Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXIV

[Vinyadan]

That's a good question. The "artillery" part came from Wikipedia. I checked their source, and it doesn't seem to name artillery, just mortars and missiles. The system is called Iron Beam.

[jayem]

True, but the North Koreans do have rocket artillery (the KN-09) which have that range and can reach various ROK and US bases in Korean as far south as Daejeon, 60 miles south of Seoul. It's probably the press failing to distinguishing between the two different types - all they hear is the word 'artillery'.

Also I think the 35 miles is I think well into Seoul (I make where Google maps has the label about 50km/30 miles from their line of the border).
Whereas the Yamato's guns had a range of 42km/26miles, and if your nations survival depends on you being able to (appear to) be able to match that range I'd make sure at least some did.

So at that point it seems likely there's a very high possibility of including Seouls equivelent of Dartford (which is 30 km from London) and a non-negligible possiblility of 'Greenwich' within conventional artillery. Which would mean the press would only have to merge statements like 'conventional artillery can hit (the very edge) of Seoul [city]'&'(rocket) artillery can hit Seoul.

[Mike_G]

My overall point being that by hardening the positions of their various artillery, be it howitzers or rockets or mortars or whatever, in range of major population centers, they have created a very good deterrent.

If those weapons were all on a football field or in a tent, we could take them out in minutes. The fact that it would take a while to find them and knock them out, and probably take air attack by specialized weapons capable of blasting into the fortified positions, which might take time to deploy, means that they would have long enough to inflict catastrophic casualties in the openeing hours of the war.

Which is a pretty good reason for South Korea not to attack them.

So, yeah, tunneling into mountains and hiding some rocket artillery, maybe on train tracks so it can be wheeled out, shoot and be wheeled back before the counterstrike, is still a good use of resources, whereas building a Krak De Chevaliers with anti air missiles on the turrets isn't really a way to go these days.

It all how you mean "fortification."

[Storm_Of_Snow]

My overall point being that by hardening the positions of their various artillery, be it howitzers or rockets or mortars or whatever, in range of major population centers, they have created a very good deterrent.

If those weapons were all on a football field or in a tent, we could take them out in minutes. The fact that it would take a while to find them and knock them out, and probably take air attack by specialized weapons capable of blasting into the fortified positions, which might take time to deploy, means that they would have long enough to inflict catastrophic casualties in the openeing hours of the war.

Which is a pretty good reason for South Korea not to attack them.

So, yeah, tunneling into mountains and hiding some rocket artillery, maybe on train tracks so it can be wheeled out, shoot and be wheeled back before the counterstrike, is still a good use of resources, whereas building a Krak De Chevaliers with anti air missiles on the turrets isn't really a way to go these days.

It all how you mean "fortification."

However, any intelligence gathering will likely see that there's work being done at those locations (remember that the Cuban Missile Crisis was started by a routine U2 flight over Cuba), and you can then task a satellite to orbit over the area to keep watch, fly recon aircraft/ drones over the area, monitor communications and potentially exploit human intelligence assets, so that if it does start to turn hot, you can deploy aircraft with specialised munitions, armed drones and special ops teams to the area, and maybe program some cruise missiles to hit the mountains, hopefully bringing rocks down over the entrances and sealing them in before they can fire.

Of course, you have to be sure you disable all of the sites before they can fire, some of which are almost certainly dummies to confuse your intelligence and make you expend resources for no effect. So some of the guns might get a few shots off before they can all be dealt with, and they may still be a perceived threat for a while afterwards.

[snowblizz]

Also I think the 35 miles is I think well into Seoul (I make where Google maps has the label about 50km/30 miles from their line of the border).
Whereas the Yamato's guns had a range of 42km/26miles, and if your nations survival depends on you being able to (appear to) be able to match that range I'd make sure at least some did.

