New technologies, yes. New enemies, yes. A somewhat different operational environment, yes.
But what is this, really? Low-intensity conflict - a counter-insurgency campaign. We've done it before (against Muslims, too), in the Phillipines. Quite frankly, we won that one. We lost the second time we tried, in Vietnam (actually, we won the counterinsurgency phase, but lost the guerilla/conventional forces phase). Other countries have, too. Militarily, nobody's ever done a good job of running a COIN campaign in Afghanistan - the people, the culture, the terrain, and the environment are more conducive to the insurgents than just about any other place on earth.
Bombing Afghanistan won't do much good, either, for two reasons:
- It leaves us very vulnerable to bad intel. The 1998 cruise missile strikes are a great example of that. It's not well publicized, but that was an intel op that we came out on the wrong end of. We were supposed to be hitting a meeting of terrorist leaders, at least according to intercepted cell phone calls. What we actually hit was a religious retreat of Pakistani physicians. All we accomplished was demonstrating very clearly that we were listening in on cell phone calls.
- There really isn't much left to bomb. The last 22 years of combat in Afghanistan has pretty much destroyed the national infrastructure - there just aren't any good targets left. All bombing would do right now is move the rubble around some.
Want to win this war? Hearts and minds - we're going to have to go in, occupy the area, and change the society.
I recently (about 2 years ago) had the opportunity to rebuild one of my spare bedrooms into my office/geekroom. It started bare - small bedroom, double panel closet, and a shared electrical circuit. Changes include:
26-odd feet of floor-to-ceiling adjustable bookshelves (2 sides of the room, basically, less a doorway). 4 feet of that is in extra-wide, extra-deep shelves suitable for a small fax machine/etc.
a built-in lateral file cabinet and drawers underneath 10 feet of benchtop (gotta have someplace to run the extra machines.
wraparound desk with island for my "primary" workspace.
built-in storage space for a case of paper and other office supplies
new shelving for the closet, to hold DSL/router/hub.
dedicated 20 amp electrical circuit _just_ for the geek stuff - doesn't even hit the light switch. Drops to a total of 18 outlets - 3 4x's and a 2x, including some under the desk for printers/etc., and one in the closet for the DSL/router/hub/etc.
new task lighting (TBD) for the whole room.
Oh yeah - and the whole thing done in oak.
About the same time, I got to tinker with my mom's house, where I stash most of my servers. Her "sewing room" added:
a double-width closet, with wiring ducts and 2x 20 amp circuits of it's own
a third 20-amp circuit in the exterior wall
18000BTU of air conditioner (enough to cool the whole house if needed).
A 19" floor-to-ceiling server rack. Currently stuffed with about $30K in server/router/etc. gear.
Equipment shelves, for my geek stuff
While we were at it, we redid the rest of the house. Every room now has at least one cat5e drop and a coax cable feed (yes, including her desk). The whole house runs switched 100TX. Oh yes, and we threw 4200w of solar cells on the roof and about 24 KwH of battery storage in the garage, to help with those wonderful brownouts. Even with everything running full blast (inc. 12 servers + switch + 2 routers) we pretty much balance out.
Another person mentioned IKEA furniture. If you're in an apartment, their office stuff seems like it offers some pretty good possibilities and options - I was quite impressed, esp. with value-for-money.
Actually, I was looking at the feasibility of picking up a surplus C-141, rewinging and re-engining it, redoing the avionics, then fitting a nice passenger cabin inside. You could get the whole mess for about what a G-V would cost, and those don't come with a two-car, drive in garage, or air-to-air refueling capability (if you can get someone to lug the gas up there for you...). On a more practical front, it makes for a much more convenient people + equipment toter.
According to this nifty page at NASA, Mach 7.1 is about 5406 MPH, whereas 260 ft, per 0.03
seconds, is about 5909 MPH.
Well, given that the projectile in question was accelerating at ~10K G for that 260 ft, from a starting velocity of Mach 7.1, one would expect the mean velocity over the 260 ft to be somewhat higher, eh?
It's a really cute idea. Consider that a friend and I were working on putting a PC-XT into a normal briefcase in 1984, and it doesn't look quite so cutting edge, though.
No shit. Especially given that Dr. Jim Hrisoulis of UNLV has been publishing about this for a number of years now. Not just prior art, but out-and-out plagiarism.
Actually ebooks provides a simple method for circumventing the publishers. After all, while you might not be able to afford to have a book published, nearly anyone can afford a web site. If you don't need an actual paper book, then perhaps you don't need the publisher.
Actually, not true. Between
Cost of the software to create an eBook (Acrobat currently runs ~$900 retail for a single-user license)
Cost of an ecommerce website that generates those nifty time-limiting keys
you're actually looking at as much or more than it would cost to do a boutique printing run. I could do boutique hardback runs in low quantity for $15-20 each, 10 years ago - and the costs have gone down. Assuming no volume discounts, I can still get a small starter run done for about what it would cost to set up the ebook system. And using Paypal or something similar, my transaction costs are lower - I keep more profit.
First of all, publishers do have a useful function screening and editting content.
No, you're talking about _editors_. Publishers retain editors, but editors can also be had damn near for the asking - I personally know a dozen professional-grade editors just off the top of my head.
Properly speaking, publishers control (a) the printing press, and (b) the marketing/distribution arm that gets the books out to the booksellers. All the rest is support services, that they may or may not provide. All we're talking about are those two points on the value chain.
Once upon a time I was an author. I quit writing "real" books because the publishers wouldn't pay dick. Ideas like this make sure that I wouldn't get paid dick. They make sure that the publisher gets paid more, and I get paid less.
Further, the "time-based permit" is absolutely bullshit. 10 hours, to read a 275 page book. I can do that. My wife, on the other hand, would get to about chapter 3 before her permit ran out.
