Ever thought about the progress of military technology in the last 67 years?

[AndrewR]

It's quite amazing when you take a step back and think about it. Just a few off the top of my head in no particular order:

1.) Body armor. You can get shot with a 7.62mm bullet in the chest and bounce back up and kill the guy who shot you. Ditto for the helmets, which weigh less and are MUCH more comfortable than those steel pots. You can't cook in them though!

2.) Aircraft. Biplanes were still in service in nearly every air force at the start of the war, and now we have supercruising, stealth fighter-bombers with extraordinary radar and the ability to drop a 250lb bomb on a pinpoint target. Only a select few fighters back then used radar, and the land-based radar was exceptionally crude compared to what they can do today.

3.) Armored vehicles. Thin-skinned tanks that could only fire from a halt have progressed to 60+ mph beasts that can withstand multiple hits and kill anything within several kilometers while moving over rough terrain, day or night.

4.) Missiles. Didn't even exist at the start of the war, and they only saw very limited use by the end (not talking ballistic). Germans had a rudimentary air-to-air and an anti-ship missile that were barely used. Now, we have AAMs that can kill at incredible distances and guide themselves to target. Or, there are infrared guided ones that can lock on at insane distances and outmanuever anything that flies. Sensor technology is just unbelieveable.

5.) Naval ships. Today's US carriers displace over FIVE TIMES what some of the "big tops" did in WWII (USS Intrepid, for instance). Submarines are now quieter than a mouse fart, and they can launch all manner of different weapons or even deploy special operations forces without even surfacing.

6.) Helicopters. Didn't exist at the start, saw VERY limited use, and are now indispensable and everywhere. Heck, now we have tiltrotors!

And the list goes on. Quite incredible, actually.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Yes already thought about because im learning about it in Naval Science 3: Naval Strategy

 

[AndrewR]

Originally posted by: AznAnarchy99
Yes already thought about because im learning about it in Naval Science 3: Naval Strategy

Wait until you see it in action, cadet!

 

[Scouzer]

i'd say the difference between 1910 and 1945 (Counting the first nuke here) was more consequential than 1945 to 2006.

 

[AndrewR]

Originally posted by: Scouzer
i'd say the difference between 1910 and 1945 (Counting the first nuke here) was more consequential than 1945 to 2006.

When you consider the progress in electronic warfare and space systems, you're talking about a lot of things that just didn't exist. Nukes are impressive, of course, but the delivery systems now (and the explosive force relative to the first ones) are amazingly better. Dropping from a bomber to launching from a submerged submarine?

 

[her209]

FCS...

 

[OS]

heh, WW2 fought then axis vs US now would probably be over in a couple weeks even with no nukes.

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: AndrewR

Originally posted by: Scouzer
i'd say the difference between 1910 and 1945 (Counting the first nuke here) was more consequential than 1945 to 2006.

When you consider the progress in electronic warfare and space systems, you're talking about a lot of things that just didn't exist. Nukes are impressive, of course, but the delivery systems now (and the explosive force relative to the first ones) are amazingly better. Dropping from a bomber to launching from a submerged submarine?

But if you consider from 1900 fighting with calvary on horseback, to 1945 with tanks, fighter planes, machine guns, rockets, nukes, I think I'd have to agree with the original comment.

 

[michaels]

No telling what cool stuff the military has we don't know about.

 

[Martin]

Its actually not impressive at all when compared to a great number of other technologies. B52s have been around since before my mother was born and it takes an absurdly long time to develop and deploy any weapons system.

 

[Kadarin]

Ever wonder what the world will be like in another 60 years? Perhaps we'll hit the Technological Singularity...

 

[foghorn67]

Reminds me of the movie, The Final Countdown. The Tomcats flirting with the Zeros was priceless.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: foghorn67
Reminds me of the movie, The Final Countdown. The Tomcats flirting with the Zeros was priceless.

I just watched that recently. Pretty decent movie :thumbsup: And yes, that scene, along with the one where the Tomcats did a flyby on the senator's boat, were great.

 

[novasatori]

Originally posted by: foghorn67
Reminds me of the movie, The Final Countdown. The Tomcats flirting with the Zeros was priceless.

wow you mean other people saw that too...

:laugh:

 

[Judgement]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Ever wonder what the world will be like in another 60 years? Perhaps we'll hit the Technological Singularity...

Thank you for your post, I think more people need to read it than ever will.

I feel as if we need to halt the development of AI way before anything like that happens, but more people are concerned with stem cell research, so it will never happen.

