Pages: 1 … 191 192 193 194 195 196

 

2021-09-16 16:59:22
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+652|4060

Dilbert_X wrote:

Nice move on the submarines, and the AUKUS pact, which sounds like Orcas which is neat.
I would have gone with USUKA for comedy value.

Beijing has slammed the new US alliance with Australia and Britain, under which Canberra will acquire nuclear submarine technology, as an "extremely irresponsible" threat to regional stability.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-16/ … /100468900

Wait a minute, I thought China was going to bring peace and love and prosperity to the world, if they were in an arms race with us they should have said.
And regional stability is just fine, Australia buying new submarines don't change that.
Its as if they want to take over the region and Australia buying defensive weapons upsets their plan. Their anger betrays their intent.

Neat move though, nuclear submarines are exactly what we need, a three-way defence pact with nuclear armed nations is great for Australia, if the Chinese come across a submarine they won't know if its British, American or Australian so they'll have to think pretty hard about attacking it.
Give it ten years and they'll be fitted out with nuclear missiles.
Submarines are a smarter choice for Australia than surface ships (floating coffins). Japan, Australai, and Taiwan need to build up their naval fleets.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2021-09-17 02:46:34
BVC
Member
+325|7036
It's a very smart move for Australia. Probably less expenditure than the french deal and much greater benefits for all three parties.

Despite being a pro-gay/weed/abortion atheist liberal from the better side of the Tasman Sea I think nuclear energy is unfairly demonised and would have no problem with visits to our ports by nuclear powered vessels and never have, because what the fuck is a reactor going to do? Blow up it's host port? Whoa, big tactical advantage there.

(Also 8-frigate NZ navy but that's a seperate rant..fuck me this forum is the only place that understands)
2021-09-17 18:41:30
uziq
Member
+517|3793
the french retrofitting project sounded like a financial disaster. i remember talking about it here a year or two ago, in passing. over budget, late, and will be irrelevant by the time it’s complete. sounds like a good idea it’s being axed.

not sure why the diplomacy around it was so cackhanded. we’re trying to make a show of solidarity and strength to china and, well hey, now several of the west’s only nuclear powers are bickering like snubbed lovers. surely that could have been handled better?
2021-09-18 06:43:47
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
Well, Australian politics and political decisions are execrable, about level with Westminster

The decision-making on the sub program has probably been the worst in the global history of military procurement - are submarines even our best option? Has anyone even asked the question.

Lets sit on our asses dithering for ten years, then seriously consider giving the project to Japan to deliver short-range submarines when we need long range ones, what about Sweden, we should waste some of their time? Now tell the Germans they've got the contract but actually hire a French company to redesign their nuclear submarine as a diesel electric which they have no experience of - as dumb as asking Elon Musk to develop a petrol car - then cancel the French program after years of work and give it to America only to get the new machines later than ever.
It was utterly stupid considering a French company at all when the intention was to fit a US combat system which the US would never share with the French - so the design would have had to have been done in at least two security-tight silos - insanity.

At this point whats done is probably the best option, nuclear boats are the best option, 5-10 years down the track I bet they'll be nuclear armed too.
If they're smart they'll fill the gap with some leased or borrowed US subs near the end of their lives.

Obviously the handling of the devious French was dismal, although the French being masters at manipulating contracts for their benefit and fuck the customer, signing the deal which said construction would be done in Aus, then flying back to France and announcing all the money was going there was a bit of a giveaway.

All three govts must have agreed to fuck over the French, it didn't happen by accident, maybe they know something we don't.

I still like the USUKA acronym better.
Fuck Israel
2021-09-18 06:44:40
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX

BVC wrote:

It's a very smart move for Australia. Probably less expenditure than the french deal and much greater benefits for all three parties.

Despite being a pro-gay/weed/abortion atheist liberal from the better side of the Tasman Sea I think nuclear energy is unfairly demonised and would have no problem with visits to our ports by nuclear powered vessels and never have, because what the fuck is a reactor going to do? Blow up it's host port? Whoa, big tactical advantage there.

