Link dump #2 2016

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"The Myth of Air Power in the Persian Gulf War and the Future of Warfare"

Daryl G. Press, 2001

excerpt:

"The  evidence  from  the  ground  campaign  shows  that  the  conventional  wisdom  about the  Gulf  War  is  wrong.  Although  air  power  played  an  important role  in  the  coalition’s  victory ,  its  role  has  been  exaggerated  and  misunderstood. I  make  two  primary  arguments  about  air  power  during  the  Gulf  War.  First,  air power  was  not  decisive;  it  did  not  neutralize  the  Iraqi  ground  forces.  At  the end  of  the  air  campaign,  Iraqi  ground  forces  could  still  maneuver ,  and  they  still had the C 3 I,  supplies,  numbers,  and  morale  to  Žfight. Second,  the  six-week  air  campaign  did  not  play  a  necessary ,  enabling  role that  made  the  ground  war  “  easy”   for  U.S.  forces.  Had  there  been  no  air  campaign,  U.S.  and  British  fatalities  in  the  ground  war  would  probably  have  been slightly  higher .  But  evidence  strongly  suggests  that  with  or  without  the  air campaign,  the  coalition’s  ground  attack  would  have  led  to  a  rout  of  historic proportions.  In  sum,  air  power  contributed  to  the  coalition’s  effort,  but  the  air campaign  was  neither  sufficient  nor  necessary  for  the  very  one-sided  victory"

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"The NSA’s SKYNET program may be killing thousands of innocent people"

by Christian Grothoff & J.M. Porup

excerpt:

"Patrick Ball—a data scientist and the executive director at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group—who has previously given expert testimony before war crimes tribunals, described the NSA's methods as "ridiculously optimistic" and "completely bullshit." A flaw in how the NSA trains SKYNET's machine learning algorithm to analyse cellular metadata, Ball told Ars, makes the results scientifically unsound.Patrick Ball—a data scientist and the executive director at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group—who has previously given expert testimony before war crimes tribunals, described the NSA's methods as "ridiculously optimistic" and "completely bullshit." A flaw in how the NSA trains SKYNET's machine learning algorithm to analyse cellular metadata, Ball told Ars, makes the results scientifically unsound."

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about for military technology:

http://www.best-of-flightgear.dk/vtas.htm

http://aviationarchives.blogspot.de/2015/08/aim-95-agile-missile.html

True. NATO air power procurement messed up big time, and received a harmless yet huge healing shock in 1990 when East Germany's air force joined NATO and told it about the R-73 (AA-11) missile, its helmet sight - and demonstrated this combo's performance with MiG-29s. Keep in mind the Sparrow missile of the Cold War was of rather little use. NATO likely did not have air superiority during the late 1980's at all because it had messed up the AIM-95 program in the 1970's (and gone the wrong way with ASRAAM).

The story was similar with IRST and EOTS, which were neglected after a few more or less successful types.

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An Oldie, worthy to be repeated:

"How facts backfire -Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains"

Joe Keohane

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http://gentleseas.blogspot.de/2016/02/df-21d-carrier-killer-and-airsea-battle.html

for comparison http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-031.htm

(though keep in mind the authors know but one side of their stories)

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one in German:

"Verteidigungsministerium veröffentlicht Militärische Luftfahrtstrategie"

BMVg

Sie ist sogar noch öder und einfallsloser, jedoch nicht ganz so modewortüberladen wie erwartet. Man merkt aber schon noch, wie extrem plattformlastig die Denkweise ist. Für einen kompletten Blogbeitrag ist da nicht genug auf den Knochen gewesen.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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