The US will lose WW3

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > The US will lose WW3

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

atelier morgan posted:

they're not. an ICBM uses about the same delta v you'd need to get to orbit in order to come screaming in on a target at mach gently caress-you on a suborbital trajectory. going into orbit and then coming back down with comparable speeds would take far bigger rockets to use far smaller warheads. this would be made even worse because your deorbit stage needs to have highly stable and thus less efficient fuel (you can't be constantly refueling and refrigerating it), needs to be mechanically and computationally simpler (you can't have ground crews maintaining it all the time) and also can't be in LEO, because LEO satellites degrade a hell of a lot faster than missiles in silos. everyone knows exactly where your dumb missile is at all times, unlike silos and it would be trivially easy for anybody with a satellite in a similar orbit to destroy it unlike if it was in a silo

'rods from god' as a science fiction concept make sense for a fictional society that has industrial capacity in space already or as a terror weapon against a target that has no missile interceptors whatsoever and thus can be casually deorbited at a minimum delta v

there are some icbm designs that orbit before deorbiting to hit their target: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System

And the Chinese probably have built a new one:

quote:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/18/hypersonic-china-missile-nuclear-fobs/

The Chinese now appear to have tested a similar system, although with a modern wrinkle. The Times story says the object entered orbit and completed a full circle around the Earth (approximately 40,000 kilometers, or 25,000 miles). That�s orbital bombardment. We already knew China was working on a system like this�there are a couple of academic papers from Chinese defense universities on the FOBS, and U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall blurted it out in public last month.

The new Chinese version is a little more baroque than the Soviet one because the reentry vehicle is a glider. But this really shouldn�t be shocking. Gliding is a totally normal way to reenter the atmosphere. That�s the whole idea behind space planes. China just launched a reusable space plane, much like the U.S. X-37B or the old NASA Space Shuttle. The technologies demonstrated in that launch and in this one are fundamentally similar. You need a big rocket to boost the thing into orbit, an orbiter with retrorockets to slow it down, and stubby wings so it can glide where it�s going.

In fact, the simplest way to think about China�s orbital bombardment system is to imagine a space shuttle, put a nuclear weapon into the cargo bay, and forget about the landing gear. The Chinese have actually denied that they conducted an orbital bombardment test, saying the United States must be confused by their launch of the space plane in July.

So that�s an FOBS. It�s not new technology, but it is weird. So why is China doing this? For the same reason the Soviet Union did�to defeat U.S. missile defenses.

This isn�t really that complicated. You can�t deter someone from nuking you unless you can nuke them back. Russia and China look at U.S. nuclear forces, which are pretty large and capable, and ask themselves two simple questions: If the Americans hit us with everything they have, how many of our nuclear weapons will survive to retaliate? How many of those will get through U.S. missile defenses? That�s it. If the answer for the foreseeable future is enough, then great. But if it�s not, then Moscow and Beijing have to do something about that.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:04

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# ? May 27, 2024 23:11

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

KomradeX posted:

I guess it'll be one of tbose missions where the player character dies to underscore the drama.

Does COD even do that anymore? Or is suggesting that our Special Operator Death Squads are mortal too anti-American?

The 2022 CoD still did a death fade out scene

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:05

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

KomradeX posted:

Do these people think theres a palce for the AC-130 in a war against China? The plane that only exists to shoot people without AA capabilities

The article explains that, they're going to launch cruise missiles by throwing a pallet of them out of the rear hatch

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:16

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Slavvy posted:

The article explains that, they're going to launch cruise missiles by throwing a pallet of them out of the rear hatch

That sounds very stupid

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:26

Trimson Grondag 3: Jul 1, 2007; Clapping Larry

replace the b1b with c5 galaxies dropping pallet munitions out the back

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:36

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Evil, authoritarian: barrel bombs

Freedom-loving, democratic: pallet bombs

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:38

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

They model these in the PE of CMO (maybe the latest commercial version too?) and they seem useless.