(Also 8-frigate NZ navy but that's a seperate rant..fuck me this forum is the only place that understands)
Maybe we'll let New Xiland join, they're much too cosy with the CCP now though.
Fuck Israel
2021-09-18 07:39:23
uziq
Member
+517|3793
i don't know much about military strategy or operations, but i was under the impression that nuclear subs are a 'best-in-slot' endgame piece of epic gear because they are nigh-on undetectable and can stay at sea for 4-5 months at a time. any nation with the tech to make them also has the capability to develop nuclear warheads. so the relatively small number of nations with nuclear subs in their arsenal are the nations still partaking in that cold war-era, MAD brinkmanship. 'don't fuck with us because we have the queen chess piece (like you do)'.

i'm more confused as to why nations, particularly mid-tier and budgetarily stressed nations like the UK, are still building supercarriers. we just deployed our latest aircraft carrier to the south china sea as a 'show of force'. what are they actually good for? any advanced military foe will have oodles of anti-air and coastal defenses, dragging any carriers into a costly conflict with assured losses. and the supercarriers themselves are just giant, multi-billion dollar piñatas. they are basically defenseless in any full-scale engagement with a foe that actually wants to cross that line and inflict significant losses. don't russia, china, etc have hypersonic as well as supersonic missiles now? and, when the US and her allies have a girdle of bases around the globe, why do you need a giant floating city?

not to mention the logistics of docking and servicing ships of that berth/size. it reminds me of the tirpitz/bismarck in ww2, and the fact that the allies were able to seriously hinder their operational effectivity by bombing the main french port at st. nazaire and effectively confine them to the only docks that could fucking service them – in norway.

as dumb as asking Elon Musk to develop a petrol car
fyi elon musk never did design an electric car for tesla. when he joined the company and embarked on his forced takeover of the board, the company and its founding board members (aka actual engineers) had already done all the ground work. elon musk didn't build shit. he was a pretty late joiner to many of 'his' other ventures, too, when you actually look at the company histories (which he has since tried to whitewash and rewrite, natch). he literally did only the same as steve jobs, which was to make the tech/concept 'sexy' and palatable to the normie pack of consumers.

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-18 07:54:01)

2021-09-18 23:04:10
War Man
Australians are hermaphrodites.
+564|7054|Purplicious Wisconsin

uziq wrote:

i'm more confused as to why nations, particularly mid-tier and budgetarily stressed nations like the UK, are still building supercarriers. we just deployed our latest aircraft carrier to the south china sea as a 'show of force'. what are they actually good for? any advanced military foe will have oodles of anti-air and coastal defenses, dragging any carriers into a costly conflict with assured losses. and the supercarriers themselves are just giant, multi-billion dollar piñatas. they are basically defenseless in any full-scale engagement with a foe that actually wants to cross that line and inflict significant losses. don't russia, china, etc have hypersonic as well as supersonic missiles now? and, when the US and her allies have a girdle of bases around the globe, why do you need a giant floating city?
"Tanks can be killed by swarms of drones now, they are useless." "Infantry can be killed by EVERYTHING, they are useless". Now I'm waiting for "The means for countering drones has improved so much, that drones are now useless"

Getting tired people proclaiming x is outdated because of y, when that isn't necessarily the case. The means to counter something and the means to counter that counter are always evolving.

Also anti-air and coastal defenses aren't 100% guarantee win.
The irony of guns, is that they can save lives.
2021-09-18 23:10:46
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7112|PNW

How many pilots and aircraft do you think the US could stomach losing doing air missions over China? I don't understand why, post-Afghanistan, people are still beating their chests about how war with China wouldn't be all that. Like, stop it.
2021-09-18 23:31:57
uziq
Member
+517|3793

War Man wrote:

uziq wrote:

i'm more confused as to why nations, particularly mid-tier and budgetarily stressed nations like the UK, are still building supercarriers. we just deployed our latest aircraft carrier to the south china sea as a 'show of force'. what are they actually good for? any advanced military foe will have oodles of anti-air and coastal defenses, dragging any carriers into a costly conflict with assured losses. and the supercarriers themselves are just giant, multi-billion dollar piñatas. they are basically defenseless in any full-scale engagement with a foe that actually wants to cross that line and inflict significant losses. don't russia, china, etc have hypersonic as well as supersonic missiles now? and, when the US and her allies have a girdle of bases around the globe, why do you need a giant floating city?
"Tanks can be killed by swarms of drones now, they are useless." "Infantry can be killed by EVERYTHING, they are useless". Now I'm waiting for "The means for countering drones has improved so much, that drones are now useless"

Getting tired people proclaiming x is outdated because of y, when that isn't necessarily the case. The means to counter something and the means to counter that counter are always evolving.

