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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31271 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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China has made the supercarrier obsolete

This is a really common sentiment in internet military discussions that is incorrect. Things don't become obsolete in the military because they can get blown up (or blown up easier), they become obsolete when something does their job better than they do.

Tanks aren't obsolete because drones 1/1000th of their cost can make them explode. They are more vulnerable, but they are still useful. Having a giant gun that is armored and can move fast is still useful in 2025.

Human infantry can be killed in ever more creative, precise, and cheap ways. Are human infantry obsolete? No, because we have nothing that can replace what they do.

Carriers are more vulnerable now, the Chinese have a very impressive array of anti ship missiles and sensors to take them out. Does that make the capability of having a floating and mobile airstrip less useful? No. Is there anything that can replace a floating and mobile airstrip? No.

There's also a benefit to having a weapons system even if your enemy can blow it up. It forces them to direct resources into making things that can blow it up, instead of making other things they'd rather make instead.

If militaries stopped using weapons systems every time someone else invented a way to blow them up, militaries wouldn't have any gear, because if you try hard enough you can blow anything up.

they become obsolete when something does their job better than they do.

They are obsolete for what matters most: peer warfare.

On the other hand, battleships can perform a function (armored mobile very large gun batteries) that is both useful and not directly replaced by other capabilities, but they were deemed obsolete anyways. It could also be the case that something is obsolete because the special capabilities they do bring are just not worth the enormous cost.

My initial response was going to be "no, they were replaced by carrier launched airplanes and guided missiles, both of whom could make things over there explode better than a BB"

But I don't have a good argument for why that doesn't apply to tanks. So good point, I'll have to think about that.

Things don't become obsolete in the military because they can get blown up (or blown up easier), they become obsolete when something does their job better than they do.

The proper term is Senile. A senile weapons system can still do the job, but a steadily-increasing cost that can grow by orders of magnitude.

I think Ian McCollum would use the term "obsolescent." E.g., the M1911 and M1 Garand are incredibly out-of-date designs, but they absolutely cream revolvers and bolt-actions for combat practicality. The latter are obsolete, the former are obsolescent.

I think "Senile" comes into its own when you're talking about more complex weapons systems. A senile weapons system might work just fine, and in fact it might be the best system available for the job it does. The problem is that to do the job, the system requires ever-greater expenditure of effort and resources. As long as the effort and resources can be provided, it keeps working, but at the cost of cannibalizing a greater and greater portion of the procurement budget. And of course, the more resources a system and its auxiliaries consume, the more valuable they are, and the greater the need to protect them, so the more spending on additional complexity and auxiliaries is justified...

Yeah, I suppose this probably does describe, say, the A-10.

(And now to wait for the shitstorm to hit...)

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