NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[Shangtianhua]

Yes. (I am not engaging you on the ‘did you serve in the military’ question – let’s just gently say I did serve in the military and I have a variety of reasons to be confident in my military history knowledge beyond that).

We know that most bullets miss in suppressive fire. This is not the same as not caring if they hit or miss at all. For suppressive fire to be effective you need to have some degree of accuracy (different countries define this differently, some manuals talk about ‘fire density in bullets per meter of front’, or in percentages of hits, or whatever). The point is this: if you are just firing your guns in the general direction of the enemy the enemy will not be suppressed because the enemy is not idiots. Everyone knows this. Russians know this, Ukrainians know this, the US know this.

Wow, almost as if that was my point about suppressive fire still needing accuracy (especially when it comes to mag-fed rifles due to lower ammo count per mag compared to a machine gun ammo belt carrying multiple rounds per belt).

Again: the gaps in precision between different military rifles issued in the past half-century are not a significant issue. A soldier who has been trained on any of these rifles can hit a person-sized target at a normal engaged rate.

A brief google search shows us that an AK can hold a six-inch group at 200 yards. While this is not impressive compared to precision rifles, this is a small enough group that most users will not shoot well enough under stress to meaningfully be affected. An M16A1 holds a group of 3-6 inches depending on the condition of the rifle at the same range. As long as you’re hitting a person-sized target it does not matter if the group is 3 or 6. It will literally never matter.

Yes it does, at longer ranges. Accuracy doesn't matter if you'r fighting at closer ranges, which is where 7.62x39mm shine. Yet at longer ranges, 7.62x39mm suffers in ballistics vs 5.56 NATO. Also, given the AK's dogshit ergonomics, its rear sights aren't even at the rear section of the receiver's top. Contrast to Rk 62 or Galil which actually solved that issue.

Mobility is very important, but this does not mean that every single millimeter of mobility matters equally. To explain in simpler words: if you have two tanks that are of comparable mobility then it does not matter if one is slightly better. If you have two tanks and one is totally subpar then, yes, the one that is subpar is going to get fucked.

T-80U's reverse speed is a measly 11-ish km/h, compared to Western tanks that often reach 30–40 km/h in reverse. Then there's T-72 and T-90, where instead they can only go backwards at 4-ish km/h. Reverse speed matters when you're retreating since it's a life-or-death situation. As a result, when retreating while under fire, an Abrams could simply go backwards and keep its frontal area facing the enemy, meanwhile on a T-90 if the driver wanted to retreat quickly then the only choice is to expose the tank's rear and/or sides to the enemy.

This T-90 got hit somewhere in its side by a Ukrainian missile, the following aftermath being quite brutal and sad. For tankermen, the ideal way of maneuvering while under enemy fire is to minimize showing the sides much as as possible. Since T-90s have shit reverse speed, this makes it difficult for tankermen to adjust the positions of the tank and maneuver under heavy fire (Russian tanks also don't have neutral turning).

The mobility gap between Russian and Western tanks ain't slight, it's gigantic. Like the acceleration gap between a Hummer H1 and a Xiaomi SU7 Ultra (the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra utterly obliterates the Hummer H1 in acceleration, completing the 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) sprint roughly 6 to 10 times faster than the Hummer). That's the type of mobility gap I'm talking about here.

I'm not talking about cope cages, I'm specifically talking about Tsar Mangal cages lol.)To be clear I’m defining Tsar Mangal as ‘a complex cage enclosing the entire turret of the tanks and possibly some of its hull’.

So: the improvised steel boxes we’ve seen early on were at best useful only situationally (Ukrainians adopted), but we’re now seeing in several countries a variety of updates on this concept that do add weight but preserve some turret rotation. Yes, I don’t actually think future tank warfare will involve tanks enclosed in steel boxes.

Tsar Mangal is a god awful form of cope cage because again, like I said, it reduces mobility a lot due to weight penalty and it severly limits turret rotation and gun angle.

Hi-tech has never meant ‘a country that is wholly self-sufficient in every hi-tech aspect’.

Lmao, it's not just about self sufficiency, it's also about scientific research and technological innovation, which is key to actually producing advanced hi-tech weaponry. Just to give an example, China leads the world in scientific research and technological innovation, publishing more globally-cited research papers and currently-in-force patents annually than other nations, not to mention already dominating most fields of critical technology (and having dominance in critical technology automatically applies to defense tech as well). And just to give even more specific examples, China's dominance in telecommunications including 5G, 5.5G and upcoming 6G is thanks to Chinese AESA radar resarch and manufacturing, with the PLA widely utilizing AESA radars as standard in numerous platform and domains (and the overwhelming majority of AESA radars utilized by the PLA are highly-advanced GaN and GaN-on-SiC with more advanced types like GaN-on-Diamond already being in active testing in China). Drone technology is another great example, with Chinese commercial drone makers like DJI basically dominating the market and PLA widely using a vast array of highly advanced drones such as the stealthy CCA drones and gen. 6 unmaned air dominance fighter (UADF) drones shown last year, or the numerous types of UUVs for special mission operations. There is a Chinese company already actively testing unmanned hybrid underwater aerial vehicles while a team of young students from Xi'an Aeronautical University creating a deep-stealth tailess drone that was supposed to appear at the recent Zhuhai Airshow but was removed due to attracting too much attention from analysts.

(The reason Israel is doing badly in the present war has nothing to do with the competence of the IDF and more to do with the competence of Israeli national leadership but that’s a whole other, more political, story, I shan’t get into here – suffice to say there’s a reason I don’t live in Israel anymore lol).

Literally the same argument regarding the performance of the Russian military, but all of that literally chalks up to institutional inertia both politically and militarily.

If you are sasying 'the Chinese would never use X type gun' the fact they did use millions of X type gun disproves this statement even if 3000 other gun types are also issued.

Top kek, Type 56 AK isn't even in active frontline service among first-line or even second-line PLA Ground Force infantrymen for decades. It's not even actively used by the PLA Reserve Force.

[Allanea]

This T-90 got hit somewhere in its side by a Ukrainian missile, the following aftermath being quite brutal and sad. For tankermen, the ideal way of maneuvering while under enemy fire is to minimize showing the sides much as as possible. Since T-90s have shit reverse speed, this makes it difficult for tankermen to adjust the positions of the tank and maneuver under heavy fire (Russian tanks also don't have neutral turning).

And your point is? You're imagining me as some kind of defender of Russian tanks specifically whereas my point is actually *counter* to the main claim of the Russian tank fanboys (where they claim their tiny weigh 'increases mobility').

My fundamental point is this, in case somehow I misstated it:

A 75-ton tank is not necessarily less mobile than a 50-ton tank (as your example has shown), but even if a 70-ton tank is slightly less mobile in some aspect than a 50-ton tank (i.e. I am willing to accpet, because I know nothing about the topic, that Chinese tanks outperform Abrams, Merkava, and Challenger 2A6 in some aspect, it is plausible to create a 70-ton tank that has comparable mobility with a lighter tank, because mobility is not a pure function of weight.

And this bring us back to the initial Tsar Mangal/cope cage discussion: it's not implausible that some kind of add-on external armor will provide survivability effects that outweigh the effects of some mobility losses.

Remember those videos of 'mangaled' tanks surviving 70+ missile impacts despite being as mobile as a shithouse? Yeah. Mobility is not the only factor, and there are different kind of mobility.

