Do you think we utilized the full potential of our military in Iraq?

10,000+ wounded in action.
1,500 Killed in Action.

That is 1/10th of our forces commited to Iraq.

I am not seeing things right with this. I cant accept that my country fought this war with its fullest potential. All of the computer technology, All of the missile technology, All of the advanced avionics, All of the space based platforms. How we did not adapt to attacks on our ground forces.

The attacks we heard about was Anti Aircraft, Artillery, Mortar, IED, Sniper, Small arms fire and missiles and rockets to take out US soldiers, tanks, aircraft, vehicles and supplies.

Why in 2004 with these implements of war are we going to send our soldiers in so unprotected an environemnt.

Can we use unmanned airplanes to get a xray scan of Iraq that would show small arms, mortar's, missiles, artillery pieces, underground facilities, facilities with electronic components tha could be radar/ eccm etc? No we cant because we didnt. Else they would of never been able to fire the things off at us.

Can we scan like the electromagnetic/atomic spectrum of Iraq to detect explosives or chemical composition of every grain of sand? No. So why do we send our troops driving around to run over bombs?

Did we see Unmanned Cavalry being used in replacement of US soldiers in tanks and humvees etc.? No. Else we would have 1000+ less casulties.

Did we see unmanned fighter jets? No.

We did see limited UAV's used for surveillance and with limited payloads, yet I see videos of US troops being ambushed by RPG positions. How can they be ambushed with RPG positions if they have UAV's with infrared overhead? I seen some pretty clear cut attacks on US troops. If I was in control of a UAV there was no way I could of not seen these ambush's. So I dont think they were used much, or very smartly. Or maybe they are made by the wrong people.

I know for a fact we are better then this.


I dont understand how we dont take war as something extremely important. Why not give it our all? And why do we have such a low regard for our own soldiers lives?

And really, if we werent capable of taking out all the bad guys without killing ourselves. Why not prolong it just hitting targets of oppurtunity that we could?

And if the war cost us like 6 billion dollars or whatever, we should of used 6 billion dollar's in missiles and unmanned cav and unamanned supply convoys and robotics. Or kicked in another 6 billion.

Heck the Olsen Twins are worth 2 billion.

I can honestly say im dissapointed.


















[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

The problem with our military is that is still geared for the cold war situation. We spend billions on nuclear submarines but they don't do squat in a situation like Iraq (with exception of a few Tomahawk missile firing in the early days of the war proper).

Rumsfeld is (and has been since even before 9/11) trying to change the military structure to meet the demands of today's threat. We need to spend more on ground forces and special ops experts and less on multi-billion dollar planes and ships IMHO.

I think the answer is two-fold. First, we cant give em everything we got. Innocent civilians will die !!!. Personally, I could care less, but the media gobbles that crap up. 2ndly, We still need them nuke subs. If we scale back in that dept. someone will catch up. I think we need all we got, and then some. Also, I am all for indiscriminate bombing. If we attack, we give em a day or so's notice, then we ATTACK. Give em pure hell. No mercy. If this tatic was used in Iraq, there wouldnt be an "insurgant" problem.

The problem lies in the fact that we worry about offending the world, so he handle them like kids. If we dealt with them like the murderous jerks they are, and executed them on the spot, there would be alot more compliance. PLus forcing them to fight hard and constant would use up all their ammo. Weve got unlimited amounts, they do not.

The fact is the military always looks better on paper than it actually is, take the mirages in the falkands on paper they should have slaughtered us but they didnt.
Take WW1, the BEF held the german army (the german army with machine guns and the such) with just rifles, on paper they should have been anihilated.

Supposedly the US can track every naval vessel in the sea. So given that, you cannot assume that somebody else cant do the same.

Submarines are no secret. They are made out of metal/steel whatever. Metal detectors have been around for a long time. Im sure somebody could figure out how to detect a 100 foot piece of metal in the ocean. At least they could potentially.

What good is a submarine versus a ground based missile platform besides mobility. I dont see the stealth capability of them. Its not like they can cross oceans in fast times like a missile or airplane. They are just slow mobile missile boats. Thats how I look at them.

I think space based laser technology would make a better weapon then a nuclear submarine.

And really, If you want to assure MAD, mutually assured destruction, you would already have nuclear bombs placed around the world. No need to launch them. You just blow them where they are. With suitcase nukes I guess you could do this.

Submarines to me are best used to take out coastal or naval targets. Or diffuse sea mines or something. Not as the country's pride and joy at striking fear in everybody.

As far as indiscrimate bombing. That is kind of cruel. I totally respect the life of a child. I think we are above mass murder. But as far as taking out targets of oppurtunity, I think we could of. We could of used surveillance to figure out who was Mujhadeen or Iraqi Army and who was plotting maneuvers against our military assets in Iraq. Who knows we might of not had as good of a success, but im sure we could of saved alot of our own lives.

And im not sure we did a good enough job of getting the message out to Iraq what we were all about.