Pardon my language, but please, before you attempt to dazzle us with your insight, LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT THE F*CKING INDUSTRY. I _can not_ agree with a piece of stupidity like this, either from the perspective of an author OR from a reader (or, frankly, from a taxpayer, who pays taxes to stock libraries, and is about to donate another 20 shelf-feet of content to the local libraries). It is an absolutely blazing piece of stupidity from a company that _used_ to know better, but now seems to have portions of its braincase inserted in a most awkward position. I'm frankly ashamed to say I have friends there.
For the animation industry. It's called an on-demand rendering farm, and we're a bit cheaper than Kinkos for CPU time. We charge for CPU resources used, that's it. http://www.netrendered.com
Oh, to answer the economic argument, unless you're doing a LOT of computing, it's cheaper to lease the time than to buy. I can give you ~30 hours/month of system time for less than you can buy _one_ equivalent machine. And my way (a) it's tax-deductible, and (b) you only pay as you go - not all up front.
Glad to. It's kind of rare these days to find someone who enjoys history, and who actually has a clue on the subject.
King is still dammed, 6 months to admit a mistake that occurred, solely by his personality flaw. Admiral Sims during World war One recognised the threat of U-Boats and convoys as the only means to counter them, he advocated that to the British in 1917.
Well, to give the man his due, he had a few other things on his mind at the time. The folks I'd really go after are the leadership for the Atlantic and Home fleets - they're the ones who really botched up the convoy protection issue. A lot of people in the US didn't think the war would reach all the way across the Atlantic, though - they were quite surprised by the method of the US entry into the war, and by some of the immediate consequences. You might note how unprepared the French were, _6 months_ after they entered the war.
Read John Terraine's "Business in Great Waters, The U-Boat Wars of 1915-1945". It is the definitive book and damms King and the Navy (and in fairness, the British Navy in early World war Two gets dammed as well).
When I get a chance. There's a large pile of to-be-read books in my living room.
There is a flaw in much of military thinking, the cost is always paid in blood.
Always the case, unfortunately.
The first Zero, was captured in February 1942 and shipped to the US for evaluation. It crashlanded almost intact on Thursday Island off the north coast of Australia, following a bombing raid on Darwin (Feb 23 or 29th, 1942). It is easy to see why it has been overlooked historically, US forces didn't capture it, so it has quietly been forgotten. That Zero was used in the designing the Hellcat.
Interesting - I hadn't run into a reference to that one. Date was actually Feb. 19, 1942. Based on the condition of the plane (see the pictures at http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/statuepark/6 20/toyoshima.htm), it looks like it wasn't in flyable shape, so they probably disassembled it and looked it over. The 8/42 Alaska capture was the first one in flyable condition, so it's still arguable, a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, though, that some elements of the Zero design wound up in the Hellcat.
The Mustang is fascinating, it is the supreme piston engined aircraft of World War 2, but my point was, it was not designed as a long range fighter pre war, so no credit can be taken for it. It evolved almost accidently.
Umm, take that further. It wasn't designed prewar, _period_. North American didn't even start talking about a design for such a plane until mid 1940. The original design, with the Allison engine, was built as a low-level fighter - everyone knew the supercharged Allison wouldn't put out the horsepower needed above 15K feet. Don't know who had the idea to put the Merlin in, but all the design folks knew that would resolve the high-altitude performance issue. A couple other interesting points to note. First, the A-36 was designated as a dive bomber to sneak it into the US inventory. It was, in fact, a fighter from the get-go. Second, The P-51 is pretty much a descendant of the P-40. The North American NA-73 design was, it turns out, partially based on a Curtis-designed successor to the P-40.
Indeed the USAAAF prewar advocated the dogma of the self protecting bomber ie the B17. That dogma was persisted with despite its known fallacy, the ultimate dream was for an independent Airforce and bombing was the way the advocates saw to achieving it. The tradegy was in the pursuit of that dream, the planners condemmed thousands of young men to death, the lessons of the Britsh and the Germans were there, but ignored. Not until the second Schweinfurt did the USAAAF accept that their prewar plans were fantasy.
_Every_ prewar bomber command advocated large bomber strikes. The USAAF was simply the last to have the blinders taken from their eyes. To some extent, they had viable reasons for believing as they did. 1943 really was educational, though, in that it demonstrated the big logical fallacies that couldn't be ignored. BTW-- you might note that by Feb 1944, the bombers were essentially being used as bait, to bring up (and kill) German fighters, in preparation for the June landings.
As an aside the tactic used effectively by the Luftwaffe with head on attacks which rendered the B17's almost defenceless (till the G model) was copied from the RAF No. 111 Squadron, they first used it in the Battle of Britian to attack the German formations. Again a lesson was clearly there but ignored, the question is with almost 3 years to do something(1940-1943), that design flaw in the B17 should have been removed before crews were sent into combat.
There's endless points like that. Did you know that the primary reason the US forces went ashore with Shermans in June of 44 was because George S. Patton thought bigger tanks like the M-26 would be less maneuverable? Turns out that the M-4 had _higher_ ground pressure than the M-26, and was thus less maneuverable on rough ground. But the decision had been made in Jan. 1944, for delivery for the June landings. Once the production targets were changed (7/44), it took another 5 months for the M-26s to get into combat.
As for the Mosquito, it is an anomaly, so clearly superior to any other bomber be it British or American, fast, cheap to make, to maintain, less expensive in crews to train and man, the lists goes on and on.
Hmmm. Semi-arguable - the A-26 Invader had an illustrious post-war career (into the 70s, actually) for precisely those same reasons. But when it debuted, it definitely set the standard.
Were the lumbering fleets of four engined heavies necessary militarily or merely politically, Generals needs armies, without them their prestige is lessened.