Lmao, it's not just about self sufficiency, it's also about scientific research and technological innovation, which is key to actually producing advanced hi-tech weaponry.

Yes. Lots of countries have produces a variety of hi-tech weaponry despite not being best at everything. I'm not sure why the existence of lots of tiny countries (not just Israel) which have a significant amount of hi-tech inventions to their name is cointroversial.

Yes it does, at longer ranges. Accuracy doesn't matter if you'r fighting at closer ranges, which is where 7.62x39mm shine. Yet at longer ranges, 7.62x39mm suffers in ballistics vs 5.56 NATO. Also, given the AK's dogshit ergonomics, its rear sights aren't even at the rear section of the receiver's top. Contrast to Rk 62 or Galil which actually solved that issue.

This is a fundamental misconcception which conflates the precision of a weapon and its accuracy at a controlled range with its combat accuracy.

In other words: witohut the use of optics, the majority of human beings (outside certain gifted individuals) shoot a lot less accurately under pressure than they do at the shooting range, and, without very significant alterations to the design of firearms (the introduction of modern optics), the gaps in performance between "what a soldier actually does" and "the rifle's optimum" are vast.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

The PLA doctrine revolved around close assault. Period. The PLA saw the bayonet and the grenade as the primary weapons of the infantry soldier. You infiltrate as close as possible, then use the grenade to stun the enemy as you initiate the final assault so you can use your bayonet to capture/kill them. SMG's are great to have in these circumstances, as they give you the ability to further suppress the enemy and respond to any counter attacks. But given the PLA's lack of industrial capacity (effecting both the ability to produce weapons and ammo) the PLA wasn't generally able to get a lot of SMGs/Assault Rifles or the ammo to go with them. The PLA was basically living off of captured weapons and ammo until the establishment of the PRC, which given warlord China meant it was a really weird mix, and even well after the foundation of the PRC this eclectic collection lived on given the size of the PLA during this time period.

Which brings us back around to the point: the PLA believed in precision sharpshooting for their troops for both cultural and economic reasons. That the PLA preferred the SKS over the AK does not mean that the AK was an inaccurate weapon, only that the PLA believed that the SKS was a more accurate rifle (and a better bayonet holder). Now objectively the SKS has many features that make it both technically and practically more accurate than the AK. That doesn't mean that the AK was inaccurate. Nor does it mean that a fictional PLA 40 years in the future with a dramatically different history wouldn't be interested in the AK.

---

Again, the PLA literally issued the AK to their troops. They issued lots of them. You can make an argument that the PLA preferred other firearms, but you literally cannot argue in good faith that the PLA wouldn't use an AK pattern firearm since they did. The PLA issued and utilized the Type 56 Assault Rifle for decades, across multiple conflicts. They carried them when fighting against India and they carried them when fighting against Vietnam.

That, and the AK often ended up being the weapon of choice after a few full-auto firefights with the happy little trigger happy trees that spoke Vietnamese. So we can probably bob-ross this and say they changed their tune right-quick after a happy little accident in Vietnam,

[Shangtianhua]

And your point is? You're imagining me as some kind of defender of Russian tanks specifically whereas my point is actually *counter* to the main claim of the Russian tank fanboys (where they claim their tiny weigh 'increases mobility').

My fundamental point is this, in case somehow I misstated it:

A 75-ton tank is not necessarily less mobile than a 50-ton tank (as your example has shown), but even if a 70-ton tank is slightly less mobile in some aspect than a 50-ton tank (i.e. I am willing to accpet, because I know nothing about the topic, that Chinese tanks outperform Abrams, Merkava, and Challenger 2A6 in some aspect, it is plausible to create a 70-ton tank that has comparable mobility with a lighter tank, because mobility is not a pure function of weight.

Well yeah, 50+ tonne tanks like Leo 2A7, Abrams SEPv3, Leclerce Series XXI, K2, and ZTZ-99A have higher power-to-weight ratio than T-90s along with more-advanced transmissions that allow for both fast reversing and neutral turning, and with hybrid-electric, the P2W ratio gets boosted along with the acceleration. A 70+ tonne 4th gen. MBT would need a justfication to exist in the first place, in this case, the increase weight wouldn't be from using a manual loader like a previous gen. MBT. This is going into speculative territory, but a 70+ tonne 4th gen. MBT would have be of that weight due to reasons such as having really, really thick armor, or packing with a very-large bore tank gun, or even carrying canisters for launching loitering munitions.

And this bring us back to the initial Tsar Mangal/cope cage discussion: it's not implausible that some kind of add-on external armor will provide survivability effects that outweigh the effects of some mobility losses.

Remember those videos of 'mangaled' tanks surviving 70+ missile impacts despite being as mobile as a shithouse? Yeah. Mobility is not the only factor, and there are different kind of mobility.

Tsar Mangal is still garbage compared to ordinary cope cage. Again, it decreases the hell out of tank mobility. Hell, even the Russians are using tanks fitted with Tsar Mangal as less-dynamic self-propelled guns instead, because Russian tankermen know that Tsar Mangal absolutely bleeds the hell out of any mobility within a tank, contrast to ordinary cope cages that doesn't add negative weight penalty to any MBT. Thus, Tsar Mangal tanks are basically being utilized more as pseudo-artillery (the silver lining here being that two-piece ammunition 125mm HE-FRAG rounds have quite a lot of explosive heft to them), so that way they're further away from enemy fire and thus increasing their survivability to make up for horrendous snail-pace mobility.

Yes. Lots of countries have produces a variety of hi-tech weaponry despite not being best at everything. I'm not sure why the existence of lots of tiny countries (not just Israel) which have a significant amount of hi-tech inventions to their name is cointroversial.

Because tiny nations cannot compete with larger nations. That's just how it works. Whether it's industrial capacity (quantity) or R&D capability (quality), the reality is that small nations cannot overproduce over larger nations, nor can they produce anything more hi-tech than larger nations. That's just the reality. To develop a hi-tech weapon, you need an army of STEM graduates, and to produce numerous types of hi-tech weapons at the same time, you need a massive STEM army. Besides, just look at GCAP and how it isn't even a true 6th gen. fighter design. It's not even tailess nor does it use any advanced non-canard flight surfaces such as flexible skin-flaps like on J-36. And btw, GCAP is a multinational effort. No small nation has the capability to develop and produce a 6th gen. fighter on their own, even buying foreign components from other nations like engines and radars. France is the only nation in Western Europe that has a fully-developed aerospace industry, and even then they still needed foreign partners for the now-cancelled FCAS Next Generation Fighter (which like the GCAP isn't even a true 6th gen. design).

Also, those small countries that so-called "produce a variety of hi-tech weaponry" don't produce them fully domestically lmao. They still need to import just to manufacture them. Hell, even the US today suffers from a similar issue despite having a much larger defense industry than all of Western Europe. The US still has to import key raw materials from China (such as rare earth metals or gallium) just to make something like an F-35's avionics because in this digital-centric day and age, weapons such as fighter jets or missiles are becoming more technologically complex. Hell, even for basic weaponry like artillery shells, the US once imported cottons from China before shooting themselves in foot. So not only is industrial capacity and R&D capability key to weapons manufacturing, but even supply chains as well, meaning that tiny nations simply cannot compete with bigger nations in a) producing more weapons, b) producing more-advanced weapons, and c) producing weapons that don't use foreign components, down to the materials used for manufacturing.