Maybe Bush is evil and im blind. I thought we were doign a decent thing. Maybe im brainwashed and we could be looked at as evil. Im not sure. But I thought we gave them a better chance at bettering themselves and their country then Saddam would of gave them. Plus ending most of the bad stuff that happens in those countries that you hear about. At least trying to. Plus trying to knock a little sanity and morality into them and their society.






[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

Originally posted by Ritual
10,000+ wounded in action.
1,500 Killed in Action.

That is 1/10th of our forces commited to Iraq.

I am not seeing things right with this. I cant accept that my country fought this war with its fullest potential.

You do realize that the Iraq war has one of, if not the, lowest combat fatality rates of all US wars right?

All of the computer technology, All of the missile technology, All of the advanced avionics, All of the space based platforms. How we did not adapt to attacks on our ground forces.
Please explain how an orbital missle silo is going to do anything about a car bomber? How are massed military tactics going to 'bomb into oblivion' a guerilla army? Guerillas can only be whittled down slowly, or dealt with 'cell to cell'. Thats the only way that they've ever been effectively dealt with.

No we cant because we didnt. Else they would of never been able to fire the things off at us.

So because the technology wasn't 100 percent effective it must've not been used? That is literally what you are saying. Its naive to think that technological dominance results in absolutely prefect war. Besides, in the actual war against the Iraqi Army, all of those things were used. Super mobil armour and cavalry units stormed from one end of the country fighting at day and at night and even during otherwise immobilizing dust storms. Cruise missiles, smart bombs, radio controlled bombs and unmanned armed flying drones coordinated conventional combined arms air/sea/land campaigns and special forces unit along with special operations missions seizing airfield choke points organizing locals preventing the destruction of vital infastructure all from over-coordination bases in the region using secret satellite and communications technology. And now they are going to start patrolling the cities with robots.

Can we scan like the electromagnetic/atomic spectrum of Iraq to detect explosives or chemical composition of every grain of sand [...] did we see Unmanned Cavalry [...] Did we see unmanned fighter jets?
Considering that mass protests against the current military/defense budget, how can those things be put into effect? The American public would rather save money and spend lives.

All the Hi-Tech hardware, airbourne and naval, means squat unless you have a similarly armed opponent. Sure, you can fire a lot of missiles and drop a lot of bombs but, as has been shown, you still gotta send in the ground troops.
There's no point in talking up the capabilities of the F-22 or B2 when they are unopposed and their missions just become milk runs.

Do you think we utilized the full potential of our military in Iraq?

No, we didn't even come close...

If we had:
1. This war and insugency would have been over long ago.
2. Alot more innocents would have died. Despite people's claim we were not there to kill innocents.

Why didn't we use close to our full potential? Because of #2 and I believe they just underestimated or didn't calculate for the type of insurgency we're seeing.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by Ritual
10,000+ wounded in action.
1,500 Killed in Action.

That is 1/10th of our forces commited to Iraq.

I am not seeing things right with this. I cant accept that my country fought this war with its fullest potential.

You do realize that the Iraq war has one of, if not the, lowest combat fatality rates of all US wars right?

And this is somehow supposed to be acceptable? This is supposed to make these tens of thousands of soldiers sacrifice acceptable? Please dont insult my humanity.

All of the computer technology, All of the missile technology, All of the advanced avionics, All of the space based platforms. How we did not adapt to attacks on our ground forces.

Please explain how an orbital missle silo is going to do anything about a car bomber? How are massed military tactics going to 'bomb into oblivion' a guerilla army? Guerillas can only be whittled down slowly, or dealt with 'cell to cell'. Thats the only way that they've ever been effectively dealt with.

Yeah but what is a car bomb going to do against US troops that arent there?

How do they whittle down a guerilla army? How is a remote controlled machine gun or remote controlled tank any less accurace or effective as a manned one? How is the guy sticking half his body out the top of a tank more safe then sitting in a control bunker controlling the weapon remotely. How is a robotically controlled weapon any less accurate? And really what is out of bounds to a vehicle where you need troops? Im sure the terrorists wont stay surrounded by civilians or in places you cant hit them with vehicle/air based ordinance. Im sure they will go out to have a smoke, walk down the street. Get in the car to go meet his buddies, or step out into the open where you can take him out eventually. How do US troops bring that special something to a battle like this? You strike what you have the oppurtunity to strike.

Yeah you can get them cell to ell, group to group, but you dont need to go in kicking down doors and doing house searches. You can surveil them with listening devices, using infrared and xray to see who is amassing weapons, who is shady and who is normal. Who is using maneuvers aginst you etc. To me this is all common sense.

This could of been done with Unmanned CAvalry and UAV's.

But really. Why do you drive by an Iraqi vehicle to begin with. That is where you get out the loudspeaker and tell them to either move em or they get blown. If you cant detect the bombs, you take every possible step to avoid them. This is pretty complicated. The bombs could be placed under the roads. The bombs could be placed in streetlamps. Cars parked on the side of the road. Shot from nearby buildings. Shot from a sand dune or from under the sand itself. Basically anything or anywhere could be a bomb. UNless you have the technology to detect them and any counterdetection they might have. It is obvious we didnt, so you need to suck it up and take steps to deter these attacks. Even if it means cutting down on overall effectiveness. You cant sacrifice your casualty count for effectiveness.

