DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon Systems Vulnerabilities

Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by lifeisstillgood on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @05:38PM (#18180013)

I would suggest that the problem is too much wriggle room / dissonance during the design process (in nice safe meeting rooms admittedly) We can all persuade ourselves that as all items are ticked, the job is done.

But testing gives the lie to all this. The patriot system was battle tested in the 1990s and its deficiencies became apparent - and lessons seem to have been learnt.

So perhaps more adversarial testing is the right approach - set the marines to take out the air forces weapons, the navy to destroy the army.

If people know their beloved weapons systems are going to get roughed up, then the tick box stops being the determinant of achievement - it becomes "what would one of those navy/marine/air force/army bar stewards do?" That's a much higher bar.

tl;dr blow shit up and see if it still works

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by TeMPOraL on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @05:52PM (#18180128)

I always assumed the US military does such tests routinely. Don't they?

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by lifeisstillgood on Tuesday October 09, 2018 @07:00PM (#18180556)

the fact that this one test is news suggests, no.

I seem to remember a story about "how good is the SAS" because they were asked, after years of development, to try and destroy an armoured train that carried nuclear material from power plant to disposal (it ran through populated areas so was proof against head on collisions at a gazillion miles per hour and so on)

The guy took a calor gas canister, filled the train half full of gas and lit it. The armoured million dollar train of course ruptured with the internal explosion.

kudos to the well trained SAS demolitions expert, but i suspect a lot of the army could have done that, at various earlier stages.

not sure where that is going, except, yeah blow things up, early on.

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by abledon on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @02:26AM (#18182468)

Now -that- sounds like a fun job to have that comes with lots of dinner stories to tell. Course I guess they’d assassinate the guy if he was telling these stories Willy nilly (to protect national secrecy)

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by acct1771 on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @08:56AM (#18184377)

Is that reasonable to you?

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by abledon on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @10:21PM (#18190599)

Ok maybe assassinate is a bit of a hyperbole for USA but I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia did that

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by acct1771 on Saturday October 13, 2018 @09:39AM (#18207860)

It's not that hyperbolic at all, actually.

But I was asking a question of ethics, not fact.

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by abledon on Sunday October 14, 2018 @12:11PM (#18213562)

no its not ethical, but in general war isn't ethical. it is a reality though until all of humanity can come together slowly over the next few centuries.

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Re:DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Weapon System... by pjc50 on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @02:38AM (#18182504)

Yes, but they don't always want to hear a negative result, e.g. in Iraq wargaming: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/21/usa.julianborg...

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