To 2000AD or beyond?

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Okay. Would that be an idea now too, perhaps?

Yes, I like to see the timeline length dependency of difficultylevel to return. It's a good way in varying the difficulty among other things.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Sandman


It's not as revolutionary because:

Stealth planes are slow.

Don't need to be fast, they are practically invisible to radar.

That is revolutionary.

Stealth planes are fantastically expensive.
Stealth planes have a poor weapons payload.

Expensive? True, but that doesn't mean it's not revolutionary.

Poor weapons payload? Less than most other military jets, but the superior weapons, high accuracy of the payload and the mission (taking out key targets that are heavily defended) means the payload doesn't have to be big...it's not carpet bombing after all...it's precision strikes.

That is revolutionary.

Any technologically-advanced country can detect them for a fraction of the cost of making them.

Whatever the cost/benefit ratio is of detecting a stealth plane doesn't indicate whether stealth is revolutionary or not.

Also, that statement is not entirely true. Most countries do not have the military capability to detect them. It's also not a pure matter of detection but actually getting a good weapons lock. During the first Iraqi conflict, the Iraqis knew the planes where up there...they had a lot of ghost images on their radar, but they couldn't get good weapons locks for their SAMS. That's also why you saw random tracer fire all over the sky in a futile attempt to get a lucky shot and down one of our boys.

Stealth is revolutionary.

Apart from stealth, they are totally defenceless.

The "stealth" is what we are talking about, isn't it? Stealth is the defense. Just like speed is the defense for recon jets. And armor and ruggedness is the defense for the A-10.

Most tellingly, they have not superseded jet fighters or jet bombers in the way that guns replaced bows or tanks replaced cavalry.

They were not designed to supercede F-15/F-16/F-18 type jets. They have a different mission.

However, every new military jet designed today utilizes stealth technologies. So, this advance will be present in future designs.

So I would say the upgrade path of the airplane was:

Wooden biplanes (WW1) to All-metal, enclosed cockpits (WW2) to Jet Engines (1944) to stealth. One could argue that wooden biplanes and all-metal construction could be the same era. This is pretty much how it's represented in Civ...I think they got that mostly right.

The day a gun showed up on the battlefield (I think that was in the Battle of Agnicourt in 1415) isn't the same day bows/arrows disappeared from the battlefield. Many battles occurred with both weapons in play. For something like 300-400 years, these two weapons shared the battlefield.

Same with tanks and cavalry -- although the common period of these weapons was much shorter. Something like 1917 through 1950 or so.

It's silly to have the stealth bomber instead of a more conventional jet bomber like the B-52. It's a travesty to have the stealth fighter (which is really another bomber) AS WELL.

Well, I don't think it's a travesty, but I do agree that the stealth fighter (F117 I believe you are referring to) is really a bomber. However, due to methods and classification approach used by the US Air Force, it's designation is FIGHTER. There might be an air force type that can answer that on Apolyton.

In Civ we get a two or four engine prop bomber first. Then it seems that the jet engine bombers and stealth were combined into one unit advance in Civ. Perhaps that could be remedied in Civ4.

[Jaguar]

No future era stuff. I hate it when it's all nice and historical, and then suddenly there are mechs walking around. Civ4 should stop around the same technology level as Civ3 did.

That's what modding is for. Obviously we will need the ability to add eras.

[Sandman]

Don't need to be fast, they are practically invisible to radar.

Their slow speed is still a limitation compared to conventional air units, for obvious reasons.

Expensive? True, but that doesn't mean it's not revolutionary.

Not just expensive. Fantastically expensive. It's what, $1.7B for each B-2? Not including the cost of R&D and the specialist hangars. The US originally planned to have 132 B-2s. It's got about twenty now, and no more are planned. The B-52, which has a larger payload, is 'only' $30 million.

Poor weapons payload? Less than most other military jets, but the superior weapons, high accuracy of the payload and the mission (taking out key targets that are heavily defended) means the payload doesn't have to be big...it's not carpet bombing after all...it's precision strikes.

Those other military jets can carry precision weapons as well. And more of them.

