ones making the IL2 shot for falling behind.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 14 2014, @03:18AM
If you consider losing a dozen Shermans to take down a single Tiger a "success" I'm sure fucking glad your ass is just an armchair general!
Please cite the after action reports where such a thing happened? You won't because you can't because that never happened. Tigers were always too few and too mechanically unreliable to be anything more than an inconvenience.
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/91572-us-guns-german-armor-pt-2/ [worldoftanks.com]
The Germans nicknamed the Sherman the "Ronson" because it would erupt in a fireball on the first hit.
Wrong again. Early dry ammo Shermans that stored ammo in the sponsons burned about 80% of the time when penetrated. German tanks like the PzIII and PzIV burned about...80% of the time when penetrated, exactly the same.
Once wet storage was introduced the chance of fire when hit went down to 10-15%. A wet ammo rack Sherman was the least likely tank of WWII to burn. Also, it was common practice to shoot a knocked out tank until it caught fire, since a burned out tank could not be repaired. Another issue that caused a large number of fires was British crews stuffing main gun and machinegun ammunition anywhere and everywhere it would fit in the interior of the tank. Once this stopped the number of fires went down considerably.
References to "Ronson" don't appear until well after the war. The "Zippo" was a flamethrower variant of the Sherman so there were lighter references during the war in regards to those tanks.
Stop watching History/Discovery/TLC documentaries. Their primary function is to protect the commercials from smacking into each other.
I'll never forget a quote in killer tanks from a PAK-88 commander in Italy who had set up a perfect killbox on a hill where the Shermans had to go single file. It was perfect, he could hit them, they couldn't hit him, and the road was so narrow they had nowhere to dodge, it was a slaughter ...he ended up having to retreat, why? "I ran out of rounds before the Americans ran out of Shermans" simple as that.
No, he ran out of rounds because US air power had cut off resupply in Italy by bombing bridges and anything that moved on the roads. Airpower in WWII was VERY ineffective at taking out frontline troops. Taking out trucks, trains and the like, it was VERY effective. Also, he had probably been spotted and withdrew before the Americans had ranged in sent him a 75mm or 105mm shell to the face. AP looses effectiveness with range, HE does not. Even a near miss with a 75mm shell is enough to take out a PAK
ANYTHING well into the 50s could be penetrated by the Pak 43. It wouldn't have mattered what the tank crews were driving. Italy was very tank unfriendly country.
The Americans blew ass, a Sherman would have difficulty taking out a STUG or Panzer 4 from 42, much less anything they were fielding by 44.
Seriously, STOP WATCHING HISTORY CHANNEL. The Sherman was more than a match for a Stug or a PzIV and the Panzers and Tigers were too rare and too mechanically unreliable to be significant. Hell, the Germans were terrified of the M3 Lee, a stopgap design, when it first appeared in 1942. Its armor was invulnerable to German shells at ranges where the M3s 75mm could easily kill German tanks and AT guns, thanks to it firing both a good AP and HE shell.
There is more to tank design than a big gun and thick armor. The biggest thing that determined who won a tank engagement, which were rare in the first place as 75% of the rounds fired by Shermans were HE for dealing with infantry, was who got off the first shot and got the first hit. The Sherman outclassed EVERYTHING the Germans fielded in this regard. The gunner had both a wide angle search periscope as well as his magnified scope, meaning the gunner had great situational awareness and could quickly bring the gun to bear on target. The gunner in the Panther by contrast had to be walked onto the target by the commander as he only had the magnified sight. The Panther gunner didn't even have a brow pad so couldn't even begin to aim the gun until the tank had come to a stop. The Sherman had a brow pad for the gunner so the gun could be roughly laid in before the tank had even stopped. Also, what is the only WWII tank that came with a vertical stabilizer as STANDARD equipment? The Sherman. Granted it didn't allow for firing on the move, didn't always work well, and was more for allowing the gunner to get the gun roughly aimed while still moving, but it still had one and it was a technological marvel for its day.
You know less than nothing when it comes to tank design and how they were used and performed in WWII.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @11:36PM
The Bf 109 was well-respected and built in significant enough numbers to be very useful.
The Me 262 was 100mph faster than anything else in service.
The say that it was respected would be an understatement.
The problem with the 262 was that everything that was German and able to fly was viewed by Hitler as a vengeance weapon (a bomb delivery platform).
Now, if you meant the Me 163, yeah.
Something with 10 minutes worth of very human-hostile fuel was not an effective weapon.