So at that point it seems likely there's a very high possibility of including Seouls equivelent of Dartford (which is 30 km from London) and a non-negligible possiblility of 'Greenwich' within conventional artillery. Which would mean the press would only have to merge statements like 'conventional artillery can hit (the very edge) of Seoul [city]'&'(rocket) artillery can hit Seoul.

Modern tube artillery pieces can range upwards of 40km (with or even without) longrange ammunition and most who field them are developing extreme long range ammunition 50-60km of range. And that's on self-propelled artillery. If you are purpose building something for hitting Seoul, and I'd expect they had, it shouldn't be a problem at all. And this is excluding rocket artillery. With such a large and densely populated area as Seoul you'll be bound to inflict lots of damage before any response, however devastating, can reach back.


I was actually going to ask about the tube vs rocketartillery inspired by the battleship vs coastal fortress thing earlier. Since rocket artillery vastly outranges tubeartillery but it seems good old guns aren't quite obsolete yet. So I'm thinking it has to do with the speed (rockets seem rather slow to reload) and perhaps flexibility modern self-propelled artillery would have over what seems a fair bit of power and range advantage for rockets? Rocket artillery isn't the most circumspect and are vulnerable to counterbattery fire too I think.

So what's the pro cons of guns vs rockets here.

[Mike_G]

However, any intelligence gathering will likely see that there's work being done at those locations (remember that the Cuban Missile Crisis was started by a routine U2 flight over Cuba), and you can then task a satellite to orbit over the area to keep watch, fly recon aircraft/ drones over the area, monitor communications and potentially exploit human intelligence assets, so that if it does start to turn hot, you can deploy aircraft with specialised munitions, armed drones and special ops teams to the area, and maybe program some cruise missiles to hit the mountains, hopefully bringing rocks down over the entrances and sealing them in before they can fire.

Of course, you have to be sure you disable all of the sites before they can fire, some of which are almost certainly dummies to confuse your intelligence and make you expend resources for no effect. So some of the guns might get a few shots off before they can all be dealt with, and they may still be a perceived threat for a while afterwards.

Sure. You can destroy or disable them. The same way, with enough time and resources you can take any fortification.

But you have to either accept that they will take time to knock out, thus being able to hurt you for a while, or dedicate tremendous resources to hitting them.

This is no different from a castle. You can take it, or isolate it and besiege it, but at a cost. You can't just ignore it, because it can project power, keep troops who can sally out and cut your supply lines, etc.

This is all really useful as a deterrent, where you as the attacker have to decide if you want to spend those resources or do something else, like negotiate, which means it's served it purpose by preventing the war or improving the defender's bargaining position. Or attack elsewhere, which means it's done its job by closing the preferred route. Or just accept the losses, which means it's done its job in slowing your advance and bleeding your military.

No fortification is really expected to hold out indefinitely. They deter an attacker or slow an attacker to give you time to prepare your own move. If there were no hardened emplacements in N Korea, or if there was nothing near the border for them to shoot at, it would be easy to roll over them like the 1990 Gulf War campaign rolled over Iraq army, and even the 2003 war rolled into Baghdad quickly. But we haven't moved on North Korea in 60 years because from minute one of hostilities until we knock out those weapons, death would rain down on a huge population center.

[Max_Killjoy]

Sure. You can destroy or disable them. The same way, with enough time and resources you can take any fortification.

But you have to either accept that they will take time to knock out, thus being able to hurt you for a while, or dedicate tremendous resources to hitting them.

This is no different from a castle. You can take it, or isolate it and besiege it, but at a cost. You can't just ignore it, because it can project power, keep troops who can sally out and cut your supply lines, etc.

This is all really useful as a deterrent, where you as the attacker have to decide if you want to spend those resources or do something else, like negotiate, which means it's served it purpose by preventing the war or improving the defender's bargaining position. Or attack elsewhere, which means it's done its job by closing the preferred route. Or just accept the losses, which means it's done its job in slowing your advance and bleeding your military.