No we cant because we didnt. Else they would of never been able to fire the things off at us.

So because the technology wasn't 100 percent effective it must've not been used? That is literally what you are saying. Its naive to think that technological dominance results in absolutely prefect war. Besides, in the actual war against the Iraqi Army, all of those things were used. Super mobil armour and cavalry units stormed from one end of the country fighting at day and at night and even during otherwise immobilizing dust storms. Cruise missiles, smart bombs, radio controlled bombs and unmanned armed flying drones coordinated conventional combined arms air/sea/land campaigns and special forces unit along with special operations missions seizing airfield choke points organizing locals preventing the destruction of vital infastructure all from over-coordination bases in the region using secret satellite and communications technology. And now they are going to start patrolling the cities with robots.

Super mobile Cav units that were manned with sleep deprived drugged up soldiers which some of them lost their lives.

The rest you posted is nice and all, but they would all need to be unmanned paltform's/robots to work properly controlled remotely.

The special forces might be good and all, and they might get their kicks being alive doing what they do, until the bad hits. But they have to snap into reality and understand that they are playing with death when science has given us the oppurtunity to make tools to prevent death.

Can we scan like the electromagnetic/atomic spectrum of Iraq to detect explosives or chemical composition of every grain of sand [...] did we see Unmanned Cavalry [...] Did we see unmanned fighter jets?

Considering that mass protests against the current military/defense budget, how can those things be put into effect? The American public would rather save money and spend lives.

That is ass backwards and any person who succumbs to this can burn in hell. All people have is their life and their possesions. Take away their life and they have nothing. Take away their possesions and they still have their life.

Again, the US Military obviously has no respect for the value of life. Why put the goal before the soldiers lives?



[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

Originally posted by Ritual
And this is somehow supposed to be acceptable?

Acceptable? What is 'acceptable' in this context?

This is supposed to make these tens of thousands of soldiers sacrifice acceptable?

1 thousand and a half killed. ten thousand, not tens of thousands, wounded.

Please dont insult my humanity.

If you are not interested in having a discussion then say so at the begining. You stated that the US didn't do enough in this war, yet that has no basis, since the war had the lowest casualty rate of any war yet fought.

Yeah but what is a car bomb going to do against US troops that arent there?

How exactly is that supposed to be accomplished and the war be fought? Cyborgs?

How do they whittle down a guerilla army?

Marching massed columns thru enemy territory and pulling them out for attack, responding with smaller more mobile units to counter attack while the less mobile massed army reduces the enemies mobility. Ultimately that sort of thing is a war of attrition. The British used these tactics to their ultimate success against the boers. The US Army and Marines were able to successfully use a range of tactics against the viet cong. What was unsuccesful was their large scale 'full potential' bombing campaigns.

How is a remote controlled machine gun or remote controlled tank any less accurace or effective as a manned one?

The US does not have remote controlled tanks or fighter jets. It has lightweight unmanned drones. The CIA has some also and those are the only ones that actually carry arms. Are you prepared to spend more tax money on a much expanded defense budget to create an automated or remote controlled army?

On effectivness, an armed soldier is more effective at his job that an machine, so far anyway. Doesn't mean that a person will allways beat a machine, doesn't matter much either. Ifa person can kill say, 10 of the enemy (just to unrealistically numerate it) before getting killed, thats 'bad' compared to, say, requiring two or three machines to kill just one of the enemy, becuase, who cares if hte machines get destroyed? I say go for it, quadruple the defense budget.

Im sure the terrorists wont stay surrounded by civilians or in places you cant hit them with vehicle based ordinance.

You are wrong. They stay in the cities, in buildings used by the public. They have no reason, especially if the US is fielding relatively immobile robotic weapons, to gather in camps once the terror campaign is on.

Yeah you can get them cell to ell, group to group, but you dont need to go in kicking down doors and doing house searches.

And why do you think this?

You can surveil them with listening devices, using infrared and xray to see who is amassing weapons,

Please explain how a x-ray machine is going to tell the difference between an iraqi insurgent with a weapons stockpile and an iraqi civilian with a weapons stockpile.

To me this is all common sense.

And you have 'common sense' on this topic because of your years of experience in military strategy, electronics, weaponry, politics, surveillance, policing, and command?

This could of been done with Unmanned CAvalry and UAV's.

Since there is no unmanned cavalry or armour and only a very very limited number of 'uavs', how do you figure?

Super mobile Cav units that were manned with sleep deprived drugged up soldiers which some of them lost their lives.

And?

The rest you posted is nice and all, but they would all need to be unmanned paltform's/robots to work properly controlled remotely.

I don't understand what you are getting at. There is no technology to remotely control a tank or a bradley or a fighter jet. Could a robotic/remote controlled army be built anyway? Yes, assuredly the tech is on the verge of existing as it is. Are you or are you not prepared to have a massive tax increase and a deep budget cut for non military programs in order to research, develop, engineer, mass produce, and then field and maintain these things? I think it'd be great if the US had a remote controlled and/or robotic army. It would result in more 'civilian' casualties amoung the enemy, and it will result in wars taking longer to fight, but I think that they'd ultimately be as 'successful' as a regular army.

