Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Gallia-]

@Allanea: I'm really just trying to figure out why on Earth you support trading with the PRC when it's been shown that this produces absolutely no credible results in the past? For now I've concluded it is naivety, but is there some other reason?

It produces very credible results in terms of making the average Chinese and the average American physically and financially better off. It's not viable economicalyl to impose serious far-reaching sanctions on an enormous country like China without a vast cost to the quality of life of Westerners.

In other words, let laogai continue so everyone can have a new iPhone 8 next year!

Why not develop a US ability to manufacture iPhone 8s and wean yourself off the Chinese manufacturing teat instead? Then you can pull out of China in stages by re-investing in Western manufacturing. Once that's done, you can isolate the PRC and it collapses like the Soviet Union did. It won't all be perfect, certainly Russia hasn't turned out as well as, say, Estonia, but there will be more good done than simply propping it up so people can keep buying new phones or whatever.

Western attempts to bring 'democracy and rights' to various countries around the world are extremely hit-or-miss not just because the West is incompetent (it often is), but because it can't decide whether it wants to pursue 'democracy' or geopolitics bullshit. There's zero evidence that ending trade with China will produce any reliable results other that çause a new Great Depression and also possibly a civil war in China in which millions on millions die'.

There's zero evidence that suggests anything you said, except that millions of people will die. Not only do millions of people die, they also suffer for n decades, and perhaps exponentially more will die, even if they're not murdered they're at the very least dying enslaved. How is that better?

There's not even any evidence that the PRC will collapse before the West does, that's just an assumption based on the Cold War. Again, this isn't the USSR. It's like some kind of anti-Japan, or the return of the 19th century United States.

The reason Saudi Arabia is still around is strictly because the West continuously sucks up to it on some misunderstood 'geopolitics' nonsense rationale.

The actual reason is far more prosaic and banal: Saudi Arabia sells the West oil. OPEC embargoes mean it can put the squeeze on the USA whenever it wants, like it did in the 1970s. The fear of the oil embargo replaced the fear of a second Pearl Harbor in the mid-Cold War. It's still a serious concern for Europe too, who have no real alternative energy sources between Saudi Arabia and Russia, so it's a case of "pick your poison" for Germany and the EU until the USA can develop a major energy export capability.

The USA is somewhat insulated but it's still not back to being able to strong-arm Saud. "Energy independence" is about being able wean the West off of the Saudi teat and eventually let nature take its course or give them a CIA-backed shove.

Possibly the greatest Total Strategy the USA has come up with.

Bear in mind that the US government was entirely willing to back up human rights violations in Russia, help the government there fake elections , and snuggled up to Putin right up to 2014.

So what? The "US government" changes every 2-4 years. You can't have a continuity of policy without having the same party in charge for repeated decades.

The United States, from New World Order/End of History and 'Ukraine' was drunk on the gobsmacking stupidity of Fukuyama and the West as a whole was dealing with the continuing fallout of refugee crisis, the economic crash of the early- to mid- 1990s, the economic crash of the early 00s, and the Great Recession. That Western powers have severe myopia is nothing new or particularly surprising, they're constantly besieged by existential threats internally in the form of poor economies and social disruption.

Clinton and Romney knew what was up re: Russia.

There's zero evidence that any of this ''promotes'' any kind of human rights for anyone except as part of a complex historical coincidence.

Prove it with maths.

Whereas free trade - even entirely unilateral free trade - identifiable makes people better off.

Especially these guys:

[Allanea]

The actual reason is far more prosaic and banal: Saudi Arabia sells the West oil. OPEC embargoes mean it can put the squeeze on the USA whenever it wants, like it did in the 1970s. The fear of the oil embargo replaced the fear of a second Pearl Harbor in the mid-Cold War. It's still a serious concern for Europe too, who have no real alternative energy sources between Saudi Arabia and Russia, so it's a case of "pick your poison" for Germany and the EU until the USA can develop a major energy export capability.

There's good reasons to think that a new OPEC oil embargo is not possible, certainly they can't even agree on oil production levels. This isn't 1973.

[Gallia-]

The actual reason is far more prosaic and banal: Saudi Arabia sells the West oil. OPEC embargoes mean it can put the squeeze on the USA whenever it wants, like it did in the 1970s. The fear of the oil embargo replaced the fear of a second Pearl Harbor in the mid-Cold War. It's still a serious concern for Europe too, who have no real alternative energy sources between Saudi Arabia and Russia, so it's a case of "pick your poison" for Germany and the EU until the USA can develop a major energy export capability.

There's good reasons to think that a new OPEC oil embargo is not possible, certainly they can't even agree on oil production levels. This isn't 1973.