Iffy, either way. Once the war started, everyone pretty much had to start building what they had available. B-17s, for example, were produced because they were what was available. Same with the F-4F and P-40. Hell, why do you think there were P-39s/400s sent to Guadalcanal? They were the _wrong_ plane for the mission, but they were also the only thing in the bucket to send. A lot of what was done, was theoretical, with very little way to check accurate results. So everybody tried out their ideas, to see what would work. Ploesti, for example, demonstrated that mass, low-level bombing was suicide. Yet Wewak showed that low-level tactical strikes _did_ have their place. The whole air-support campaign in the Solomons Slot, as well as the Battle of the Bismark Sea, showed what land-based air could do to naval forces, given the chance.
...my initial point way back:) was to reply to the comment originally made that the US was planning way back in the 20 and the 30's. I still don't accept that, it is merely revisonist history at its worst.
It's still true, though. Take the US Marines. Most of the amphibious doctrine that they used in the Pacific was written and tested in the 1920s. Their close-air-support doctrine was forged in Nicaragua and Haiti, also in the interwar period. Or, use the US Army. All of the tactical infantry doctrine was worked out in the 1920s and 1930s at Ft. Benning. Most of their counter-Panzer doctrine was developed in 1940, during things like the Louisiana exercises (I can't stress it enough - go read Perret on this - he says it far better than I can). Or, the US Navy. Carrier doctrine (as well as unrep capabilities, which were _just_ as important) was worked out in exercises during the 1920s and 1930s. Every major (and most minor) combatant design that the US Navy brought to the party was worked out and ready for production (if not already IN production) before 1939, and they were _all_ on the order books in the 1940/41 budgets.
I can't accept your comments about poor decisons of King and Macarthur, they still equate to me to a lack of planning and taking Dixon's book in account shows a serious flaw in the military. Both men's command clearly failed when tested in battle. The mistake they both made was their egos could not accept they could learn from others, King from the detested Britsh and Macarthur from the enemy.
Well, that's an opinion thing. IMHO, Macarthur and King were well prepared, and had planned in-depth for the coming war. However, I think it would be an accurate thing to say that their plans were not necessarily the correct ones, and that they perhaps planned for the wrong war at times. Macarthur pretty much threw away the Phillipines, because (a) he and the War Dept. planned to fight different wars, and (b) once the shooting (and the landings) started, he didn't fight the war he planned for anyway. A great example is the huge supply caches he built up on the central plains south of Manila. After setting his supplies out front, so he could execute a fighting withdrawal, he wound up boxing himself into Bataan, and left large supply caches out for the Japanese to capture. King, similarly, didn't plan for the kind of war the Germans decided to fight - he was thinking offensive strategies in the Atlantic, and then had to strip _that_ capability to cover for the carnage in the Pacific.
I look forward to seeing your corrsponence on other issues in slashdot and will happily mod for you.
Glad to correpsond. Like I said - I like finding someone who knows what they're talking about.
King was the senior officer in the US Navy at the time. It was therefore rather difficult to "override" him. You might note that within 6 months, the lessons had been learned, tactics adapted/adopted, escorts provided, and aircover was in place - and the mass slaughter of shipping ended.
As far as the "experience" thing goes - a lot of what other countries had learned (if you're thinking what I'm thinking) wasn't really applicable. Americans, at the time, fought a different "style" of war - much more emphasis on firepower, and use of the holding attack as a "standard" approach. Do you realize, for example, that Germany had over 50 different types of infantry division, while the US had _two_.
B-17 vs. the Mosquito: You should review the data on this. The Mosquito had a max load of 4000lb with a one-way range of 1485 miles (B XVI version). Max bomb load for a B-17G was approximately 20,850lbs, though normal load for a central European target was around 5000lbs, and one-way range was 3000 miles. Also, note that the first Mosquito flight was in 1939, but the first B-17 flight was in 1935.
Mustang: You don't know your design history. The P-51 was originally built as the A-36 Apache, powered by an Allison engine. It was used as a land-base dive bomber, and was considered an excellent tactical support aircraft. It really came into its own, though, when the Merlin engine was mated to the airframe. The extra at-altitude power, coupled to lower battle damage sensitivity, turned a really good low-level plane into a better all-around fighter. http://www.flightjournal.com/plane_profiles/p-51_m ustang/p-51_mustang_history.asp
The Hellcat: I think you're mistaken about the Hellcat's design basis. The Hellcat first flew in June, 1942. The first Zero wasn't captured until August of 1942, however, in Alaska. http://lisar.larc.nasa.gov/LISAR/ABSTRACTS/EL-2000 -00223.html. If you look at the Hellcat, it's a fairly straightforward outgrowth of the F-4F design - similar design history, but with a new engine, better wing desgn, and longer fuselage.
You should bother reading the "why" of this stuff. Just to use your examples:
Air attacks on the Phillipines: The war warning was received in the Phillipines, as was the warning of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The big threat was judged to be attack by saboteurs. Therefore, all of the aircraft were lined up on the tarmac in a nice, tight group, to make them easier to guard. The B-17 group commander requested (and was denied) permission to attack Japanese airfields on Formosa/Taiwan. He was held back because reports were coming in of Japanese troop convoys entering Phillipine waters, and the GC decided he wanted to be able to use the B-17s against those, rather than against the Japanese airstrips on Formosa. He called it wrong, however, and the initial attack was an air strike (from Formosa), which caught his aircraft on the ground.
Operation Paukenschlage, the "Happy Time", and convoys in 1Q42/2Q42: The leadership at SecNav (including Ernie King, CNO), were biased against convoys as an "English" idea that wouldn't work as well on the Eastern Seaboard. In addition, they were worried that they didn't have enough escorts to protect convoys in any case, in which case the convoys would simply create a larger collection of targets. So they took a gamble - one which they lost.
War is like that - people make choices. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. In those two cases, people didn't die due to lack of preparedness. They died because of poor decisions.
Preparedness, though, is having orders out/construction started/mobilization begun for most of the equipment used in the war, in 1940. Do you realize that most of the prototype work for the equipment the US Army took into battle _through 1943_ was done before 1939, before the war ever started? The US Army went into WW2 with _buildings_ full of detailed industrial mobilization plans. The US Navy wasn't far behind, either. All of the aircraft that won WW2 were designed and in production (LRIP, at least) prior to Sept. 1941.