No fortification is really expected to hold out indefinitely. They deter an attacker or slow an attacker to give you time to prepare your own move. If there were no hardened emplacements in N Korea, or if there was nothing near the border for them to shoot at, it would be easy to roll over them like the 1990 Gulf War campaign rolled over Iraq army, and even the 2003 war rolled into Baghdad quickly. But we haven't moved on North Korea in 60 years because from minute one of hostilities until we knock out those weapons, death would rain down on a huge population center.

No idea why that exact Korean border was accepted.

[Vinyadan]

No idea why that exact Korean border was accepted.

The Korean war also wasn't much of a roll over, and more of a tidal wave going up and down for a few years until it turned into a war of attrition. The 1953 armistice asked the fighters to pull 2 km away from this last front, and the 4 km strip that was created this way became the demilitarized zone, which serves as a frontier and buffer zone between the two Koreas. So the current territorial division is pretty much the acceptance of the status quo when the war was frozen.

The earlier frontier was the 38° parallel, which also feels very artificial. But this was normal fare, when countries were partitioned -- the city of Mainz in Germany is still divided in two different German states, because the states' frontiers were based on those of the French and American sectors, which were based on river routes, and, since the Rhine river crossed the city, it cut it in half.

It's also true that North Korea also has some important city near the frontier, although nowhere as large or important as Seoul.

[KiwiQuest]

Modern tube artillery pieces can range upwards of 40km (with or even without) longrange ammunition and most who field them are developing extreme long range ammunition 50-60km of range. And that's on self-propelled artillery. If you are purpose building something for hitting Seoul, and I'd expect they had, it shouldn't be a problem at all. And this is excluding rocket artillery. With such a large and densely populated area as Seoul you'll be bound to inflict lots of damage before any response, however devastating, can reach back.


I was actually going to ask about the tube vs rocketartillery inspired by the battleship vs coastal fortress thing earlier. Since rocket artillery vastly outranges tubeartillery but it seems good old guns aren't quite obsolete yet. So I'm thinking it has to do with the speed (rockets seem rather slow to reload) and perhaps flexibility modern self-propelled artillery would have over what seems a fair bit of power and range advantage for rockets? Rocket artillery isn't the most circumspect and are vulnerable to counterbattery fire too I think.

So what's the pro cons of guns vs rockets here.

Source: I am an army officer. For the same reason I’m not going to comment much on naval artillery, because I’m not particularly well-versed on the subject.

Generally, rocket artillery is less accurate and cannot deliver sustained fire the same way guns can. They take more time to reload, and the ammunition is generally more expensive and larger. Thus, the rocket launchers require more logistics. The lack of recoil means the rocket launcher has less setup time, but creates a significant backblast instead, which makes a difference when selecting your firing position.
Rocket artillery is easy to trace back to the firing position, and thus vulnerable to counter battery fire, however the shorter setup time means you can avoid the worst of it by moving. This – along with the significant reload time - creates a “shoot and scoot” pattern when using rocket launchers, whereas the guns will often stay in the same firing position for extended periods of time comparably.
They do however outrange guns. Most modern guns range at about 20-40km, whereas for example the Russian 9A52-4 Tornado has a maximum range of 90km. Rocket launchers also deliver a more significant effect in a larger area, albeit for a shorter period of time.
That means you will generally use them for different purposes, even though there is significant overlap. You want to use guns for suppression and precision (own forces close to your target, hitting a small target). An example would be suppressing an enemy position for an extended period of time in order to enable an enveloping attack.
Guns are also more flexible in some ways, as you can concentrate on one target with a lot of guns, or suppress many small targets, and switch between the two fairly seamlessly.
You want to use your rocket launchers to destroy targets, especially unprotected and large ones, as they cause more damage in less time. An example would be a headquarters, or – in the case of Seoul – a large gathering of civilians.

