It's completely crazy when you realize even if they worked perfectly, these things were slower and less mobile than simply walking, and dramatically inferior to the hyper-advanced technology of "bicycle".
Late Cold War Cancelled Projects
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
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It's completely crazy when you realize even if they worked perfectly, these things were slower and less mobile than simply walking, and dramatically inferior to the hyper-advanced technology of "bicycle".
Bicycles can fly, though -- it's just the landing that sucks.
Bicycles can fly, though -- it's just the landing that sucks.
The Hiller's "flight" was so limited that for the most part, you could pick up and carry a bike over any obstacle it could actually fly over.
Wow, it was that bad?
The primary point of US military spending during the cold war wasn't to actually get a quality military. It's a nice secondary effect, but it didn't matter. The point of the US military spending was to burn money to induce the USSR to burn money, which it couldn't afford to do.
It's why Reagan's Star Wars program was such a success even though it produced nothing of actual military value.
It's why Reagan's Star Wars program was such a success even though it produced nothing of actual military value.
Nothing deployable from it's direct research, but that research led towards much of the ABM development.
I mean, it could have been a furnace run solely on benjamin's, it would have still worked as long as the USSR copied them.
Keeping ahead of the soviets didn't matter militarily. There was never going to be an actual hot war. That was the propaganda sold to the US public, because telling them about the money pit wouldn't sell. All that mattered was that the soviets kept pouring money into the money pit.
Note, though, that I'm not even sure that the money pit strategy was intentional. It was certainly built on lies, but either those lies were in service of the country, or lies about stuff being actually feasible.
At least nothing you know of.
Other people know of few technologies that are major parts of current US missile defense systems.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Extended_Range_Interceptor_(ERINT)
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#ERIS_and_HEDI
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Strateg...Boost_Surveillance_and_Tracking_System_(BSTS)
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Brilliant_Eyes
Basically without SDI or replicating its work there would be no GBI, no THAAD and no PAC-3 missiles for Patriot.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
There absolutely was a chance of a hot war. Wouldn’t have been anything like MAD because no one was stupid enough to push that button, with maybe tactical warheads being used to strike military formations and supply lines, but the bulk of the fighting would have been with men, tanks, and jets.
Carrot of Truth
War is Peace
The US did gain an overall definitive edge in quality over the Soviets in the 1980's though. That was sort of intentional too after the Veitnam war ended there was a major effort to effectively rebuild the US military from the ground up.
I know of this. I know of this probably better than most. I've worked in Huntsville area Military Contractors, on missile related projects. From just talking scuttlebutt, nothing class or CUI/FOUO, SDI was largely a waste of money, because those still haven't provided much military value in regards to it's stated goal (stopping nukes hitting America from a major actor). A few things from it later were used in other things, but its base reason was not present. And those other things? Some of them also have provided little military value, because they haven't been used, because they haven't been needed.
The overall first accomplishment of all that weapon systems has been the first operational missile intercept in 2022, and whatever the latest patriot stuff has done. That's the actual military value. All the other stuff? Meh.
Basically, IMO, the system kept up with North Korea getting nukes. That's the accomplishment, we have some defense vs North Korea. And that's because they cannot take the shotgun approach.
The idea that a hot war wouldn't have slid towards a nuclear war is absurd to me. There would have been tactical use of nukes, then eventually strategic use of nukes (read: everyone dies). You literally can't afford to get into a winning position, because then nukes get launched. You can't attack the nukes, otherwise they get launched. America might have been able to lose without dooming the world, but Russia couldn't, because there would have been a coup if the leader was losing and didn't press the button.
Quality doesn't matter much if there's no hot war.
That's a massive cop-out. You could say the same about all nuclear weapons - "no military benefit because they haven't been used yet!".
Which goes double for a defensive weapon - it can't be used before it's needed, and if it's needed it's way too late to start developing it.
THAAD and GBI had several intercept tests too.
Next step, Iran and Pakistan.
There was always a chance it would go hot.....
Amd militarily? The stealth aircraft, long range fire munitions.
More protective vehicles.
The fucking Humvee.
All of that is what was made during the cold War.
Majority of the systems we use are from the cold war...
The use of nuclear weapons is the deterrence. They are a threat in being.
THAAD is not. If we last without war til they get replaced? They were a waste of money. And yes, this is a valid way to look at stuff: things aren't valuable if they aren't going to be used. Extra defense for the US is a lot less valuable to us (as we are rarely attacked) than extra defense for Israeli civilians is to Israel (who are attacked).
When I'm talking about value, I'm asking 'has this saved American lives?'
Yes, so? That didn't provide actual value. The value of them is very unknown, the tests is to determine what value they might have if we ever deal with a nuclear threat. And even then they don't actually have value unless they are a threat in being (which they can't really be, no one trusts them enough and the costs of failure are too high to ignore MAD even with the Norks), or were successfully used against the enemy.
We are good on Iran right now. Iran is behind the Norks when it comes to long range missiles, but has the alternate delivery method of terrorists.
Pakistan also doesn't have long distance delivery systems (and aren't really interested in them). All they care about is hitting India. The nuclear subs may not be defensible against (unless we focused on pakistan, which seems a waste of resources).