This is true, but it is primarily because of energy independence initiatives by various Western gov'ts and weakening of countries within OPEC, and even a unilateral Saudi oil or Russian gas embargo would disrupt life in the West substantially. We need to access Canada's untapped arctic reserves if we're going to break OPEC completely and be able to run roughshod over the Saudi slavers with the CIA.

It is not 1973, but like I said, it replaced Pearl Harbor as the Great American Fear for decades. The USA's political establishment was scared of both committing AND suffering from a Pearl Harbor-style sneak attack as late as the 1960s. That sort of historical inertia takes time to shake off, especially when the same people have been in government for 30 years.

I don't think the USA will realize how much OPEC is weakened until OPEC actually falls apart, and they may be vindicated in the future in that belief when the oil glut stops in about six or so months. Prices won't be sky high, but they won't be so cheap that OPEC is irrelevant or the USA is suddenly energy export competitive with Russia and Saudi Arabia + Friends. That'll take decades to build up the necessary capacity, and even then it's still limited because the USA doesn't own Siberia or the Arabian desert.

Clearly the solution is thus:

1) A LAMPRE in every home.
2) A PWR in every neighborhood.
3) USA closed system atomic economy.
4) Transatlantic High Voltage Power Cable.
5) America literally powers Europe.

Reign of natural resource kings falls apart under the weight of its own contradictions inside a decade and they transition to successful systems after experimentation periods. It won't work for PRC, but it'll stop Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Make it happen Mrs. Merkel.

---

e: But really I think we just disagree with methods rather than outcomes TBH. And methods can be empirically verified. So I'm not sure if that means I actually disagree with you or not on a meaningful level. I'm leaning towards no, so I really just disagree with your Fukuyama-esque belief that liberalism will conquer all its enemies through something as ~passive~ as mere trade. It worked in the past but only because the West was able to create new markets and in-roads into closed economies like Qing, Nazi Germany, Japan, and Eastern Europe. It's not clear if it will work with something as novel as an open yet authoritarian economy.

The only thing that can defeat the PRC is internal resistance/subversion of the Politburo, and I do not see that being feasible with Western support, since other parts of the West are giving money to the Politburo in much greater magnitudes.

After all, the only thing that defeated the Soviet Union was internal resistance and these internal subversive elements leveraging the contradictions of Soviet society against it. This is not passive, it is a highly active method of war that requires lots of money. The CIA pumped over $2/capita into Poland. For one organization. If you did that with the PRC you'd be spending at least $3 billion for every subversive element to undermine the Politburo. That's two Arleigh Burkes!

The CIA's activity in Poland was almost as heavy as Afghanistan, or maybe even higher: They were smuggling in entire printing factories of fax machines, copiers, computers, and typewriters for Solidarity to make posters and shit. Video cameras and radios to make announcements and films. They even infiltrated the Polish brass and had a staff Colonel under their thumb to squeeze for info because he was the man in charge of the martial law/civil disorder planning for the Polish Army. It was nuts.

And as we can see from experience, the Politburo is damn good at rooting out CIA agents.

Either we need more CIA agents, more money for subversion, less money for the Politburo to skim off Western corps operating in China, or all three working in concert to bring about an organized demolition of what might be the closest thing to Nazi Germany since actual Nazi Germany.

Encouraging companies to pull out of PRC, gradually if it requires rebasing their operations in some place like Thailand [yep] or Vietnam [YEP] or another anti-PRC small fry country, is the best possible thing you can do. Somehow I doubt the Soviet citizens would appreciate still being under threat of having their property removed for work quota or taken in for questioning by the KGB, because the Western powers are too busy using them as a sweatshop to make iPhones.

I'd much rather have a democratic glorified sweatshop that protects individual freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, TBH.

e58754738957: But sweatshops are on the whole good since it beats starving to death in the street or dying of cholera on a subsistence rice farm. So I am actually quite conflicted. The PRC is like a bad halfway house between those things. I guess the idea is that you get the people so worked up and in furor from the leaving of Western companies and their jobs that they revolt and overthrow the government by staging massive sit-ins or something of domestic PRC factories?

Essentially by withdrawing from the PRC, you gradually turn the PRC into an increasingly strained autarky until it falls apart, and because you've been funding so many cool guys like Solidarity they can form a vanguard party or collections of them and introduce social democracy? Or maybe you just ship thirty trillion Chinese Marines from Taiwan by building a bridge with the Navy's aircraft carriers..which given the ROC is a democratic capitalist country with a good standard of living and relatively little repression, this will be a huge boon.

