Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers
by TheOtherHobbes on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @07:16AM
(#11901192)
>the only serious delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons are missiles.
And merchant ships docked in your enemy's ports. And trucks.
And terrorists.
WWIII will start as a cyberwar. Western systems of all kinds are insanely vulnerable to cyberattack.
You may not be able to force a Western country to surrender by bringing down its banking and civilian comms systems, but you can certainly make it much less able to fight any other kind of war.
How much money is being spent on cyberdefences?
Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers
by mcv on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @09:40AM
(#11901941)
> Aircraft carriers probably made the difference in the Falklands war.
British carriers are much smaller and cheaper than American supercarriers, though.
Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers
by lmm on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @09:43AM
(#11901953)
True - although I've also seen soldiers claim that full-size carriers would have been much more useful, and perhaps that the invasion would not have happened if Britain had still been operating the Ark Royal.
(Most immediately the sinking of HMS Sheffield might have gone quite differently if the British had been capable of operating fixed-wing AWACS)
Aircraft carriers probably made the difference in the Falklands war.
> Tanks, planes, and aircraft carriers, to name a few, either didn't exist or were insignificant in WWI
Tanks played a critical role in the closing years of WWI. Planes were significant (though for reconnaissance rather than attack).
> WWII ended with bombers dropping nuclear weapons (another platform and strategy still in use today).
Bombers dropping nuclear weapons is barely a strategy that exists today. Some countries retain the capability because if you already have a heavy bomber and a nuclear warhead it doesn't cost a whole lot to make them compatible with each other, but the only serious delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons are missiles.