Go read _There's a War to be Won_ by Jeffrey Perret for a look at some of this.
Been reading some Clancy lately? You're not even close to right.
If I were the Chinese, where would I attack?
Indonesia and Malaysia, to close the straights to transiting traffic. Threaten to shut off Japan's oil supplies, and they _will_ block American base access.
The West Coast of the US. I don't need to threaten nuclear _impact_. I can threaten EMP strikes. One each against San Diego/Los Angeles, San Francisco/Sacramento, and Seattle/Tacoma/etc., and I've got a $100 billion economic target. Want to see a recession? Try rebuilding the electronics for all three of those from the ground up, and see what that does to the US economy.
western Australia. Perth makes such a nice, _isolated_ target.
Brunei. With 2 whole battalions of troops, they'd go under like a rock in the surf. And just think - all that oil!
Anybody who thinks the Chinese are going to go strength vs. strength against the US are stupid. They'll go for asymetric warfare, and threaten to cripple the US and Japanese economies.
First, in a realpolitik world, you must be prepared and willing to play by the rules as everyone has decided/agreed to. Wilsonian visions of a utopian world only work when you can change the underlying social agreements and thought processes. Altruism only works when _everyone_ is being altruistic. Suppose, for example, that you and someone else are stuck on a boat. You have enough water for 14 man-days - and the nearest island is 9 days away. If you're both altruistic, you can (just barely) stretch your water supplies to get you both to the island. But neither of you can cheat in the slightest. OTOH, if you're altruistic, and the other person isn't, then you run out of water. Except for the little private stash he's laid aside. You die for lack of water, while he makes it to the island. Self-interest is a bitch, eh?
Second, even in a completely logical environment, you won't find true multi-lateral treaties observed for very long. The governing logic is Prisoner's Dilemma. There's a lot of research that shows that in a 2-person (aka bilateral) PD environment, cooperation is very common, because it's in both sides best interests. In a multilateral PD environment (3 or more actors), however, cooperation quickly breaks down, because even though cooperation is in their _collective_ best interest, it is not in any _individual's_ best interest. I did some research on this in the early 90s as it applied to arms control treaties, and verified that that was in fact the case - one look at the power structure involved in the treaty, and you could tell if it was going to work.
In sum, the 1967 treaty was perfectly workable as long as there were two opposing power blocs - neither side wanted the other to militarize space, so they were willing to forgo the benefits of doing so in return for the benefits of the other side NOT doing so. Once we moved to a multilateral world, however, all that logic fell by the wayside. So, as I said, you can expect a lot of agreements that made a lot of sense during the Cold War to fall by the wayside. The ABM Treaty being another _excellent_ case in point.
Two counter arguments. Just think about them - you don't have to agree:
The F-15/ASAT system is old enough, and has been on the shelf long enough, that (a) there aren't any pilots who know the attack profile, and (b) the missiles (there were only ~15 to begin with) are probably degraded and unsafe/useless. A simple replacement, based on the X-33 and using (potentially) the 747/Antimissile laser system is much more reusable.
As a bomber, this is great for hitting a small number of hard-to-kill targets, located well away from a shoreline, without using ICBM-based nuclear weapons. For example, China's ICBM force - all 24 missiles of it. China's ICBMs are located wayyyy in the interior - to far for carrier-based planes to hit. Since the "just bombers" option isn't very safe (penetrating 2000 miles of enemy airspace with _just_ a bomber?), this gives an effective way to take China's deterent off the table.
Figure it out, guys - we're gearing up for a war with China, about 20 years down the road. Just like we started gearing up for a war with Japan, and Germany, in the 1920s.
Please go spend some time reading up on the history of arms control treaties. You will find that this is nothing new. A few cases in point:
Washington Naval Treaty: Japan signs, then immediately starts building in violation of the treaty. After the initial term of the treaty ends, Japan declares its intent to withdraw from the treaty in the minimum allowable time, and commences construction as appropriate.
Versailled Treaty: As part of the terms of the treaty, Germany is required to disarm in a number of areas, and is technologically restricted in a number of others (fighter aircraft, u-boats, other weapons development), and is not allowed to militarize the Ruhr, which is occupied by French troops. Germany responds by moving most weapons development work abroad - the Netherlands and the USSR are the two primary locations. The infamous 88mm Pak 18 was, for example, developed and tested by a design team in the Netherlands. The day after France pulls out of the Ruhr, Germany abrogates the relevent portions of the Versailles treaty, and moves their own army troops in.
CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) Treaty. This treaty reduces conventional forces for both sides by significant amounts. One loophole exists for "maritime" support forces, while another exists as a geographic loophole - Russia is only included up to the Ural mountains. As soon as the treaty is signed, Russia (a) moves large amounts of treaty-prohibited armor into parking facilities to the west of the Ural mountains (ironically, since that equipment wasn't maintained, it's now a huge pile of rust), and (b) redesignates some 20% of their frontal aviation assets as "naval infantry" support assets. NATO pulls a few tricks in similar veins.
The 1967 treaty will be observed as long as the signatories who matter want it to be observed. Quite frankly, however, I expect that most of those treaties will either die, or be ignored, in the next 10-15 years. PD logic is pretty clear that in a multi-power situation, the treaty is the first thing to go.
Quicky refresher on military technology, circa 1992.
One of the interesting issues exposed by the Gulf War was that, given the then-current state of the art, a given firing ship could actually control a lot more firing tubes than were mounted on it. For example, an Aegis cruiser could comfortably target/control several hundred SLCMs, but only had about 70 tubes, and usually kept >2/3 of those filled with SAMs for self defense. Since the control electronics were the expensive part of the equation, and since a properly equiped ship could easily control other ships' missiles, some blithering idiot put these facts together and came up with the arsenal ship.