God forbid we clone someone, but it's ok to create machines intelligent enough to know that they don't need us to exist, that they're thousands of times smarter than us, and we need them to survive in the current state of the world.

Forget the stem cell problem, we need to start making limitations on A.I. until we find some way to imbed morals into every single advanced AI program, to the point where if the machines themselves made something with AI it would share the morals its creator had.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: Judgement

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Ever wonder what the world will be like in another 60 years? Perhaps we'll hit the Technological Singularity...

Thank you for your post, I think more people need to read it than ever will.

I feel as if we need to halt the development of AI way before anything like that happens, but more people are concerned with stem cell research, so it will never happen.

God forbid we clone someone, but it's ok to create machines intelligent enough to know that they don't need us to exist, that they're thousands of times smarter than us, and we need them to survive in the current state of the world.

Forget the stem cell problem, we need to start making limitations on A.I. until we find some way to imbed morals into every single advanced AI program, to the point where if the machines themselves made something with AI it would share the morals its creator had.

Interesting that you say this, because the Wiki article brings up the point that some people think the idea of the Singularity is a good one, and others think it's bad. IMO, if it represents the evolution of humanity into something new, it could be a very good thing. On the other hand, who knows...

 

[Judgement]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33

Originally posted by: Judgement

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Ever wonder what the world will be like in another 60 years? Perhaps we'll hit the Technological Singularity...

Thank you for your post, I think more people need to read it than ever will.

I feel as if we need to halt the development of AI way before anything like that happens, but more people are concerned with stem cell research, so it will never happen.

God forbid we clone someone, but it's ok to create machines intelligent enough to know that they don't need us to exist, that they're thousands of times smarter than us, and we need them to survive in the current state of the world.

Forget the stem cell problem, we need to start making limitations on A.I. until we find some way to imbed morals into every single advanced AI program, to the point where if the machines themselves made something with AI it would share the morals its creator had.

Interesting that you say this, because the Wiki article brings up the point that some people think the idea of the Singularity is a good one, and others think it's bad. IMO, if it represents the evolution of humanity into something new, it could be a very good thing. On the other hand, who knows...

I'm glad you thought it was interesting because I honestly wasn't 100% devoted to what i wrote.

I honestly think there will be a debate on the limitations of AI within my lifetime, and it will have an influence on this problem.

The real problem is even in the best scenario we can make up, we have no clue what artifiical intelligence will do.

It's entirely possible it wll side with us and solve the issues our race has with living on other planets and side with humanity in general. Or, it could as I mentioned before, realize they have no need for us (us being humanity). You can pick your option and hope one way or the other, but I'd rather take the safe route.

 

[jpeyton]

All I see is a giant sinkhole. Our most recent annual military budget was roughly $445 billion.

NASA receives roughly $16 billion per year. If NASA even received one-quarter of the budget consideration our military does, we would easily have a human presence on Mars (and the wealth of scientific knowledge that would bring).

Worse still is the fact that all we can seem to do with our mighty military is start losing conflicts in countries we shouldn't be in. Or sink billions more into shoddy weapons systems and antiquated technology that only a pork-barrel government could procure. Opening up military contracts to more than just a select group of contractors would easily earn the American people more for their defense dollar.

 

[Judgement]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
All I see is a giant sinkhole. Our most recent annual military budget was roughly $445 billion.

NASA receives roughly $16 billion per year. If NASA even received one-quarter of the budget consideration our military does, we would easily have a human presence on Mars (and the wealth of scientific knowledge that would bring).

Worse still is the fact that all we can seem to do with our mighty military is start losing conflicts in countries we shouldn't be in. Or sink billions more into shoddy weapons systems and antiquated technology that only a pork-barrel government could procure. Opening up military contracts to more than just a select group of contractors would easily earn the American people more for their defense dollar.

:thumbsup:

I agree NASA needs more money. I also agree that our military funding was used poorly, but I will still continue to agree that they need that funding... if not more.

Over 1/2 of the world would like to see us (the U.S.) gone, if we're going to go then I refuse to let it happen because of a funding issue.

 

[yhelothar]

What a coincidence that you bring up this thread right after I watch "Warplanes" on KCET. Very interesting history film about the progressions of plane technology from the start of the wright brothers.

 

[Hyperion042]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
All I see is a giant sinkhole. Our most recent annual military budget was roughly $445 billion.

NASA receives roughly $16 billion per year. If NASA even received one-quarter of the budget consideration our military does, we would easily have a human presence on Mars (and the wealth of scientific knowledge that would bring).