Do bear in mind that this is an extremely generalized description. Some modern guns – like for example the French CAESAR 8x8 – have almost no setup time a well, and precision guided rockets exist for precision work, just to name a few exceptions to the description. Range has a lot to do with ammunition as well, and different ammunition types serve different purposes, so no matter how you approach the subject, there is significant overlap between the two types of artillery. Often the choice will come down to cultural/historical preference.

I hope that answers your question at least somewhat :)

[VoxRationis]

The earlier frontier was the 38° parallel, which also feels very artificial. But this was normal fare, when countries were partitioned -- the city of Mainz in Germany is still divided in two different German states, because the states' frontiers were based on those of the French and American sectors, which were based on river routes, and, since the Rhine river crossed the city, it cut it in half.

The use of rivers as borders can be weird like that, since they tend to end up being the core of a settlement pattern, since people travel on them easily, but also are obvious barriers to travel across them, and so make for good borders. Mountains are a lot less ambiguous.

[Max_Killjoy]

The use of rivers as borders can be weird like that, since they tend to end up being the core of a settlement pattern, since people travel on them easily, but also are obvious barriers to travel across them, and so make for good borders. Mountains are a lot less ambiguous.

I'm not sure Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and China would agree with you on the latter.

[Vinyadan]

Probably, the least ambiguous are river basins.

[napoleon_in_rag]

The use of rivers as borders can be weird like that, since they tend to end up being the core of a settlement pattern, since people travel on them easily, but also are obvious barriers to travel across them, and so make for good borders. Mountains are a lot less ambiguous.

One problem with rivers, though, is rivers move. They jump their banks, flood, and end up on a new course. Look at the boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana. The border doesn't line up with the river any more.

[snowblizz]

One problem with rivers, though, is rivers move. They jump their banks, flood, and end up on a new course. Look at the boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana. The border doesn't line up with the river any more.

There's also a US-Mexico issue along the Rio Grande due to the river moving.

Probably, the least ambiguous are river basins.

I'm not sure that's entirely true either. Kongo (the former Blegian colony) looks the way it does because they followed the river basin principle (the Belgians really hoodwinkled the rest there). Not sure that's particularly successful either.
My money is on the ocean as divider :P

I'm not sure Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and China would agree with you on the latter.

Indeed, in Europe and the Americas the mountain ranges are somewhat linear and usually not populated. Where's the regions you mention have a much more complicated geological and demographic pattern.

Not that there isn't a natural or unnatural border that humans haven't managed to mess up somehow. In reality borders are something that takes decades or centuries to become "natural" in the best of cases when allowed to organically grow. And to be honest it's the far away cartographers that generally cuase these types of issues.

I hope that answers your question at least somewhat :)

It does, mostly trying to provoke discussion since that sparks new thoughts. Which would mean the massive-central-fort-thingy another poster was talking about would be ideally placed to be saturated with rockets.

[Martin Greywolf]

One problem with rivers, though, is rivers move. They jump their banks, flood, and end up on a new course. Look at the boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana. The border doesn't line up with the river any more.

This is usually a holdover from pre-modern era. If you look at, let's say, medieval treaties, they described territory gained in terms that we would view as very... fuzzy, perhaps? You can see not only things like "border is on the river", but also "border turns east at the old tree". Granted, that last part is usually only used in smaller scale partitioning (where the borders between lands of two nobles are, not national borders), but still.

With rivers, you usually had explicitly specified who gets a city that lies in the middle of it or on both banks, with some exceptions when the city was split in two.

Thing is, with medieval mentality, you don't have the modern understanding of national security, if a noble from one kingdom crossed a border to pursue a criminal or whatnot, it was usually not a big deal - there are instances when the ability to do so is explicitly mentioned in a treaty. Borderlands like these were often 50 km wide, and trouble in them was expected and dealt with (most of the time) via local garrisons, therefore river not being always in the same place was not really a problem for anyone. Well, except for the people drowning in it because the ford wasn't where they thought it was.