This is a fundamental misconcception which conflates the precision of a weapon and its accuracy at a controlled range with its combat accuracy.

In other words: witohut the use of optics, the majority of human beings (outside certain gifted individuals) shoot a lot less accurately under pressure than they do at the shooting range, and, without very significant alterations to the design of firearms (the introduction of modern optics), the gaps in performance between "what a soldier actually does" and "the rifle's optimum" are vast.

Being able to shoot a target with only an iron sight isn't even that complicated lol, that's just a case of skill issue. Instead, the quality of iron sights depend on how it is designed, and like said before, the AK's rear sights aren't even at the rear of the receiver. Iron sights make a huge difference in aiming quality. A great example would be the difference in iron sight quality between Gewehr 98 and M1903 Springfield. The iron sights on the Gewehr 98 are rugged and optimized for fast combat target acquisition but the M1903 Springfield's sights offer finer precision for sharpshooting.

As for shooting under pressure, that's why suppressive firing and use of optics exist in the first place. The former basically forcing opponents to stay down so that allies can maneuver and take aim at any poor SOB in their crosshairs. The latter basically increasing accuracy rate for each grunt, with low-zoom scopes being helpful for longer-range sharpshooting.

[Shangtianhua]

That, and the AK often ended up being the weapon of choice after a few full-auto firefights with the happy little trigger happy trees that spoke Vietnamese. So we can probably bob-ross this and say they changed their tune right-quick after a happy little accident in Vietnam,

Holy shit, can't believe anyone takes that baizuo tankie seriously omegalul, so many fucking misconceptions.

1 - Type 63 wasn't produce in the ideal larger numbers due to later batches suffering from manufacturing difficulties brought by the effects of the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, Type 56 SKS is only semi-auto. The Type 56 AK was only used for closer-range volume firing since Viets loves throwing their troops into CQB. Also, Type 81 entered service by early-to-mid 80s, to which PLA troops quickly ditched shitty AK-slops for Type 81. Learn some fucking history.

2 - China did NOT lose the 1979 Sino-Viet War, literally a retarded claim invented by Soviet and Vietnamese commie propaganda that gets peddled hard as fuck by dumbfuck tankies. In reality, China actually pushed close to Hanoi, except here's the thing: Deng's entire point of the war wasn't to occupy Hanoi, but rather add a fuck ton of pressure on Vietnam for invading Cambodia and inflict as much damage to Vietnam as possible. And that's what happened. The only thing Deng didn't expect was that the Vietnamese wouldn't leave Cambodia until a decade later, but it did have something to do with how China inflicted damage to Vietnam. Another reason for the war was that Deng wanted to demonstrate to reformers that the PLA needed modernization due to stagnation brought on by the Cultural Revolution, but because of economic reforms, military was low priority, so Deng wanted to show a reason for prioritizing military modernization without spending too much on defense.

3 - China destroyed all key infrastructures and farmlands in Northern Vietnam in 1979, which actually crippled Vietnam's shitty central-planned economy. And with the Soviet Union going down the drain, this was one of many reasons why Vietnam a) implemented Doi Moi reforms, b) recalled all their troops in Cambodia to return home, and c) normalize relations with China

4 - The entire hilly and mountainous Sino-Viet border was under Chinese control for the absolute entirety of the 1980s. During that time, the Viets tried to retake the border using human meat waves, only to get brutally mowed down by the Chinese. The Viets tried to use artillery against Chinese positions in the hills but missed, meanwhile the Chinese used counter-battery radars to detect Viet arty positions, resulting in Chinese arty batteries decimating Viet positions with pin-point precision. Viet sapper commandos tried to destroy Chinese arty positions but got liquidated by artillerymen who weren't even trained for counter-commando operations. The PLA Air Force didn't play a role in both the 1979 war and the 80s border war, so the PLA Ground Force had no air cover and had to make due with their own assets. Regardless, the Viets got ass whooped every time they tried to retake the border. That's why you get battles like Laoshan, Fakashan, or Project Blue-Sword B. Of course, Viet commie propaganda would never bring this up since it's dishonorable display omegalul. Thus, China had full dominance over the border region, and it wasn't until early 90s that Chinese troops peacefully left the Viet side of the border after Hanoi begged to Beijing for normalization of relations.

Nice try sweaty, but you gotta do better than that lmao. Good attempt at the snark. Straight up NonCredibleDefense-tier.

Honestly, is this NationStates' best keyboard warriors? Christ, I've seen far better efforts from online shitholes like F-16.net, Pakistan Defence Forum, or TheWarZone.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

That, and the AK often ended up being the weapon of choice after a few full-auto firefights with the happy little trigger happy trees that spoke Vietnamese. So we can probably bob-ross this and say they changed their tune right-quick after a happy little accident in Vietnam,

Holy shit, can't believe anyone takes that baizuo tankie seriously omegalul, so many fucking misconceptions.

Nice try sweaty, but you gotta do better than that lmao. Good attempt at the snark. Straight up NonCredibleDefense-tier.

Honestly, is this NationStates' best keyboard warriors? Christ, I've seen far better efforts from online shitholes like F-16.net, Pakistan Defence Forum, or TheWarZone.

'tis a dense snark, but somehow you missed the part where I wasn't disagreeing with your points, either... not sure what you were going-off about.

Well, aside from the bit about China taking a hard L in Vietnam. Even US media saw that as a bit of a cringe-worthy military operation. The last bit about it not being a loss and actively demonstrating how behind-the-times the Chinese military had stagnated seems like some level of cognitive dissonance. Mission failed successfully, I guess.
-Vietnam also kinda occupied Cambodia well into 1991, so it kinda failed to do much regarding the premise for starting the military action, and it took events that were out of the PRC's control to basically hand them a soft-w with the Soviet Union collapsing and normalized relations with the US. Holding onto 20 square miles as ransom really didn't do much but piss them off.

[Shangtianhua]

Well, aside from the bit about China taking a hard L in Vietnam. Even US media saw that as a bit of a cringe-worthy military operation.

>US corporate propaganda outlets

Ah yes, I too like to take my knowledge of science from fundementalist church priests who still think the Sun orbits the Earth The Post.

Imagine having no fucking arguments whatsoever, so you pull bullshit straight out of Uncle Sam's slimy chocolate starfish. Grade-A level of intellectual dishonesty that makes the morons at NonCredibleDefense look like scholars in comparison omegalul. Try harder mate.

Also, cringe-worthy operaiton? Yet the Chinese conquered the entire border region, decimated Viet human meat waves, and straight up bombed and burned Northern Viet infrastructure and farmlands that was enough to force the commie dumbfucks at Hanoi to reform their shit economy and beg to Beijing for relationship normalization. Good one tankie. Let's not even forget that the Vietnamese navy got bent over and assfucked in the South China Sea, losing the Paracel Islands despite a) operating long-range AShMs from the Russkies, and b) literally having Soviet troops stationed at Cam Ranh. Again, try harder.

The last bit about it not being a loss and actively demonstrating how behind-the-times the Chinese military had stagnated seems like some level of cognitive dissonance. Mission failed successfully, I guess.

Keep coping lmao. The Viets couldn't even eject the fucking PLA you nimrod, so please kindly explain why Vietnam losing access to the Sino-Viet border and Paracel Islands along with key infrastructures and farmlands in the north being razed is somehow a sign of victory?