Like MOAB, and the daisy cutter, anything that is delivered by cargo plane implies a permissive environment.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 07:52

Votskomit: Jun 26, 2013

Found an article from 2017

https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/pentagon-study-declares-american-empire-is-collapsing

Some quotes

Nafeez Ahmed posted:

Pentagon study declares American empire is ‘collapsing’
Report demands massive expansion of military-industrial complex to maintain global ‘access to resources’

The solution proposed to protect US power in this new “post-primacy” environment is, however, more of the same: more surveillance, more propaganda (“strategic manipulation of perceptions”) and more military expansionism.
...

Danger comes not just from great power rivals like Russia and China, both portrayed as rapidly growing threats to American interests, but also from the increasing risk of “Arab Spring”-style events. These will erupt not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, potentially undermining trust in incumbent governments for the foreseeable future.

...

The report, based on a year-long intensive research process involving consultation with key agencies across the Department of Defense and US Army, calls for the US government to invest in more surveillance, better propaganda through “strategic manipulation” of public opinion, and a “wider and more flexible” US military.

...
—major rivals like Russia and China, as well as smaller players like Iran and North Korea.

The document is particularly candid in setting out why the US sees these countries as threats—not so much because of tangible military or security issues, but mainly because their pursuit of their own legitimate national interests is, in itself, seen as undermining American dominance.
...
Russia and China are described as “revisionist forces” who benefit from the US-dominated international order, but who dare to “seek a new distribution of power and authority commensurate with their emergence as legitimate rivals to U.S. dominance.” Russia and China, the analysts say, “are engaged in a deliberate program to demonstrate the limits of U.S. authority, will, reach, influence, and impact.”
...
“Wide uncontrolled access to technology that most now take for granted is rapidly undermining prior advantages of discrete, secret, or covert intentions, actions, or operations… In the end, senior defense leaders should assume that all defense-related activity from minor tactical movements to major military operations would occur completely in the open from this point forward.”

This information revolution, in turn, is leading to the “generalized disintegration of traditional authority structures… fueled, and/or accelerated by hyperconnectivity and the obvious decay and potential failure of the post-Cold War status quo.”

...

The US thus must try to minimize any “purposeful, malevolent, or incidental interruption of access to the commons, as well as critical regions, resources, and markets.”

...

In this context, the study’s conclusions are less a reflection of the actual state of the world, than of the way the Pentagon sees itself and the world. Indeed, most telling of all is the document’s utter inability to recognize the role of the Pentagon itself in systematically pursuing a wide range of policies over the last several decades which have contributed directly to the very instability it now wants to defend against.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 09:08

Mister Bates: Aug 4, 2010

atelier morgan posted:

if there was any reason whatsoever to militarize space (beyond what it is already, with imagery and positioning satellites ofc) we would have done it a long time ago, the fact that war in space would be a catastrophe for humanity wouldn't have stopped us

the reason we didn't is its loving stupid there's no point

the US Air Force wanted a manned space program so loving bad and kept pushing for one for decades, including at various times a manned surveillance space station, a mass produced Air Force variant of the Gemini capsule, and an Air Force spaceplane, but were consistently unable to come up with anything in particular for the hypothetical Air Force astronauts to actually do

the Soviets actually did put manned armed spacecraft in orbit a couple of times as an experiment but came to the conclusion that it was stupid and pointless

# ? Nov 8, 2023 16:07

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

KomradeX posted:

I guess it'll be one of tbose missions where the player character dies to underscore the drama.

Does COD even do that anymore? Or is suggesting that our Special Operator Death Squads are mortal too anti-American?

Pretty sure they do that every game.

Hell in Cold War the player characters get killed twice over by Americans.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 16:21

KomradeX: Oct 29, 2011

Lostconfused posted:

Pretty sure they do that every game.

Hell in Cold War the player characters get killed twice over by Americans.

I haven't played a COD game since I pirated Black Ops 2

# ? Nov 8, 2023 16:54

GoLambo: Apr 11, 2006

Just can't stop thinking about those Delta Force guys who decided to just scramble their brains into soup pulling double shifts standing too close to a 6 inch naval gun with a muzzle brake designed to punch your dick off, under a shaded tent with no entrenchment, shooting at max range against some guys who can't even shoot back at half that range.

