Keep in mind that we once had many battleships in the fleet. They were rendered obsolete by the airplane.
Battleships are very fat targets in this age.
Bismarck and Musashi were eventually sunk by bombs. Then there was the near-successful attempt sinking USS Cole reflecting the potency of asymmetric warfare, and of course current drone technology which, if Ukrainian boat drones are able to sink large Russian missile cruisers, what more with a battleship about the size of an Iowa?
He’s in it mainly for the belief he wants to show a bigger e-peen.
Its a bigger issue than just battleships versus carriers.
Its a doctrine issue. The US military industrial complex selected a US defense/ war strategy that would be most profitable for them as consultants. This has almost always meant that bigger, more complex, more high tech, is always better from the eyes of a consultant. Hence the Iowa. Hence the F-35. Hence the Virginia Class. US military doctrine hasn’t been selected for based on what a good doctrine would be. Its been selected for based on what would be profitable for consultants.
And both the war in Ukraine and October 7th just, blow that up. Hamas, literally, an almost comically underfunded barely-a-military in the grand scheme of global conflict got past one of the most heavily militarized borders on the planet in fucking hand made gliders. Like honestly, not NEARLY enough credit is given to what Hamas accomplished on that day. It should be studied, for generations, for millennia. What they did was horrible, but what the accomplished, it should change peoples minds about what is possible and the “value” of technology like the iron-dome. And then there is Ukraine. And the value of cheap, mass production shines, yet again.
There is a very important footnote about October 7th and Israel/Hamas.
Notably that most of the military units that were supposed to be guarding the gaza border had been moved away from the border.
By one Benjamin Netenyahu.
Where did he move them? To harass and intimidate the judges presiding over his corruption trials.
More like he allowed it to happen despite forewarning so that he would then have casus belli for which to destroy an entire population.
Yeah, I mean he’s been funding Hamas for a long time for that exact reason
I’m no conspiracy guy, but there’s no way I believe that one of, if not the, finest intelligence groups on Earth had no idea October 7th was coming. Defending against hostile neighbors is the very raison d’etre of the Israeli intelligence apparatus.
Now that I said that out loud, I hate it, but I still believe it.
They had all the information, but chose to ignore it. Whether the decision to ignore the many warnings was due to incompetence or malice is less certain. Personally I believe the latter, mostly because Netanyahu has been blocking a proper investigation for years now.
*“Israeli officials had obtained Hamas’s plan for an unprecedented attack on Israel over a year in advance, but had deemed the scenario to be aspirational”
“In July, however, an analyst from the elite signals intelligence Unit 8200 warned that Hamas had just conducted a military exercise that in many respects resembled the “Jericho Wall” document’s attack plan.”
"the Israeli army turned a deaf ear to repeated warnings from women soldiers posted as spotters on the border with Gaza in the days leading up to the October 7 Hamas attack. "*
Quotes from https://www.lemonde.fr/en/israel-palestine/article/2023/12/01/new-york-times-investigation-reports-israel-knew-about-hamas-october-7-attack-plan_6305821_139.html
The only way it makes sense otherwise is if they did a 9/11 intel situation where some parts of the apparatus knew but nobody who could use that information got it in time. In 2023. On one of the most aggressively monitored land borders on the planet.
The conspiracy theory is that they didn’t know.
What makes sense to me is that Netanyahu was under massive pressure due to the corruption scandal, etc. Because of that, a lot of the state’s surveillance apparatus was turned inwards.
I’m in the same boat.
Given how aggressive Israel has been in Gaza and how desperate Bibi has been to not go to court, all signs point to Oct 7 being permitted as an excuse.
We are in a seriously dark timeline
Yeah, it’s the profit that comes first. Nearly every piece of US hardware is so overdesigned in a way that politicians are wowed but government is forced to spend much, in due contrast to how outfits like Hamas, the Houthis, and FARC build cheap but very destructive weapons that continue to keep governments stumped and sometimes outgunned.
I’m… not sure Oct 7 is a great example. They got past the border yes, but then they’ve lost continuously for the next two years. Cheap mass production worked once in an attack that was brutally effective… and then it’s done nothing. It’s a great example of how effective “exploiting overconfidence” is as a tactic, but the gazan war pretty conclusively shows the benefits of holding technological superiority.
(wait, no, hang on: the virgina class is a great submarine, what’s the issue there?)
It’s about high technology versus low. The Virginia class, the F35, Iron Dome, these are some of the most complex pieces of military technology in existence. They cost more than a medium national military spending to build one of them. They depend on incredible expertise and support systems to stay functional. The supply chain is maybe one of the most complex in the world.
They are the result of a military doctrine whose ass was shown on Oct 7, and which continues to be shown in Ukraine. October 7th is an important example because of just the extreme disparity between the two forces in the technology, materials, and funding available to both nations. Ukraine is important because it shows us what a sustained example looks like. Mass production, loser cost, more available, consumer grade: these are antithetical to US military doctrine.
It’s not that a five billion dollar submarine isn’t a useful fighting tool, it’s that if a five hundred dollar drone can keep it in port… what really is its value?
The US military doctrine has been basically “highest if the high technology only”. And I’m arguing that it’s ass is showing.
I’m really confused by a bunch of what you’re saying here:
Oct 7 happened because iron dome had a huge hole in it’s coverage: namely, it was never designed to protect against extremely short range, low speed gliders. Iron dome is incredibly effective at what it was designed to do, protect against low-tech rockets and artillery (as seen during the 2025 israel-iran war). Hamas identified and masterfully exploited that, but it’s not exactly a failed technology because it was circumvented once with an unanticipated strategy, and has since continued to be proven extremely effective at the thing it was designed to do.
How is Ukraine showcasing a failure in doctrine for the west? I’m just confused, given the amount of western equipment and aid flowing into Ukraine and their spectacularly effective resistance to what-was-once-thought-to-be the 2nd most powerful military in the world, you’d think the conclusion would be that the soviet derived strategies of the russian army (cheap + simple = good) would be the ones being most clearly highlighted as outdated.
Why is complexity inherently bad? You’re asserting that’s the case, but you’re not really making an argument as to why that’s the case. Yes, the supply chain is complex, but the supply chain for the F35 isn’t more complex than for things like the F-16E, one of the most effective fighter aircraft of the modern era, it’s just less broadly established (well it was, as F35s have been delivered to NATO countries that supply chain is now extremely robust).
A $500 drone is not keeping a submarine in port. I don’t even know what you’re trying to say here with that one. What could a $500 drone even do to threaten a submarine, besides report it’s position to an artillery battery (and if that happened, why wouldn’t the submarine just… not stay in port?).
And as a concluding point: You know that drone warfare in Ukraine consists of significantly more than just $500 FPV drones (which rely on foreign supply chains), right? They’re incredibly effective for their role, but Ukraine uses much more highly sophisticated drones all over the battlefield. Presenting the drone development work they’ve done as being centered around “cheap mass produced drones” belies a serious lack of understanding as to the most basic mechanics of the Ukrainian war.