"No comrade, for you see, we defeated them filthy chicoms by giving them the border region and Paracel Islands while crippling our economy. Truly a successful national defense, amirite comrade?"

'tis a dense snark

Says the guy talking about muh viet speaking trees like a mouthbreathing neckbeard armchair general on Reddit omegalul.

Funny how I'm the only one who actually properly understands Chinese military development because, wow would you look at that, that's my subject matter expertise, you know, the shit I get paid for by my government (a western anglo one at that) to read, analyze and compile for paperwork. Helps that I actually read through first-hand sources from China (that are in Chinese) and not from dumbfuck western corporate slopaganda and le heckin china expertz who can't even read a single fucking Hanzi character lol.

And there's the average NS armchair expert who thinks he knows everything because he gets to larp as a fictional nation. Wow, I just got bested.

Try harder again next time.

Vietnam also kinda occupied Cambodia well into 1991, so it kinda failed to do much regarding the premise for starting the military action, and it took events that were out of the PRC's control to basically hand them a soft-w with the Soviet Union collapsing and normalized relations with the US. Holding onto 20 square miles as ransom really didn't do much but piss them off.

Wow it's like you didn't even read my fucking post, proving my point about NationStates having garbage reading comprehension.

Vietnam occupied Cambodia till 91 because their shitty economy got fucked over by China and the Soviet disintegrated like a cotton candy in the rain (so much for muh stronk communizm). Also Vietnam relies extremly heavily on China for trade because a) China is the world's manufacturing hub and b) there's a thing called geography in which China is right fucking beside Vietnam for trade. Also, like a mentioned before, China decimated infrastructures and farmlands in Northern Vietnam, which made the occupation of Cambodia extremly costly without Soviet assistance.

Keep trying harder, you'll get there.

Man, NationStates ain't sending their best.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

Vietnam also kinda occupied Cambodia well into 1991, so it kinda failed to do much regarding the premise for starting the military action, and it took events that were out of the PRC's control to basically hand them a soft-w with the Soviet Union collapsing and normalized relations with the US. Holding onto 20 square miles as ransom really didn't do much but piss them off.

Wow it's like you didn't even read my fucking post, proving my point about NationStates having garbage reading comprehension.

Vietnam occupied Cambodia till 91 because their shitty economy got fucked over by China and the Soviet disintegrated like a cotton candy in the rain (so much for muh stronk communizm). Also Vietnam relies extremly heavily on China for trade because a) China is the world's manufacturing hub and b) there's a thing called geography in which China is right fucking beside Vietnam for trade. Also, like a mentioned before, China decimated infrastructures and farmlands in Northern Vietnam, which made the occupation of Cambodia extremly costly without Soviet assistance.

Keep trying harder, you'll get there.

Man, NationStates ain't sending their best.

Pretty sure China was still a bit of a famine/welfare-state in the 1980s alongside Vietnam. When it came to who could actually provide the grain, that was the USSR, and later, the USAID. Geographical proximity aside, China can't sell what it ain't got.

[Shangtianhua]

Pretty sure China was still a bit of a famine/welfare-state in the 1980s.

Lmao no, again, read a fucking history book.

The last famine that hit China was in the 60s. And yet not a single famine has affected China since then.

In the 1990s, Vietnam NEEDED trade with China to keep their shitty economy afloat, and since then they've become more reliant. And in the modern day, China is the absolute industrial and technological juggernaut, with an industrial base several times larger than the entirety of the West + Japan + SK combined, along with publishing more globally-cited research papers and actively-enforced patents annually than any nation, graduating more STEM students yearly than any other nation, having a globally-unmatched fully-integrated supply chain, and basically manufacturing even the most basic components for products that are "made" in other nations under those nation's domestic brands. Vietnam now has become even more reliant, and their former VCP chief went to Beijing a few years ago just to beg to the Chinese for more Chinese investments into trade, business, and infrastructure.

China was poor in the 1990s yet unlike Vietnam, China was already a heavily-industrialized nation by the early-to-mid 60s. Vietnam to this fucking day is still an agrarian backwater nation, what Trump would personally call a shithole. And if that wasn't bad enough, the retards in the VCP are investing way too much reliance on tourism, thus turning Vietnam into a fucking brothel for western sexpats to defile. Thailand and Philippines now got competition. Guangxi, literally one of the poorest places in China, is way more developed than fucking Vietnam, with a far-superior infrastructure network and having an actual hi-tech industrial base. The only thing dragging Guangxi down are those Vietnamese illegals leeching off of Chinese money (the worst ones are the Viet hookers working in massage parlors who keep looking for local men to marry just for a Chinese equivalent to a green card).

Man, I'm get bored. NS as a community needs better armchair generals. I've had more thrills arguing with morons on F-16.net. Even the braindead Kremlin trolls on lemmygrad were more fun to argue with.

[Hurtful Thoughts]

Pretty sure China was still a bit of a famine/welfare-state in the 1980s.

Lmao no, again, read a fucking history book.

The last famine that hit China was in the 60s. And yet not a single famine has affected China since then.

In the 1990s, Vietnam NEEDED trade with China to keep their shitty economy afloat, and since then they've become more reliant. And in the modern day, China is the absolute industrial and technological juggernaut, with an industrial base several times larger than the entirety of the West + Japan + SK combined, along with publishing more globally-cited research papers and actively-enforced patents annually than any nation, graduating more STEM students yearly than any other nation, having a globally-unmatched fully-integrated supply chain, and basically manufacturing even the most basic components for products that are "made" in other nations under those nation's domestic brands. Vietnam now has become even more reliant, and their former VCP chief went to Beijing a few years ago just to beg to the Chinese for more Chinese investments into trade, business, and infrastructure.

China was poor in the 1990s yet unlike Vietnam, China was already a heavily-industrialized nation by the early-to-mid 60s. Vietnam to this fucking day is still an agrarian backwater nation, what Trump would personally call a shithole. And if that wasn't bad enough, the retards in the VCP are investing way too much reliance on tourism, thus turning Vietnam into a fucking brothel for western sexpats to defile. Thailand and Philippines now got competition. Guangxi, literally one of the poorest places in China, is way more developed than fucking Vietnam, with a far-superior infrastructure network and having an actual hi-tech industrial base. The only thing dragging Guangxi down are those Vietnamese illegals leeching off of Chinese money (the worst ones are the Viet hookers working in massage parlors who keep looking for local men to marry just for a Chinese equivalent to a green card).

Man, I'm get bored. NS as a community needs better armchair generals. I've had more thrills arguing with morons on F-16.net. Even the braindead Kremlin trolls on lemmygrad were more fun to argue with.

Famine would imply they couldn't get food, thankfully normalized relations with the US under Nixon kept the Chinese fed wilst they instituted the one child policy and several agricultural reforms, however the failing farming communes from the era of the great leap forwards did continued to persist until 1982, and the people were still partially-reliant on imported grains and rice all the way until 1991.

Likewise, China couldn't put Vietnam into a famine during the 1980s since a 1 km wide stretch of border land was never really their agricultural breadbasket (Vietnam's issues were more attrributed to Agent Orange/defoliation, American search and destroy missions targeting grain-caches and efforts to keep the people reliant on imported food by-design since the early 1940s than anything the PLA accomplished). That and the initial food-aid shipments were coming from Russia, and sinking Russian shipping and starting a war with the Soviets in the 1960s-1980s wasn't really in the cards (Chernobyl disaster did pretty much wipe out roughly half of the USSRs grain production after 1984, but again, not really a chinese covert op to cause a nuclear meltdown in Ukraine, so China gets no credit for that), and later in the late-80s onwards would've involved touching America's boats.