(The Allies learned to avoid them till they were low on fuel then follow them home and shoot them as they landed.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 13 2014, @07:40AM
And then there is Agincourt [wikipedia.org] where somewhere around 5000 english defeated somewhere around 25000 french because of one single superior weapon, the long bow, and the tactics to wield it.
The french, by most accounts, lost well over half their force, the english 112.
The US Army thinks the M1A1 Abrams tank is obsolete. They are moving on [about.com].
Every other country except the British would give their right arm for a hundred of M1A1s.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Thursday November 13 2014, @08:53AM
If we're getting tanks I'd prefer my country to get T-90 tanks than M1A1 tanks: http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/what-america-can-learn-from-russias-cheap-but-deadly-t-1540829820 [jalopnik.com]
And spend some of the difference in cost on equipping soldiers better so that they can destroy/disable enemy tanks/helis and soldiers more easily.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday November 13 2014, @10:17AM
The main advantage of the longbow at Azincourt was its range. The British had more bowmen than the French had crossbowmen, and they had a big range advantage. There's still a big military advantage in being able to shoot your enemy when they can't shoot you - that's the entire point of drones.
I'm a bit surprised that anyone thinks this is news though. My history classes at school discussed this in the mid '90s: mass production was a key factor in both the first and second world wars.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by monster on Thursday November 13 2014, @04:27PM
The main burden for the french in Agincourt was one of hubris: They even slaughtered their own (mercenary) crossbowmen when they saw them disengaging after heavy losses*, FFS. Then, they charged through bad terrain and got trapped in the mud. It was much more of a collection of bad tactical decisions than about superiority of longbows.
(*) The decision to attack was so rushed that the crossbowmen weren't even given time to get their pavises from the baggage carts, leaving them unprotected to longbow shots.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday November 13 2014, @11:08AM
The weapon had little to do with it. It's true that the longbow was capable of penetrating plate that would resist shots from the more common smaller self bows, but the crossbow would have done the job as well, and the French had plenty of them available (though they did not deploy them effectively.)
The reason the French got slaughtered at Agincourt is that they charged in heavy armor against a prepared opponent at a natural chokepoint where their superior numbers could not be brought to bear, across a recently plowed field, after a rain. Many of them probably suffocated after falling in the muck and being trampled by their fellows, without any English weapon ever touching them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 13 2014, @05:53PM
So you say. My references say differently.
The Long Bow had 4 times the rate of fire, well over three times the range, shot a heavier projectile with greater striking power.
Almost all of the french casualties were outright KIA with arrows sticking out of their breast armor. Actual english KIA was less than 54, with again that many dying of wounds days or weeks later. Most of those lance or sword wounds while defending the couple places the french got close.
The french never did have a good idea of the size of the english forces, and assumed a much larger army.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday November 13 2014, @08:47PM
Sounds about right. It had roughly the same range and power of a crossbow, but a much higher rate of fire.
It also required a highly skilled archer, of which there were a very limited supply.
"well over three times the range"
What? Negative, sir, check your sources on that. Medieval crossbows were effective at ranges equal to and sometimes greater than the longbow.
"Almost all of the french casualties were outright KIA with arrows sticking out of their breast armor."
Citation needed.
IIRC most of the French casualties fell on the line in the melee, facing English men-at arms along a prepared line, with the longbowmen once the enemy reached the line often dropping their bows and charging in from the flanks with their poignards to dispatch French heavies that were already disabled, sunk into the mud or simply exhausted (and packed too tight to maneuver.)
You might find this interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVuVtP_xepU
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday November 13 2014, @09:02PM
IIRC most of the French casualties fell on the line in the melee
You don't recall correctly.
There was no general melee, just some vary limited ones near the flanks.
This is because the bowmen stood behind row upon row of pointed stakes driven into the ground at angles to prevent mounted or even dismounted troops from approaching. Attackers were cut down in a prolonged fusillade of arrows.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday November 14 2014, @02:28AM
From the wikipedia article you cited above:
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by novak on Thursday November 13 2014, @08:13AM
The actual tactic was for a pair of sherman tanks to distract an enemy tank while another three went around behind and took it out. Given the relative guns and armor, sherman tanks were effective at less than half the range of most German tanks, especially against the front armor.
That being said, there's a lot more in a war than a row of tanks. By the time that the Germans had any real army fighting the Americans on the ground, the Allies had complete air superiority and had already bombed most places into total rubble. (In North Africa Rommel had lost so many tanks that by the time the Americans entered 90% of his tanks were captured Allied weapons) There was nothing like the close support for todays troops, with most missions being flown from so far away that they required fighters to carry external fuel tanks, but the destruction was unparalleled by today's (only comparatively) more restrained standards of warfare.
novak
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday November 13 2014, @10:58AM
That tactic worked in some cases, though obviously it required a lot of advantages (5 tanks to 1, with that 1 somehow cut off from support already.)