The basic idea was to have a (large) ship, built to civilian standards (not military/blast/etc. resistant), with a small crew (40ish, as I recall), and only minimal self-defense capability. The ship's primary purpose was to be a great, big, floating VLS platform - the design I saw had over 200 VLS launch tubes, which were to be filled with cruise missiles, with a few SAMs thrown in for use by the accompanying warships if needed. No control electronics, except those needed to permit another ship to control launches, would be included, however. Plans were to build 2 of them - one for the Atlantic fleet, one for the Pacific fleet.
The idea ran into several practical problems:
The planned loadout for the arsenal ships constituted something like 35% of all available SLCMs at the time.
To actually keep up with the rate of fire, SLCM production would have to be roughly quintupled.
The things were such great high-value targets, with minimal defenses, that any idiot would go after them immediately.
They weren't designed to fight a war, but rather beat on an already-down opponent. Kinda like WW2 monitors, they would only be useful in a very limited number of situations.
Normal downtime rules meant that they'd really only be available about 25% of the time.
In the end, the idea died when someone tried to actually get funding to build one.
Nah. This isn't scary. Scary is when someone gets around to putting a lunar mining operation into place, with a mass driver to shove stuff up into construction orbits. The ability to throw a 2 ton rock down the orbit well, on demand, every 30 seconds (or whatever), until you run out of rocks or power, is scary.
You need to read more, too. Never heard of Hamilton, but the kinetic missile concept for sub/orbital bombardment has been around for pushing 25 years. The first time I ran into a reference was in a Gerald O'Neill book, about 20 years ago, and they're used to great effect in the Niven/Pournelle book _Footfall_.
The basic idea is pretty sound - a long chunk of iron/steel, with a guidance package in the nose, and basic aerodynamic surfaces for guidance. Shouldn't be too hard to build, and would be thoroughly nasty once they tough down.
What's the story? Well, you were looking at the equivalent of a 1930s Ford Fordor. What you're now looking at is roughly the equivalent of a 1980s sedan. That's roughly the level of technology development, and capability improvement, that have occured in the last 12 years.
The version you saw 12 years ago, required aviation fuel, carried 1-2 passengers (max), had a top speed of about 90mph, and a range of about 150 miles. And it chugged fuel. Oh yeah - and you had to be a fully licensed pilot to fly it.
The version you're looking at how runs on normal high-test gasoline, carries 4 passengers, has a top speed of ~400mph, a range of ~900 miles, and gets 15mpg (about what a truck gets). Assuming the FAA goes along, it will only require a cut-down pilots license - about as difficult to get as a truck driver's license.
Frankly, from where he started 40-odd years ago, Moller has come a looooong way. If I'm right about a couple things, he's also accidentally created most of the underlying technology to make all kinds of variants - a minivan version, for example, could use the same thrust units (doubled-up - you'd need more power), same controls, and a similar aeroshell - and would have the same licensing requirements. Yet you could use it for cargo hauling, or as one hell of an airport shuttle/taxi.
You should go read, then. They're not using jet engines, but rather pairs of rotary engines turning fan blades inside each engine nacelle. Basically, it's a variation on what's being done with the V-22, in a civilianized, much smaller package.
I haven't seen real performance numbers yet from them (they're still using the estimated numbers), but I've been watching these guys for about 12 years now, and I'm hoping they'll get the technology right some time in the next couple.
You might want to rethink that whole line of logic. There's a big difference between making information freely available, and learning the skills needed to go find a specific piece of information, and put it to use.
For example, what's the real benefit (to most people) of a college education? Not the career information, but rather learning how to learn, and how to get more out of that supercomputer on top of your neck. If all you're there for is the career info, go to a vocational school.
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New technologies, yes. New enemies, yes. A somewhat different operational environment, yes.
But what is this, really? Low-intensity conflict - a counter-insurgency campaign. We've done it before (against Muslims, too), in the Phillipines. Quite frankly, we won that one. We lost the second time we tried, in Vietnam (actually, we won the counterinsurgency phase, but lost the guerilla/conventional forces phase). Other countries have, too. Militarily, nobody's ever done a good job of running a COIN campaign in Afghanistan - the people, the culture, the terrain, and the environment are more conducive to the insurgents than just about any other place on earth.
Bombing Afghanistan won't do much good, either, for two reasons:
- It leaves us very vulnerable to bad intel. The 1998 cruise missile strikes are a great example of that. It's not well publicized, but that was an intel op that we came out on the wrong end of. We were supposed to be hitting a meeting of terrorist leaders, at least according to intercepted cell phone calls. What we actually hit was a religious retreat of Pakistani physicians. All we accomplished was demonstrating very clearly that we were listening in on cell phone calls.
- There really isn't much left to bomb. The last 22 years of combat in Afghanistan has pretty much destroyed the national infrastructure - there just aren't any good targets left. All bombing would do right now is move the rubble around some.
Want to win this war? Hearts and minds - we're going to have to go in, occupy the area, and change the society.
About the same time, I got to tinker with my mom's house, where I stash most of my servers. Her "sewing room" added:
While we were at it, we redid the rest of the house. Every room now has at least one cat5e drop and a coax cable feed (yes, including her desk). The whole house runs switched 100TX. Oh yes, and we threw 4200w of solar cells on the roof and about 24 KwH of battery storage in the garage, to help with those wonderful brownouts. Even with everything running full blast (inc. 12 servers + switch + 2 routers) we pretty much balance out.
Another person mentioned IKEA furniture. If you're in an apartment, their office stuff seems like it offers some pretty good possibilities and options - I was quite impressed, esp. with value-for-money.
Actually, I was looking at the feasibility of picking up a surplus C-141, rewinging and re-engining it, redoing the avionics, then fitting a nice passenger cabin inside. You could get the whole mess for about what a G-V would cost, and those don't come with a two-car, drive in garage, or air-to-air refueling capability (if you can get someone to lug the gas up there for you...). On a more practical front, it makes for a much more convenient people + equipment toter.
seconds, is about 5909 MPH.