Whatever the cost/benefit ratio is of detecting a stealth plane doesn't indicate whether stealth is revolutionary or not.

Ok.

Also, that statement is not entirely true. Most countries do not have the military capability to detect them. It's also not a pure matter of detection but actually getting a good weapons lock. During the first Iraqi conflict, the Iraqis knew the planes where up there...they had a lot of ghost images on their radar, but they couldn't get good weapons locks for their SAMS. That's also why you saw random tracer fire all over the sky in a futile attempt to get a lucky shot and down one of our boys.

Yet during the Kosovo campaign, the Serbs shot down a stealth fighter, and nothing else, not even elderly aircraft like the Harrier.

The "stealth" is what we are talking about, isn't it? Stealth is the defense. Just like speed is the defense for recon jets. And armor and ruggedness is the defense for the A-10.

If they were truly revolutionary, they'd not have to make sacrifices to speed, aerodynamics, payload, and cost to gain the stealth.

They were not designed to supercede F-15/F-16/F-18 type jets. They have a different mission.

So why are you arguing that there's a clear 'evolution' towards stealth planes?

However, every new military jet designed today utilizes stealth technologies. So, this advance will be present in future designs.

Most military units after 1914 utilised camoflage. Revolutionary?

Wooden biplanes (WW1) to All-metal, enclosed cockpits (WW2) to Jet Engines (1944) to stealth. One could argue that wooden biplanes and all-metal construction could be the same era. This is pretty much how it's represented in Civ...I think they got that mostly right.

I'd replace stealth with computerised warfare. Stealth has piggy-backed its 'success' on the much broader advances in this area, with guided missiles, computer-assisted jets and GPS. That's the real revolution. Not stealth, which remains an unproven offshoot.

The day a gun showed up on the battlefield (I think that was in the Battle of Agnicourt in 1415) isn't the same day bows/arrows disappeared from the battlefield. Many battles occurred with both weapons in play. For something like 300-400 years, these two weapons shared the battlefield.

300-400 years is an extremely generous estimate. I'd say more like 100. If that.

Same with tanks and cavalry -- although the common period of these weapons was much shorter. Something like 1917 through 1950 or so.

Cavalry arguably died in 1914. I'd not say that it 'shared the battlefield' with tanks after the First World War.

Well, I don't think it's a travesty, but I do agree that the stealth fighter (F117 I believe you are referring to) is really a bomber. However, due to methods and classification approach used by the US Air Force, it's designation is FIGHTER. There might be an air force type that can answer that on Apolyton.

The two stealth aircraft are far too similar to warrant two seperate units. At the very least, there should be just one stealth plane.

In Civ we get a two or four engine prop bomber first. Then it seems that the jet engine bombers and stealth were combined into one unit advance in Civ. Perhaps that could be remedied in Civ4.

Which has had a bigger impact on the 20th Century, jet bombers or stealth planes? I'd say that jet bombers are still having the greater impact, even today, over stealth.

[Kuciwalker]

Which has had a bigger impact on the 20th Century, jet bombers or stealth planes?

Noticed that I mentioned "second only to jet engines"

Anyway, Stealth, especially combined with precision weapons, results in a fundamentally different form of warfare, in which those countries with access to the technology have a virtually unlimited, unimpeded ability to strike any target, anywhere in the world.

[Shogun Gunner]

Well, I do agree with a few things you say Sandman.

Which made a bigger impact in 20th century Jet Bombers or Stealth planes? I would answer jet planes. It was a bigger revolutionary change over prop planes for the speed factor alone.

Regarding the two units versus one stealth unit in Civ... you could make a case for one stealth unit. I wouldn't disagree with that.

Good point about camaflouge in ww1 planes -- a la Red Baron. I understand your point here.