But that's... very far from the mainline topic of "would fictional China use automatic weapons instead of SKS spam" both of us have concluded the answer is "yes" from our first posts... the rest is... some sort of cope I guess because my logic didn't follow yours closely enough. Whether it be from experience causing reforms, or some forward-thinking on the part of some design-team in the 1960s that managed to survive long enough for the Type-81 to become a thing, both lead to the same conclusion.

As for industrialization of China. No... they really weren't in the 1960s. Most people were still using bolt action Mosins up until the mid 1960, although that could also attest the the sheer scale of type 56 carbines that needed to be built to ensure the average conscript even had semi-automatics. That and all the quality-control issues with Type 63 production were present in other fields of industry, specifically modern metallurgy just wasn't present until the 1980s as it briefly became lost-tech during the great leap when everyone was trying to use their backyards as metalshops while executing anyone who said that was a dumb idea.

[Shangtianhua]

Famine would imply they couldn't get food

Omegalul no. The last famine in China ended in the fucking 60s. Food supply in China during the 70s wasn't in critical condition. Holy shit, are you dense? Are you historically illiterate?

thankfully normalized relations with the US under Nixon kept the Chinese fed

Nope. That' didn't happen. China's by 1971 was already fucking stable. Nice cope though, that's a new one I've seen kek.

however the failing farming communes from the era of the great leap forwards did continued to persist until 1982, and the people were still partially-reliant on imported grains and rice all the way until 1991.

>Partially-reliant

Literally NOT the definition of a goddamn famine lol. Also, Deng's economic reforms began in 1979 and abolishing the GLF-era communes required reorganization of commune-level governance, which doesn't happen overnight.

Likewise, China couldn't put Vietnam into a famine during the 1980s since a 1 km wide stretch of border land was never really their agricultural breadbasket

Fucking christ, do you even understand basic fucking geography? China LITERALLY pushed close to Hanoi and performed absolute SCORCHED EARTH on infrastructures and farmlands along the way. Not only that, the farmlands in Northern Vietnam were key to the VCP regime because back in the 60s and 70s they were far away from the fighting in the south. As if that wasn't enough, railway was the actual lifeline for resupplies during the Vietnam War, the US Navy controlled the waters outside North Vietnam meaning the VCP had to receive supplies via railway from China. And guess what? Not only did China sent railway-based air-defense units to North Vietnam but they were the ones who actually helped fucking built additional railway lines in North Vietnam for logistics of war supplies. Holy shit, you're more dense than a fucking quark star. If it wasn't for the good grace of China amidst the Sino-Soviet Split, North Vietnam would of folded like a fucking wet paper towel when supplies run out.

(Vietnam's issues were more attrributed to Agent Orange/defoliation, American search and destroy missions targeting grain-caches and efforts to keep the people reliant on imported food by-design since the early 1940s than anything the PLA accomplished).

Herp derp le yanks decimated viet farms cos warcrimes n shiet

Nice cope. The amount of Agent Orange dropped on Vietnam wasn't enough to decimate a lot of farms in the north you nimrod. A lot of that shit was dropped more to the south. Again, do you even understand basic geography? Likewise, the targeting of grain-caches happened in the south.

Seriously, do you even know what fucking happened during the war? The US did NOT push north into North Vietnam, not because of some bullshit tankie myth about muh invincible pva, but because the US did NOT want China to intervene, just like what happened back in Korea (of which I've already talked about before). Again, nice cope.

That and the initial food-aid shipments were coming from Russia, and sinking Russian shipping and starting a war with the Soviets in the 1960s-1980s wasn't really in the cards (Chernobyl disaster did pretty much wipe out roughly half of the USSRs grain production after 1984, but again, not really a chinese covert op to cause a nuclear meltdown in Ukraine, so China gets no credit for that), and later in the late-80s onwards would've involved touching America's boats.

What the fuck is this autistic diatribe? Chernobyl? We're fucking talking Vietnam here omegalul. Also, again, the US Navy dominated the waters off the coast of North Vietnam during the war, and post war, grain shipments from the Russkies didn't help rebuild scorched farmlands in the far-north of Vietnam.

some sort of cope I guess because my logic didn't follow yours closely enough.

>logic

More like opinion because the shit you're pulling out of your ass has no material basis to reality whatsoever. Literally no different to a flat-eather arguing to a certified scientist and talking about some my logic bullshit.

Whether it be from experience causing reforms, or some forward-thinking on the part of some design-team in the 1960s that managed to survive long enough for the Type-81 to become a thing, both lead to the same conclusion.

God you are so fucking dense. The Type 81 was based on the Type 63, the Type 63 team helped put the Type 63 into production during the Cultural Revolution. Try fucking harder, buddy.

As for industrialization of China. No... they really weren't in the 1960s. Most people were still using bolt action Mosins up until the mid 1960, although that could also attest the the sheer scale of type 56 carbines that needed to be built to ensure the average conscript even had semi-automatics.

Holy shit you are a complete dense moron. Herp derp le dumb oriental chicoms werent industrialized cos dey be still using mosins n shiet

What? Mosins are built with primitive stone tools? Jesus christ, do you even know how an old-timey rifle is built? That shit requires ACTUAL FUCKING INDUSTRY, involving specialized machinery tools such as a metal lathe. Agrarian backwater shitholes don't manufacture even bolt-action rifles at a massive number. Only nations with actual industrial base do.

That and all the quality-control issues with Type 63 production were present in other fields of industry, specifically modern metallurgy just wasn't present until the 1980s

Literally nothing to do with that you fucking nimrod. The early batches of Type 63 rifles were actually high quality, the later batches only dipped in quality because a) unnecessary changes were made to the components used on the rifle, and b) the chaos of the Cultural Revolution meant that standardization of manufacturing components for the later batches was hectic and chaotic. Fucking hell, talk about being both disengenous AND historically illiterate lmao.

as it briefly became lost-tech during the great leap when everyone was trying to use their backyards as metalshops while executing anyone who said that was a dumb idea.

No it fucking didn't omegalul. If that was the case, then explain to me why none of the foundries and smelters in China were shutdown during the GLF. Explain to me how China managed to test not just a implision-assembly fission nuclear warhead in the early 60s but even a full-scale two-staged fission-fusion thermonuclear warhead just 32 months after? Explain to me how China was able to build long-range ICBMs and even send a fucking satellite into space? Explain to me how China was able to build nuclear submarines even amidst the chaos of the Cultural Revolution?

Pro Tip: You fucking can't

Dude, just put the fries in the bag bro. Your understanding of China is so fucking out-of-touch with reality as if you got your so-called sources from BBC News and Victims of Communism Foundation omegalul. You're even dumber than those retarded chyna expertz who've never been to China, don't understand Chinese culture, and can't read fucking Hanzi. How embarassing.

Anyway, I'm getting bored. You're too dense for a good argument, making the troglodytes on NonCredibleDefense look like intellectuals in comparison. Anymore NS armchair-generals wanna play heckin chyna expert against someone who actually gets paid professionally by the government to analyze China military developments properly through dialectics?

