Well, it’s more often “don’t got mine, blame immigrants, and don’t like gays either”. The richer parts of the population leans pretty progressive.

(I was away from Lemmy for a bit, sorry for the late reply)

They aren’t, though. There’s hundred millionares and so on, and then the ordinary “upper middle class” people who, collectively, actually own most of the capital.

And anyway, it’s pretty clear nobody in this thread was thinking way far ahead, in a master plan kind of way. It’s been pretty revealing; people blame distant abstract things - not just for their poverty, which for poor Lemmings would be at least justifiable - but for their inner ennui, or lack of healthy relationships, or whatever.

Sorry, I was away from Lemmy for a while.

A bunker.

Well, do you have a favourite bunker siege? Of course not, there aren’t any. If the enemy is upon you, a bunker won’t help for long; they’ll dig in or drop grenades down your ventilation or something. Or destroy all access points turning it into a kind of tomb, like we’ve seen the US do in Iran.

Meanwhile, a castle was a thing you hide inside, to wait out an enemy right next to you, because there was no good way to take it on with muscle-powered weapons and no flight. They’re just fundamentally different tools filling completely different roles. While both are heavily built stone things, the resemblance is fairly superficial.

But a lot of the tactics already exist

It’s two very different things to say “exist” and “have been planned for, organised for and trained in”. Aspects of drone warfare will resemble some historical thing, sure, but that doesn’t change much from an NCO’s perspective.

The tactics and tech to defend mobile units against air threats (including drones) existed for many decades and were just neglected in years where asymmetric warfare was more relevant.

A drone in the air littoral is a very different from from a plane in the blue skies. The Gepards were “white elephants” because they’re useless against any modern manned aircraft - they fly either too high, or nape-of-the-earth, preventing a good shot. Maybe some officer somewhere expected attritable drones to arrive, and make them worth something again, but for most people, it was a black swan event.

Anti-air missiles, which are relevant to that problem, were never sent anywhere.

The ill advised swing to “unconventional warfare” (read: mostly not war) happened, that’s true, though. It was just one aspect of how complacent the West got after the Cold War ended.

Yeah, not quite an assault shed, but still pretty substantially covered, going by the picture.

The way you put it, I was expecting an unmodified tank capable of normal tank operations. Attacked in, like, a Western test.

Wow, so I guess they were picturing everything reverting back to 19th-century warfare? Or maybe, they were picturing what actually happened, but they didn’t know what to call the heavy, but still fast and maneuverable, gun platforms we now call “tanks”.

I guess it goes to show that you have to consider what a new military technology adds, as well as what it subtracts.

The actual scenario was that they’re all dead at once. Like, sure, maybe you’ll be glad about that. It’s not going to be a drip feed of billionare liveleak videos to brighten your days, though; you still have real life to deal with.

You can’t really clutch pearls about just being questioned, in this context. You want someone dead - no, you think it will make you truly happy in general - you better be able to justify it.

Well, no. Not every armoured vehicle is a tank.

The engineering logic for large, probably armoured vehicles checks out, though.

/s?

Like, somebody could actually say this and mean it, in some sense. Although, obviously, guys in ball turrets or mechanical artillery calculators aren’t going to make an appearance.

Well, tanks haven’t either. They just aren’t survivable enough, in that war, to get through. How much that generalises to the next one, is the question.

Did somebody actually say tanks were dead after WWI? Tanks were brand new!

Even old weak armoured tanks like the Leopard1 are reported to have survived over 50 drone hits.

I wonder how that’s being measured. Obviously, fairly modern Russian armour has been destroyed quickly in Ukraine. Turtle tanks can survive well over a hundred FPV hits - at which point, the drone operators must be wishing they had basic artillery, instead - but they’re designed for that to the detriment of other capabilities.

The Russia-Ukraine war is specific to the capabilities of the two parties, and to the nature of the battlefield (big and flat). The next war will be different in many important ways. So yes, one shouldn’t overlearn.

That being said:

they will just adapt to new threats unless there is an actual replacement that can fullfil their role on the battle field. Which drones don’t.

What fulfills the role of a castle on an ancient battlefield, in a modern one? Nothing, really. That whole method of warfare become obsolete.

Ditto for the musket formation. Tactical infantry formations obviously exist, but they’re dispersed, because the problem tight lines solved are gone, and the weaknesses they had are much more important.

Alas… the next iteration is coming with more active defenses as well as a remote-weapon station able to work against drones. And with their own set of missiles and/or loitering munitions.

The Ukrainians themselves hate the whole “we added a remote 50-cal station to the truck so we’re good” argument. Drones can do a lot of different things, and don’t necessarily come one-by-one. If there’s any actual replies back to that argument, they seem few and far between.

It’s going to change tactics, not just technology. The West can’t procure our way out of having to adapt.

the less talked about class of IFVs is actually getting much more tank-like with similiar levels of armor and active defense as tanks, just another specialisation

Yeah, but that’s not an MBT! Armour is almost certainly not dead. A vehicle built around a big gun firing mostly horizontally, and surviving assault by other armour, on the other hand…

It’s pretty unclear what a tank does in a drone war, anyway.

Traditionally, armour was/is designed to move fast, and hit more lightly armed targets before they can react. Now, it’s not fast, relative to the battlefield around it. Something like an APC or self-propelled howitzer might still have a role, but an MBT is designed with a very narrow use case in mind.

Hmm, so the vegan version would go something like: if you could live with any animal in it’s native habitat, which one would it be?

I also choose your dog. /s

Wow. People of this thread, if you think some ideological concept is the cause of all your personal woes, you’re projecting a lot.

Okay, so, billionaires all die, totally intestate, tomorrow. Believe it or not, you’re going to have about the same week you otherwise would have, and, if you put aside the implications of something magical happening, some reduction to global government debts will be the main long-term divergence in the West.

Basically, I don’t believe you. I guess I believe you believe this.

Depends what that means.

Why do I dislike my current situation? That would be nuanced, at minimum, to explain to a Gazan or Rohingya, but on Lemmy I can just say: “My situation is objectively bad.”

Why aren’t I joyful more often? That’s just how I’m wired, it doesn’t matter what’s happening.

Why do I experience negative emotions often? First off, I’m not sure if I actually have more than average. Probably less. Beyond that, I don’t really know. If I was in a better situation, would it stop? Would I find some tiny detail to stress over, instead? How objective are we even about remembering what we’ve felt over time? There’s not enough information.

Why do I feel wronged by the world around me? I don’t, really. Shit happens. I’m lucky in that I actually know that.

Yeah, but you get into pretty slippery questions about what “selling out to China” means. It’s not like the Chinese government comes straight to you and says “hi”. Some random corporation could be owned by companies that are owned by companies that have their strings pulled by whoever.

Really, if you want to stunt China’s progress, you cut off access to universities and experts by Chinese nationals, and cut off export of specific physical goods. Something like this has been done with the most advanced semiconductors, already.