Nuclear/Biological weapons now the ONLY weapons

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Sandman
Suitcase nukes, whether they ever existed in the first place, are probably well past their sell-by date by now. They are also not capable of destroying a city, more like a city block or large building. A packed sports stadium could make a very tempting target.

This was pretty much my point. The US aresenal contains weapons that can be taylored to achieve a desired effect by controlling yield. Not that I believe that we would Nuke a sports stadium, but much more likely a military barracks.

[raghar]

Undercritical plutonium nuke's yield is around 1kT.

Not that I believe that we would Nuke a sports stadium, but much more likely a military barracks.

More like MOAB millitary barracks. But US hasn't guts to fight against opponent that could hit back.

Yields vary depending on tactical use.

Tactical use aka public opinion is against nuclear weapons so we will decrease yields and NW would become more acceptable.
US have NW and act as small children with MMG. They didn't went over deterRant idea, so why worry US NW are more or less useles. I think US should learn more about multilateral talks, or at least improve education of its citizens about US weapons. Ads differ from reality.

Do you remmember that treaty about not deploying satelite based weapons? It doesn't exist anymore. It started with antibalistic defense talk...

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by raghar
More like MOAB millitary barracks. But US hasn't guts to fight against opponent that could hit back.

Only countries with significant economic power can really hurt us. But no such country is our enemy today.

[Pekka]

I tend to agree with GePap here. Iraq as a case example is not good. It's like shooting fish in a bucket. Iraq has/had a crappy army. Bad training, bad weapons, bad or no tactics, no morale, no good leaders, flat and mostly clear terrain, defense not taken enough into consideration in the first place when building cities, no decent air defence, no good air force etc.. absolutely nothing. My grandpa would beat Iraq into submission.

The true test would be against more developed nation with actual army. Forgetting about old stuff is dangerous in my mind. While new is very important and should be added to new means, one should never forget about the older ones, you never know when they come handy..

[Lord Merciless]

None of the advanced nations are our enemies. In fact, most of them are our friends. The 2 most competent militaries in the world beside us are our most trusted allies: UK and Israel.

[Edan]

Re: Nuclear/Biological weapons now the ONLY weapons

Originally posted by Vanguard
For any middle grade power, wasting money on conventional armaments is pointless:

What about using them to protect against other middle grade powers?

And wasting money is, in general, pointless

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What if?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Don't encourage the troll, UR .

[Sir Og]

Tanks are definitely useless if they don't have air support. Airforce is also no good if it isn't large enough. But some more simple equipment like RPGs, Stingers etc. can inflict some heavy damage to any invading army especially in cities and jungles, forests, mountains etc.
Even the poorly trained Iraqi army could have inflicted a lot of damage to the US had it decided to fight in Baghdad instead of simply disappearing.

[Dis]

you damn lefties don't know a thing about dictators. No really. You computer geeks post in your advancd countries on comfy chairs. Have any of you ever been to a country with a real dictator? We still have elections in the U.S. And if Bush doesn't improve the economy asap he's toast. I haven't been to every middle eastern country, but I have been to Saudi Arabia. Things suck over there. You guys don't realize how good the U.S. goverment is, and how bad some other country's goverments are.

Anyways back to the topic.

I disagree with the original post. Air force is important as Sir Og said. the thing is Iraq was vested too heavily in army, but not enough on air force. granted, they lacked the technology to do much with an air force. But if they had some decent migs, and some decently trained pilots they could have wrecked havoc with american bombers and fighters. Even though we have programs like Top Gun, only a a select number of pilots attend. I do think our pilots can be defeated in dog fighting. Our jets are getting old and aren't all that great at dog fighting anyways. If they had a decent amount of training, and fairly recent migs- they could pose serious problems to the U.S.

Guided missiles from the U.S. still pose a significant threat to airfields though. So it would be essentual to knock out the U.S. early before their guided missiles start destroying airfields and aircraft. The navy ships have to be hit with aircraft. And all bombers must be shot down- even if they are over other countries.

biological/chemical weapons are useless.

Nuclear on the other hand is the way to go. The trick is to keep it secret until you actually have them. Then you can do all sorts of things with them. You could try to blackmail as N. Korea is doing now. You could threaten to give them to terrorists. Or actually give them to terrorists.

In any case, eventually terrorists will get one, and they will nuke an american city. If Bush is president, I do feel like he might nuke the entire middle east. That is a possiblity. That could start WW3 if China and/or Russia don't like us nuking the middle east. Now if Hillary Clinton is president, she would just make a deal with the terrorists for peace. That may or may not work.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Sir Og
Tanks are definitely useless if they don't have air support. Airforce is also no good if it isn't large enough. But some more simple equipment like RPGs, Stingers etc. can inflict some heavy damage to any invading army especially in cities and jungles, forests, mountains etc.
Even the poorly trained Iraqi army could have inflicted a lot of damage to the US had it decided to fight in Baghdad instead of simply disappearing.

Those RPGs are only useful if the US want to spare the civilians. In a case of total war short of nuclear, the USAF would just MOAB city block by city block.

Also, we don't have to act like Hitler's genocide maniacs. Doing the Ghengis Khan way should be sufficient.

[Dis]

that would never happen.

Only if we were fighting for our survival would killing civilians be accepted. And then we'd be killing our own civilians.

We can't just go destroying city blocks. The lefties would revolt- assuming we have a republican president. Every major american city would shut down. Except for my city- nothing shuts my city down- except a nuclear device being detonated on the strip.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Dissident
that would never happen.

Only if we were fighting for our survival would killing civilians be accepted. And then we'd be killing our own civilians.

We can't just go destroying city blocks. The lefties would revolt- assuming we have a republican president. Every major american city would shut down. Except for my city- nothing shuts my city down- except a nuclear device being detonated on the strip.

It can happen, if New York gets nuked and the government decides not to go nuclear.

Also, your theory about Hillary making peace with terrorists is totally laughable. You apparently don't understand how ruthless these career politicians can be. The American public would cry for blood if New York is destroyed by, let's say Islamic extremists. Any peaceniks, if there were still any, would certainly get lynched. It wouldn't surprise me if she ordered internment of all foreign Muslims. I would expect her to order destruction of every fundamentalist infrastructure such as Koran schools and execution of every fundamentalist Imams and Ayatollahs.

[Sir Og]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


Those RPGs are only useful if the US want to spare the civilians. In a case of total war short of nuclear, the USAF would just MOAB city block by city block.

Also, we don't have to act like Hitler's genocide maniacs. Doing the Ghengis Khan way should be sufficient.

Well if the US (or any other coutry) goes that way in a conflict like Iraq, all other major countries would attack it.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Sir Og


Well if the US (or any other coutry) goes that way in a conflict like Iraq, all other major countries would attack it.

That's why I said "IN CASE OF TOTAL WAR". The total war will occur if, for example, a terrorist nuclear attack against New York has been carried out.