Next time we have a real war I have a feeling there will be some very interesting dumb "hacks" used against all of these smart weapons.
In a real war, we'll be using tactical (not strategic) nukes to take out carriers and bases and supply lines, not toys that avoid collateral damage.
If shit hits the fan, the strategic nukes come out and we all die.
To borrow from the Bronze Age conflicts between the Egyptians, Hittites, et al, you don't want to annihilate your adversary because you still have to trade with them. Wars are just a strategy to establish a more favorable trading position.
Afghanistan is highly mountainous. Carpet bombing doesn't work very well for caves.
Commanders on the ground were asking for air-dropped landmines to cover the areas that Bin Laden could have been using as an escape in Tora Bora in December 2001. Air-dropped land-mines would have made navigating those mountains much more difficult for Bin Laden, and may have killed him on his escape.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system
---------
They may use IADs, but we have far better equipment for that strategy. We can deploy our mines from airplanes and just blanket an area if we so choose. But of course: this strategy means killing innocent civilians who accidentally walk on the mines.
--------
Difficult Terrain works for both sides. Sure, its difficult for us to move in, but that also makes it difficult for the enemy to move around. Doubly so if landmines are secretly littering areas.
Estimates sit at around 240,000 deaths, great job.
Still better then the Iraqi genocide mind....
You're of course referring to total estimated deaths over 20 years from all supposedly war-related causes (which includes poverty), not civilian deaths directly attributable to the US. The Taliban - as the blood-thirsty conquering force attempting to enslave the population of Afghanistan for the past several decades - is responsible for most of those deaths.
It's funny how many people try to pretend the Taliban don't exist, their murders don't exist, the consequences of their conquering don't exist, and their aims don't exist, when it's convenient.
The actual civilian deaths in Afghanistan by the US is a very small fraction of the number you're quoting, which is the point of the parent comment. The vast majority of violent civilian deaths were from the Taliban and associated groups, via suicide bombings and other intentional mass murder events.
And the vast majority of all deaths during the Iraq civil war, were Iraqi on Iraqi murders. The US stepped in-between the warring factions and tried to stop it, which cost a lot of US blood and treasure.
This isn't hidden magic information. It's right there in the estimates along with the number you quoted out of context. They break out how they arrive at the death totals.
"We destabilised a region and are responsible for the MASSIVE number of civilian deaths as a result."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
> Civilians: 562,000–2,000,000 killed
Most civilian deaths during the US war in Afghanistan appear to be from the Taliban themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
> According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, and 80% in 2011 and 2012.
Everyone works hard to un-learn the most important lesson of war: In war, more of something beats less of something.
And it isn't simply a "morer is betterer" argument, even strategically if you can place assets in multiple concurrent locations even if those assets are "dumber" then you're forcing the enemy to split their force into multiple beachheads.
Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano ($18M~) Vs. F-35A ($79M~). One F-35A obviously beats one Super Tucano but does it even have enough weapons onboard to beat 4.3? What if you split your Super Tucanos between two locations, which one is the F-35A going to defend?
And the Super Tucano is even the endgame here, the endgame is drone swarms. $1M~/ea and you have a 79-1 ratio, and it is indefensible and laughably so.
> And the Super Tucano is even the endgame here, the endgame is drone swarms. $1M~/ea and you have a 79-1 ratio, and it is indefensible and laughably so.
"Drone Swarms" You either are just describing guided missiles which already exist or an actual drone aircraft capable of threatening an F-35 which would require similarly capable sensors and engines. It's not going to cost $1M.
Take this as a grain of salt because it's a player in a sim fighting AI. But I love it as an example of what a lone fighter can do against less capable aircraft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5FrxsBG_H8
Before stealth small nimble aircraft avoided anti-aircraft fire by flying low where the horizon and or terrain would keep them shielded or provide physical barriers against missile intercept. That of course requires good low altitude, long duration flying which is also something the Super Tucano happens to excel at.
I'd argue that the SAMs is an argument for "morer is betterer" since you're essentially pretending that the F-35 has perfect stealth instead of limited stealth, and relying on it being never shot down as your win condition (as opposed to building in losses and utilizing strategies not dependent on a technological advantage).
The days of building mass quantities of cheap, expendable tactical aircraft are simply over. Even if we were willing to tolerate higher aircrew casualty rates that approach is no longer cost effective. It's just too expensive to train more pilots and maintain larger numbers of aircraft in peacetime even if the initial procurement cost is lower. You have to look at the full lifecycle cost to achieve the target level of capability.
For naval aviation the constraints are even stricter. A carrier can only fit a fairly small air wing, so it's essential that every aircraft be highly capable. Even if that means the aircraft are extremely expensive, it's still more cost effective than building another carrier.
Yeah, and then they started to be shot down and had to be ordered to stop flying low while the stealth aircraft kept flying right over the capital, like in the case of the A-10 and F-117 over Iraq in 91.
https://www.raytheonmissilesanddefense.com/news/feature/armi...
"The F-35 can carry up to two AIM-9X missiles on its wings and four AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles internally."
Also- in the future:
"Lockheed Martin is developing a weapon rack called Sidekick that would enable the internal outboard station to carry two AIM-120s, thus increasing the internal air-to-air payload to six missiles"
So yes.
This is assuming it doesn't suffocate its pilot to death, because Lockheed still can't get the oxygen system to work properly.
The finest plane $350M (and climbing) can buy (for the F35-B variant. The A variant is down to "just" $100M or so.)