[Allanea]

Being able to shoot a target with only an iron sight isn't even that complicated lol, that's just a case of skill issue.

Let me try again because perhaps I have been incapable of making my point clear.

The problem is not that human being are bad at finding the front sight.

The problem is that the gap in performance between “rifle with good iron sight” and “rifle between bad iron sight” on average/i] is minimal, and the difference between “rifle with good iron sight” and “rifle with appropriate optic” [i]in the environment for which rifles are primarily intended is vast. Like: soldiers will engage double the number of targets, under stress, with scoped carbines, in a given unit of time than soldiers with iron sights.

The difference between two different types of iron sights is minimal, and the difference in terms of accuracy is fundamentally irrelevant [f]for the environment in which the soldier will actually fight[/i].

And the environment is, most of the time: “A medium to short range, when being shot at by other soldiers”. In this environment, most people miss most shots. Most people in firefights where the range is 10 meters miss most shorts. Most people in firefights where the range is 200 meters miss most shots. People who are trained in an infantry basic training camp miss most shorts. The difference between a 3-inch group and a 6-inch group is immaterial because the target is bigger than 6 inches.

Also, those small countries that so-called "produce a variety of hi-tech weaponry" don't produce them fully domestically lmao. T

So what? Why is it relevant to this discussion? Most countries in modern history have not produced their weapons entirely domestically. The British Empire was so dependent on foreign imports of wood and rope that it had to smuggle them in from the countries it fought during the Napoleonic Wars. Yet nobody would argue that the British of 1812 did not know how sail warfare worked.

The idea that there is going to be some kind of passive armor (which I think is going to be based on some of the cage armor we see in Ukraine) used on tanks is not a big controversial idea.

contrast to ordinary cope cages that doesn't add negative weight penalty to any MBT.

I’m sorry, do you believe that the big cages Ukrainians put on their Abrams tanks weigh nothing?

What I am essentially saying time and time again is this: it is plausible, although not necessarily proven, that future anti-drone armor will include heavier passive armor. One version, like people suggested, are turret-enveloping cages. If you insist that we do not call them ‘tsar mangal’ because they are not as big as the crazy full-tilt tsar mangals then be my guest but that is not the point.

[Shangtianhua]

Let me try again because perhaps I have been incapable of making my point clear.

The problem is not that human being are bad at finding the front sight.

The problem is that the gap in performance between “rifle with good iron sight” and “rifle between bad iron sight” on average/i] is minimal, and the difference between “rifle with good iron sight” and “rifle with appropriate optic” [i]in the environment for which rifles are primarily intended is vast. Like: soldiers will engage double the number of targets, under stress, with scoped carbines, in a given unit of time than soldiers with iron sights.

The difference between two different types of iron sights is minimal, and the difference in terms of accuracy is fundamentally irrelevant [f]for the environment in which the soldier will actually fight[/i].

And the environment is, most of the time: “A medium to short range, when being shot at by other soldiers”. In this environment, most people miss most shots. Most people in firefights where the range is 10 meters miss most shorts. Most people in firefights where the range is 200 meters miss most shots. People who are trained in an infantry basic training camp miss most shorts. The difference between a 3-inch group and a 6-inch group is immaterial because the target is bigger than 6 inches.

Wow, I guess squad marksmen don't need sharpshooting training after all omegalul.

Seriously, even under combat stress, it's not impossible to sharpshoot at targets at a distance using iron sights only. Plus, different militaries literally have different rifle shooting procedures lmao. Are you telling me the Somalian Army has the same rifle training regime as the US Marines? Also, the PLA Ground Force, US Marine Corps, and Britsh Army are well-known for having sharpshooting as a key emphasis in rifle training. Unsurprisingly, these three organizations produce talented sharpshooters assigned in roles ranging from basic riflemen to squad marksmen and all the way to dedicated snipers.

So what? Why is it relevant to this discussion? Most countries in modern history have not produced their weapons entirely domestically. The British Empire was so dependent on foreign imports of wood and rope that it had to smuggle them in from the countries it fought during the Napoleonic Wars. Yet nobody would argue that the British of 1812 did not know how sail warfare worked.

Yes, this is relevant. R&D and manufacturing are all key to waging and sustaining a war. Logistics is the fucking lifeline of a war effort, and only retards would focus solely on tactics or wunderwaffes.

As for the Brits, they literallly had a large manufacturing base during the fucking Napoleanic Wars, with their musket factories and shipyards being world-class at the time. Not even the Frogs could beat them at that. As if that wasn't enough, the Brits were literally famous for having the world's largest ocean-spanning empire in history. In fact, even before the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain already held dozens of separate overseas colonies, settlements, and trading posts across the globe, from West Indies to North America to Asia to the Pacific. The only reason for smuggling wood and rope during the wars was simply because sail ships are slow as fuck. It would take roughly 5 to 8 weeks just for a colonial sail ship to travel from the West Indies to Britain alone.

The idea that there is going to be some kind of passive armor (which I think is going to be based on some of the cage armor we see in Ukraine) used on tanks is not a big controversial idea.

I’m sorry, do you believe that the big cages Ukrainians put on their Abrams tanks weigh nothing?

Again, reading comprehension? Where is it? I'm not even criticizing cope cages, which is literally just slat cage armor placed on more areas of a tank (and cage armor obviously isn't new). Rather, I'm SPECIFICALLY criticizing Tsar Mangal instead. Also, Ukraine isn't mass fielding Tsar Mangal in the same scope as Russia.

One version, like people suggested, are turret-enveloping cages. If you insist that we do not call them ‘tsar mangal’ because they are not as big as the crazy full-tilt tsar mangals then be my guest but that is not the point.

Also not what I talked about. The entire criticism of Tsar Mangal is that it reduces mobility, turret rotation, and gun elevation of a tank, and the first part alone is especially bad for Russian tanks with dogshit mobility. And again, cope cages are just slat cage armor mounted on additional places of a tank aside from their rear hull and turret areas (such as turret roof).

Also, turret-enveloping cages aren't needed for 4th gen. MBTs with unmanned turrets, with newer anti-drone capable hard-kill APS making them even more redundant (not to mention such cage would block the hard-kill APS).

[Allanea]

Wow, I guess squad marksmen don't need sharpshooting training after all omegalul.

Seriously, even under combat stress, it's not impossible to sharpshoot at targets at a distance using iron sights only. Plus, different militaries literally have different rifle shooting procedures lmao. Are you telling me the Somalian Army has the same rifle training regime as the US Marines? Also, the PLA Ground Force, US Marine Corps, and Britsh Army are well-known for having sharpshooting as a key emphasis in rifle training. Unsurprisingly, these three organizations produce talented sharpshooters assigned in roles ranging from basic riflemen to squad marksmen and all the way to dedicated snipers.

What I'm suggesting, time and time again, is that minute (in this case - literally minute-of-angle) differences between rifles are not what is going to shape ccombat performance.

The only reason for smuggling wood and rope during the wars was simply because sail ships are slow as fuck. It would take roughly 5 to 8 weeks just for a colonial sail ship to travel from the West Indies to Britain alone.

No, the primary reason was a shortage of the specific timber they needed (the construction of ships of the period depended on not just specific wood, but different types of timber for different parts of the ship).

Also, turret-enveloping cages aren't needed for 4th gen. MBTs with unmanned turrets, with newer anti-drone capable hard-kill APS making them even more redundant (not to mention such cage would block the hard-kill APS).