Can we scan like the electromagnetic/atomic spectrum of Iraq to detect explosives or chemical composition of every grain of sand [...] did we see Unmanned Cavalry [...] Did we see unmanned fighter jets?

Considering that mass protests against the current military/defense budget, how can those things be put into effect? The American public would rather save money and spend lives.

That is ass backwards and any person who succumbs to this can burn in hell. All people have is their life and their possesions. Take away their life and they have nothing. Take away their possesions and they still have their life.

Tell that to the public that refuses to spend the money. Hell, they want to cut the defense budget as it is.

Again, the US Military obviously has no respect for the value of life.

Since the US military does everything it can with the budget it has to reduce the loss of life of its soldiers and innocent 'enemy' civilians, it obviously does have massive respect for life.

[edit on 4-2-2005 by Nygdan]

We utilized the full potential of our available technology in this war, not by taking lives, but by saving them. We have the ability to flatten a country insdie of a half hour if we wanted, but this is not the occupation of Iraq. It is true, that it comes down to ground based warfare, and the US military is very well trained, but not always battele hardened.

Super mobile Cav units that were manned with sleep deprived drugged up soldiers which some of them lost their lives.

The rest you posted is nice and all, but they would all need to be unmanned paltform's/robots to work properly controlled remotely.

The special forces might be good and all, and they might get their kicks being alive doing what they do, until the bad hits. But they have to snap into reality and understand that they are playing with death when science has given us the oppurtunity to make tools to prevent death.

The special forces are better than good, and they are cool when the # hits the fan, that is why they are in the situatations they are in. Drugged up soldiers is another debatlable issue that I don't see applies here.

That is ass backwards and any person who succumbs to this can burn in hell. All people have is their life and their possesions. Take away their life and they have nothing. Take away their possesions and they still have their life.

Again, the US Military obviously has no respect for the value of life. Why put the goal before the soldiers lives?

What goal, and the loss of life is a 1 to 1500 ratio compared to Vietnam? UAV's are heavily used as is technology that is still on the drawing board. No technology however can end guerilla warfare tactics, but we can improve our vehicles (as we are doing) to adapt to any type of situation.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by Ritual
And this is somehow supposed to be acceptable?

Acceptable? What is 'acceptable' in this context?

You were trying to downplay the reality of 10.000 wounded soldiers and 1500 killed in action. You were turning a negative into a positive.

This is supposed to make these tens of thousands of soldiers sacrifice acceptable?

1 thousand and a half killed. ten thousand, not tens of thousands, wounded.

I was saying that about 20,000 soldiers were decommisioned in some way from participating. Thats the information I had anyways. But its not like they couldnt easily suppress the casaulty figure so people dont flip out.

Please dont insult my humanity.

If you are not interested in having a discussion then say so at the begining. You stated that the US didn't do enough in this war, yet that has no basis, since the war had the lowest casualty rate of any war yet fought.

I dont have the same view as you do. I didnt know we all had to share your view on the positive's of this war.

Yeah but what is a car bomb going to do against US troops that arent there?

How exactly is that supposed to be accomplished and the war be fought? Cyborgs?

I was saying that with UCAV units no personnel would be hit by car bombs. Only the UCAV itself. And really if your going to have vehicles with soldiers in them, you mine as well use UCAV's with the same tactic you would use with soldiers in them. Since you cant make an excuse that UCAVs are less effective. Since the UCAVs would be doing the same maneuveurs the regular Cavalry would do. And if the UCAV is attacked and is destroyed somehow, at least no personnel would be injured or killed.

And if you arent transporting people you can redesign vehicles to hold more ammo, bigger weapons with more recoil and power and range and more fuel possibly.

I dont see the need for cyborgs. But maybe Mini gun platforms. Like those robots they showed that were going to Iraq. That is a start at least. Im not sure I agree on the design, they look sort of something that better belongs in peaceduties or on mars or something, not something hardened for combat. I think the designers need to think more military. Will it take a bullet? Can it take a grenade? What if this gets broken will it work? Can it swivel this way? Can it raise its gun over a wall? Does it have motion detection? Can it triangulate targets? Track bullets? Detect heat signatures? is it armored? But at least they finally came out with something.

How is a remote controlled machine gun or remote controlled tank any less accurace or effective as a manned one?

The US does not have remote controlled tanks or fighter jets. It has lightweight unmanned drones. The CIA has some also and those are the only ones that actually carry arms. Are you prepared to spend more tax money on a much expanded defense budget to create an automated or remote controlled army?

Was this a trick question? You mean they already arent? Thats an insult. I will write my Senator.

I dont see the complexity in it. The only things that would need to be developed are the navigation system for the vehicles (making it turn, go forward, go right and left). Not that complicated.

Then the control sytems for the weapons. Making them aim, calibrating them so they are accurate as possible. Stabilizing the weapons for recoil and programming them so the gyros recompensate for the recoil and stabilize the weapon. It would probably be more accurate as a remote controlled platform then a human firing it.

