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Comment by Eduard | Hacker News Reader

this is so grotesque to read. Imagine a fake all-American town constructed in China, and someone commenting "This is not only good for reducing infantry casualties but also reducing civilian casualties."

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The PRC did exactly that to train troops for Taiwan. There's a replica town, a replica of the presidential building, replica airbases, and even a weird pseudo-Eiffel tower [0].

[0] https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-from-china...

I'm sure they do. To be clear, MOUT towns for infantry training existed before GWOT time. Shugart Gordon in LA is a good example of a more western looking town (link below). I spent a lot of time there back in my Infantry days.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/uD9NpAu7rAYBYLNx9

What's wrong with that? If America was for some reason invaded by Chinese infantry, I would certainly prefer that the soldiers were properly trained to avoid civilian casualties.

What's the alternative?

A recent study showed handing a Pepsi to the invading army would avert war

That study has not been replicated.

eg, staying out of other countries.

I would imagine those do exist in China

I'd imagine America would be the last place China would invade, so I would be surprised if they'd bother. The closest (western) scenario I could see them training for is Australia.

Reason: even in 2023, the logistics of invading a very large country of 350ish million across the Pacific are daunting, to put it mildly. “Impossible” is barely an overstatement.

I would also be surprised if they bother to train for an invasion of North America.

I thought Australia would surely be in NATO and that would deter China from doing that but after looking it up, it looks like NATO and Australia merely have "deepened relationships" (according to an article from last year), whatever that means. Today I learned!

Because Australia is not in the north Atlantic

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