The fundamental issue is, and I have been hammering on it for three pages, is that mobility is not an either-or proposition.

[Allanea]

Yes, this is relevant. R&D and manufacturing are all key to waging and sustaining a war. Logistics is the fucking lifeline of a war effort, and only retards would focus solely on tactics or wunderwaffes.

But we were not discussing "who can sustain a war".

We were discussing the fact that countries where significant military technological knowledge is present are still using various forms of external passive armor on their tanks.

A country can possess great levels of military-technological knowledge and still not be wholly self-sufficient in war, and indeed very few countries are wholly self-sufficient in war, the only examples I know of are in fact China right now and possibly the US in WW2, and even this comes with asterisks because both of those countries imported some military and dual-use material (the USA imported camera equipment from the actual Third Reich that it fought, not to mention Reverse Lend Lease.)

But "not being self-sufficient in war" (which Israel is not, and North Korea in the Korean War was not, and most countries are not) does not mean "the military apparatus there does not know anything about how tanks fight in wars". This is wholyl orthogonal.

[Shangtianhua]

What I'm suggesting, time and time again, is that minute (in this case - literally minute-of-angle) differences between rifles are not what is going to shape ccombat performance.

MoA literally makes a difference when you're burst-firing your rifle at an enemy from further distance lol. MoA for automatic rifles don't matter in CQB of course, but at further distance, sharpshooting skill actually makes a difference. If this wasn't the case, then squad marksmen wouldn't even need sharpshooting as a basic prerequisite for specialist training. Also, bullet drop exists. Bullets don't just fly at a straight line forever until they hit something. No. Bullets arc at further distances, and with cartidges that don't emphasis long-range sharpshooting (such as 7.62x39mm), their bullets not only arc at further distances but also lose kinetic energy as well.

No, the primary reason was a shortage of the specific timber they needed (the construction of ships of the period depended on not just specific wood, but different types of timber for different parts of the ship).

lmao no, if this was the case then that of been the end of the Royal Navy's dominance immediately post-Napoleon, except that wasn't.

The fundamental issue is, and I have been hammering on it for three pages, is that mobility is not an either-or proposition.

Nope. Tanks need to maneuver when pushing forward during combat. And even when placed on static defensive positions, mobility is still fucking key for tanks so that if they need to retreat, they could just reverse backwards quickly instead.

At this point, I'm starting to repeat myself like a broken record, because appearantly reading comprehension, dialectic understanding, critical thinking, and basic rationalization is outlawed on NationStates.

A country can possess great levels of military-technological knowledge

Lol if that was the case then kindly give me examples of tiny nations developing bleeding-edge tech such as GaN-on-Diamond radars for fighter jets, sodramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missiles, high-mobility robo-dogs with hybrid leg-wheels than can scale mountains like a mountain goat, supercavitating submarine designs that use exotic propulsion instead of basic chemical rockets, submersible guided-missile warships, and truck-based EM catapults than can be connected together for modular adjustable length? All those examples I mentioned come from one nation and are based on a combination of publicly-published research papers that aren't English, and compiled reports from my colleagues.

But "not being self-sufficient in war" (which Israel is not, and North Korea in the Korean War was not, and most countries are not) does not mean "the military apparatus there does not know anything about how tanks fight in wars". This is wholyl orthogonal.

A small nation could only sustain a few hi-tech weapons programs, and even with highly-complex big ticket programs like stealth fighters, smaller nations would need foreign partners just to make it a reality lmao. Again, FCAS Next Gen. Fighter as an example. France has the best aerospace industry in Western Europe and yet still needed foreign partners for NGF prior to its cancellation.

[Allanea]

lmao no, if this was the case then that of been the end of the Royal Navy's dominance immediately post-Napoleon, except that wasn't.

WHat does this sentence even mean? There is extensive record of the Royal Navy importing wood from Russia all the way up to the start of the Crimean War.

[Allanea]

[quote]Nope. Tanks need to maneuver when pushing forward during combat. And even when placed on static defensive positions, mobility is still fucking key for tanks so that if they need to retreat, they could just reverse backwards quickly instead.

At this point, I'm starting to repeat myself like a broken record, because appearantly reading comprehension, dialectic understanding, critical thinking, and basic rationalization is outlawed on NationStates.
[/quyote]

Yes. WE know this. This does not contradict.

Again:

A tank with, crudely speaking, a top speed of 30 kph will beat a tank with a top speed of 5 kph. But if your question is "should wee install a piece of equipment or extra armor that reduces our top speed 10% or even 15%" then the answer is not obviously 'no' because that's not how the design of anything works.

A tank with a stop speed of 30 kph on open terrain that is less well protected than a tank with a top speed of 25 kph is not obviously better.

[Allanea]

Lol if that was the case then kindly give me examples of tiny nations developing bleeding-edge tech such as GaN-on-Diamond radars for fighter jets, sodramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missiles, high-mobility robo-dogs with hybrid leg-wheels than can scale mountains like a mountain goat, supercavitating submarine designs that use exotic propulsion instead of basic chemical rockets, submersible guided-missile warships, and truck-based EM catapults than can be connected together for modular adjustable length? All those examples I mentioned come from one nation and are based on a combination of publicly-published research papers that aren't English, and compiled reports from my colleagues.

Who cares?

Obviously Ukraine has invented and development a shitton of hitech things even if it does not invent and make every single gizmo. Obviously Ukrainian soldiers know a lot about how war is waged even if the country is poor as fuck.
Obviously Israel (yes I get you don't like them, this is not a discussion about Israel's ethics, on which my position is probably closer to your than you expect) has lots of various cool military inventions, obviously Taiwan has them, and yes, even Russia has them. There's shittons of neat South Korean inventions.

This is not some kind of super-tricky idea: military knowledge exists in lots of societies, including societies which are backwards or which have serious ethical issues. Russia is doing badly in the war not because Russians are somehow uniformly stupid, but because Russia's military and political institutions are rotting from the inside and are incapable of reliably replicating the success they have in some sectors of their society everywhere.

[Shangtianhua]

WHat does this sentence even mean? There is extensive record of the Royal Navy importing wood from Russia all the way up to the start of the Crimean War.

The Royal Navy actually used wood and timber heavily from North America, especially Canada, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon's Continental System may have blocked Britain's access to Baltic and Scandinavian ports after 1806, basically cutting off traditional European timber supplies. And with British oak forests being depleted, London basically relied on its overseas holdings instead. Britain straight up turned its North American colonies, such as New Brunswick, Quebec, and the Laurentian regions, into major sources of timber. As a result, North America provided abundant sources of tall, straight pine and fir trees that were key for manufacturing British warships at the time.

A tank with, crudely speaking, a top speed of 30 kph will beat a tank with a top speed of 5 kph. But if your question is "should wee install a piece of equipment or extra armor that reduces our top speed 10% or even 15%" then the answer is not obviously 'no' because that's not how the design of anything works.

A tank with a stop speed of 30 kph on open terrain that is less well protected than a tank with a top speed of 25 kph is not obviously better.

Tsar Mangal turns a tank into a goddamn snail. Simple cope cages on the other hand don't bleed mobility of a tank. In fact, a add-on slat cage armor weights far-less than add-on NERA armor block modules. But turning a tank into a Tsar Mangal relegates it to a static pseudo-artillery for longer-range lobbing of HE-FRAG rounds. For maneuvers, tanks would be using simple cope cages instead.