We already have funding in the communications. So im sure they could come up with a reasonably secure way to control the vehicles and weapons remotely.

On effectivness, an armed soldier is more effective at his job that an machine, so far anyway. Doesn't mean that a person will allways beat a machine, doesn't matter much either. Ifa person can kill say, 10 of the enemy (just to unrealistically numerate it) before getting killed, thats 'bad' compared to, say, requiring two or three machines to kill just one of the enemy, becuase, who cares if hte machines get destroyed? I say go for it, quadruple the defense budget.

Yeah but how much more effective are soldiers then UCAVS and UAVS and indirect fired remote weapons platforms?

Im sure the terrorists wont stay surrounded by civilians or in places you cant hit them with vehicle based ordinance.

You are wrong. They stay in the cities, in buildings used by the public. They have no reason, especially if the US is fielding relatively immobile robotic weapons, to gather in camps once the terror campaign is on.

Right but they also cant attack these MOBILE robotic weapons sitting in city center when the UCAV's are on the outskirts of the city sending in mini robots to sniff out bombs and plant sniper positions and surveillance.

Someone has to plant an IED. Someone has to setup a mortar and shoot it. Someone has to launch a RPG. Someone has to man a machine gun aimed at the US military.

Even if they all congregate in city center or populations, There are weapons that dont blow up a whole house. Sniper bullets. Small bombs. small rockets. Machine guns are all effective at taking out single targets. You dont need to drop a 500 pound bomb on a hut to take out 1 guy holed up in an apartment.

Yeah you can get them cell to ell, group to group, but you dont need to go in kicking down doors and doing house searches.

And why do you think this?

You can surveil them with listening devices, using infrared and xray to see who is amassing weapons,

Please explain how a x-ray machine is going to tell the difference between an iraqi insurgent with a weapons stockpile and an iraqi civilian with a weapons stockpile.

Kicking down doors and doing searches risk's lives. If i was going to war and my country was occupied. I would be utilizing booby traps. If a foreign troop tried to enter my house he would most definatly have to disarm my home from blowing up. Im sure some of the Iraqis took on this tactic.

How is an xray machine supposed to differentiate between a civilian with weapons with no immediate hostile intentions and a iraqi soldeir who is going to use them to attack US military assets? You dont. But you at least know the weapons are there and take necessary actions to counter them if they are brought to bear. Force protection I think they call it.

To me this is all common sense.

And you have 'common sense' on this topic because of your years of experience in military strategy, electronics, weaponry, politics, surveillance, policing, and command?

No if I did it wouldnt be common sense, it would be speciliazed knowledge.

The fact is this is common sense stuff. Not that complicated.

This could of been done with Unmanned CAvalry and UAV's.

Since there is no unmanned cavalry or armour and only a very very limited number of 'uavs', how do you figure?

On bad decisions.

The point is that we have the technology to produce these things on a mass scale if we decided to do so in a relatively short time.

Super mobile Cav units that were manned with sleep deprived drugged up soldiers which some of them lost their lives.

And?

The fact they werent UCAV's and some of those soldiers in those vehicles lost their lives and were witness to explosions and everything else the enemy is willing to attack you with.

The rest you posted is nice and all, but they would all need to be unmanned paltform's/robots to work properly controlled remotely.

I don't understand what you are getting at. There is no technology to remotely control a tank or a bradley or a fighter jet. Could a robotic/remote controlled army be built anyway? Yes, assuredly the tech is on the verge of existing as it is. Are you or are you not prepared to have a massive tax increase and a deep budget cut for non military programs in order to research, develop, engineer, mass produce, and then field and maintain these things? I think it'd be great if the US had a remote controlled and/or robotic army. It would result in more 'civilian' casualties amoung the enemy, and it will result in wars taking longer to fight, but I think that they'd ultimately be as 'successful' as a regular army.

There is technology to remote control a tank. This is a simple task. Even amateur projects are successful in doing so. The DAARPA Grand Challenge is one of them.

Massive tax increase? We already pay to maintain our regular Cavalry. Converting them to UCAV's could be expensive if you want to do it right. I would even suggest redesigning vehicles and weapons all together. But how much more expensive im not sure. It doesnt take many people to mass produce things. Things could be recycled. And it is the government, they could do themselves a favor and not charge each other. I think they were already going to phase out some of the stuff already to begin with. Increasing the budget. Big deal. Im sure you can stop spending money on the wrong things and allocate them into the right things. The cost might not be that much. But dont shortchange yourself.

Would result in more civilian casulties? If anything soldiers will be distanced to the battle and more level minded. I dont see how there would be more civilian casulties. The weapons themselves would probably be more accurate anyways.

Can we scan like the electromagnetic/atomic spectrum of Iraq to detect explosives or chemical composition of every grain of sand [...] did we see Unmanned Cavalry [...] Did we see unmanned fighter jets?

Considering that mass protests against the current military/defense budget, how can those things be put into effect? The American public would rather save money and spend lives.

Then the American people will spend lives.