Also anti-air and coastal defenses aren't 100% guarantee win.
i never said 100% guaranteed win, just that it involves massive losses. when did america last wage a symmetrical war against an equally well-stocked foe? flying $350 million fighter jets over mountain caves and medieval training camps didn't seem to produce a 'guaranteed win' either, you know. nor did bombing vietnam and neutral nations like cambodia/laos using all the bombs in the world – and millions of civilian deaths – produce a 'win' either. what i'm saying is, technology and military hardware seems to be fetishized, or rather sold, for its own sake. america and her arms companies hum along nicely spending tax money on giant baubles.

about the best argument for having one is that 'our foes have one too'. but in a full-scale conflict i have little doubt that any large-scale naval battles will be over, very, very quickly. a giant slow ship can be hit with a supersonic or hypersonic missile, which trumps all interception tech available. even looking at the falklands, in which britain fought against argentina using last-gen french tech, the big ships were essentially giant sitting targets open to the mercy of x, y, z. when said ships, like supercarriers, cost $5 billion to produce, you really have to wonder ... is it worth it? $5 billion for something that can be sunk by a missile or two or taken out by a few pilots? erm ok. having a strategic/logistic chain of bases nearby is probably a better idea (as indeed the US already does).

america has the most expensive military in the world and i doubt you could even beat iran in a clear-cut way. things like geography/terrain and the opponent's resolve matter at least as much as hardware. in the case of china, good luck with the giant wedding-cake ships. i really struggle to see their use in anything other than 'world superpower anchors in nearby gulf and continues to bomb goatfarmers without a single airplane' scenarios.

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-18 23:39:12)

2021-09-18 23:34:49
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
The Bismarck and Tirpitz proved capital ships were obsolete due to a few biplanes with torpedoes, carriers aren't far behind when your adversary has hypersonic ballistic anti-ship missiles by the thousands.

Still plan to make a large-scale Bismarck to sail on the duckpond.

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c8/33/07/c833076df507c15b1439db22ee63ac83--rc-model-rc-cars.jpg

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-09-19 02:27:41)

Fuck Israel
2021-09-18 23:46:48
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7112|PNW

How many carriers did Romney want to add again? Lazy google search of "Romney carrier" brought up that one time he tied his dog to the roof of the car (in its carrier, but still).

This was around the time of the horses and bayonets (forum got good mileage out of that) retort after Romney complained about the size of the Navy. Neither Obama nor Romney, in fact, touting plans that met branch force requirements IIRC.
2021-09-18 23:48:31
uziq
Member
+517|3793
exactly. doesn't russia have hypersonic missile tech that can change direction pretty much on the fly? good luck ever incepting that. pooling massive economic and human resources into capital-tier tech seems like a dumb idea. yes, 'drones can beat tanks', but you can build 100s or 1000s of tanks in a war. there isn't much sense in building huge numbers of supercarriers.

nuclear submarines make sense. even if detection tech catches up, the ocean is vast and anything that can disappear for half a year a time is basically a moby-dick with dozens of nuclear warheads. a supercarrier is a huge moving bullseye.
2021-09-19 00:14:59
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7112|PNW

Further in marks against capital ships, coronavirus has shown some of the Navy's weakness to the B part of NBC. The cost of such a thing in a supercarrier, likely much higher than for a littoral combat ship.
2021-09-19 02:42:42
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

i don't know much about military strategy or operations, but i was under the impression that nuclear subs are a 'best-in-slot' endgame piece of epic gear because they are nigh-on undetectable and can stay at sea for 4-5 months at a time. any nation with the tech to make them also has the capability to develop nuclear warheads. so the relatively small number of nations with nuclear subs in their arsenal are the nations still partaking in that cold war-era, MAD brinkmanship. 'don't fuck with us because we have the queen chess piece (like you do)'.
Well I don't know much either really, but as I understand it

Subs are for area denial and minimal offence, carriers are for offensive force projection and denying the area deniers

Britain doesn't really have much business outside the channel and isn't going to be taking on anyone without US involvement so really they exist just to prop up the alliance.
They're probably useless as they are, unless surrounded by pickets of frigates any second-world country can knock them out.
Any first world country can just knock them out.

Nuclear armed, nuclear powered submarines exist for deterrence, they can hide out in almost any deep water part of the world and strike almost anywhere in the world - fuck with us and you will be nuked. They still have to almost surface.

Conventionally armed, nuclear powered are a bit useful as part of a fleet and for area denial, but they don't pack much of a punch and offensive capability is very limited, and they have to be close to their target which will be looking for them.

There are all kinds of gamechangers, intelligent sea mines, drone subs, hypersonic anti-ship missiles.
I read somehwere China is planning a space Pearl Harbour, one morning America will wake up and discover they don't have satellites any more - that will stuff up all their GPS guided gear and they'll be back to gyrocompasses and freefall bombs.
There's a reason the Chinese sent a ship not to search for MH370 but to map the seafloor around western australia. I would guess they have an effective means of finding submarines.

I would enjoy wargaming scenarios with the ADF. Everyone expects a conventional attack, I'm sure the Chinese are well ahead of that.
Two A380s full of troops and a load carrier with 10 APCs using a civilian transponder could take over the country before anyone even knows whats happened.
Or a container ship could go full decepticon and unload tanks and helicopters.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-09-19 02:43:52)

Fuck Israel
2021-09-19 03:32:01
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
Treatment of the French has been somewhat shit obviously, they could have been thrown a bone of some conventional short-range subs or something else.