So how did they get in the position to do that? The story I was told was that it really had a lot to do with maintenance. The German tanks were far superior under optimal conditions, but required specialists to keep operating. The Sherman was something that a farm kid with a knack for mechanics and a little experience with a tractor could keep running. So what they did was avoid confronting enemy armor at first, bypassing their positions, even running away. After so many miles of chasing, the Panzers would have to stop and try to get support crews out, or run increasing risk of breakdowns. A broken down tank waiting for repairs can then be doubled-back on, surrounded, and destroyed much more easily.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Thursday November 13 2014, @08:19AM
Good enough tanks that won the WWII? I tought this would be an article about the Russian T34. That propably is the epitome of "good enough" in design during WWII.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Thursday November 13 2014, @02:27PM
"Good enough" suggests only sufficient, not the incredible game changer the T34 was when introduced.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday November 13 2014, @04:57PM
It only was between 1941 and 1943 that the T-34 was a game changer, the T-34/Model 1940 was only "good enough" and the same also applies to T-34s overall efter 1943 (the rest of the world caught up, but it still remained a good enough tank for its cost)..
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pav on Thursday November 13 2014, @08:23AM
Salesmanship vs utility... sound familiar in IT somehow. The USA likes its superweapons, but of course reality often doesn't match the public perception... I can't help thinking that nepotism in politics isn't helping. The Bradley [youtube.com] was an early example of a weapons system trying to solve too many problems - (watch the linked video... a design process literally worthy of comedy). Since the Bradley these kinds of problems haven't [defenseone.com] gone [youtube.com] away [youtube.com]. Unfortunately the USA's enemies have largely nullified it's truly superior weapons eg. Chinas balistic carrier killers [wikipedia.org] and Russias not-so-new RPG-29's [wikipedia.org] - Washington begged Russia to keep them out of the Iraq theatre.
(Score: 2) by Ellis D. Tripp on Thursday November 13 2014, @11:51AM
today in the US, where we no longer have the industrial base that was responsible for turning out those tanks, planes, ships, etc. that won WW2.
We don't make things anymore. We are trying to run an economy based on selling each other insurance and web services....
"Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!"--Edward Abbey
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @03:26PM
That is just plainly wrong. We have increased industrial output and still are a world leader in heavy industry exports, the sort we are talking about here. What we don't do anymore is make a significant amount of consumer goods. The industrial decline is not in output or ability, which are both rising, but in employment. We simply need less people to do those jobs as automation and superior process efficiency is rising, generally outpacing every other nation.
(Score: 2, Informative) by WillAdams on Thursday November 13 2014, @01:52PM
The allies had to puzzle out how many German tanks were being produced so as to know whether or no they could overwhelm them numerically:
http://www.wired.com/2010/10/how-the-allies-used-math-against-german-tanks/ [wired.com]
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Thursday November 13 2014, @01:57PM
And ask the Germans how those big tanks worked in the dense Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge. And about all that fuel they used.
The US also had antitank weapons, from self-propelled antitank guns to bazookas. It wasn't just Sherman tanks.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by fnj on Thursday November 13 2014, @03:12PM
And don't forget about the air power that finally came out when the weather broke. They chewed through the Germans like butter. Even the Tiger was hardly better than a matchbox with a legend "hit here to destroy" painted on the thin roof. With 7 inches of armor on the front, it still had only 1"-1.6" on the roof.
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Thursday November 13 2014, @02:06PM
The U.S. GDP: 16.8 trillion USD (2013) population 316.1 million
Russian GDP: 2.09678 trillion USD (2013) population 143.5 million
We can outspend over 4 for 1 while maintaining the same proportion to maintain the population (as Russia) --- wouldn't be popular, but I grew up on stories of ration cards &c. in WWII.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Thursday November 13 2014, @03:21PM
U.S. debt as % of U.S. GDP: 72.5
Russia debt as % of Russian GDP: 12.2
Not to mention things cost only a fraction as much in Russia. We can't outproduce SHIT. Hell, if China shut down exports we couldn't produce any weapons at all. Where do you think everything from uniforms to flags to electronic parts to steel comes from?
This isn't 1945. Hell son, it isn't even 1980.