Well, given that the projectile in question was accelerating at ~10K G for that 260 ft, from a starting velocity of Mach 7.1, one would expect the mean velocity over the 260 ft to be somewhat higher, eh?
It's a really cute idea. Consider that a friend and I were working on putting a PC-XT into a normal briefcase in 1984, and it doesn't look quite so cutting edge, though.
It is. You can thank Dr. Jim Hrisoulis for a lot of the research these turkeys are trying to claim. http://www.atar.com/ is his swordmaking site.
No shit. Especially given that Dr. Jim Hrisoulis of UNLV has been publishing about this for a number of years now. Not just prior art, but out-and-out plagiarism.
Actually, not true. Between
- Cost of the software to create an eBook (Acrobat currently runs ~$900 retail for a single-user license)
- Cost of an ecommerce website that generates those nifty time-limiting keys
you're actually looking at as much or more than it would cost to do a boutique printing run. I could do boutique hardback runs in low quantity for $15-20 each, 10 years ago - and the costs have gone down. Assuming no volume discounts, I can still get a small starter run done for about what it would cost to set up the ebook system. And using Paypal or something similar, my transaction costs are lower - I keep more profit.First of all, publishers do have a useful function screening and editting content. No, you're talking about _editors_. Publishers retain editors, but editors can also be had damn near for the asking - I personally know a dozen professional-grade editors just off the top of my head.
Properly speaking, publishers control (a) the printing press, and (b) the marketing/distribution arm that gets the books out to the booksellers. All the rest is support services, that they may or may not provide. All we're talking about are those two points on the value chain.
Further, the "time-based permit" is absolutely bullshit. 10 hours, to read a 275 page book. I can do that. My wife, on the other hand, would get to about chapter 3 before her permit ran out.
Pardon my language, but please, before you attempt to dazzle us with your insight, LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT THE F*CKING INDUSTRY. I _can not_ agree with a piece of stupidity like this, either from the perspective of an author OR from a reader (or, frankly, from a taxpayer, who pays taxes to stock libraries, and is about to donate another 20 shelf-feet of content to the local libraries). It is an absolutely blazing piece of stupidity from a company that _used_ to know better, but now seems to have portions of its braincase inserted in a most awkward position. I'm frankly ashamed to say I have friends there.
Oh, to answer the economic argument, unless you're doing a LOT of computing, it's cheaper to lease the time than to buy. I can give you ~30 hours/month of system time for less than you can buy _one_ equivalent machine. And my way (a) it's tax-deductible, and (b) you only pay as you go - not all up front.
Glad to. It's kind of rare these days to find someone who enjoys history, and who actually has a clue on the subject.
King is still dammed, 6 months to admit a mistake that occurred, solely by his personality flaw. Admiral Sims during World war One recognised the threat of U-Boats and convoys as the only means to counter them, he advocated that to the British in 1917.
Well, to give the man his due, he had a few other things on his mind at the time. The folks I'd really go after are the leadership for the Atlantic and Home fleets - they're the ones who really botched up the convoy protection issue. A lot of people in the US didn't think the war would reach all the way across the Atlantic, though - they were quite surprised by the method of the US entry into the war, and by some of the immediate consequences. You might note how unprepared the French were, _6 months_ after they entered the war.
Read John Terraine's "Business in Great Waters, The U-Boat Wars of 1915-1945". It is the definitive book and damms King and the Navy (and in fairness, the British Navy in early World war Two gets dammed as well).
When I get a chance. There's a large pile of to-be-read books in my living room.
There is a flaw in much of military thinking, the cost is always paid in blood.
Always the case, unfortunately.
The first Zero, was captured in February 1942 and shipped to the US for evaluation. It crashlanded almost intact on Thursday Island off the north coast of Australia, following a bombing raid on Darwin (Feb 23 or 29th, 1942). It is easy to see why it has been overlooked historically, US forces didn't capture it, so it has quietly been forgotten. That Zero was used in the designing the Hellcat.
Interesting - I hadn't run into a reference to that one. Date was actually Feb. 19, 1942. Based on the condition of the plane (see the pictures at http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/statuepark/6 20/toyoshima.htm), it looks like it wasn't in flyable shape, so they probably disassembled it and looked it over. The 8/42 Alaska capture was the first one in flyable condition, so it's still arguable, a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if you're right, though, that some elements of the Zero design wound up in the Hellcat.
The Mustang is fascinating, it is the supreme piston engined aircraft of World War 2, but my point was, it was not designed as a long range fighter pre war, so no credit can be taken for it. It evolved almost accidently.
Umm, take that further. It wasn't designed prewar, _period_. North American didn't even start talking about a design for such a plane until mid 1940. The original design, with the Allison engine, was built as a low-level fighter - everyone knew the supercharged Allison wouldn't put out the horsepower needed above 15K feet. Don't know who had the idea to put the Merlin in, but all the design folks knew that would resolve the high-altitude performance issue. A couple other interesting points to note. First, the A-36 was designated as a dive bomber to sneak it into the US inventory. It was, in fact, a fighter from the get-go. Second, The P-51 is pretty much a descendant of the P-40. The North American NA-73 design was, it turns out, partially based on a Curtis-designed successor to the P-40.
Indeed the USAAAF prewar advocated the dogma of the self protecting bomber ie the B17. That dogma was persisted with despite its known fallacy, the ultimate dream was for an independent Airforce and bombing was the way the advocates saw to achieving it. The tradegy was in the pursuit of that dream, the planners condemmed thousands of young men to death, the lessons of the Britsh and the Germans were there, but ignored. Not until the second Schweinfurt did the USAAAF accept that their prewar plans were fantasy.
_Every_ prewar bomber command advocated large bomber strikes. The USAAF was simply the last to have the blinders taken from their eyes. To some extent, they had viable reasons for believing as they did. 1943 really was educational, though, in that it demonstrated the big logical fallacies that couldn't be ignored. BTW-- you might note that by Feb 1944, the bombers were essentially being used as bait, to bring up (and kill) German fighters, in preparation for the June landings.
