"The Future of Warfare"

[LSJ]

After watching documentaries and reading books and articles, I have started to ponder upon the subject of warfare in the future. Its a strange prospect that I came up with.
With current technologies we have "cloaking" abilities (although not very functional in realworld combat), lasers, railguns, and such.

Lasers of some types can be used to destroy satelites from earth, and aircraft and missiles in the sky. The question is, will aircraft become obselete eventually? Will warfare revert to only tanks and ships?

Some day we will have good tracking systems, since there is technology that can see stealth fighters, and regular radars/sonars. They can be applied to lasers. A laser shoots so fast that no aircraft can dodge it after being locked on to. In theory, a unit of lasers could take out an entire airforce. Fighters use missiles, and they have to get too close to use machine guns. For a plane to be far enough away that a laser could not lock on to it accurately, it would need to use long range missiles to attack. The missiles could be intercepted at that long range. If aircraft could not use longe range missiles or get in close to the laser battery, they would be useless.

Already, some lasers can intercept long range artillery shells. ICBMs are taken out easily;
nuclear missiles are obselete!

So, if we can't use air units, we need to fight on the ground or in the water. Ships would be the way to move people and supplies, but would be threatened by railgun coastal batteries. Its just like Total Annihilation! Or ships will not be used because lasers could hit them - huge uboats are the new transport!
Mass convoys of ships moving people and tanks to shore, where the tanks use railguns/gaussguns, and have a back line of lasertanks or something to take out missiles. On land, heavily armoured tanks would be the way to fight. The tanks could take advantage of cloaking technology to be hard to aim at. So, invisible tanks blasting away, seeing eachother using infrared sensors or the like. Short ranged missiles and artillery.

Total craziness... Its just a thought of future warfare with advanced lasers and cloaking.

Does anyone think some of that some of those ideas are realistic or at least plausible?

Anyway, those concepts are part of my story, so they may be overexaggerated for the sake of action.

[Leonidas The Lion]

That is plausible but highly unlikely aircraft are still new compared to boats or ground forces.
I think we will probably have some kind of hover plane to bomb cities or high tech fighters with laser guns.

[the Black Prince]

i had not heard that lasers had been generated with tyhat kind of ability that actually worked yet...
besides, if we can develope a laser, i'm pretty sure we can probably develop some kind of synthetic armour plating or molecular realligned/polarised metal to resist it, or maybe a shield system.

the cloaking technology i did see reports about... i don;t think, from how i understand the science, that it has much of an offensive capability, because of the way it works by diverting light. the person or vehicle being cloaked wouldn't be able to see, because all light is being diverted/bent around it

the way the technology is developing, robotic warfare is the way forward. steadily, our naval vessels are being given over to computers... fewer and fewer crew members are required for each ship. unmanned aerial vehicles are quite frequently used, and various cybernetic units have been tested in Iraq.
while we're a long way from seeing cyberwarriors or star warsesqu battle droids, that does seem to be the way we are developing at the moment

[Darkragnar]

Yes the Future of Warfare is moveing towards Robotics, but still it will be a long time when there left all alone with any human Direction.

And speaking of Air Power you seem to be forgetting 1 thing , Space by the time Laser's bocome that powerful to be used as offesive weaponry by then youll see Oribtal Strike power Killer Satallte's, Orbita Bobmer delivering Pin Point Ordiance, Orbital Clocked Fighter that can move Stealthly in space, Rail gun equipped platforms that can be used to call Artillary support on ground troops.

Air Power cannot completly dissapear in the future, theyll always be a Counter counter technology for any Counter technologys comeing out.

[Cluny the Scourge]

The actual battles will mostly be fought by 12-ft tall vat-bred brain-programmed mutants. There will be fewer firearms used, because no-one will be bothered enough about the welfare of such creatures to equip them properly, so they'll just strangle each other to death and hold each other down so their comrades can jump up and down on each other's heads. The citizens of the warring nations will sit back and cheer their sides on via televisation (specially-marked TV helicopters from all sides will be exempt from enemy attack by International Treaty). In this way strategic questions can be settled without loss of life or undue waste of resources, and everyone can still get to feel riled up and patriotic (which is all way is really for, anyway - to give delusional civilians back home sexual excitement).

[Eric]

I watched a similar program the other day. The military scientists on this show claim that the future of war is in the air and that infantry are an obsolete, useless force from an era long pass. Apparently battles over land will now take place entirely in the air, with air superiority over the airspace above the area being fought over being the new indication of control of a land. Land and Sea warfare are completely obsolete these men claimed, as airpower is the future of war and they also claimed the smartest countries should start disbanding their armies and navies and start focusing entirely on the new war in the air. Sounds like a load of BS to me. No matter how effective your airforce is, infantry will always be needed to take and hold the ground.