Anyway, "millions of people" didn't die in a civil war when the Soviet Union collapsed. They just left. They went to West Germany or to Sweden or to Russia. The resulting civil war "only" caused a few tens of thousands out of hundreds of millions of people to die, mostly because of dumb reasons like "Azerbaijan". There's no reason to think that a collapse of the PRC would be some kind of super slaughterhouse like Syria. The PRC is not an artificial state like Iraq or Syria, it's a broadly homogeneous Han Chinese country.

[Tekeristan]

Whats a LAMPRE?

[Bears Armed]

A bit of a weird question but talking about sports. As of now I got two local ethnic sports set up which I wish to be reviewed, whether they seem realistic and are reasonable for the time period. Maybe work out some kinks too if you will. Mind you Kazarogkai is for the most part an African nation culturally speaking though with some Asiatic and to a far lesser degree eastern European influences, not that it really matters, set sometime in the 15-18th century. Here is the first one, it is a team sport:

Kaza Running Stick

Overview:
The overall objective of the game is to get one's teams two goal sticks(colored white or black) into the oppositions goals which are colored opposite of ones own sticks. It doesn't matter whether the the Sticks are within hand or not, only so long as you can get both in the oppositions goals at the same time. Upon doing so one gains a point. Win enough points and you win a round, win enough rounds and you win the game. The sport is a rather violent one with the only explicit rules related toward contact being mirrors of those seen in traditional Kaza wrestling. Those being no eye gouging, no groin shots via the legs, no biting, no closed fist punches, and finally but not least kicks must be on the flat ends. Stealing of the opposing teams stick(s) is not only allowed but encouraged. Had holding of the stick is the proper form, but throwing is allowed. In order to score the stick must be physically within the goal zone. Whether the player is physically touching the stick is not important. A rather common occurrence quite honestly is for players to throw their sticks and hope that it lands inside the goal area. If it successfully plants or is fully within the goal then it counts.

The idea that I am more or less going for is basically american football but without scrimmage(each team gets a set of sticks), a dived goal zone, and a constant offense with a bit of local religion and grifball thrown in.

Teams
The Teams are divided into two lines, field and reserve players, with the field line being comprised of 24 members who are in play and reserve line being composed of at the minimum 24 other members who stay on the benches until called upon to replace a member of the field line. In practice most teams will have multiple reserve lines using them in a staggered system to replace their field line every few rounds or so.

The composition of the field line will typically comprise 4 types of players: Holders, Guardians, Blockers, and Hunters. Holders carry the sticks and in effect function as captains leading their team. Guardians sometimes referred to as the "meat shield" will function in their capacity to protect the two Holders to allow them to reach the goal, typically the grunts will be given this job. Blockers protect the goal from the opposing teams attempts to score very similar to goalies in say hockey, these are usually the most physically intimidating. Finally but not least the Hunters who act in their goal to serve as a sort of offense in defense by attempting to physically prevent and even steal the opposing teams balls to prevent them from scoring, these are usually the most fastest.

With the exception of the holders, from which there is only ever 2, the actual composition is up to the players and their coach to decide and depends on their preferred tactics. One may prefer lots of offensive play and as a result have a shit ton of hunters, the bare minimum of guardians and no blockers. Others may prefer a defensive play which involves lots of blockers and guardians but little to no hunters with the hope being to force their way through the enemy via attrition. Typically speaking whoever is the home team of the stadium will be on the black side and will wear black shorts, while the away team will be on the white side and will wear white shorts. For better differentiate teams members will wear multi colored sashes representing said team.

Field
It is in its simplest form a square Allotment in size(288 x 288 feet) which at its 4 corners has a goal zone whose size is that of a square parcel(24 x 24 feet). The Field is divided by a line into two zones of equal size(288 x 144 feet) each with it's own two goal zones colored for identification purposes. Each team will during the "deployment" stage of the game will be allowed to distribute their members across the field in however manner they feel, usually determined via a meeting between them and their coach. Formations will come into play here with hunters usually being placed close to the front and along the flanks while the holders and their guardians being a bit further back.

Timing
The game will consist of 4 rounds each lasting 12 minutes each for a total of 48 minutes. Before the first round and in between all other rounds will be what is called a deployment phase lasting 4 minutes though the first of these which shall occur before the first round will last for 6 minutes. During this deployment phase players will position themselves and if need be members of the reserve will come into play replacing injured and tire members of the field team. When this is over the round will begin.

Rounds are themselves divided into sets which last until one team gets a point upon doing so a brief break of about 2 minutes is called to allow the teams to redeploy themselves. Rounds are won via gaining points, whoever has the most points accumulated by the end of the round wins that round. Win the majority of rounds and you win the game. In times when both teams gain the same number of points in a round a draw is declared. If by the end of the game neither team has won enough rounds to win then a special tie breaker round is done.

Have you asked for people's opinions in the 'NS Sports' forum yet?

