![]() There are just more reliable or cost-effective ways to produce those effects these days.Īs I pointed out in my piece on surface combatants, there are things they can do that are currently hard to replicate by other means. There were several horse cavalry charges during World War II (and many of them were successful), and the last two Iowa-class battleships (the Missouri and the Wisconsin) took part in shore bombardments during the 1991 Gulf War. (See the first chapter of this book for a good explanation of the phenomenon.) So, weapons systems usually don’t disappear overnight instead, it happens gradually over time. Militaries are by their nature conservative organizations that tend to hold onto capabilities that have provided sterling service, often for longer than they really should. But those instances are so rare that no one sees the benefit of including them in modern force structures. There are probably still occasional circumstances in which the crossbow, horse cavalry charge or 16-inch guns of a battleship would still be effective weapons. Strictly speaking, no capability is ever entirely useless. I’ve been guilty of using the word speciously myself, most recently on the subject of surface combatants, when what I really meant was ‘significantly reduced utility. I think a lot of the argument centers on a semantic misunderstanding of what it is for something to be ‘obsolete’. I thought ASPI analyst William Leben’s recent Strategist piece was a good one in its attempt to find some common ground. Is the era of big warships and armor like tanks about to end? Just for a change, there’s a bit of heat around discussions of the future of armor and surface ships.
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