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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, David Laswell wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Niels Bugge wrote:
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I agree on the fact that, no groundforces are immune to mines, but regarding
treaties, they only survive as long as politicians back them up and with
regarding the mines, sorry, the bad guys still have them and won’t sign any
treaty so they’re here to stay
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Well, the nations that are most likely to be able to develop hover tanks are
also the nations that are most likely to be able to develop anti-HT mines.
Generally, they’re also the same countries that will sign arms reduction
treaties. Granted, it’s a little easier to be “gracious” about giving up
weapons technologies when you’ve got one of the dozen or so most powerful
militaries, or when you’re a few decades behind the technology curve. But
yeah, treaties are only as valuable as the signees hold them to be.
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As far as “the dozen or so most powerful militaries” today, it is them that have
all (or most of) the ABC-weapons and mines, and the only treaties I’m awere of
has been ones designed to prevent others from getting them, or scrapping
outdated weaponry... (like after the worldwars and outdated nuclear weapons
during the cold war). Nothing “gracious” about that.
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Modern tanks being unable to swim, however, means that you need to send them
in on special landing craft. The advantage you’d get with hover tanks is
that they’d be able to perform their own “landing” without need for
additional specialized vessels.
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You forget the speed you can achieve when you’re not stuck on the ground.
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As I wrote to Larry, you can’t expect to have air superiorty, so the tanks
can end up pretty much on their own (just think of the Iraqi tanks), speed
will be the essence, not armour.
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As long as you’re fighting people who have weapons, the armor is always
important.
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Of course it is and I wasn’t talking about “no armor”, but light armour + speed.
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Speed only completely supercedes it if you can guarantee that you
can outrun or dodge all enemy fire, and if they end up being used in
defensive actions, that’s pretty much ruled out.
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Nothing can survive todays offensive weapons under direct fire, which can get be
pretty hard to avoid like the two wars in Iraq demonstrates. Tanks are not
intended as defensive weapons (thats up to the infantry as you earlier has
pointed out, but in my opinion this role will be increasingly transferred to
drones and nanoweapons), but tanks may still play a role in an active defense
from small skirmishes to full scale counteroffensive (maneuverability again).
Survivability under direct attack (defensive) depends mainly on having enough
individual units that’s too hard to take out to justify the deployment of
expensive precision weapons: I would rather be an ordinary Iraqi soldier that
one inside a tank! But of course it’s an armsrace where the weapons get faster
and more accurate, and the defensive units has to shrink accordingly: That’s
here the drones and nanoweapons comes in. And then in turn, infantry gets
outdated as well (unless heavily supported by drone and nanoweapons).
Regarding the risk of AI, it doesn’t have to be that advanced: The nations most
likely to be able to produce hovertech, will probably be advanced enough to make
sufficiently advanced target recognition systems without AI, just because of
higher processor capacity and storage: You just have to tell it how neutrals and
friendly forces look like: If you already have a good big brother society with
biometrical recognition, you’re a long way towards that goal, because the
individual unit just can log on to the system (like the police versions of the
same units).
Errors will happen, but drones and nanoweapons will always be a lot easier to
turn off and put back into Pandora’s box than the GMO’s that is already spread
carelessly in the environment today.
BTW It seems like a reply I wrote to your post
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/geek/?n=4840 got lost in the mail, I’ll try
to resend it now...
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