[Allanea]

Anyway, "millions of people" didn't die in a civil war when the Soviet Union collapsed. They just left. They went to West Germany or to Sweden or to Russia. The resulting civil war "only" caused a few tens of thousands out of hundreds of millions of people to die, mostly because of dumb reasons like "Azerbaijan". There's no reason to think that a collapse of the PRC would be some kind of super slaughterhouse like Syria. The PRC is not an artificial state like Iraq or Syria, it's a broadly homogeneous Han Chinese country.

China has had a history of incredibly brutal civil wars.

[Gallia-]

Anyway, "millions of people" didn't die in a civil war when the Soviet Union collapsed. They just left. They went to West Germany or to Sweden or to Russia. The resulting civil war "only" caused a few tens of thousands out of hundreds of millions of people to die, mostly because of dumb reasons like "Azerbaijan". There's no reason to think that a collapse of the PRC would be some kind of super slaughterhouse like Syria. The PRC is not an artificial state like Iraq or Syria, it's a broadly homogeneous Han Chinese country.

China has had a history of incredibly brutal civil wars.

China also has a history of successive despotism. ROC broke with that. Can they not break with the civil war, too?

Although I don't know what elements would fight a PRC civil war. The PLA vs. the Politburo, maybe?

[Kazarogkai]

A bit of a weird question but talking about sports. As of now I got two local ethnic sports set up which I wish to be reviewed, whether they seem realistic and are reasonable for the time period. Maybe work out some kinks too if you will. Mind you Kazarogkai is for the most part an African nation culturally speaking though with some Asiatic and to a far lesser degree eastern European influences, not that it really matters, set sometime in the 15-18th century. Here is the first one, it is a team sport:

Kaza Running Stick

Overview:
The overall objective of the game is to get one's teams two goal sticks(colored white or black) into the oppositions goals which are colored opposite of ones own sticks. It doesn't matter whether the the Sticks are within hand or not, only so long as you can get both in the oppositions goals at the same time. Upon doing so one gains a point. Win enough points and you win a round, win enough rounds and you win the game. The sport is a rather violent one with the only explicit rules related toward contact being mirrors of those seen in traditional Kaza wrestling. Those being no eye gouging, no groin shots via the legs, no biting, no closed fist punches, and finally but not least kicks must be on the flat ends. Stealing of the opposing teams stick(s) is not only allowed but encouraged. Had holding of the stick is the proper form, but throwing is allowed. In order to score the stick must be physically within the goal zone. Whether the player is physically touching the stick is not important. A rather common occurrence quite honestly is for players to throw their sticks and hope that it lands inside the goal area. If it successfully plants or is fully within the goal then it counts.

The idea that I am more or less going for is basically american football but without scrimmage(each team gets a set of sticks), a dived goal zone, and a constant offense with a bit of local religion and grifball thrown in.

Teams
The Teams are divided into two lines, field and reserve players, with the field line being comprised of 24 members who are in play and reserve line being composed of at the minimum 24 other members who stay on the benches until called upon to replace a member of the field line. In practice most teams will have multiple reserve lines using them in a staggered system to replace their field line every few rounds or so.

The composition of the field line will typically comprise 4 types of players: Holders, Guardians, Blockers, and Hunters. Holders carry the sticks and in effect function as captains leading their team. Guardians sometimes referred to as the "meat shield" will function in their capacity to protect the two Holders to allow them to reach the goal, typically the grunts will be given this job. Blockers protect the goal from the opposing teams attempts to score very similar to goalies in say hockey, these are usually the most physically intimidating. Finally but not least the Hunters who act in their goal to serve as a sort of offense in defense by attempting to physically prevent and even steal the opposing teams balls to prevent them from scoring, these are usually the most fastest.

With the exception of the holders, from which there is only ever 2, the actual composition is up to the players and their coach to decide and depends on their preferred tactics. One may prefer lots of offensive play and as a result have a shit ton of hunters, the bare minimum of guardians and no blockers. Others may prefer a defensive play which involves lots of blockers and guardians but little to no hunters with the hope being to force their way through the enemy via attrition. Typically speaking whoever is the home team of the stadium will be on the black side and will wear black shorts, while the away team will be on the white side and will wear white shorts. For better differentiate teams members will wear multi colored sashes representing said team.

Field
It is in its simplest form a square Allotment in size(288 x 288 feet) which at its 4 corners has a goal zone whose size is that of a square parcel(24 x 24 feet). The Field is divided by a line into two zones of equal size(288 x 144 feet) each with it's own two goal zones colored for identification purposes. Each team will during the "deployment" stage of the game will be allowed to distribute their members across the field in however manner they feel, usually determined via a meeting between them and their coach. Formations will come into play here with hunters usually being placed close to the front and along the flanks while the holders and their guardians being a bit further back.