There was never a chance of it going hot and not escalating to MAD though, and people who believe otherwise are dangerously delusional if they have an ounce of power.
As for the other stuff: yes, as a side benefit, we got cool stuff. That wasn't the goal though. The goal was the Soviet Money Pit.
The goal was to be ready for the inevitable.
Tell any soldier or service member who were at the Fulda gap that there is no need to worry about things going hot.
They will laugh at you.
There was always a chance. Always.
We didn't start money pitting them till the 80s, and by then we had already developed things to counter what ever they had.
There was always a chance things could go hot.
Remember, the USSR was one of the biggest exporter or arms in the world. That is how they stayed afloat until we started to make a comeback after Vietnam in the sense of power in capabilities over them in most.
They had us in a fee, mainly in terms if equipment on the ground via tank and artillery wise.
THAAD and related systems are a filter for accidents, rogue generals, crazy fanatics, and hybrid warfare shit where someone in a third world shithole launches a nuke or something resembling a nuke for whatever reason.
They also apply to local bases in ME and Asia. Sure, it's not as useful for USA as for Israel, as of now, but on the other hand we can imagine a scenario where a Iran related flare-up may suddenly make it more useful.
Either way, what they do is that they ensure that no one is going to try funny business with a missile attack if they aren't both willing and able to make it a saturation attack.
How valuable exactly it is will be impossible to say before the system reaches its end of life, probably to be replaced by another, but even by existing, it has certain effects too.
No one will ever be able to see all the alternate realities where NK, Houthis, Iran or someone else tried some silly business with a single ballistic missile because USA had no tools to do anything about said missile, but didn't decide to try in our reality.
By that logic any new system has no value by definition, which obviously makes it a useless indicator for considering creation of new systems.
Also, PAC-3 was in fact used by US military in Middle East for interceptions.
MIM-104 Patriot - Wikipedia
Again, you have made a definition that inherently consigns any new defense system as definitely of no value, potentially useful at best.
>for now
As you see from the development histories, this is not the sort of thing that you can throw together in few weeks or months if you suddenly find yourself needing it and expect it to work.
This is a really bad time to badmouth preparedness like this as a waste.
MODDDDDDDD FIGHT!
*Running around*
MOD FIGHT EVERYBODY!
ITS ON!
*Running around*
MOD FIGHT EVERYBODY!
ITS ON!
The 'original' Hiller platform could reach 16 MPH and up to 30 feet. However, the larger 'Pawnee' version that the military was actually looking at could only barely get out of ground effect and was even slower; it was also difficult to control, as it was found that it could not use the supposedly intuitive "kinesthetic" leaning control of the smaller version, and instead the operator was seated but now had to use helicopter-style controls to steer the platform, completely destroying the idea of it being "easy to use" with minimal training.
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For the third time, a hot war vs the USSR, everyone dies. There's no need to be ready for it beyond nukes. Ready for a hot war vs some small country? That matters. Vs the Soviets? The only thing you need really is nukes. There was literally no reason for people to get into the weeds about which conventional force was better, if it looked like one side was about to lose, they'd start chucking nukes.
Let's look at your scenario, and look at the alternate realities. Let's say there's a rogue actor who would have launched at the US but for THAAD. Given that they have access, you don't think they have a list of non-US targets they'd like to hit if they can't get the US? They'd still have launched, just at a different target. But there hasn't been rogue nuke launches. So there have been no rogue actors yet that have access to nukes plus the willingness + capability to launch them. So THAAD hasn't stopped this, nor has GDI or the rest of the anti-missile capabilities in the US.
Hence these aren't a threat in being vs stuff that isn't actually used. They are, one could say, a threat in being vs ordinance that is used.
As for the stuff of value we got from SDI, and crediting all of the PAC-3's success to the SDI, No. Most of it was not from SDI.
Yes. The point I'm asking about is return on investment, which is how much of it was used against the enemy. This is a fine tool to use for analyzing past decisions using the benefit of hindsight. Note I said tool. It's not perfect, but it's a good tool. And I'm not using it in places it doesn't work, like choosing what should be developed in the future.
The return on investment for an home insurance policy is -100% if your home is fine. It doesn't mean that the home insurance policy wasn't worth it, but one can still say that the Home Insurance didn't benefit you. And that's good.
I'm not saying that THAAD wasn't worth buying. I'm saying that so far, we've barely needed it.
My claim is a simple one: the SDI has a very, very low Americans saved/$ spent rate. So low that even just counting the Americans saved by it is small. It's primary purpose was as a money pit (also apparently a spy trap), and it was incredibly good at it.
Literally why I italicized it, I know that can change, I specifically pointed attention at it for that reason. In fact, I expect Iran's ability to nuke to grow beyond our ability to stop it, rather than us being able to catch up to any state that wants to nuke us.
Iran has an actual economy. It's a hamstrung one, but it's not communist. They can afford to do research. And attacking is a lot easier than defending.
In contrast, I think North Korea is going to fall further and further behind in the nuke vs shield race, as they simply can't afford many missiles.