As an aside the tactic used effectively by the Luftwaffe with head on attacks which rendered the B17's almost defenceless (till the G model) was copied from the RAF No. 111 Squadron, they first used it in the Battle of Britian to attack the German formations. Again a lesson was clearly there but ignored, the question is with almost 3 years to do something(1940-1943), that design flaw in the B17 should have been removed before crews were sent into combat.
There's endless points like that. Did you know that the primary reason the US forces went ashore with Shermans in June of 44 was because George S. Patton thought bigger tanks like the M-26 would be less maneuverable? Turns out that the M-4 had _higher_ ground pressure than the M-26, and was thus less maneuverable on rough ground. But the decision had been made in Jan. 1944, for delivery for the June landings. Once the production targets were changed (7/44), it took another 5 months for the M-26s to get into combat.
As for the Mosquito, it is an anomaly, so clearly superior to any other bomber be it British or American, fast, cheap to make, to maintain, less expensive in crews to train and man, the lists goes on and on.
Hmmm. Semi-arguable - the A-26 Invader had an illustrious post-war career (into the 70s, actually) for precisely those same reasons. But when it debuted, it definitely set the standard.
Were the lumbering fleets of four engined heavies necessary militarily or merely politically, Generals needs armies, without them their prestige is lessened.
Iffy, either way. Once the war started, everyone pretty much had to start building what they had available. B-17s, for example, were produced because they were what was available. Same with the F-4F and P-40. Hell, why do you think there were P-39s/400s sent to Guadalcanal? They were the _wrong_ plane for the mission, but they were also the only thing in the bucket to send. A lot of what was done, was theoretical, with very little way to check accurate results. So everybody tried out their ideas, to see what would work. Ploesti, for example, demonstrated that mass, low-level bombing was suicide. Yet Wewak showed that low-level tactical strikes _did_ have their place. The whole air-support campaign in the Solomons Slot, as well as the Battle of the Bismark Sea, showed what land-based air could do to naval forces, given the chance.
It's still true, though. Take the US Marines. Most of the amphibious doctrine that they used in the Pacific was written and tested in the 1920s. Their close-air-support doctrine was forged in Nicaragua and Haiti, also in the interwar period. Or, use the US Army. All of the tactical infantry doctrine was worked out in the 1920s and 1930s at Ft. Benning. Most of their counter-Panzer doctrine was developed in 1940, during things like the Louisiana exercises (I can't stress it enough - go read Perret on this - he says it far better than I can). Or, the US Navy. Carrier doctrine (as well as unrep capabilities, which were _just_ as important) was worked out in exercises during the 1920s and 1930s. Every major (and most minor) combatant design that the US Navy brought to the party was worked out and ready for production (if not already IN production) before 1939, and they were _all_ on the order books in the 1940/41 budgets. I can't accept your comments about poor decisons of King and Macarthur, they still equate to me to a lack of planning and taking Dixon's book in account shows a serious flaw in the military. Both men's command clearly failed when tested in battle. The mistake they both made was their egos could not accept they could learn from others, King from the detested Britsh and Macarthur from the enemy.
Well, that's an opinion thing. IMHO, Macarthur and King were well prepared, and had planned in-depth for the coming war. However, I think it would be an accurate thing to say that their plans were not necessarily the correct ones, and that they perhaps planned for the wrong war at times. Macarthur pretty much threw away the Phillipines, because (a) he and the War Dept. planned to fight different wars, and (b) once the shooting (and the landings) started, he didn't fight the war he planned for anyway. A great example is the huge supply caches he built up on the central plains south of Manila. After setting his supplies out front, so he could execute a fighting withdrawal, he wound up boxing himself into Bataan, and left large supply caches out for the Japanese to capture. King, similarly, didn't plan for the kind of war the Germans decided to fight - he was thinking offensive strategies in the Atlantic, and then had to strip _that_ capability to cover for the carnage in the Pacific.
I look forward to seeing your corrsponence on other issues in slashdot and will happily mod for you.
Glad to correpsond. Like I said - I like finding someone who knows what they're talking about.
War is like that - people make choices. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. In those two cases, people didn't die due to lack of preparedness. They died because of poor decisions.
Preparedness, though, is having orders out/construction started/mobilization begun for most of the equipment used in the war, in 1940. Do you realize that most of the prototype work for the equipment the US Army took into battle _through 1943_ was done before 1939, before the war ever started? The US Army went into WW2 with _buildings_ full of detailed industrial mobilization plans. The US Navy wasn't far behind, either. All of the aircraft that won WW2 were designed and in production (LRIP, at least) prior to Sept. 1941.
Go read _There's a War to be Won_ by Jeffrey Perret for a look at some of this.
Lucky me. Hypocritical you.
If I were the Chinese, where would I attack?
- Indonesia and Malaysia, to close the straights to transiting traffic. Threaten to shut off Japan's oil supplies, and they _will_ block American base access.
- The West Coast of the US. I don't need to threaten nuclear _impact_. I can threaten EMP strikes. One each against San Diego/Los Angeles, San Francisco/Sacramento, and Seattle/Tacoma/etc., and I've got a $100 billion economic target. Want to see a recession? Try rebuilding the electronics for all three of those from the ground up, and see what that does to the US economy.
- western Australia. Perth makes such a nice, _isolated_ target.
- Brunei. With 2 whole battalions of troops, they'd go under like a rock in the surf. And just think - all that oil!