Timing
The game will consist of 4 rounds each lasting 12 minutes each for a total of 48 minutes. Before the first round and in between all other rounds will be what is called a deployment phase lasting 4 minutes though the first of these which shall occur before the first round will last for 6 minutes. During this deployment phase players will position themselves and if need be members of the reserve will come into play replacing injured and tire members of the field team. When this is over the round will begin.

Rounds are themselves divided into sets which last until one team gets a point upon doing so a brief break of about 2 minutes is called to allow the teams to redeploy themselves. Rounds are won via gaining points, whoever has the most points accumulated by the end of the round wins that round. Win the majority of rounds and you win the game. In times when both teams gain the same number of points in a round a draw is declared. If by the end of the game neither team has won enough rounds to win then a special tie breaker round is done.

Have you asked for people's opinions in the 'NS Sports' forum yet?

Never heard of it? could you direct me to a thread that could be useful for my purposes?

Got an opinion or your just being helpful? if the former what I'm basically going for is pretty much a more brutal football but without scrimmage(everyone gets a ball sorta), and the ball is replaced with sticks.

[Chinese Peoples]

Anyway, "millions of people" didn't die in a civil war when the Soviet Union collapsed. They just left. They went to West Germany or to Sweden or to Russia. The resulting civil war "only" caused a few tens of thousands out of hundreds of millions of people to die, mostly because of dumb reasons like "Azerbaijan". There's no reason to think that a collapse of the PRC would be some kind of super slaughterhouse like Syria. The PRC is not an artificial state like Iraq or Syria, it's a broadly homogeneous Han Chinese country.

China has had a history of incredibly brutal civil wars.

It also had a habit of having civil wars while fighting external wars.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Designs not distinct enough?

(Image)

id say this is good but i dont get why you'd slap a "police" sticker on the gendarmerie car.

i suppose it's some sort of bilingual identification so people not culturally / linguistically accustomed to the concept of "gendarmerie" get the basic point of what it is?

i'd say it makes for questionable aesthetics and is superfluous..

[Allanea]

China has had a history of incredibly brutal civil wars.

China also has a history of successive despotism. ROC broke with that. Can they not break with the civil war, too?

Although I don't know what elements would fight a PRC civil war. The PLA vs. the Politburo, maybe?

I feel we're both going into a depth now where we would need to have detailed knowledge of Chinese society neither of us have.

But I am not going to disagree with you on the notion that overthrowing the Politburo would be really sweet if we could figure out how.

On the other hand I am not sure it's as stable as you think it is.

[Allanea]

As a peace offering, here's an underwater pipelayer built on the mighty T-55 chassis:

[Western Pacific Territories]

Chinese sweatshops are a moot point. US will probably soon move it's sweatshops away from the PRC, just to Indonesia instead because China more than doubled the wages for it's sweatshop laborers. It's easier to exploit people like Theodosiya nowadays I guess.

Chinese average salary for sweatshop workers per month: $196.¹
Indonesian average salary for sweatshop workers per month: $90 to $120, give or take.²

[Castille de Italia]

Chinese sweatshops are a moot point. US will probably soon move it's sweatshops away from the PRC, just to Indonesia instead because China more than doubled the wages for it's sweatshop laborers. It's easier to exploit people like Theodosiya nowadays I guess.

Chinese average salary for sweatshop workers per month: $196.¹
Indonesian average salary for sweatshop workers per month: $90 to $120, give or take.²

The U.S. is moving its sweatshops away from the PRC. But I think the notion that the defense industry is subverted by Chinese investment is completely ridiculous. Even if the Chinese owned patents to even the basic 5.56x45mm NATO, it wouldn't stop the U.S. from producing it.

[Ainin]

Designs not distinct enough?

(Image)

id say this is good but i dont get why you'd slap a "police" sticker on the gendarmerie car.

i suppose it's some sort of bilingual identification so people not culturally / linguistically accustomed to the concept of "gendarmerie" get the basic point of what it is?

i'd say it makes for questionable aesthetics and is superfluous..

The second sentence is correct. It is indeed a bit ugly, but necessary for dumb foreigners.

[Gallia-]

China also has a history of successive despotism. ROC broke with that. Can they not break with the civil war, too?

Although I don't know what elements would fight a PRC civil war. The PLA vs. the Politburo, maybe?

I feel we're both going into a depth now where we would need to have detailed knowledge of Chinese society neither of us have.

But I am not going to disagree with you on the notion that overthrowing the Politburo would be really sweet if we could figure out how.

On the other hand I am not sure it's as stable as you think it is.

That's the point I'm making. The is Politburo isn't stable. It's quite the opposite. Western trade is what is stabilizing the Politburo.