The problems began when people started to describe borders in terms more rooted in geographic co-ordinates. This new way of doing things sometimes ran into old way of doing things and weird borders happened as a result - most notable here are US states borders, some are straight lines, others aren't. Add to that that some borders that were defined by natural features were then converted to absolute co-ordinates and you get what we have today, a delightful chaos.

[Vinyadan]

An image I found interesting, since we often notice how slingers tend to be overlooked, but were actually around for a very long time: a Roman slinger from the Trajan Column.

The plate is in four pieces, the slinger is in the third piece from left to right, in the foreground. The sling with a loaded bullet is easily visible, as well as the bag holding more.

Spoiler

Show

[KarlMarx]

Slings were essentially the direct competitor to bows as a weapon for much of ancient history. Slings are cheap, light, and easy to carry, so even heavy infantry could use them in the field as a backup weapon (made even easier by the fact that rocks can be used as ammunition). I believe that the Norman infantry--not archers, heavy melee infantry--went into battle at Hastings equipped with slings.

Furthermore, they are very easy to make and practice with. Civilians can train to use slings to defend themselves, and armies can likewise quickly instruct conscripts as to the basis of the weapon. Thus, they made a lot of sense in the eras before professional armies.

Bows, on the other hand, require a lot of practice to be effective, especially the heavier bows that dominate battlefields. England took somewhat draconian measures during the middle ages to ensure a population of trained longbowmen, banning all sports besides archery. Furthermore, a large bow and arrows are harder to carry than a sling, so it makes sense to have dedicated units of bowmen rather than infantry also carrying slings. Thus, once armies become more centralized and organized, dedicated archers are among the first things to emerge.

The slingers used by the Romans during the later empire were actually one of the last major employments of such troops. The Romans did have a highly organized and centralized military system, predisposing them to rely on trained archers often drawn from subject populations, but believed (probably correctly) that slingshot lost power less quickly than arrows at range, and thus found it valuable to employ them. Furthermore, they traditionally used slingers from the Balearic Isles, and were very conservative in phasing out such units. Even if they were not the most efficient use of manpower, the Roman army was juggernaut enough that it didn't need to adopt new doctrines for much of its existence...and by the time it did, it was already basically too late to stop the Empire's decline. After the Romans stopped using them no dedicated slinger units really existed, except perhaps in poor or isolated areas, and slings were more often used as an auxiliary ranged weapon by melee troops.

Edit: Vegetius, basically *the* source on later Roman military drill, wrote in one of his books that a) slingers are straight-up more lethal than archers against unarmored troops (though armor is, on the flip side, better at absorbing bludgeoning than piercing force, and for much of history Europeans didn't have access to particularly powerful bows), and insisted that all troops be trained to handle a sling.

[Kiero]

There's another major consideration at work: bows in the western Mediterranean were weak, less useful in a battlefield context than slings. All the decent bows (composite) were eastern in origin and didn't make their way as far west as Italy. The native missile weapon of Italy was the javelin, I'm sure there were shepherd boys with slings all over the countryside, but not in enough numbers to make them useful in a military context.

[Vinyadan]

I just noticed a detail which had escaped me before: the slinger on the column has one end of the band containing the bullets lying on his right shoulder, while the other hand goes on his left arm, which is holding the shield. So I guess they loaded the sling with only one hand, protecting themselves with the other?

[KarlMarx]

Possibly. The inscription may be accurate, or it may be stylized and thus distorted. The shield may have been light enough that the hand carrying it could be used to reload. It does, however, seem that a one-handed method would be blatantly inefficient/error prone and easily correctable via different reloading drill. Thus I think it unlikely but not impossible.

[Vinyadan]

Defensive weapons in general on the Column are shrunk to better show the people holding them, so it's possible that the shield was actually larger. Personally, I think it was the long flat oval shield that is generally shown for the auxiliarii. The small knife could have actually been a full-sized gladium. What is unusual is the little tunic he's wearing. It probably would have rung a bell of some kind to a Roman spectator; maybe it was typical for a region.