Anybody who thinks the Chinese are going to go strength vs. strength against the US are stupid. They'll go for asymetric warfare, and threaten to cripple the US and Japanese economies.First, in a realpolitik world, you must be prepared and willing to play by the rules as everyone has decided/agreed to. Wilsonian visions of a utopian world only work when you can change the underlying social agreements and thought processes. Altruism only works when _everyone_ is being altruistic. Suppose, for example, that you and someone else are stuck on a boat. You have enough water for 14 man-days - and the nearest island is 9 days away. If you're both altruistic, you can (just barely) stretch your water supplies to get you both to the island. But neither of you can cheat in the slightest. OTOH, if you're altruistic, and the other person isn't, then you run out of water. Except for the little private stash he's laid aside. You die for lack of water, while he makes it to the island. Self-interest is a bitch, eh?
Second, even in a completely logical environment, you won't find true multi-lateral treaties observed for very long. The governing logic is Prisoner's Dilemma. There's a lot of research that shows that in a 2-person (aka bilateral) PD environment, cooperation is very common, because it's in both sides best interests. In a multilateral PD environment (3 or more actors), however, cooperation quickly breaks down, because even though cooperation is in their _collective_ best interest, it is not in any _individual's_ best interest. I did some research on this in the early 90s as it applied to arms control treaties, and verified that that was in fact the case - one look at the power structure involved in the treaty, and you could tell if it was going to work.
In sum, the 1967 treaty was perfectly workable as long as there were two opposing power blocs - neither side wanted the other to militarize space, so they were willing to forgo the benefits of doing so in return for the benefits of the other side NOT doing so. Once we moved to a multilateral world, however, all that logic fell by the wayside. So, as I said, you can expect a lot of agreements that made a lot of sense during the Cold War to fall by the wayside. The ABM Treaty being another _excellent_ case in point.
Figure it out, guys - we're gearing up for a war with China, about 20 years down the road. Just like we started gearing up for a war with Japan, and Germany, in the 1920s.
- Washington Naval Treaty: Japan signs, then immediately starts building in violation of the treaty. After the initial term of the treaty ends, Japan declares its intent to withdraw from the treaty in the minimum allowable time, and commences construction as appropriate.
- Versailled Treaty: As part of the terms of the treaty, Germany is required to disarm in a number of areas, and is technologically restricted in a number of others (fighter aircraft, u-boats, other weapons development), and is not allowed to militarize the Ruhr, which is occupied by French troops. Germany responds by moving most weapons development work abroad - the Netherlands and the USSR are the two primary locations. The infamous 88mm Pak 18 was, for example, developed and tested by a design team in the Netherlands. The day after France pulls out of the Ruhr, Germany abrogates the relevent portions of the Versailles treaty, and moves their own army troops in.
- CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) Treaty. This treaty reduces conventional forces for both sides by significant amounts. One loophole exists for "maritime" support forces, while another exists as a geographic loophole - Russia is only included up to the Ural mountains. As soon as the treaty is signed, Russia (a) moves large amounts of treaty-prohibited armor into parking facilities to the west of the Ural mountains (ironically, since that equipment wasn't maintained, it's now a huge pile of rust), and (b) redesignates some 20% of their frontal aviation assets as "naval infantry" support assets. NATO pulls a few tricks in similar veins.
The 1967 treaty will be observed as long as the signatories who matter want it to be observed. Quite frankly, however, I expect that most of those treaties will either die, or be ignored, in the next 10-15 years. PD logic is pretty clear that in a multi-power situation, the treaty is the first thing to go.One of the interesting issues exposed by the Gulf War was that, given the then-current state of the art, a given firing ship could actually control a lot more firing tubes than were mounted on it. For example, an Aegis cruiser could comfortably target/control several hundred SLCMs, but only had about 70 tubes, and usually kept >2/3 of those filled with SAMs for self defense. Since the control electronics were the expensive part of the equation, and since a properly equiped ship could easily control other ships' missiles, some blithering idiot put these facts together and came up with the arsenal ship.
The basic idea was to have a (large) ship, built to civilian standards (not military/blast/etc. resistant), with a small crew (40ish, as I recall), and only minimal self-defense capability. The ship's primary purpose was to be a great, big, floating VLS platform - the design I saw had over 200 VLS launch tubes, which were to be filled with cruise missiles, with a few SAMs thrown in for use by the accompanying warships if needed. No control electronics, except those needed to permit another ship to control launches, would be included, however. Plans were to build 2 of them - one for the Atlantic fleet, one for the Pacific fleet.
The idea ran into several practical problems:
Nah. This isn't scary. Scary is when someone gets around to putting a lunar mining operation into place, with a mass driver to shove stuff up into construction orbits. The ability to throw a 2 ton rock down the orbit well, on demand, every 30 seconds (or whatever), until you run out of rocks or power, is scary.
The basic idea is pretty sound - a long chunk of iron/steel, with a guidance package in the nose, and basic aerodynamic surfaces for guidance. Shouldn't be too hard to build, and would be thoroughly nasty once they tough down.
The version you saw 12 years ago, required aviation fuel, carried 1-2 passengers (max), had a top speed of about 90mph, and a range of about 150 miles. And it chugged fuel. Oh yeah - and you had to be a fully licensed pilot to fly it.
The version you're looking at how runs on normal high-test gasoline, carries 4 passengers, has a top speed of ~400mph, a range of ~900 miles, and gets 15mpg (about what a truck gets). Assuming the FAA goes along, it will only require a cut-down pilots license - about as difficult to get as a truck driver's license.
Frankly, from where he started 40-odd years ago, Moller has come a looooong way. If I'm right about a couple things, he's also accidentally created most of the underlying technology to make all kinds of variants - a minivan version, for example, could use the same thrust units (doubled-up - you'd need more power), same controls, and a similar aeroshell - and would have the same licensing requirements. Yet you could use it for cargo hauling, or as one hell of an airport shuttle/taxi.
I haven't seen real performance numbers yet from them (they're still using the estimated numbers), but I've been watching these guys for about 12 years now, and I'm hoping they'll get the technology right some time in the next couple.
For example, what's the real benefit (to most people) of a college education? Not the career information, but rather learning how to learn, and how to get more out of that supercomputer on top of your neck. If all you're there for is the career info, go to a vocational school.