However...

lucky serbs
The Serbs got lucky with that shot and I believe that's the only F117 lost in combat. And the reason no harriers were shot down in Kosovo was the same reason we didn't lose any attack helicopters. They were not put into overly dangerous situations. It was how the two planes were used. The stealth planes are always put into more dangerous situations.

guns versus bow/arrow
It was at a minimum of 300 years that the gun and the bow/arrow shared the battlefield. Those hand cannons were in play 1400's and the bow/arrow was still in use in the 1800's in some parts of the world. Cowboys and Indians????? The Indians had access to guns, but they still used bows too. I think this point is undeniable. Even during the American civil war, you could get off many more arrow shots versus musket/rifle shots. Rate of fire counts for something and much higher accuracy (over the musket at least).

cavalry
About the cavalry, the Russians made extensive use of cavalry in world war 2. Many armies of the world still had cavalry forces into the 1940's and 50's because they couldn't afford tanks and/or they stubbornly held onto their particular military traditions. Check the militaries of South America, Pakistan, Middle East and Africa post world war 2. You will be surprised to find that many kept a cavlary force if for no other reason than for a recon force. You think Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan each had a tank force climbing all those mountains in 1950?

Stealth
I think my bottom line point about stealth is that this technology represents a different capability that the US air force uses. The first stealth planes are not expected to replace F16s or F18s....but the F117 can do things the F16s/F18s can't. I think that's pretty clear cut too. However, if you don't like the unit being in Civ3...well, that's your opinion. I think you make a good point about not having a stealth fighter.....since that designation is a technicality.

I also like your idea about "computerized warfare". If it wasn't for computers, the current implementation of stealth would not exist today. Without a computer handing guidance control on the F117 that thing would crash...its not very airworthy as a pure airplane design. I read somewhere that the computer makes hundreds of calculations a second and many adjustments a second to keep the plane in the air.

Good discussion!

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by skywalker
Anyway, Stealth, especially combined with precision weapons, results in a fundamentally different form of warfare, in which those countries with access to the technology have a virtually unlimited, unimpeded ability to strike any target, anywhere in the world.

In my book....let me look it up again...yes, there it is...the definition of revolutionary!!!!

Shoot, if I'm running an air force, I'll take those stealth planes even if they aren't classified revolutionary!

[Kuciwalker]

What I'd like to see at the end of the Modern Age (hopefully no more ages after that ) is a radical transformation of warfare, similar to what we are seeing today. I'd like to see special infantry units which have high mobility in difficult terrain coming into their own, relegating Modern Armor to open terrain. I'd like to see mobility more than ever be a deciding factor in combat - make it so that certain units always have a retreat option, even against "fast" units. I'd like to see the ability to quickly deploy these mobile infantry units quickly around the globe. I'd like to see the ability for these units to be used quickly and decisively to end a war almost as soon as it is begun.

[Kuciwalker]

You know what, more than that, I want mobility to become a decisive factor in almost ALL conflicts. This is getting off-topic, but I'm going to detail how I think warfare should work, era by era:

In the Ancient Era, combat should be divided into two categories - raiding and conquest. Slow-moving yet powerful units (Swordsmen) should dominate conquest. OTOH, Horsemen - the Ancient Age mobile unit - should dominate in raiding. You should be able to "raid" a city with mobile units - you can carry off a pop point as a worker and grab some gold. Maybe you should even be able to take some gold if you retreat when attacking a city (or if you destroy a unit defending the city). In addition, Horsemen should be far superior to Swordsmen when attacking an unentrenched army in the field, rather than attacking a city. Rather than achieving immediate, decisive victory, they harrass an incoming force, whittling away at it.

In the Medieval Era, Knights should not be considered mobile units (some UU's, however, like the Keshik, should). They are the Swordsmen of the Middle Ages. However, I think they should be very expensive, forcing you to use cheaper Longbowmen and Medieval Infantry for support if you want to amass a useful attack force. The extra movement of Knights wouldn't be too much of a bonus to them. Cavalry, however, should reintroduce mobility as a factor in warfare. More than that, though, they should be able to use their mobility in order to achieve immediate, decisive victory and do so at a place of their own choosing. Cavalry combine the ability to conquer with the ability to raid (though they probably shouldn't be able to do that in the literal sense): they are the primary attack force now, and using their mobility in order to concentrate force effectively is what determines whether you win or lose. Until Riflemen.