There's a couple more details I only now notice. You can see the ends of the band hanging beneath his left arm (the shield arm), which suggests that the band was knotted to the arm. Going to the right from an observer's point of view, directly in front of our slinger there is a second slinger, who's fallen or is kneeling. At least, I think it's a slinger, because there is a fold in his clothes, on his chest, which doesn't follow the others and probably was part of the bullet band. He also is holding a shield.

Behind the first slinger there is another man wearing a similar tunic, but he's almost fully covered, and I don't see his sling. He could be holding a spherical object in his left hand. Maybe he was throwing rocks or heavy bullets to the enemies with his bare hands? Or maybe he was a reloader?

The first slinger appears to also wear greaves. (edit: or maybe not?)

[Knaight]

Possibly. The inscription may be accurate, or it may be stylized and thus distorted. The shield may have been light enough that the hand carrying it could be used to reload. It does, however, seem that a one-handed method would be blatantly inefficient/error prone and easily correctable via different reloading drill. Thus I think it unlikely but not impossible.

Loading while holding a shield is a bit slower, but it's actually not that hard. On top of that, most of throws that we're familiar with showing up near Rome can largely be done while holding a shield (and there are styles where that doesn't work; trying to use figure 8 with a shield would be hilarious. On the other hand, trying to use figure 8 in any but the loosest formation is also hilarious), thus making this pretty plausible as something that can be done reasonably easily. That's not to say that it was done often, not least because one of the styles that doesn't do as well with a shield is the Balearic style.

[Vinyadan]

While we are at it, please admire the only roman rectangular, half-cylindrical shield which was found with paint still attached (although it was broken in twelve pieces, and so was restored):

Spoiler

Show

On top there's an eagle, possibly resting on a globe, to whom two personified Victories offer crowns. Below, the concentric square decorations must have been a continuation of the decoration on the umbo (we have other Roman umbons). On bottom there's a lion with two stars.

Example of Roman umbo: http://www.britishmuseum.org/researc...63156&partId=1 (this umbo also has written on it the name of its owner, Iunius Dubitatus).

The shield is from the mid-third century AD and comes from Dura Europos, the umbo from the early second century AD.

Another interesting find from Dura Europos is the oldest original map found in the West, drawn by a Roman soldier on the leather cover of his shield. You cans search "Dura Europos Shield Map" to see more.

There also is the El Fayum shield, a first-century BC scutum that might have been Roman. http://www.roman-reenactor.com/scutum%20el%20fayum.html

We also have a few late-antique oval shields, a bit like those on the Column; they are made of poplar, which, AFAIK, is pretty light wood. https://news.yale.edu/2015/11/02/anc...anks-yale-team

Finally, Polybius gives a description of the equipment of the contemporary Roman army (Polybius lived 206-124 BC, so this is pre-Marian):

1 The next in seniority called hastati are ordered to wear a complete panoply. 2 The Roman panoply consists firstly of a shield (scutum), the convex surface of which measures •two and a half feet in width and four feet in length, the thickness at the rim being •a palm's breadth. 3 It is made of two planks glued together, the outer surface being then covered first with canvas and then with calf-skin. 4 Its upper and lower rims are strengthened by an iron edging which protects it from descending blows and from injury when rested on the ground. It also has an iron boss (umbo) fixed to it which turns aside the most formidable blows of stones, pikes, and heavy missiles in general. 6 Besides the shield they also carry a sword, hanging on the right thigh and called a Spanish sword. 7 This is excellent for thrusting, and both of its edges cut effectually, as the blade is very strong and firm. 8 In addition they have two pila, a brass helmet, and greaves. 9 The pila are of two sorts — stout and fine. Of the stout ones some p321 are round and •a palm's length in diameter and others are a palm square. Fine pila, which they carry in addition to the stout ones, are like moderate-sized hunting-spears, 10 the length of the haft in all cases being about three cubits. Each is fitted with a barbed iron head of the same length as the haft. 11 This they attach so securely to the haft, carrying the attachment halfway up the latter and fixing it with numerous rivets, that in action the iron will break sooner than become detached, although its thickness at the bottom where it comes in contact with the wood is a finger's breadth and a half; such great care do they take about attaching it firmly. Finally they wear as an ornament a circle of feathers with three upright purple or black feathers •about a cubit in height, the addition of which on the head surmounting their other arms is to make every man look twice his real height, and to give him a fine appearance, such as will strike terror into the enemy. 14 The common soldiers wear in addition a breastplate of brass a span square, which they place in front of the heart and call the heart-protector (pectorale), this completing their accoutrements; but those who are rated above ten thousand drachmas wear instead of this a coat of chain-mail (lorica). The principes and triarii are armed in the same manner except that instead of the pila the triarii carry long spears (hastae).