When PRC pulls the rug out from Western companies, it may or it may not collapse in a bad way, it depends on how far the Politburo's plan to become World Factory actually goes. In terms of Leninist thought, the Politburo is literally repeating NEP, which as a Leninist myself I am obligated to say would have produced a more robust and dangerous Soviet Union in the long run. I mean, if the USSR isn't obliterated by the Nazis because it logically tried to industrialize to improve its agricultural yields instead of improve its tank factory yields, when it really needed a bunch of tanks instead.

I just want there to be some semblance of people making things after the PRC collapses for two reasons:

1) The entire world does not shit itself and stop because the only people who make iPhones or whatever are not embroiled in a violent civil war.
2) The United Nations or the United States or Republic of China or whatever/whoever can lead a massive, well equipped, well supplied peacekeeping force to beat up any combatants, quell any violence, and restore law and order as soon as possible.

But the way we're headed that isn't going to be happening.

Chinese sweatshops are a moot point. US will probably soon move it's sweatshops away from the PRC, just to Indonesia instead because China more than doubled the wages for it's sweatshop laborers. It's easier to exploit people like Theodosiya nowadays I guess.

Chinese average salary for sweatshop workers per month: $196.¹
Indonesian average salary for sweatshop workers per month: $90 to $120, give or take.²

This is happening because the PRC has a growing middle/merchant class.

Even if the Chinese owned patents to even the basic 5.56x45mm NATO, it wouldn't stop the U.S. from producing it.

Yet the Norwegians owning the patents to M993/M995 5.56x45mm/7.62x51mm Armor Piercing ammunition literally does this.

So I think you're talking out your ass. :^)

Somewhere along the line the U.S. Army lost those patents, which means it lost the ability to produce the ammunition at LCAAP, because it would get it into a load of legal hot water. The Army JAG isn't exactly terribly well known for winning cases against patent trolls. Perhaps they need to hire Rabb, MacKenzie, and Sims law firm to fight for them? The outcome of a fight between the U.S. Army and NAMMO would be that NAMMO wins and the U.S. Army loses its ability to produce any form ammunition at all. Considering Picatinny is hanging by a thread as is, this wouldn't be a huge loss economically but it would be a devastating blow for the national defense economy.

[Allanea]

I just want there to be some semblance of people making things after the PRC collapses for two reasons:

You continously try to use the amount of people making things as a proxy for the capability of making those things, but that's just not a useful measure.

[Gallia-]

I just want there to be some semblance of people making things after the PRC collapses for two reasons:

You continously try to use the amount of people making things as a proxy for the capability of making those things, but that's just not a useful measure.

Because you can just put welders and workers on a shelf and take them down when you need them! Well, you're wrong!

You continuously try to say that industry work is fungible, but it's obvious you have no experience in engineering, manufacturing, or industry itself to base these claims. You are a stuffy academic who lives in a library who thinks he knows more than people who actually have a bit of experience in these sort of things. Industry is one of the least fungible things in the world. There's no market for HY-100 steel, 550-600 BHN high hardness armor plate, 1,500 HP turbine engines and tank transmissions, or 120mm carbon fiber discarding sabots. These are things that are, obviously, the product of intense subsidy because they are extremely niche products designed for one user: the government.

No one is going to be making nuclear weapons, sabot ammunitions, armor steels, or high performance tactical rocket motors (like the USA can make those now) for a bunch of dumb miners or something. The technology isn't transferable. If you need those in the future, and you don't already have the industrial base intact, tough fucking luck because you're about to get reamed by the guys who do.

For that matter, no one is going to be making VLO fighter jets for Boeing to escape the Buk missiles of the future. The military and civilian products have diverged so much from the past that it's probably impossible, outside of actually just adapting/militarizing civilian products (cf. trucks and MRAPs) to interchange them now. A tank factory cannot be a car factory. A car factory cannot be a tank factory. An airliner factory cannot be a fighter jet factory. A fighter jet factory cannot be an airliner factory. The world flows and technologies are totally different and that difference is widening.

It suggests that, eventually, you will need two totally separate and segregated economies: military and civilian. They will need to co-exist, separate but equal, to meet the demands of their respective consumer bases. If one trumps the other either, you have a bunch of starving people, or you have a bunch of people waiting to be enslaved by the next guy with guns.

You'd think you'd know this after F-22 got killed but apparently you think if the Congress shut down the M1 production line for 5 years it wouldn't take 10 years to bring it back to where it was before shut down? It takes almost 10 years to train a ballistic welder. 2 years training welding, 2-3 years welding experience. 3 years of ballistic welding training/experience. Maybe a couple more years for experience until they become more than a mediocre ballistic welder?

Give me a break. You don't simply start smashing industries and expect them to come back just as good as they were before when the next war comes.