That is ass backwards and any person who succumbs to this can burn in hell. All people have is their life and their possesions. Take away their life and they have nothing. Take away their possesions and they still have their life.

Tell that to the public that refuses to spend the money. Hell, they want to cut the defense budget as it is.

Again, the US Military obviously has no respect for the value of life.

Since the US military does everything it can with the budget it has to reduce the loss of life of its soldiers and innocent 'enemy' civilians, it obviously does have massive respect for life.

[edit on 4-2-2005 by Nygdan]

Well the government is notorious for 16,000$ for a screwdriver. Im not sure how these things would cost an enormous amount. How much does it cost to make a Tank if you wanted to build it for cost. Computers are cheap to make. Weapons are cheap to make. I cant honestly seeing it cost more then 100,000$ per tank in resources. Using robots to build them. Cutting down on costs.

The budget is like 2 trillion dollars. There is 1 million people in the US military. That is 200 million dollars for every 1 person in the military or something like that. 2 trillion dollars is a huge overhead.






[edit on 4-2-2005 by Ritual]

Originally posted by Ritual

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by Ritual
And this is somehow supposed to be acceptable?

Acceptable? What is 'acceptable' in this context?

You were trying to downplay the reality of 10.000 wounded soldiers and 1500 killed in action.

Excuse me, sir, but I was not downplaying the death of anyone.

You were turning a negative into a positive.

Its a negative in that people died, of course, thats horrible. Its a positive because not as many died as normally would have. Efforts were taken to protect the soldiery and those efforts reduced the overall number of combat fatalities and injuries. That is unequivocably a good thing.

I dont have the same view as you do. I didnt know we all had to share your view on the positive's of this war.

Where are you getting this? The war was the 'safest' war any american army has ever fought in and resulted in the lowest casualty rate ever. THis is good. You think its bad? Obviously not, its obviously a good thing and more steps should be taken to furhter reduce that casualty rate. Simultanesouly, its very bad than anyone had to die and get injured.

Yeah but what is a car bomb going to do against US troops that arent there?

How exactly is that supposed to be accomplished and the war be fought? Cyborgs?

I was saying that with UCAV units no personnel would be hit by car bombs. Only the UCAV itself. And really if your going to have vehicles with soldiers in them, you mine as well use UCAV's with the same tactic you would use with soldiers in them.
Since the cavalry is used for scouting, 'light artillery' and troop transport, having them unmaned eliminates a third of its functionality. And, again, there is no such thing as unmanned cavalry, or any unamed vehicles in the army (as opposed to the Air force which only has slow moving radio controled drones). Should there be? Heck yeah, robo-tanks are a great idea. I agree 100%.

Since you cant make an excuse that UCAVs are less effective.

I don't think we can pretend that it will be as 'effective' to control it remotely as it will be to have actual thinking humans there doing the work, at least not without testing. But overall i'd think that remote units can be 'very effective', regardless of a comparison to human driven units.

Was this a trick question? You mean they already arent? Thats an insult. I will write my Senator.

Well they don't have enough money for these expensive programs, so it will necessitate a huge tax increase especially since you are saying that these things are remotely controlled, and will have to have an equal number of equally well trained soldiers actually remotely controlling them. A bradely, for example, requires at least 3 people to operate it using normal tactics, a driver, a gunner and a 'commander' who performs other functions as well. Under your system, you need to have the bradely, the soldiers to operate it, the control system on the bradely, the communcations system for control, and hte operation system in the soldiers safe location, along with a system to send realtime data of battlefield condidtions to the soldiers for them to respond to. So you certainly can't do it without a very large increase in military spending. I think its worth it, you think its worth it, but the american public would rather save money and spend lives.

It would probably be more accurate as a remote controlled platform then a human firing it.

Probably not. Machines can be made intelligent, but the human brain is very good for this sort of thing, especially the multitasking required for this. Its very difficult to even create robotic trucks for civilian usage.
Also keep in mind that soldiers have to conduct repairs on equipment when in the field, un do jamming, re-tread tracks, all sorts of things. Undoubtedly many of these things cna be done a service stations with human operators, but just as undoubtedly some of them can't and will result in the destruction of the device on the battle field. Again, well worth it, but the American Public simply does not think its worth it.

So im sure they could come up with a reasonably secure way to control the vehicles and weapons remotely.

There is absolutely no way to do this without massive increase in the defense budget and probably an increase in general scientific research along with defense specific research to support it.

Yeah but how much more effective are soldiers then UCAVS and UAVS and indirect fired remote weapons platforms?

I'd wager that UCAV and UAVs can be effective at their job, even if much less effective than humans, by the logic of doing all this it'd be worth it.

Right but they also cant attack these MOBILE robotic weapons sitting in city center when the UCAV's are on the outskirts of the city sending in mini robots to sniff out bombs and plant sniper positions and surveillance.

? Yes they can. The do it right now, they can attack mobile units of armoured cavalry and foot soldiers without having to seperate themselves from the general public. City fighting is very much about ground troops, running around on their feet. Any robot is going to be somewhat less good at this than people, for the reasonable future. So if they can attack and blend in with the civilian population when slighty more mobile humans are policing/patroling, why wouldn't they be able to do it when robots are patrolling?

