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.
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.