Peacetime isn't the time that you should start disarming, it's the time that you start preparing for the next war! Because in the atomic/space/disco/cocaine/cyber/DSL/digital/future age you won't have time for another M-Day. It's what you can make right now, or rather ten to twenty years ago, that counts.

tl;dr You do not simply shut down a production line and turn it back on. It's not a light switch.

[NeuPolska]

Might as well just have eternal war

[Gallia-]

Might as well just have eternal war

Eternal war marked the greatest modern period of prosperity and growth for the Western world.

But continue thinking that war isn't some kind of innate social aspect of the human condition. Like breathing, sleeping, and eating. It will never end, it will always exist, and peacetime is always an aberration because it is merely an interlude between the next world war or world wars that will inevitably shake up stagnant political foundations. Once again, Lenin was right. Or perhaps Clausewitz was right.

The people who say that war is some kind of aberration are wrong. It's hardly unnatural because people have always competed for things, whether it's power, resources, food, or money. People don't like to do these things, but they still do them, because it's very easy for one group of people to dehumanize another. Or do you think that Poland would be better off had the Western Allies not fought Hitler? I don't think anyone liked to fight Hitler, but it was something that had to be done, because Hitler was a madman who wanted to kill or enslave hundreds of millions.

Rather, war is a necessary tool in a diplomat's toolbox. Take it away and you might as well take away a saw from a carpenter.

It is hardly surprising that the apex of the American Empire (the late '40s to late '60s) coincides with the apex of America's absolute military power, too.

c i v i s r o m a n u s

[Allanea]

Because you can just put welders and workers on a shelf and take them down when you need them! Well, you're wrong!

You continuously try to say that industry work is fungible, but it's obvious you have no experience in engineering, manufacturing, or industry itself to base these claims. You are a stuffy academic who lives in a library who thinks he knows more than people who actually have a bit of experience in these sort of things. Industry is one of the least fungible things in the world. There's no market for HY-100 steel, 550-600 BHN high hardness armor plate, 1,500 HP turbine engines and tank transmissions, or 120mm carbon fiber discarding sabots. These are things that are, obviously, the product of intense subsidy because they are extremely niche products designed for one user: the government.

Not wanting to get into the engineering forest (HY-80 and HY-100 are still being made despite there not being atomic submarine production in America), you have repeatedly (in this thread and elsewhere) used the percentage of people employed in industry as a proxy for American industrial power. You're continuously advocating, not for a need to subsidize military industries, which would be somewhat reasonable, but for a need to subsidize industry as a whole.

Moreover, the fictional clash of civilizations, should it occur, will last months. Perhaps days. If tank losses are as heavy as they have been in the Great Conflicts of the past, not even the largest modern tank factories will be able to replenish them in operationally-relevant time. Uralvagonzavod (the world's largest current tank factory) at peak performance could make sometihng like 300 T-72s a year. The age where you could lose three divisions, and then have heroic workers stamp out over 9000 T-34 for the next fight is gone.

[Gallia-]

Because you can just put welders and workers on a shelf and take them down when you need them! Well, you're wrong!

You continuously try to say that industry work is fungible, but it's obvious you have no experience in engineering, manufacturing, or industry itself to base these claims. You are a stuffy academic who lives in a library who thinks he knows more than people who actually have a bit of experience in these sort of things. Industry is one of the least fungible things in the world. There's no market for HY-100 steel, 550-600 BHN high hardness armor plate, 1,500 HP turbine engines and tank transmissions, or 120mm carbon fiber discarding sabots. These are things that are, obviously, the product of intense subsidy because they are extremely niche products designed for one user: the government.

Not wanting to get into the engineering forest (HY-80 and HY-100 are still being made despite there not being atomic submarine production in America), you have repeatedly (in this thread and elsewhere) used the percentage of people employed in industry as a proxy for American industrial power. You're continuously advocating, not for a need to subsidize military industries, which would be somewhat reasonable, but for a need to subsidize industry as a whole.

Uh I never said "industry as a whole". Nice strawman. And that's not "somewhat reasonable". It's "absolutely necessary".

Moreover, the fictional clash of civilizations, should it occur, will last months. Perhaps days.

They said this in 1939 too. And 1914. Boy were they right.

If tank losses are as heavy as they have been in the Great Conflicts of the past, not even the largest modern tank factories will be able to replenish them in operationally-relevant time.

The tank losses in Yom Kippur were higher than in WW2. Israel never ran out of tanks. Wrap your noggin around that one, eh?

Uralvagonzavod (the world's largest current tank factory) at peak performance could make sometihng like 300 T-72s a year. The age where you could lose three divisions, and then have heroic workers stamp out over 9000 T-34 for the next fight is gone.