Worse still is the fact that all we can seem to do with our mighty military is start losing conflicts in countries we shouldn't be in. Or sink billions more into shoddy weapons systems and antiquated technology that only a pork-barrel government could procure. Opening up military contracts to more than just a select group of contractors would easily earn the American people more for their defense dollar.

I keep hearing this bantered around and such, and I'm actually quite curious... ~what~ wealth of scientific knowledge would a human presence on Mars fetch us, really? There aren't any resources there that aren't here, there's no benefit for astronomy given modern lensing techniques, the gravity's heavier there than in Lagrange Point stations (I could ask the same thing about the 'amazing scientific discoveries' made on Mir, Skylab and the ISS put together - outside of 'the human body starts to suck wind when you let the muscles atrophy in 0G' and a little bit of crystallographic research, I really don't get the point)... I see absolutely no reason whatsoever for Martian colonies at this point. Getting the cost of heavy lifting to orbit down is a much more substantive project, and one NASA hasn't made much of any progress on in the last 20 years... So really, I think there are better things to spend the military budget on, but I really doubt that NASA's it.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Hyperion042

Originally posted by: jpeyton
All I see is a giant sinkhole. Our most recent annual military budget was roughly $445 billion.

NASA receives roughly $16 billion per year. If NASA even received one-quarter of the budget consideration our military does, we would easily have a human presence on Mars (and the wealth of scientific knowledge that would bring).

Worse still is the fact that all we can seem to do with our mighty military is start losing conflicts in countries we shouldn't be in. Or sink billions more into shoddy weapons systems and antiquated technology that only a pork-barrel government could procure. Opening up military contracts to more than just a select group of contractors would easily earn the American people more for their defense dollar.

I keep hearing this bantered around and such, and I'm actually quite curious... ~what~ wealth of scientific knowledge would a human presence on Mars fetch us, really? There aren't any resources there that aren't here, there's no benefit for astronomy given modern lensing techniques, the gravity's heavier there than in Lagrange Point stations (I could ask the same thing about the 'amazing scientific discoveries' made on Mir, Skylab and the ISS put together - outside of 'the human body starts to suck wind when you let the muscles atrophy in 0G' and a little bit of crystallographic research, I really don't get the point)... I see absolutely no reason whatsoever for Martian colonies at this point. Getting the cost of heavy lifting to orbit down is a much more substantive project, and one NASA hasn't made much of any progress on in the last 20 years... So really, I think there are better things to spend the military budget on, but I really doubt that NASA's it.

I used NASA as probably the most selfless example, simply because it would advance human knowledge. Even though you may see no profit in going to Mars, NASA still spent a significant amount of money on the Rover to explore the surface. It's extremely shortsighted to limit scientific research in space because there is no short-term profit. To use your example ("I see absolutely no reason whatsoever for Martian colonies at this point"), if you believe that humans will one day reach out beyond the surface of our planet, than the research to do so must begin somewhere. It will take decades, even centuries of research to make significant progress...we've already delayed research for decades (we're still using shuttle technology from nearly 30 years ago), and to continue doing so would be a mistake.

But you're right, there are better things to spend our military budget on. Homeland security, national infrastructure, alternative energy, biotechnology, etc.

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: Hyperion042

Originally posted by: jpeyton
All I see is a giant sinkhole. Our most recent annual military budget was roughly $445 billion.

NASA receives roughly $16 billion per year. If NASA even received one-quarter of the budget consideration our military does, we would easily have a human presence on Mars (and the wealth of scientific knowledge that would bring).

Worse still is the fact that all we can seem to do with our mighty military is start losing conflicts in countries we shouldn't be in. Or sink billions more into shoddy weapons systems and antiquated technology that only a pork-barrel government could procure. Opening up military contracts to more than just a select group of contractors would easily earn the American people more for their defense dollar.

I keep hearing this bantered around and such, and I'm actually quite curious... ~what~ wealth of scientific knowledge would a human presence on Mars fetch us, really? There aren't any resources there that aren't here, there's no benefit for astronomy given modern lensing techniques, the gravity's heavier there than in Lagrange Point stations (I could ask the same thing about the 'amazing scientific discoveries' made on Mir, Skylab and the ISS put together - outside of 'the human body starts to suck wind when you let the muscles atrophy in 0G' and a little bit of crystallographic research, I really don't get the point)... I see absolutely no reason whatsoever for Martian colonies at this point. Getting the cost of heavy lifting to orbit down is a much more substantive project, and one NASA hasn't made much of any progress on in the last 20 years... So really, I think there are better things to spend the military budget on, but I really doubt that NASA's it.