How the gently caress do you bust your rear end so hard to get into Delta and then just hillbilly yourself to death like that? That literally could have spent that entire time smoking crack instead and have come out healthier.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 16:59

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

GoLambo posted:

How the gently caress do you bust your rear end so hard to get into Delta and then just hillbilly yourself to death like that? That literally could have spent that entire time smoking crack instead and have come out healthier.

The massive Obama-Era book on JSOC, Relentless Strike, points out that before 2002 pretty much nobody did. The special forces community was small, and pretty much ignored by the rest of the military. It ebbed and flowed in pop culture, with The Rock and some other 90's movies bigging it up, but by and large, SOF was not cool enough to justify breaking your body and then just hanging out during the late Cold War and 90's. A lot of the teams were actually secret then too, so they could only recruit from within the military, and it was nobody's dream at enlistment to be an operator.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 17:34

bedpan: Apr 23, 2008

GoLambo posted:

Just can't stop thinking about those Delta Force guys who decided to just scramble their brains into soup pulling double shifts standing too close to a 6 inch naval gun with a muzzle brake designed to punch your dick off, under a shaded tent with no entrenchment, shooting at max range against some guys who can't even shoot back at half that range.

How the gently caress do you bust your rear end so hard to get into Delta and then just hillbilly yourself to death like that? That literally could have spent that entire time smoking crack instead and have come out healthier.

special forces to very special forces pipeline

# ? Nov 8, 2023 17:38

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

KomradeX posted:

I guess it'll be one of tbose missions where the player character dies to underscore the drama.

Does COD even do that anymore? Or is suggesting that our Special Operator Death Squads are mortal too anti-American?

vibe in the latest CoD games is that war is some kind of evil force that is nobodies fault but it keeps happening so America keeps having to kill people, including civilians, domestic or otherwise, and it's very sad but what can you do? It's not like war is a choice.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 17:42

dead gay comedy forums: Oct 21, 2011

quote:

Russia and China are described as �revisionist forces�

what

# ? Nov 8, 2023 17:56

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

dead gay comedy forums posted:

what

Doing anything to change the current world order is revisionism, so ending the US hegemony is revisionism. Just like how ending the British Empire hegemony was revisionism.

It's a dumb word for incredibly stupid people to use.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 17:58

Kassad: Nov 12, 2005; It's about time.

Regarde Aduck posted:

vibe in the latest CoD games is that war is some kind of evil force that is nobodies fault but it keeps happening so America keeps having to kill people, including civilians, domestic or otherwise, and it's very sad but what can you do? It's not like war is a choice.

A bit like how it's very sad that Israel is turning Gaza into rubble but what could they possibly do except kill a bunch of people

# ? Nov 8, 2023 17:58

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Also, timestamp 32:40 vindicates the thread position since last January.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 18:05

Votskomit: Jun 26, 2013

dead gay comedy forums posted:

what

AlexJonesHardcoreTrotskyites.mp4

# ? Nov 8, 2023 18:18

Scarabrae: Oct 7, 2002

Votskomit posted:

AlexJonesHardcoreTrotskyites.mp4

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/jQUiLkmCavk

# ? Nov 8, 2023 18:27

Centrist Committee: Aug 6, 2019

bedpan posted:

special forces to very special forces pipeline

# ? Nov 8, 2023 18:29

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Trabisnikof posted:

not exactly what you meant, but apparently calling tech support lines during combat happens with some frequency

another good sign in the usa military's ability to conduct a war against a peer

Remembering this part of the m777 manual, originally posted by Frosted Flake I think

# ? Nov 8, 2023 18:55

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Yep. Still no replacement either.