When you start refuting my actual points I'll address your posts in the future. Suffice to say, you need to pull your head out the 18th century for a few minutes and join us in the 21st. I'll try to summarize some things that you need to brush up on and read books about, because books exist about all of these subjects:

1) Tank losses are not replenished from factories. And no one has believed this since Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
2) "Come as you are" wars.
3) Battlefield losses have historically never been "lose three divisions" unless you are the incompetent Red Army or the shattered husk of the Wehrmacht.
4) The West isn't Russia. Stop using Russia as a proxy for the West.
5) If you think some vacuum chambers are equivalent to making submarines, do you think a kite factory is equivalent to making fighter jets?
6) Russia probably only needs ~800 tanks to conquer the Baltics.

There are probably some other things, like the divergence between military and civil technologies, but I think the vacuum chambers cover that. It should be obvious why a vacuum chamber is not equivalent to a submarine, but apparently it isn't, so I am perplexed why you believe that it is otherwise.

[Allanea]

The tank losses in Yom Kippur were higher than in WW2. Israel never ran out of tanks.

Israel never ran out of tanks because they defeated their enemies in 20 days, not because vast tank factories were churning out endless tanks.

Uh I never said "industry as a whole". Nice strawman.

You've advocated reindustrialization via subsidies multiple times in this and previous threads.

It's unnecessary for the US to keep constantly making Abrams tanks because literally no country has even the abiliy to arm itself with anything comparable to an Abrams tank in anythin nearer than 2025-2030, for the same reasons you outlined.

[Gallia-]

The tank losses in Yom Kippur were higher than in WW2. Israel never ran out of tanks.

Israel never ran out of tanks because they defeated their enemies in 20 days, not because vast tank factories were churning out endless tanks.

They still lost more tanks than WW2.

Uh I never said "industry as a whole". Nice strawman.

You've advocated reindustrialization via subsidies multiple times in this and previous threads.

Yep. Because the U.S. MIC really needs it. When you start pulling out tanks stamped "mfg. 1985" or "mfg. 1994" by "Teledyne Continental Motors" and "United Defense, LLC", you know you're really just saying "look at me, I can't make anything new!"

Meanwhile our greatest potential enemies are making a new tank like Nissan makes new sedans. Even our own allies have us beat, and they're anywhere from three to thirty times smaller than us! We used to have really good stuff that could be here, now, first, and keep us safe into the indeterminate (post-2030) future. Now, it's no longer here, because we stopped making it.

What the fuck is happening when the last good acquisition program you ever had was back when "Baby One More Time" was popular? What's happening is obvious: The military is incapable of making good decisions. Why is it incapable of making good decisions? Because someone allowed it to be lobotomized. What happens when it becomes lobotomized? Rent seeking.

So yeah. It's frustrating to see the military have all these great ideas, like Block III tank, Comanche, EFOG-M, Crusader, and Bradley Fighting Vehicle System, all tossed to the wayside because all the boffins who knew anything about the military procurement and technology involved were fired by bureaucrats to make room for rent seeking marketers and private industry "think tanks". You could have spent like, half what FCS cost, and got all this cool stuff in sufficient quantities to do whatever, and you'd come out cheaper and better off than we are today, because you'd be at the same place we are today, just earlier.

And the worst part is they haven't learned.

It's unnecessary for the US to keep constantly making Abrams tanks because literally no country has even the abiliy to arm itself with anything comparable to an Abrams tank in anythin nearer than 2025-2030, for the same reasons you outlined.

If the USA kept making Abrams tanks that would be a sorry state of affairs. Much like Russia keeps making T-72s. If you think the "Abrams" is the pinnacle of tank design you're going to be #BTFO when M1s are getting plinked at horizon distance by the post-modern Tiger tanks of the PLA. "For every MBT-9000 we killed, they had five more, and also they were better," is going to be a real statement in the next war because the USA sat on its ass for 15 years before it remembered that Russia and China still existed. It'll be a war the USA loses, perhaps, even if we went all out today and pumped another 1-2% of the GDP into the DoD budget like Reagan did.

If we start making drawing up ideas for new tanks in 2025-2030, we might have a new tank before 2060. If we start drawing up ideas for new tanks today, combined with a robust re-investment of the U.S. organic industrial base, we might have a new tank in the 2030s. It will probably be shit because all the tankineers with actual experience of how tanks work are dead.

[Allanea]

Some of the 'new' Chinese tanks you linked to aren't 'new' (they're copies of old Soviet tech), and others also aren't being 'made' (they're prototypes).

What's happening is that people realize they could smack any potential opponent silly with tanks made before they were born and maybe refitted with some new optics, while the chances for a 'real' war are diminishing by the day.