In the Industrial Era, you are suddenly presented with a single-move unit that, entrenched (fortified), kills Cavalry in droves. Moreover, it is far cheaper than Cavalry and has a slightly better attack (attack should equal defense for the Rifleman). However, Cavalry's mobility still has one use - if you can get behind their giant Rifleman stack, you can wreak havoc on their infrastructure. This forces you to spread out your forces, creating a long line of Riflemen along the front. The object of warfare is now to achieve a breakthrough - extremely difficult, but if done, victory is near. (Incidentally, a system where you can "entrench" a unit in a certain direction, giving it a good defense bonus in that direction and the two adjacent directions but giving a huge defense penalty in the opposite three, with no defense bonus at all in two, would support this model well.) You can (given the entrenching model) now crush many of their forces from behind, and you let loose your Cavalry. The strategy is similar with Infantry.

Then come Tanks. Tanks have a huge attack, enough that they achieve breakthroughs easily when used in a group, and when massed speed up the tempo of warfare beyond belief. Not setting up defenses against a Tank blitz will probably be the last mistake you ever make. However, once a blitz has been turned (or forstalled altogether), Tank combat closely resembles that of the combat at the end of the Medieval Era with Cavalry - massed forces maneuvering in order to achieve decisive victory. This strategy works even better with Modern Armor.

Finally, comes the end of the Modern Age. Air power is now one of the most powerful components of war, and massed air and armor attacks are the rule. The tempo of war is faster than blitzing, even. Mechanized Infantry provide some defense, but mobility is still the key, especially in open, flat terrain. However, increasing combat is being taken to rugged terrain where Modern Armor's mobility advantage is diminished or neutralized altogether. New units, capable of moving with ease through this terrain, retreating from combat and fading away in order to appear somewhere else (figuratively ), make Modern Armor attacks into such terrain disasters. These new units become the Horsemen of the Modern Era (though only in difficult terrain). Variations on these units follow a more Swordsman-style strategy, though they still retain mobility as their primary strength.

[Roman]

Plane Stealth is a very revolutionary technology indeed. It hugely altered the way wars are fought in the air. In fact it is so revolutionary that U.S. military researchers have taken to calling technologies with huge potential "Next Stealth" as a way of expressing hope that they will stumble across something so revolutionary as stealth again.

Originally posted by Sandman
It's not as revolutionary because:

Stealth planes are slow.

Huh! Tell that to the pilots of the F-22 and the test pilots of the F-35 both of which are stealth (low observable is just another phrase for stealth) airplanes.

Have a look:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-22.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-35.htm

Stealth planes are fantastically expensive.

It depends. The early ones were very expensive, but they are getting cheaper. The F-22 is very expensive, but no more so than F-117 was (yet it is much, much more capable) and the F-35 is about 1/3 the price of either the F-22 or F-117. In fact, the F-35 is cheaper than the F-15.

Stealth planes have a poor weapons payload.

No they do not. The new stealth planes have decent internal payload and can carry weapons externally if they need to (carrying weapons externaly, though, makes them easier to detect).

Any technologically-advanced country can detect them for a fraction of the cost of making them.

Stealth technology does not make the plane completely invisible to radar - it simply makes the plane much more difficult to detect. That is why the military increasingly prefers to use the term low-observable rather than stealth or invisible as they used in the past. This, however, is sufficient, since the stealth planes can usually fly close enough to radar to launch their missiles and not be detected.

Apart from stealth, they are totally defenceless.

Huh? Please refer to the links I have provided above. The new stealth planes are highly maneuverable, have multiple countermeasures and are definitely far from defenceless even if detected.

Most tellingly, they have not superseded jet fighters or jet bombers in the way that guns replaced bows or tanks replaced cavalry.

Well, what do you think F-22 and F-35 are? They are replacements for the older generations of non-stealth fighters such as the F-15, F-16, F-18, etc. They are replacing standard non-stealth fighters at this very moment.

It's silly to have the stealth bomber instead of a more conventional jet bomber like the B-52. It's a travesty to have the stealth fighter (which is really another bomber) AS WELL.