(Score: 1) by WillAdams on Thursday November 13 2014, @04:00PM
The debt thing is a good point, but isn't most U.S. debt held by the Social Security Administration? Couldn't we count on any countries which hold debt as dependable allies?
U.S. does produce a fair bit of goods even now --- there are still a number of firearms produced in the U.S. --- have to be 'cause of import restrictions. ``Gun production in US sets new record with 30 percent increase... more than 8.5 million guns were produced in 2012, compared to about 6.5 million in 2011'' http://rt.com/usa/gun-production-us-hits-record-150/ [rt.com]
Steel production: ``week ending November 8, 2014, domestic raw steel production was 1,839,000 net tons while the capability utilization rate was 76.5 percent.'' http://www.steel.org/About%20AISI/Statistics.aspx [steel.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 13 2014, @04:56PM
but isn't most U.S. debt held by the Social Security Administration?
That figure is for publicly held debt, not imaginary debt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 13 2014, @05:06PM
It is not imaginary. US has "reinvested" the social security payments into general budget. That's where you have all these trillions (about 8-ish) of debt come from.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Friday November 14 2014, @04:53AM
This is an excellent discussion such as you never see anywhere else. It turns out that of the 17.6 trillion total, 5.06 trillion is in intragovernmental holdings, and the remaining 12.57 trillion is public debt.
Of the public debt, 5.95 trillion of it is held by foreign entites, 2.39 trillion is owned by the Federal Reserve, 0.79 trillion by state and local government, 1.1 trillion by mutual funds, 0.52 trillion by private pension funds, 0.37 trillion by banks, 0.27 trillion by insurance companies, 0.18 trillion by suckers holding the farcical US Savings Bonds, and the remaining 1.09 trillion by "others": individuals etc.
Source: Who Owns the U.S. National Debt? [about.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 14 2014, @05:25AM
It is not imaginary. US has "reinvested" the social security payments into general budget.
I couldn't help but notice the scare quotes on "reinvested". While I think that particular defense is rhetorically self-defeating (due to the vast and astounding ability of the US government to squander "reinvestment"), it turns out to be irrelevant to how Social Security actually operates.
What makes the debt imaginary is that the US doesn't have to honor it nor does that debt have anything to do with how Social Security or the US's bureaucracy operate. For the former observation, Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program that taps the US general fund to handle surpluses and deficits of Social Security. US Congress could explicitly restructure the entire program as such tomorrow, zeroing out the Social Security debt while doing so, without actually changing a thing.
For the latter, it doesn't matter if the US government owes Social Security nothing or a quadrillion dollars. Social Security has the same obligations no matter what games are played with the accounting books or how big the resulting numbers are.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday November 14 2014, @07:11AM
You're not seeing the full picture. Most of the US debt is in US dollars. Is Russia's debt mostly in russian rubles? Seems not: http://www.cbr.ru/eng/statistics/print.aspx?file=credit_statistics/debt_currency-compos_e.htm&pid=svs&sid=ITM_37529 [www.cbr.ru]
Who could possibly create huge amounts of US dollars if they need to? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-data-compiled-by-bloomberg-released-to-public.html [bloomberg.com]
Not the Russians.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar [wikipedia.org]
If one day people preferred to trade stuff in another currency it will be much harder for the USA. But till then, the US can print its way out of economic problems - whenever they create dollars they transfer wealth from other countries that have positive amounts of US dollars.
When China sells their stuff to the USA they get lots of US dollars and having no easy place to put them, they promptly lend large amounts back to the USA. They are trying to buy stuff. But it's not so easy to buy stuff at those magnitudes: http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1879866,00.html [time.com]
The US can make stuff if it has to - some manufacturing has come back onshore (but due to automation, often not many jobs are created). A significant proportion of Toyota cars are made in the USA.
The problem is the US is making super expensive low bang for the buck stuff like the F35. There are plenty of other signs are those in power are not interested in actual military effectiveness and more interested in other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002#Aftermath [wikipedia.org]
The US should be making stuff that would be more effective in the real world: http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/what-america-can-learn-from-russias-cheap-but-deadly-t-1540829820 [jalopnik.com]
The parasitic load has become too high? ;)
(Score: 2) by kbahey on Thursday November 13 2014, @03:25PM
There is a documentary from the Genius of Design series, called Blueprints for War [youtube.com] that discusses how cheaper faster produced tanks won over better more expensive German tanks. Worth watching.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning [2bits.com].
(Score: 2) by MozeeToby on Thursday November 13 2014, @06:27PM
There's also a very nice short story [wikipedia.org] that used to be required reading at at least one of USA's military colleges.