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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, David Laswell wrote:
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Humans will always have a place on the battlefield, if for only two reasons.
Aircraft have proven capable of instigating conflict and presenting a solid
first wave of defense, but the only way to hold territory is to maintain
pressence there.
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With a particular hostile environment like a planet uninhabitable by humans,
infested with nanorobots designed to gnaw off skinn or armour (or other
ABCN-weapons), or swarms of assasinationdrones, in urban theaters, think
Mogadisho. I don’t think humans will be very usefull, unless heavily protected
and supported by both (and as it seems like we agree that PA’s not an option,
many times infanty won’t be either).
There’s a lot of nasty ways you can control a planet (unless you just want
eliminate it as a threat), you don’t even have to invade (if you bring a stick
that’s big enough):
Like making some good diplomatic deals, demanding a huge
tribute or favorable taxation or trading deals, and move on to the next planet.
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That means people on the ground. The other reason is that
the speed at which combat is fought is always limited by the ability to react
to changing circumstances. Machines currently need preprogrammed reaction
logic, so they can’t reliably react to unexpected events in the way that
well-trained soldiers can.
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Regarding the possibility of creating AI, the jury is still out on that one (and
SF MOC’s is much more interesting with people in), but do I believe that by the
time the “glorious SF-era” has manifested itself, the computers and storage will
be advanced enough to hold a sufficiently advanced target systems (just learn
them how friendly and neutrals look like and make them attack everything else).
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The only way to make them capable of doing so is
to develop true AI, and Asimov’s literary history shows that this might not
be a safe thing even in terms of civilian bots, much less bots with guns
strapped on them.
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Why should you use something as demanding and confused as a human, when
inserting intelligence in military units? AI are much better: It doesn’t
demand space, lifesupport or rest, is way faster and smaller, and do what
it’s told to without moral considerations...
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Think about this. You’ve got to develop a military AI that has no objections
to killing, but won’t go on a killing spree when it gets home. You’ve got to
give them enough deduction capability to figure out who to shoot and who to
not shoot, but expect them to not turn around and go Swiss on you. And
you’ve got to develop their reactionary capabilities beyond those possessed
by humans, who still don’t really understand how the brain works.
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Accidents will happen, they always do, but unlike GMO’s it’ll a lot easier to
turn them off and put them back inside Pandora’s box, and GMO’s is spread
carelessly in the environment already: Hopefully we become more wise in the
future (when we see how bad it can go), but what if you faced alien invasion and
possible extermination?
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Rockets are fine and is here to stay, but drones are the future. Still, you
need humans for humane stuff like peacekeeping and heart & mind missions,
but they’ll need heavy space, air and drone-support.
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Drones with off-site human control are already here, but I wouldn’t want to
bank on the idea of drones that require no human input once you send them on
the mission.
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What about tanks and powerarmor then? Well the infantry’s gotta get around
relatively protected in hover-APC’s, and they may need some light hovertanks
for support, but unless some serious cloaking technology becomes availible
that can protect them against rockets, the main offensive weapons will stay
airborne or spacebased (orbital bombardment).
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I have a feeling that orbital bombardment will have a very short period of
use before it becomes illegal by international treaty.
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You mean like the banning of mines? You don’t have to care about “International
treaties” unless you have signed it, invading aliens probably haven’t, and a lot
of code of conduct is based on culture, like not “living off the land” by eating
your opponents and the like.
And orbital bombardment doesn’t have to cause that much collateral damage
(unless the groundforces hides under civillian areas which is banned too, tell
that to guerillas and the ones that desperatly fights for survival).
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Tecnically there’s a maximum limit of how fast wheeled or tracked vehicles
can move - they just barely managed to reach mach 1 recently in one of the
flattest areas in the world: I wouldn’t like to drive a MBT through rugged
terrain at that speed (or higher)!
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Speed is also constrained by the driver’s ability to not smack into
buildings, trees, and the occassional cow. Fighter jets have the advantage
that there’s not much in the way of obstacles once you get a few thousand
feet into the air, but SW:ROTJ should show you how treacherous it is to
exceed safe travel speeds during combat on unfamiliar terrain.
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When you add oceans and mountain to the equation
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Mountains? That’s what aircraft are for. Tanks, hover or not, have no
business trying to hop over the Himalayas.
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A good forward repulsor “bumper” should repel the craft from most obstacles (see
the snowspeeders in SW ESB :-p), but sensorsystems and anticollision will
probably be a lot more advanced in the future, and if you really need it, there
shouldnt be any problems in climbing to safer altitudes with zero-g or
repulsorlift technology.
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as well as the need to avoid enemy smartbombs by moving around or dodging,
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Dodging is probably never going to be a real option. Fighter jets don’t
dodge missiles, but rather out-manouver them, or misdirect them. Hover tanks
will likely end up in the same scrap pile as mundane tanks when jets scream
over at Mach 2+ and unleash cluster smart-bombs like they were doing in Iraq.
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I think that that pretty much sums up why tanks need to hover (and with
beamweapons or rockets, recoil wouldn’t be a problem).
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Rockets are more bulky compared to the depleted uranium darts that we (the
US) currently use. In order to equal the destructive capabilities, they’d
need to be huge, so you’d have a very limited ammo capacity. Depleted
uranium rounds will punch through pretty much any armor plating out there
(including that which is used for the Abrams), but they’re probably not much
bigger than the RPGs that weren’t even much of a threat to our Humvees, and
were just bouncing off our Abrams tanks. And without currently existing
beamweapon capability to back up the hover tank argument, there’s no way of
guaranteeing that the two technologies would become available at the same
time.
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The dodging were actually a joke, but no armour can survive that kind of attack
(or space bombardment) so speed (in the mach’s), and not being where the enemy
expects is the key to surviving.
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I think that that pretty much sums up why tanks need to hover
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:-P
-NB
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