That company in Long Island isn't open 24 hours either, so if you're in an inconvenient timezone... good luck.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 19:17

atelier morgan: Mar 11, 2003; super-scientific, ultra-gay; Lipstick Apathy

FuzzySlippers posted:

I'm also pretty doubtful the US is tracking every object every country sends into space carefully, even rivals, when it can't even track who owns all of its defense subcontractors. Every article on space command gives the impression of underfunded chaos trying to do anything at all. Any steady hand on the till ideas about the US military seem outdated.

you don't need to track carefully to see an orbitally stationed icbm it would look nothing at all like anything else in space, except maybe space station modules

Trabisnikof posted:

there are some icbm designs that orbit before deorbiting to hit their target: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment_System

And the Chinese probably have built a new one:

fair enough, though most of my objections go away if its only in orbit for minutes/hours like a normal mission. you can still use better propellant, its too short to be effortless to interdict and doesn't run into the 'how do you maintain your missile in space' issue

# ? Nov 8, 2023 19:31

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

why dont we declare world peace and use the time to put a remote bomb on every object and surface on earth so that when we resume war the artillery guys just need to guess a serial number to blow up instead of shooting things.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 20:23

atelier morgan: Mar 11, 2003; super-scientific, ultra-gay; Lipstick Apathy

Real hurthling! posted:

why dont we declare world peace and use the time to put a remote bomb on every object and surface on earth so that when we resume war the artillery guys just need to guess a serial number to blow up instead of shooting things.

who's we

# ? Nov 8, 2023 20:31

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

sorry, typo. meant to type xi

# ? Nov 8, 2023 20:37

Zeppelin Insanity: Oct 28, 2009; Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

atelier morgan posted:

who's we

the rules based international order

# ? Nov 8, 2023 20:39

skooma512: Feb 8, 2012; You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.

GoLambo posted:

Just can't stop thinking about those Delta Force guys who decided to just scramble their brains into soup pulling double shifts standing too close to a 6 inch naval gun with a muzzle brake designed to punch your dick off, under a shaded tent with no entrenchment, shooting at max range against some guys who can't even shoot back at half that range.

How the gently caress do you bust your rear end so hard to get into Delta and then just hillbilly yourself to death like that? That literally could have spent that entire time smoking crack instead and have come out healthier.

The artillery battery was Marines, supporting Delta Force doing death squad poo poo.

And they certainly do their fair share of illicit stimulants.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 21:13

FrancisFukyomama: Feb 4, 2019

didn�t one of the cods have nazbols take over Russia and they�re the main enemy

# ? Nov 8, 2023 21:17

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

That was call of duty: world war two and it was based on a true story

# ? Nov 8, 2023 21:20

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

FrancisFukyomama posted:

didn�t one of the cods have nazbols take over Russia and they�re the main enemy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXLFtLVaDa8

# ? Nov 8, 2023 21:42

GoLambo: Apr 11, 2006

skooma512 posted:

The artillery battery was Marines, supporting Delta Force doing death squad poo poo.

And they certainly do their fair share of illicit stimulants.

Well I can't exactly come back and say "how could a marine be this stupid" now can I?

# ? Nov 8, 2023 22:19

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/D__Mitch/status/1722165286294483233

Looks kinda top heavy

# ? Nov 8, 2023 22:43

Frosted Flake: Sep 13, 2011; Semper Shitpost Ubique

Navy officers are still mad about the OHP Class frigates, I see.

# ? Nov 8, 2023 22:50

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

the navy got hosed over on having starships by both the the air and space force so their new plan is to build ships tall enough to reach space and begin patrol and interdiction work from there

# ? Nov 8, 2023 22:55

Slavvy: Dec 11, 2012

Imo that design is clearly intended for the ship to function normally even when it capsizes and flips upside down, like those old RC cars

# ? Nov 8, 2023 23:06

FrozenGoldfishGod: Oct 29, 2009; JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT POST!

Slavvy posted:

Imo that design is clearly intended for the ship to function normally even when it capsizes and flips upside down, like those old RC cars

Well, you can't say they don't know their operating capabilities and core competencies! :v:

# ? Nov 8, 2023 23:18

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# ? May 27, 2024 23:11

Malleum: Aug 16, 2014; Am I the one at fault? What about me is wrong?; Buglord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB88rio2oe4

# ? Nov 9, 2023 03:37

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