I used NASA as probably the most selfless example, simply because it would advance human knowledge. Even though you may see no profit in going to Mars, NASA still spent a significant amount of money on the Rover to explore the surface. It's extremely shortsighted to limit scientific research in space because there is no short-term profit. To use your example ("I see absolutely no reason whatsoever for Martian colonies at this point"), if you believe that humans will one day reach out beyond the surface of our planet, than the research to do so must begin somewhere. It will take decades, even centuries of research to make significant progress...we've already delayed research for decades (we're still using shuttle technology from nearly 30 years ago), and to continue doing so would be a mistake.

But you're right, there are better things to spend our military budget on. Homeland security, national infrastructure, alternative energy, biotechnology, etc.

About NASA: Putting humans on Mars (permanently or semi-permanently) will teach us how to do this, so that when we find a way to get somewhere worthwhile, we'll be ready to go with the knowledge of how to live there.

Sometimes profit is not the only motive.

 

[0roo0roo]

hitlers army actually relied a lot on horses heh http://www.ospreypublishing.com/content2.php/cid=68

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: AndrewR
It's quite amazing when you take a step back and think about it. Just a few off the top of my head in no particular order:

1.) Body armor. You can get shot with a 7.62mm bullet in the chest and bounce back up and kill the guy who shot you. Ditto for the helmets, which weigh less and are MUCH more comfortable than those steel pots. You can't cook in them though!

2.) Aircraft. Biplanes were still in service in nearly every air force at the start of the war, and now we have supercruising, stealth fighter-bombers with extraordinary radar and the ability to drop a 250lb bomb on a pinpoint target. Only a select few fighters back then used radar, and the land-based radar was exceptionally crude compared to what they can do today. Boeing B29 bombers carried computer controlled machine guns that would calculate trajectory and track enemy aircraft on their own.

3.) Armored vehicles. Thin-skinned tanks that could only fire from a halt have progressed to 60+ mph beasts that can withstand multiple hits and kill anything within several kilometers while moving over rough terrain, day or night.

4.) Missiles. Didn't even exist at the start of the war, and they only saw very limited use by the end (not talking ballistic). Germans had a rudimentary air-to-air and an anti-ship missile that were barely used. Now, we have AAMs that can kill at incredible distances and guide themselves to target. Or, there are infrared guided ones that can lock on at insane distances and outmanuever anything that flies. Sensor technology is just unbelieveable.

5.) Naval ships. Today's US carriers displace over FIVE TIMES what some of the "big tops" did in WWII (USS Intrepid, for instance). Submarines are now quieter than a mouse fart, and they can launch all manner of different weapons or even deploy special operations forces without even surfacing.

6.) Helicopters. Didn't exist at the start, saw VERY limited use, and are now indispensable and everywhere. Heck, now we have tiltrotors!

And the list goes on. Quite incredible, actually.

1. Body Armor has been around for centuries and is nothing new. During WWI soldiers would stick iron plates under their shirts to protect them from flying metal. When WWII came around Pilots were known to sew metal plates on to their clothing.
2. Stealth Technology was around in during World War II. The German Luftwaffe had the Horton HO-229 flying wing that was invisible to radar. When Lockheed Engineers in the 1980's decided to design a stealth bomber the fist thing they did was visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum to get their inspiration.
   http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=105
   An Airborne HO-229
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_aircraft
   
3. Both German and Russian Tanks could take dozens of hits and keep going. There are many reports of US soldiers shooting 30 bazooka rounds at a Tiger Panzer with no effect. Many US Sherman tanks could not destroy a Tiger, for them it was like trying to shoot through a brick wall using a BB gun. When Russians and Germans faced against each other (Tigers or King Tigers) they would often get caught rammng in to oneanother becase their guns had little effect on the opponents armour. Sadly the US tanks were think skinned and were easily destroid when hit. They advantage US tanks had over axis armour was speed and numbers.
   
4. Missiles did exist during WWII and dated back to the 1920's, the only problem was the Allies did not have them.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_flying_bomb
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket
   
   Some American aircraft (p38, p51, and others) were (or could be) equiped with air to air missiles and some German fighters had wire guided missiles that were guided by the pilot or co-pilot.
   
5. The Japaneese Navy had some ships that easly rival the size of many of todays warships. (iI cant think of the name of the Giant Japaneese Battleship that scared our navy but we manged to sink anyways)
   
   
6. The first Heliocopter made its first untethered flight on May 13, 1940. Before May 13, other flighs had been attempted but the pilot and his 'chopper were tied to the ground.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sikorsky
   
7. Thread PWNED.

[/end of thread]