this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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I've been on a Wunderwaffen kick recently, but we'll keep it up: this is a preview of every major NATO weapons system that hasn't already seen extensive combat the second it goes up against anyone capable of shooting back with something larger than small arms fire. Anyone telling you otherwise is drinking the koolaid or selling it.
You win wars through producing high quality, reliable, simple weapon systems and then making sure your troops know how to use them and that you can continue to produce and ship replacements + ammo to the front lines. That's it. No plane will ever be invisible to enemy radar, no tank will ever be invincible, no anti-missile defense will ever shoot down even half of incoming fire reliably. It all boils down to a numbers game in the end.
The worst part is all the NATO countries are stripping the Active Protection System hardware out of Challenger, Lepord, and Abrams battle tanks before they are delivered to Ukraine. Everyone is paranoid about Russian electronic warfare learning how to jam the radar systems those NATO nations have installed in their tanks. Russian tanks currently on the front line have modern APS hardware while Ukraine is getting battle tanks that are intentionally crippled by NATO.
Another funny and fkd up thing is what will happen with the F16 fighters Ukraine is about to have. The US has stripped out the counter measure hardware that makes an old airframe like the F16 more survivable in an environment with modern anti air missiles being fired at it. Those F16s are going to get turned by Russia into wreckage just as fast as they did with all these NATO battle tanks.
Which just highlights the issue at the heart of my point: all these western weapons systems are utterly reliant on some magic sauce working perfectly, and if their opponents figure out what that sauce is and either develop a countermeasure or figure out the flaws and exploit them, the systems are fundamentally no better than their (significantly cheaper and easier to maintain) counterparts. It's Security Through Obscurity implemented as a strategic doctrine.
Let's not kid ourselves by calling it gimmicks or overly complicated. It is the same hardware and methods for the Russian military. It also isn't security through obscurity. Everyone switched to software defined radios for their communication and radar for a reason.
There are methods to combat such jamming but Ukrainian forces don't have the training or capability. NATO can't just magicially make the Ukrainian military into one with the capabilities of military super powers like the US, China, or Russia. The US and Russia both have the capacity, infact the Russian military is extremely capable when it comes to the electronic warfare and countering electronic warfare because their military has to be on par capability wise with the US military.
Instead we have sad stories like what's left of the Ukrainian air force powering down all the electronics in their aircraft as they approach the front line because they have no way to detect and counter Russian electronic capabilities.
The wine cave warriors will likely turn on their wholesome patriotic orc-battling Ukrainian heroes and blame them for being bad pilots as a cope.
hehe... back at the beginning of this war I have a vague memory of libs screeching about "No Fly Zone"ing Ukraine.. Well, they're gonna get one aren't they.
Exactly, simple, cheap, and reliable weapons is what it ultimately comes down to. Most people don't seem to understand that war are about logistics first and foremost. In the end, it comes down to the ability of one side to outproduce the other. If you're making complex and expensive weapons that can't be easily maintained or replaced then as soon as your initial stocks run down, you've basically lost.