Here you are wrong. The B-2 stealth bomber (yes, this is indeed an extremely expensive aircraft) is a bomber used in the initial phases of the war. Because of its unique features it is used to destroy the air-defences of the enemy with little risk of being shot down. Only after the enemy air-defences have been destroyed or at least heavily suppressed can the more economical B-52 bombers move in and take over the bombing. Using B-52s to begin with against modern Russian SAMs would be nothing short of suicidal (unless you use them to shoot $1 million cruise missiles from far away...).

[Roman]

Originally posted by Roman
Here you are wrong. The B-2 stealth bomber (yes, this is indeed an extremely expensive aircraft) is a bomber used in the initial phases of the war. Because of its unique features it is used to destroy the air-defences of the enemy with little risk of being shot down. Only after the enemy air-defences have been destroyed or at least heavily suppressed can the more economical B-52 bombers move in and take over the bombing. Using B-52s to begin with against modern Russian SAMs would be nothing short of suicidal (unless you use them to shoot $1 million cruise missiles from far away...).

I should add that the B-52 can carry only 16 cruise missiles and they cost about $1 million each, so they are not exactly the cheapest way to take out SAM launchers of which the enemy can have thousands (the USSR had about 5,000 + many anti-aircraft guns) and cruise missiles can be shot down much more easily than used to be the case by modern air defences. By contrast, because the B-2 can get much closer, it can carry 80 500-pound bombs, which cost about $20,000 each. Over the course of major operations this makes you wonder... perhaps the B-2 is worth the investment after all.

The production cost of a brand new B-2 now is about $550 million versus the much cheaper B-52 costing about $30 million. The price that you mentioned for the B-2 includes the research costs averaged over 20 aircraft and added to the production cost, but the reasearch costs have already been paid for so they are no longer an issue and in any case the price of $30 million for a B-52 does not include the research costs. Also bear in mind that the production of the B-52 ended in 1962 and can no longer be produced (factories shut down, etc.). Inflation means that prices in the U.S. have since risen by a multiple of greater than 5 on average, so the cost of a B-52 in current dollars would be $150 million. Of course, the U.S. airforce already owns almost 100 B-52s so it is economical to operate them in a lower threat environment and they still work well so it would be imprudent to retire them. Still, the B-2 is an amazing aircraft excellent fuel efficiency that guarantees a much longer range and superior penetration capabilities that make it invaluable.

I should mention that in recent years the U.S.A. has not faced any opponent with decent air defences. Serbia and Iraq were relatively low threat environments compared to what U.S. aircraft would have had to face had there been a war with Russia or China. In a high threat environment, B-52s would much less capable of operation. Such a war might not be likely in the near future, but in Civilization games it is these large wars which are more common - not wars of superpowers with almost 300 million people like the U.S. against small nations of 10 million people such as Serbia.

[Kramerman]

they are hard to compare since they play different rolls. both are effective bombers tho, in their own way

[Dis]

the b-2 is a great bomber. I'm not sure about the F-117 though. I'm still not sure why that one was necessary. I guess it has its uses, but not nearly as many as the B-2.

[Puma]

From what I've heard, the F117 structure was the first discovered/developed stealth shape; but I'm sure they wanted a bigger flyer - hence B2.
Regarding the poll: 2000.
I agree that the techs are cracked in the modern age. Smart bombs were developed to bomb the Japanese railroads in SE Asia during WW2. Why aren't they an option in late industrial age after flight?
I also agree the stealth unit should be a generic type, not *two*. Heck, then give me a messhersmith (sp?) with rocketry. Bah. lol.
What I'm trying to get to is that I don't think enough attention was paid to the modern age techs and units. I have not played CtP or AC or whatever; but I fear that if we have civ go past 2050 like in Test of Time, things will just get (dare I say it stupid.
And yes, a lot of the techs do sound like pentagon buzz words. Whatever happened to the internet tech after computers for that matter? Too much seems warfare oriented. I don't like getting to the modern era for that particular reason.

[Shogun Gunner]

Seems that people are evenly split on the poll question.... Interesting.