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Replenishment dollar value is a metric accessible and understandable to the public. It is also fundamentally wrong.
Gold plated seeker heads filled with Raytheon pension entitlements aren't slugging one to one against Chinese slaved missiles, they're part of a warfare system operating according to the presumed threat environment based on battlefield realities. Taliban and Vietnam crow about beating back the USA, with the cheap cost of thousands of their fighters and population for the tradeoff where they melt away immediately in any setpiece engagement. Yes the dollar value per Afghan is minimal, and they expend bullets in exchange for a 1m GBU, but a colonel calling in a package doesn't think about some schoolnin Virginia that doesn't get built because of the money he spends, he fulfills the mission and keeps his guys alive. Afghans thinking their own lives are worth less than a thousand US dollars is their calculus and consequence.
China and Russia crow about their cheap shit, but even without factoring in PPP calculations their headline assets are still expensive. A S400 is a billion fucking dollars, and we've seen multiple S400s get destroyed by less than 50m worth of ordinance each. Russias cheap and 'effective' aircraft have to do long distance lobbing because they are too afraid to operate in a battlespace with uncertain air superiority. Cheap doesn't mean cost effective, it means cheap.
Cheap houthi skimmers are striking civilian ships, not warships. Warships are launching SSM interceptors to strike threats 20 to 40NM away, not 1-5NM. At closer ranges EW nukes all command guidance, and systems rely on terminal guidance for final strike, which is where your fancy gold plated shit becomes necessary and why Russia keeps jerking off about hypersonic manueverability weapons. EW against command guided weapons has been in effect since the 70s, and the west lost the first round with their shitty doctrine of launcher guided missiles... exactly as OP of this thread castigates.
Cost effective mass generation is warfare for the early 20th century. Modern militaries are making a risky calculation that deepstacking intelligence and precision striking allows for decisive victory at individual engagements. That is their decision to make and their requirements to communicate. We as observers are free to call them stupid money wasters who just need some cheap integrated shit, but unless you are willing to violate OPSEC then all we can do is shove our scenarios into warthunder for gaijin to prove doctrinal superiority.
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=KlTvsthaBqU
By your own presented logic, video evidence is sufficient proof. If this is fake, then why is yours not fake? What makes YOUR belief in veracity superior to this sources? You cannot present proof for one argument and then argue that proof for the converse using the same logic as your argument is invalid. that 'Ukraine fakes video evidence because superior S400 cannot possibly be destroyed by inferior ATACMS' is extremely weak.
As arguments go, this is weak. Theoretically someone out there has a perfect argument that is so perfect that its mere existence obliterates all other arguments. Thus, the existence of this theoretical means all the other arguments are invalid, even if said theoretical is not actually presented.
This is effectively a religious argument, but for the anti-MIC. God, discounted.
You are free to believe in the superiority of a 3000 buck thermal camera being a superior option that obviates all other equipment. I can give you, for example,
this textdump https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/a/at/a-tutorial-on-e-lectro--opticalinfrared-eoir-theory-and-systems/ida-document-d-4642.ashx
that comments on exponential decay fidelity of thermal cameras.
But thats not the point is it? Proofs of Gods miracles failing to manifest are not proof of Gods nonexistence, it is merely proof of Gods secret capabilities that are beyond the ken of us mere mortals. The more proof provided that this Gods teachings fail, the more Gods disciples present new arguments out of nowhere to prove that God actually has more tools, so more fool the heretic. Stand proud, for God remains unblemished.
I can tell you that acoustic sensors are the worst failures of detection systems ever because of ambient noise pollution, and you'll come up some something else. I can tell you that beam riders have notorious falloff for BVR aplications because and atmospheric EM diffraction overwhelms OTH signal boosting systems. I can tell you that 'finding a target' out at open sea is in fact REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT and shore based missile spam is basically being Cao Cao in Zhuge Liangs arrow boat trick at Red Cliff. I can tell you that the failures of the USA in Afghanistan or Prosperity Guardian are definitional in nature because the force was so overwhelming in nature that the normal tasking of 'defeat the enemy' is automatic, with the mission moving to the far more gnarly 'destroy' part, and observers fail to consider that 'defeat' being automatic is not in fact easy.
None of that matters. God, the manifestation of 'cheap stuff better than expensive stuff', is pristine eternally. Belief is all you need. Belief in the superiority of cheap stuff and vranyo. And Belief that your paeans to your God will make him manifest, while ignoring that Gods church is busy sucking down all the heretic dick it can find because its own teachings rotted the house from the inside.
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You are free to call me or anyone else an idiot all you want. In fact, you are free to call anyone who develops gold plated stealth systems idiots, like the Russians or the Chinese.
Stupid idiots who cannot see your manifest genius in googling advertised capabilities of thermal cameras and high resolution satellites provided by small scrappy cheap startups. They can see a 20km by 20km space with 30cm fidelity on a geosynchronous position. The size of the pacific ocean within Chinas EEZ is after all only a mere 4 million square kilometers. You only need 40000 satellites in geosynchronous positions and no cloud cover for real time coverage. Oh and a reliance on having an enemy that does not have long range munition delivery platforms that go even further out than 200km from the EEZ. And obviously radar works perfectly aimed at the ocean, which famously is not made up of radar reflective matter. Hint: read up on what radar signals reflect off of before you spout off your next gish gallop of justifications.
You are the smart one, and everyone is an idiot for not making the smart move of spamming scrappy solutions that vranyo clearly delivers as superior to gold plated western tech. The Russian and Chinese MIC keep crowing about their SU57, SU75 and J35 only because they PRETEND to be interested in these capabilities. You are free to call everyone idiots for pursuing this gold plated technology and your own cheap scrappy solutions like the Iranians and Houthis are doing is way better as military tactics and strategies go. Potshotting an enemy to claim victory while hiding among civilians is excellent for propaganda, and the propaganda war is all that matters. Thousands of dead palestinians, yemeni and lebanese are inconsequential when you get to flood telegram with stretched out clips of your munitions hitting one target on repeat.
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They’ll happily launch million dollar ESSMs, RAMs, and Nulkas at closer ranges, see the USS Mason. The US Navy is pretty far behind the Air Force in operational EW, I suspect it will be a long while before any captain entrusts EW with incoming threats over lobbing $10M in physical ordnance.
I think there is an ex navy commander on this forum who commented something similar. I know my own experience basically had 'spaz out mechanically' as A2 doctrine. Its the opposite of hoarding potions for the final boss, just use everything asap.
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