(the "10 cm (one palm) at the rim" thing is likely the result of textual corruption and not factually accurate, unless it means something about how bent the surface of the shield was.)

[KarlMarx]

What is unusual is the little tunic he's wearing. It probably would have rung a bell of some kind to a Roman spectator; maybe it was typical for a region.

I believe the Balearic slingers disliked armor and thus declined to wear it, preferring to simply run away if necessary and stay out of the fray.

[Carl]

Fairly late getting to these so sorry for being a couple of weeks behind the curve.

Battleships and modern warships and armour first.


The reason you don't see armour on modern warships, (though it is starting to make a limited comeback), is mostly down to how warship design evolved in the aftermath of world war 2.

At the end of WW2 the mains air dropped weapons where dive bomber AP bombs and torpedoes still. Neither of which care about armour. In addition whilst guns where the primary AAA weapon still they where no longer the primary combat power. That meant anything bigger than a light cruiser wasn't especially useful, and Destroyers and smaller never really carried much armour IRL anyway.

Eventually the first generation of missiles came in and this further pushed big warships out of the picture, you didn't need cruisers to carry them so destroyers and frigates started to take over the role. The advances in sub warfare also pushed this as those where the traditional ASW platforms. Thats not to say no one was, (or still is), building cruisers, but they became much rarer and were built as giant destroyers, (this was also probably influenced by early missiles being big enough to present an overwhelming threat to cruiser level armour).

Since then things have very much changed, old style cruisers probably could take hits from modern ASM on their armour quite well, and there's been a steady uptick in size and mass of DD's, the end of WW2 era HMS Daring massed 3820 tons full load, the recently commissioned HMS Daring masses 8500 tons, thats getting near the lighter end of an early WW2 heavy cruiser. Square cube law means the smaller a ship is the greater the percentage of total mass is required to put X thickness of armour around the vitals. So a small light Destroyer or Frigate of yesteryear needs a lot more of it's total mass dedicated to armour to mount a useful amount. It's basically an economy of scale thing. But of course with the cold war over development is slowed right down so your seeing it take time for thinking to change. But as i noted already, armour in limited forms is making a comeback now. I suspect in time we'll see it slowly become standard fit again.



Modern Fortress:

First Gnoman is wrong, whilst long range interceptor missiles are more costly than long range attack systems, (they're really optimized to take out the launch platforms for the missiles rather than the missiles themselves), the medium and short rnage interceptors are cheaper and guns are cheaper still. And thats ignoring the value of what they're defending. A straight random fort probably isn't that valuable. A combined major army base with it's own air force compatible air strip. Or a major port, or a major command center, or several other similar locations however, thats a different matter entirely. For that matter Carrier Battle Groups are an extended example of exactly that. They're something so valuable that the cost of defending them is worth the price tag even if it takes the enemy less cost in ordnance to get their kill. There's also the question of how acurratte the costs are as a rule. It may sound a bit crazy but you have to remember that when your dealing with items that share a high degree of component types material's, e.t.c. costs in an ideal world should bear an at least approximate ratio to size. With complex systems that's not a hard and fast thing but it's a good general trend. Which makes the price tag of a Tomahawk a little odd compared to various SAM systems. Could be that the long service life with relatively modest modifications is acting as an economy of scale on costs, certainly according to a little digging the block IV missiles cost the RN less than the block III's. In which case the point about relative costs becomes even more relevant.

