Technology or the man behind the gun

• glock

  4 Jan 07, 23:14

  If we start thinking that fighting a war is like running a corporation , no need to fight - we might as well surrender.
  
  If we start thinking & fighting like a streetwise gangster, then we are ahead in the game.
• Fairyland

  5 Jan 07, 10:35

  Originally posted by storywolf:

  Hizbollahs show you the way ? yep just knock out a few tanks only what .... Isreal still there .... so they way is - to win some then go home and talk cock !!! that is not winning the war.

  Luckily they didn't win and the IDF responded to the kidnap the way they did. But they were pretty much on the right track and given more time and money to build up would have been much more effective. I think it was a timing issue.
  
  The relative superiority of IDF tech (probably the wall too)has made them softer. IMHO they rather nearly lost it even from the media angle they didn't do quite a good job.
  
  My 2 cents.
• M551Sheridian

  5 Jan 07, 14:09

  don agree wif ur t34 wiping out the panzers .. they cld easily own the russian t34 wif thier superior armour n weaps its jus tat thier tanks were unrealaiable n they cld reload as fast as compared to the amount of enemies up ahead
• moca

  5 Jan 07, 17:37

  The T-34 is actually one of the best tanks of WW2 - in the same way the AK-47 is the perfect assault rifle.
  
  Item by item, the T-34 may lose out to the best German tank - the Panther - for example. But the T-34 is cheaper to build, and easier to maintain, and as a result there are a LOT of them.
  
  (It's a bit like comparing the excellent FN FAL against the crude AK-47. The FAL is accurate and powerful and works reliably, except in the desert. But the recoil is hard, full auto is uncontrollable, ammo is big and heavy, it is expecnsive to manufacture and too big and heavy for smaller troops to carry. The AK-47 solved all those problems with the trade-off being accuracy.)
  
  Even though Germans are superior in every way, they simply couldn't win if you pit 5,000 superb Panthers and crews against 10,000 good T-34.
  
  The Americans and British had excellent modern tanks towards the end of the WW2 which were equal to the German Panther and Russian T-34.
  
  But the tank they said won the war was the less than perfect M4 Sherman simply because there were so many of them and it was also an easy platform to upgrade - much like the M-16.
  
  So, again, the best equipment does not guarantee victory.
• SingaporeTyrannosaur

  7 Jan 07, 04:09

  I think itÂ’s a moot argumentÂ… in the end if you look at it, it is still human ingenuity and will that comes up with all the technology that wages war. The danger is when technologically advantaged forces use this advantage to replace ingenuity on the ground, as opposed to using this technology to enhance what their creativity.
  
  I do not think what happened in Somalia or is happening now in Iraq is an example of technology failing to win a fight. If anything the reason it has probably ended up saving many lives and winning many fights that would not have been possible if they didnÂ’t have them. The Yanks would have all been dead in Mog if they werenÂ’t able to continue fighting at night and having Little Bird support gun runs. In Iraq their losses would certainly be a ton higher if it wasnÂ’t for body armour, proper communications, and adapting new technologies to fight asymmetric warfare. For every IED that goes off a lot more insurgents are often killed trying to plant IEDs (courtesy of the UAV eye in the sky) or having them jammed or discovered. ItÂ’s the ones that they miss that make the news.
  
  At the end of the day you use what tool you have. The insurgents are not fighting the yanks with their bare hands and rocks and sticks, they are still very much using technology to get the job done- abet things that are very much less advanced but if you look at it, still rather modern technologies. ItÂ’s not as if they were fighting this war with swords, gunpowder or muskets or stuff like that.
  
  I think itÂ’s foolish to disregard the role of technology as a force multiplier in war, but at the end of the day you realize that you just have to do what you need to do to win. ThereÂ’s no need to be dogmatic or passionate about this or that style. If using technology is a better way to inflict damage, think faster and fight betterÂ… IÂ’m all for it. If it makes me stupider in battle, less creative and more complacentÂ… obviously itÂ’s something we have to avoid.
  
  But all this junk about Blackhawks being useless simply because they can be brought down by an RPG is just that- junk talk. Blackhawks were never meant to take RPGs and there are plenty of ways to bring it down. In the end itÂ’s still very useful and vital in the big picture of things. I think itÂ’s rather silly for one, to abandon all helicopters simply because they canÂ’t take antitank weapon. That is some rather wacky thinking. A stick can never run out of ammo, why donÂ’t we use that instead of rifles?
  
  Will starts everything, but at the end of the day if you can have a better toolÂ… why not use it? Note that the insurgents and Viet Cong were not deliberately discarding technology in their fightÂ… they were making the best use of whatever they had at hand.
  
• Gedanken

  7 Jan 07, 12:50

  Well reasoned post, ST.
  
  Lest I be misunderstood, the aim of my bringing up the Blackhawk incident was to point out that high-tech is not as infallible as Tripwire portrays it. To interpret it the Blackhawk example as stating that high-tech is useless is extrapolating the point too far.
  
  As I stated earlier, the key issue here is how well suited the tool is to the job, not how high-tech it is. We need to be mindful of the weapons' limitations as well as their strengths, and in so doing select the right tool for the job. You can have satellites and a carrier full of technology, but first you're going to have to find the target, and ultimately the ideal tool for that first task may still be the Eyeball Mark I.
• moca

  8 Jan 07, 02:38

  In a nutshell, the American plan for the BHD ops was to ride humvees and fly BH with guns blazing into the heart of a hornet's nest, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, grab some POWs and then waltz out...
  
  In this case the man/men who planned the operation were the determining factor in the failure of the operation.