Someone has to man a machine gun aimed at the US military.

none of this requires from tactical or strategic speration from the civilian population. THe machine gunning acutallly would require tactical seperation under most circumstances tho.












How is an xray machine supposed to differentiate between a civilian with weapons with no immediate hostile intentions and a iraqi soldeir who is going to use them to attack US military assets? You dont. But you at least know the weapons are there and take necessary actions to counter them if they are brought to bear.
Short of having a set of 'snooping equipment' on every house with a weapons stockpile in this, then what good is it? You make note that 'house A on block B has x many rounds of this sort of ammo and this many of this sort of guns' and then moving to the next, what good is it? Come back that same day and that stockpile is moved or used.

No if I did it wouldnt be common sense, it would be speciliazed knowledge.The fact is this is common sense stuff. Not that complicated.

My point is is that you are assuming its common sense when in fact its not.

The point is that we have the technology to produce these things on a mass scale if we decided to do so in a relatively short time.

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Absolutely not. The technology is not there yet. Its on the verge of being there, and the production capability is not there at all, short of nationalizing many factories or something. To do these things will require lots of research, both general and specialized, and a massive building prgram. If we decided to do it today and gave it mass funding, I very much doubt it could be accomplished in the next, say, four years. I could be wrong of course, but there is no reason to just assume that it can be done.

There is technology to remote control a tank.

I would be interested in seeing that techonology.

Massive tax increase? We already pay to maintain our regular Cavalry. Converting them to UCAV's could be expensive if you want to do it right.

Why would it be less expensive than maintaing them? You have to do everything you are doing now, and in addition to that retrofit them with these remote control systems.

And it is the government, they could do themselves a favor and not charge each other.

That unfortunately is not how reality works. The government doesn't get to make stuff for free.

Increasing the budget. Big deal. Im sure you can stop spending money on the wrong things and allocate them into the right things.

Again, the American Public would rather have social security, medicare and welfare than a robotic/remote controlled army.

Would result in more civilian casulties?

Yes, because its much more difficult to tell who is who when you are not actually there.

Well the government is notorious for 16,000$ for a screwdriver.

Thats an attempt to cover up the costs of black projects, like say, developing remote controlled tanks and robotic soldiers.

The budget is like 2 trillion dollars. There is 1 million people in the US military. That is 200 million dollars for every 1 person in the military or something like that. 2 trillion dollars is a huge overhead.

That 2 trillion is the entire budget of the entire government. Thats for schools, roads, waterworks, research, hospitals, everything tht the government does. IF you want to double the tax receipts of the government, ie double every tax in the country, well, it might be a good idea, but no one is ever going to support it.

RPG Ambush attacking a US convoy.

Watch this video of what it looks like a dozen Iraqis ambushing a US convoy with RPG's and machine gun emplacements.

How can anyone tell me that a UAV loitering the route of the convoy would of not have seen these Iraqi's who were all holding guns and RPG's under no real concealment and then firing them on a large convoy passing.

Even initially right after the attack the US Convoy either did not know where it got him from or was unable to respond to the attack as you see no real return fire on the RPG positions or the machine gun emplacements.

Also the weapons the IRAQI's were using seemed to be larger then what the US returned with.

This is shortchanging our troops and the whole situation for them sucks.

Goto ogrish.com and watch the dozens of videos of attacks on US troops. The majority of them just show US vehicles running over mines and IED's and US Soldiers getting blown up.




[edit on 5-2-2005 by Ritual]

Originally posted by Nygdan

You do realize that the Iraq war has one of, if not the, lowest combat fatality rates of all US wars right?

You realise that this Iraq "War" wasn't even a war, right? Coalition forces, fighting an under equipped and poorly organised army, basically waltzed into Baghdad. Did it ever occur to anyone that a prolonged guerilla war, once Iraq is occupied, was the primary tactic? Can anyone remember Baghdad Bob saying something like "We will make the cities a jungle" in reference to Vietnam? Don't spout rhetoric about how low the casualty rates were going into Iraq when the enemy was hardly worthy. Thats like taking an icecream from the weakest kid in school and boasting about how tough you are.

This might have been the lowest combat fatality invasion, but the War is nowhere near over yet. I say this with a realist perspective. I would like for nothing more than this to end.

Is American military utilzed there full potential in Iraq?
NO
There is more then one reason for this.

1 The American military is useless at winning the hearts & minds of the local population everyone knows this expect for the yanks.

2 Lessons from Vietnam have been forgotton , sure Iraq is a differnt environment but the principals of guerrilla warfare are the same.

3 The Americans are still fighting a conventional war against the insurgents. Massive amounts of firepower may win conventional wars but it is the wrong tactics against insurgents. Airpower has a role just dont bother sending B-52 strikes against the insurgents.

4 Rumsfeld and his cronies have forgotton the most important aspect of warfare People this is cant be demonstrated better then by the fact many Humbees in Iraq lack armour to protect the troops.
Technology wont win wars by itself however the union between Technology - people will win wars the right balance has to be found.