That raises the question of why we haven't done it and i think it comes down to one simple thing. The technology only became mature towards the end of the cold warm, and with it;s end there just isn't a desperate need. The only people with the tech and even a partial need, Israel, have been working on such systems.

I suspect interservice rivalries and the sheer cost are additional factors.


Conventional Ballistic Missiles:

Gnoman largely hit this on the head with one exception. MIRV warheads on pure kinetic impact have very little destructive power, there's actually archival video footage of the impacts out there. it'll mess up anything it directly hit but the destructive radius is small. Modern nukes are also quite small so fitting a decent sized conventional warhead in isn't practical. However many older missiles where designed to carry far more warheads than later treaties allowed, so they could easily still carry a relatively decent number of larger conventional warheads. A ballistic trajectory also offers excellent cost efficiency. The reported cost of a trident, (37 million US dollars), works out at a cost efficiency per pound of ordnance delivered that is approximately 1.6 times as much per pound as a tomahawk, (and thats assuming the declassified warhead carried data and warhead weight data are not understated which they may well be for obvious reasons), but is delivered using a system with over 6 times the range and a difficulty of terminal interception that is exceptionally high. At impact after allready slowing enormously they're still moving at mach 10, or around 2 miler per second. The difficulties involved in hitting such small fast targets, (and the standoff required when dealing with nuclear rather than conventional warheads), are why ABM systems are so expensive. But that same high range and high cost efficiency offers a fixed ground base some potentially hugely efficient strategic striking power. Effectively a base equipped with enough of them is as dangerous as a base for long range strike aircraft in strategic strike terms.

[Maquise]

A relatively quick question, I hope; was either sex of horse preferred for use as a war mount, and if so, why?

[Martin Greywolf]

A relatively quick question, I hope; was either sex of horse preferred for use as a war mount, and if so, why?

Male, at least as far as medieval Europe goes.

As for why, well, it's a tad complicated. There are some definite advantages of having a male warhorse, but honestly, they aren't all that great. What the people at the time thought was that male == manly man == good at war, with a whole set of mostly disproven arguments that explained why. One argument that still applies without question though is that male horses are more replacable - you need one good male horse to get X pregnancies in a few days, mares need more time and are therefore less replaceable.

That said, you do have records of some knights going meta on the manly man thing and using mares in heat, which wreaked merry havoc with how well enemy's horses obeyed their riders. It was considered a somewhat cheaty tactic to use, though, especially in jousts. In actual war, well, people may make a few jokes at your expense for bringing a woman to war, but that's about it.

An important caveat here are geldings, sterilized male horses - you won't get the problem with mares in heat and they are more obedient, but they are also a lot less aggressive, so it's a trade-off, especially when used as war horses.

[Kiero]

A relatively quick question, I hope; was either sex of horse preferred for use as a war mount, and if so, why?

If we're just talking about one rider, depends on preferences. If we're talking about mounting an entire unit, pick one and stick with it for all of them.

[KarlMarx]

I've heard that the Arabs preferred to use mares as warhorses; I believe a common name Arab soldiers used for their horses would translate as "daughter of the wind".

It was definitely a cultural thing as much as a practical one.

[wolflance]

Question: Is there a difference in metallurgy requirement in different type/length of sword?

For example, we generally want our sword blade to have a hard edge and a softer spine, is dagger or gladius any different?

Since a dagger is much shorter, and I presume harder to break, can I increase its blade hardness to the level of...let's say the same hardness as katana's edge, and still expect it to hold?