• rustyfish@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m not a tank guy, but didn’t half of it’s gimmicks didn’t work or were hopelessly outdated in the first place?

    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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      8 months ago

      The NATO-beating AI targeting systems are literally a potato, though their development did pay for a number of superyachts off Monaco and stately homes in Surrey.

      • Hobo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Like literally literally or literally figuratively? Because the thought of someone popping out the hatch with a sack of potatoes and just wildly chunking them at a drone is kind of hilarious.

          • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            Damn kids nowadays! Back in my days we didn’t do such things. /s

            But, I still hate literally being used “wrong”.

          • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            You’re not wrong that it means that now, but literally has meant figuratively since it started being used in the eighteenth century

        • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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          8 months ago

          Metaphorically. The potato’s just the battery, and the actual electronics consist of a shanzhai NES clone and a novelty golf ball detector.

      • psmgx@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Plenty of gender studies classes at US and UK universities, too, plus posh NYC penthouses

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      The thermal optics are outdated shit that the French offloaded on them after pulling them off the Leclerc.

      The “Active protection system” requires manual input from the crew. I don’t really need to elaborate on why that’s bad, right?

      The engine was never designed to be used in a vehicle. It’s meant for running fuel pumps. There is no evidence that it can hit its stated top speeds.

      The internal electronics are all visibly outdated, and have no backups. If the monitors go down, the crew are blind.

      The autoloader is just the same tech they’ve been putting in tanks since the sixties.

      • psmgx@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The “Active protection system” requires manual input from the crew. I don’t really need to elaborate on why that’s bad, right?

        You need to be actively using it at all times or you die

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 months ago

        To be fair, the B1 bomber (which we never actually used in action) was also built to fuel economics and enrich plutocrats.

        Then there was the Sea Wolf attack sub, created not because we really needed a replacement for the Los Angeles class, but our small society of submersible-savvy engineers needed to stay in practice making submarines, so the US gave them a project to do.

        • psmgx@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Wut? The B1 saw plenty of action. For example:

          In the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom, eight B-1s dropped almost 40 percent of aerial ordnance, including some 3,900 JDAMs.

          Make no mistake it was an expensive program and didn’t deliver what was hoped, but it’s seen plenty of real world use.

          • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            8 months ago

            So I was entirely ignorant about the project to refit B1s for conventional weapons starting in the George H. W. Bush administration. So, the last thirty odd years. I had thought we’d gone from B52s to B2s regarding conventional strategic bombing.