5 Iraqi sercuity forces are a joke. Nothing would raise civilian moral more then having the Iraqi army interact with the local population and defeating the insurgency. Instead political considerations are being put before the creation of a Iraqi army that can defeat the insurgeny.

Originally posted by cargo

Originally posted by Nygdan

You do realize that the Iraq war has one of, if not the, lowest combat fatality rates of all US wars right?

You realise that this Iraq "War" wasn't even a war, right? Coalition forces, fighting an under equipped and poorly organised army, basically waltzed into Baghdad. Did it ever occur to anyone that a prolonged guerilla war, once Iraq is occupied, was the primary tactic? Can anyone remember Baghdad Bob saying something like "We will make the cities a jungle" in reference to Vietnam? Don't spout rhetoric about how low the casualty rates were going into Iraq when the enemy was hardly worthy. Thats like taking an icecream from the weakest kid in school and boasting about how tough you are.

This might have been the lowest combat fatality invasion, but the War is nowhere near over yet. I say this with a realist perspective. I would like for nothing more than this to end.

Cargo, if the insurgents wish to make this akin to Vietnam, they have completely and udderly failed.

In Vietnam, the US was not allowed to go on the offensive. In Iraq we took the country in a matter of weeks.

In Vietnam, The US had nearly 0% public support for the war. Obviously, not every American wants the US over there right now, but I believe the majority vote for Bush speaks volumes as to the public support.

In Vietnam, the US was taking heavy KIAs. At this rate, it would take over 40 years for the insurgents to match their Asian counterparts.

In vietnam, the local support was split. In Iraq, the majority (despite what some would like to believe) support what the US is doing.

In Vietnam, the momentum was buit up to the norths favor. In Iraq, the momentum is in Americas favor.

In short, Iraq can not be compared to vietnam. The only thing comparable is that the US was involved in both.

BTW - I am flattered I mean so much to you that you feel the need to quote me. I'd like to see what that was in reference to. Perhaps you could put the whole sentance as a quote so everyone might have a better understanding of my admitted bias?

If we utilized all of our military resources the area we now know as the Middle East would have been vaporized and uninhabital for the next 100,000 years. I feel quite sure there are those in the U.S. military who would advocate this and are pissed because their superiors won't allow it!

Originally posted by Ritual
Well the government is notorious for 16,000$ for a screwdriver. Im not sure how these things would cost an enormous amount. How much does it cost to make a Tank if you wanted to build it for cost. Computers are cheap to make. Weapons are cheap to make. I cant honestly seeing it cost more then 100,000$ per tank in resources. Using robots to build them. Cutting down on costs.

The budget is like 2 trillion dollars. There is 1 million people in the US military. That is 200 million dollars for every 1 person in the military or something like that. 2 trillion dollars is a huge overhead.

To clarify, the US Department of Defense budget is 401 billion dollars.

President Bush committed to and has succeeded in steadily growing the base budget of DOD from $296.8 billion when he took office to $401.7 billion in the 2005 Budget. This 35-percent increase to the Department’s base budget helps fulfill the President’s commitments and ensures a fighting force that is second to none.

www.whitehouse.gov...

Part of the problem is that the US military is still recovering from the Clinton years. Clinton trashed just about every major program the military had. Thus, development of new systems stalled, such as the UCAVs you speak of, as well as body armor for our soldiers.

Another problem is that technology does not help the GI as much as it helps the aviator or sailor. Spending on technology has put the USN and USAF far ahead of anyone else. These are the main assets that protect the US from other military powers.

Technology has not been able to make any significant advancement in ground infantry combat. Currently, the best thing that the average soldier can look forward to is the LandWarrior system along with a new modular rifle that will replace the standard M-16A2. This offers no real help in the survivability of a soldier though - it helps their lethality and situational awareness.


Another thing to consider with the military budget, is that not al of the money is used for procurement. A lot of it goes to simple maintenance and salary.

Then, of the research, aircraft, satalite, and naval systems cost much more to develope, but for ground forces, act as a force multiplyer. For instance, in Afghanastan, we could have small SOFs attack huge groups of Taliban because they would simply call in airstrikes and artillary.

Basically, untill there s some revolutionary breakthrough in the textile industry, the average GI may improve in lethality through better weponsytems. However, since their armour is limited by how much wieght they can carry and the relatively stagnant advancement in new high strength, lightwieght, and flexable fibers, todays GI has likely hit a wall in terms of protetion.

Originally posted by American Mad Man

Cargo, if the insurgents wish to make this akin to...etc.

I don't even think Iraq is comparable to Vietnam, not yet anyway. Don't ignore the fact that more soldiers have died since "Mission Accomplished" than during the actual invasion, though. Yes, Coalition forces took Baghdad in weeks. As a coalition country citizen, that kind of embarrasses me a bit. Yeah, live on FOX tonight, we crush a pissant "military" with pissant equipment and pissant training. Hooah.

BTW - I am flattered I mean so much to you that you feel the need to quote me. I'd like to see what that was in reference to. Perhaps you could put the whole sentance as a quote so everyone might have a better understanding of my admitted bias?

You're welcome.