this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
394 points (99.5% liked)

World News

51315 readers
1933 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 73 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The US spent trillions of dollars over decades to do what the Ukrainians have done with some fancy remote controlled toys

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 34 points 1 day ago

Spending those trillions was the point, that it bought the world's most powerful military was a bonus.

[–] dublet@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The main goals of a live wargame like this are to 1) learn lessons, and to 2) get everyone simulated combat experience. This means you need to run as many scenarios as possible and to make sure every unit gets to participate.

If Red team sinks all the landing ships on round one, does that mean your infantry doesn't get to war game and learn lessons (after all, the infantry are all 'in lifeboats')? Fuck no. You take extensive notes on what red team did, restart the war game, but this time mandate the infantry land. It would be a colossal waste to not learn lessons in your infantry unit or to not allow them to accumulate simulated combat experience simply because their boats sank in the first round.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 12 hours ago

You're right, but that's not what they did it seems. They didn't just restart it. They did things like requiring the red team to leave their AA radar on, so they could be targeted. They required them to not use AA against certain targets. They made them not use certain weapons systems. They also didn't allow them to use tactics freely.

The point is, like you said, to learn. It isn't to re-enforce doctrine. It's to find out where it fails so it can be fixed. They wanted a show to say the US military can't be defeated, not to learn how to fight an asymmetric war against a gorilla force.

[–] dublet@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

Nice to meet you, General Peter Pace 🫡

[–] YellowParenti@lemmy.wtf 6 points 1 day ago

That will always be funny. "Stop! We shouldn't learn and adapt. We just want to show off with a live fire parade!

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

War is a great driver of technological innovation.

The airplane was first flown in 1903. When WWI broke out, airplanes were nothing more than fruit crates with wings, with a canvas covering and the equivalent of a lawnmower engine. They could literally tear themselves apart doing acrobatic flying. The first time they tried to mount a machine gun in front of the pilot, he shot up the propeller.

By the end of the war, only a few years later, they had aluminum frames, turbocharged engines, and machine guns that were synced to the crankshaft, and fired between the propellers. They could handle the twists and turns of the most acrobatic dogfight. Without the war, it's doubtful that the aviation industry would have been as motivated to advance so quickly.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago

Very true. And the more I learn about post-War plane development the more I see that a lack of field experience meant stupid designs and terrible planes