Well done Malcom Turnbull for signing the stupidest and most expensive deal in history.
Fuck Israel
2021-09-19 12:40:35
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7112|PNW

Dilbert_X wrote:

I read somehwere China is planning a space Pearl Harbour, one morning America will wake up and discover they don't have satellites any more - that will stuff up all their GPS guided gear and they'll be back to gyrocompasses and freefall bombs.
Does America truly "sleep?"

I would enjoy wargaming scenarios with the ADF. Everyone expects a conventional attack, I'm sure the Chinese are well ahead of that.
Two A380s full of troops and a load carrier with 10 APCs using a civilian transponder could take over the country before anyone even knows whats happened.
Or a container ship could go full decepticon and unload tanks and helicopters.
World in Conflict had a pretty dumb plot. Yes, a cargo ship with tanks and helicopters, definitely enough to take over a country.


rofl

at least it was a fun enough game
2021-09-19 18:53:19
uziq
Member
+517|3793
the idea that china would commit a 'space pearl harbour' is hilarious. to what end? if china destroyed even 1/5th of america's satellites, there would be enough debris (and chain destruction) in earth's orbit to effectively strand us on this planet for the next 500 years. not to mention all that millimetre-sized shit traveling at 30,000mph would eventually destroy all their own satellites too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

so, for the sake of interrupting america'a surveillance and GPS capabilities, let's entomb ourselves on this planet for the rest of human history. great idea!

just think about it, even when india fails to launch a rocket, or when china forcefully 'decommissions' a single ONE of their satellites, the entire world community is up in arms because of the implications of having a cloud of debris arcing around low-earth orbit for the next couple hundred years. those are SINGLE-case scenarios. a 'space pearl harbour'? aren't you meant to be a fucking engineer?!?

in almost every way it would make far, far more sense to detonate an atomic bomb in the upper atmosphere, to disable an enemy’s technology and infrastructure using EMP. even the pretence of a ‘space force’ is laughable imo. the amount of resources it costs to put humans or armaments in orbit is prohibitive. there's never going to be regiments of americans in those nifty new star trek uniforms stationed in space, waiting to deploy to some conflict or engage in moonraker-like space skirmishes. in every single scenario it makes more sense to keep them on a base on terra firma (never mind the fact they'd only be over the given target zone about twice per day).

https://www.tacticalshit.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Untitled.png

one or two warheads versus individually targeting hundreds of satellites in space ... with the very likely possibility of collaterally damaging your own surveillance infrastructure and impinging your own capabilities to access space ... hmm.

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-20 01:42:43)

2021-09-20 06:17:29
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
Did you know that you can destroy electronics without blowing it to bits?

Amazing
Fuck Israel
2021-09-20 06:25:34
uziq
Member
+517|3793
there's still the matter of there being thousands of satellites in orbit, and america's key communications/surveillance infrastructure isn't exactly concentrated in one or two satellites. not to mention the ready availability of her allies tech and their intelligence networks.

the idea that we're going to 'wake up' and china will have suddenly turned the lights off in the intervening 6 hours is hysterical bunkum. space pearl harbour SMH. a nuclear EMP or even targeted hacking/cyberwarfare would be better in just about every way. and how the hell would china plot and coordinate such a hugely complex space attack without anyone finding out about it?

Last edited by uziq (2021-09-20 06:27:21)

2021-09-20 06:34:26
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
Well the thing about unexpected attacks is they're typically unexpected.
Fuck Israel
2021-09-20 06:42:46
uziq
Member
+517|3793
the japanese navy had to plan pearl harbour. even in the relative intelligence stone age of 1941.

i'd love to see china plan a major offensive in space by disabling hundreds of satellites without a single intelligence leak or hint.

you're totally barmy. maybe they'll launch a secret space invasion force from behind a waterfall on a secret island? like in thunderbirds?
2021-09-21 06:03:49
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
Inevitably exactly like Thunderbirds.

Why do you think they're building all those 'dams' ?
Fuck Israel
2021-10-04 12:05:26
BVC
Member
+325|7036

Dilbert_X wrote:

Maybe we'll let New Xiland join, they're much too cosy with the CCP now though.
10 social credit points have been deducted from your account.
2021-10-04 12:37:25
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,068|7112|PNW

Who won the China house cup last year? Was it Gryffindor or Hufflepuff?
2021-10-05 03:48:18
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6447|eXtreme to the maX
NSW Premier has resigned

To be replaced by a hard right pedo supporting pro Trump climate hating catholic.

Yay.
Fuck Israel

 

Pages: 1 … 191 192 193 194 195 196

Board footer

Privacy Policy - © 2025 Jeff Minard