Who cares?

A lot of people do lmao.

Obviously Ukraine has invented and development a shitton of hitech things even if it does not invent and make every single gizmo. Obviously Ukrainian soldiers know a lot about how war is waged even if the country is poor as fuck.

No they fucking haven't lmao. Ffs, I even gave an example of Ukraine literally using Chinese 3D printers and Chinese drone components for Ukraine's own FPV drones omegalul. Also, where is Ukraine's hypersonic missiles? Where is Ukraine's domestic stealth fighter? Where is Ukraine's 4th gen. MBTs? Are they all employed on the battlefield or do they just exist in your head?

Obviously Israel (yes I get you don't like them, this is not a discussion about Israel's ethics, on which my position is probably closer to your than you expect) has lots of various cool military inventions, obviously Taiwan has them, and yes, even Russia has them. There's shittons of neat South Korean inventions.

Literally didn't disprove any of my points. Those hi-tech examples I gave came from one nation (and it's obvious which nation I'm talking about), and those examples are literally being developed simultaneously AT THE SAME TIME. The last time a nation was developing NUMEROUS hi-tech weapons at the same time was back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, during the Golden Age of American Research & Development.

Also, Taiwan can't make shit lmao. Literally they can't make a proper light fighter so they instead have a flying turd with dogshit underpowered engines and garbage avionics with piss-weak performance. Don't even get me started on everything else like missiles or tanks. And if that wasn't embarassing enough, Wanwanese frog retards can't even make drones since they literally buy commercial components from the fucking Mainland.

This is not some kind of super-tricky idea: military knowledge exists in lots of societies, including societies which are backwards or which have serious ethical issues. Russia is doing badly in the war not because Russians are somehow uniformly stupid, but because Russia's military and political institutions are rotting from the inside and are incapable of reliably replicating the success they have in some sectors of their society everywhere.

Literally not even my argument. The key to actually making bleeding-edge weapons and mass-producing them involves the need for actual innovative STEM graduates who contribute to annual publishing of cited research papers and industrial patents, and industrial base that is big enough to not only churn a lot of a specific hi-tech weapon (such as hypersonic missiles) but also simultaneously mass-produce various types of hi-tech weapons (such as stealth fighters, drones, EW jammers, all at the same time).

[Allanea]

No they fucking haven't lmao. Ffs, I even gave an example of Ukraine literally using Chinese 3D printers and Chinese drone components for Ukraine's own FPV drones omegalul.

I really don't think it matters that they use "chinese 3D printers and components".

Kind of how I don't think it matters I'm using a Chinese-made keyboard to type this. It's entirely unimportant.

[Allanea]

The Royal Navy actually used wood and timber heavily from North America, especially Canada, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon's Continental System may have blocked Britain's access to Baltic and Scandinavian ports after 1806, basically cutting off traditional European timber supplies.

And yet importation of goods from Russia - through the Baltic, yes - continued even at that time, because Russia broke its commitments to Napoleon when it suited them.

This is detailed in great detail in : https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/great-anglorussian-naval-alliance-of-the-eighteenth-century-and-beyond/ED8DD48725F0A3DDA2C54DFAFE286CFF this book.

[Crumpetopia]

No, the primary reason was a shortage of the specific timber they needed (the construction of ships of the period depended on not just specific wood, but different types of timber for different parts of the ship).

That's technically true, but only in the sense that different types of wood have different properties which are better suited to different roles in the construction of wooden warships. You can build the same ship from oak or fir just fine, you'll run into the issue that the fir is lighter, and thus much weaker to impact, but it was cheaper and ships built of it faster. And even then, it's not that oak was in short supply as such, but that it was more expensive due to the logistics of getting it to Britain to be turned into ships, which caused fir to be used in a number of ships, e.g. the Thames-class frigates.

[Scandinavian Nations]

MoA for automatic rifles don't matter in CQB of course, but at further distance, sharpshooting skill actually makes a difference.

Yes - skill.

SS teams score consistent long shots in position, better optics edge it further. Under repositioning and suppression stress, the weak link is the shooter.

[Shangtianhua]

I really don't think it matters that they use "chinese 3D printers and components".

Kind of how I don't think it matters I'm using a Chinese-made keyboard to type this. It's entirely unimportant.

You've got to be absolutely kidding me omegalul. Do you even know how vertical/horizontal-integration manufacturing, industrial logistics, and integrated supply chains even work?

You need fucking tools to make shit. You also need raw materials too. Apart from that, you need highly-robust infrastructures to transport components and raw material for manufacturing.

Also, products that are complex aren't made entirely in under one roof. A smartphone for example doesn't use components made in just a single factory. Rather, every single individual components, right down to the screws, all come from different fucking factories. This applies to all products, including hi-tech weapons. The fasteners used on F-35s like the Inconel eddie bolts are not made in the same factories as the F-35's Torx-head screws. Literally the components for shit like electronics or weapons all come from different factories to which they then get shipped to a central plant for final assembly. Ukraine buying 3D printers and drone components from China to assemble domestic FPV drones is NOT a fucking sign of le heckin epik innovation n ingenuity. Also, there are young university students in China assembling and testing hypersonic drones (using components domestically sourced). Wake me up when the Ukrainians produce a supersonic unmanned fighter drone that DOESN'T source components from other nations.

Also, North Korea (the one that's used as an example of an autarkic nation), isn't even fully self-reliant. They can't manufacture hi-tech goods. All the electronics they use for making shit like missiles come from China. Their attempt at making an HGV, those are based on publicly-released Chinese research papers about hypersonic glide, but because Norks lack supercomputers and hypersonic wind tunnels compared to China, Nork missiles like Hwasong-12B were developed using more basic and older methods of aerodynamic calculation using tools like mechanical computers, slide rulers, precision drafting sets (compass kits, dividers, parallel bars, and ruling pens used to draw geometric blueprints on vellum or mylar sheets), flexible plastic or wooden strips called splines that are held in place on a drafting paper by heavy weights, and numerous schematic sheets layered with precise mechanical tolerances (basically the same shit American, Russian, Chinese, French, and British aerospace engineers had to use back in the 50s, 60s and 70s). Thus their HGVs are hella primitive. It's also well known that back in the 2000s and 2010s, the Norks had to smuggle infrared optics from Eastern Europe for use on their domestic MBTs. And despite having their industrial base still intact compared to Ukraine, the Norks still have to important components from abroad just to make their weapons domestically.

And yet importation of goods from Russia - through the Baltic, yes - continued even at that time, because Russia broke its commitments to Napoleon when it suited them.

This is detailed in great detail in : https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/great-anglorussian-naval-alliance-of-the-eighteenth-century-and-beyond/ED8DD48725F0A3DDA2C54DFAFE286CFF this book.

God at this point I'm just repeating myself here. Just because Russia broke its commitments to Napoleon to sell wood to Britain doesn't mean Britain had no domestic source of shipbuilding wood, literally I just explained about North America and its importance to British shipbuilding during the Napoleonic Wars (plus we are talking about the literal British Empire, the biggest colonial power in world history).

During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon's Continental System and European blockades cut Britain off from its traditional Baltic and Scandinavian timber supplies, forcing the Royal Navy to turn to wood sourced from their North American colonies (domains they controlled and thus part of the British Empire's territory). The area that is now part of modern-day Canada was in particular a very important source of wood for British shipyards.