[krazykarl]

When engery weapons become prolific, it will only be a matter of time before someone develops shields, or energy absorbing armor, or something to that effect. Aircraft still have, if nothing else the speed factor, and are completely indispensable from a logisitcs point of view.

[Cabsav]

I think that there will be so many counters that if to well equipted countries fought eachother it would turn into the good ol fashion front line battle with infantry being the most versatile force. Since infantry can adapt to different situations they would be instrumental in taking out a specific counter like hard anti air defense, once this is out the air force comes in and annihilaites the rest of the army. So it always boils down to infantry since they are so versatile whereas an aircraft is greatly limited to wether the enemy has a very good anti air defense or not. However once one counter is gone it wouldnt be long until the entire army disintegrates. If a country was smart they would integrate all their AT, AA and AI technologies into one sole vehicle it would be very versatile and basicly warfare would be nothering but these vehicles fighting eachother.

[chris_uk_83]

@DarkProphet
I like your ideas, but in saying that aircraft will be obsolete becasue they can be easily shot down by lasers is the same as saying anything will be obsolete because it can be easily destroyed by lasers. Surely it applies to ships, tanks and infantry too. The invisible tanks will still be vulnerable because if they can see each other with IR, surely the lasers can see them too using the same technology.

Unfortunately I see the future of warfare much the same as I see present warfare: the powerful countries with the advanced military technology annihilating the less developed militaries of the world with no real need for the advanced technology. I doubt two sufficiently advanced countries will ever have a fight now becasue the consequences would be too severe when nuclear weapons were introduced. I also think that the only thing that would bring about such advances in military technology is a war between sufficiently developed nations.

@tBP
Such invisibility technology nearly exists in the laboratory. However, they can only make it about the size of an apple so far. This said, it may be useful for covering bombs with. If you can't see it coming you can't take it out.

[Zeleni Jurij]

I'd place my bets on micro (or even nano) sized robots, which would be sent to assassinate enemy's leaders, officers and basically everyone who's important...

[Holger Danske]

Future warfare will be dominated by genetic manipulated t-rexes, torpedo dolphins, and ninjas with laser-katanas.

[Sosobra]

Infantry will always be important as most modern and current wars show Air power and defeat armies but you need boots on the ground to control it.

I think the future of Warfare and the Militarization of Space will cause blue water naval power to be obsolete.

[Captain Kirk]

Future warfare will be dominated by genetic manipulated t-rexes, torpedo dolphins, and ninjas with laser-katanas.

Arn't those ninjas just Jedi....

Anyway, I see infantry coming back, theres a reason the countries still use predominantly infantry and helicopter forces to officially win a war, i.e Iraq.

[Kanaric]

Ninjas > jedi.

A ninja doesn't care about humanist philosophy, only how best to kill a man.

[LSJ]

Wow, this thread is old, but what the hey.

The difference between aircraft and tanks is that aircraft are in the air, with a shell containing wires and ammunition inside. The laser penetrates that one shell, and it screws up the electronics and detonates the ammunition. If aircraft use armour, they would become slower, or larger, and thus easier targets for other weapons. Tanks on the other hand, can have armour. Lasers could be countered by lining armour with layers of certain compounds. So the tanks could become protected from lasers; plus there are trees and such around them preventing a clear shot one could get on an airplane.
The main thing about tanks is that they can withstand shots better than other vehicles (especially air units) and are less vulnerable to near-instantly impacting weapons like lasers. Plus, with good interception technology, the vehicles would need to be close for their ammunition to hit, unless they fire many rounds. Air units could not carry enough rounds to be effective at long range, nor get close enough without being in danger of interception.

Of course, I was talking of far in the future, with very accurate systems, and a time when lasers can be mass produced. In the present aircraft are t3h l33t.

[Kanaric]

Just noticed that someone brought this back from a year of hibernation.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

the future of warfare will go like this:

guy presses button, firing missile

stuff explodes

repeat untill victor

[Mythos]

A ninja can't choke a man to death using the Force.

[Anarius]

let's hope we never get to see modern warfare.

[Kanaric]

A ninja can't choke a man to death using the Force.

They could use a five point palm exploding heart technique. Ninjas have mastered the art of pwnage. They could use magic like the force, sure, they can just many times their height just like a jedi, they can dodge bullets, but what they can do that a jedi can't is..... fly using their chi.

A ninja doesn't NEED the force to choke a man, and they dont need a reason as well.

edit: chi is like the force, but cooler. A man who masters the art of controlling chi can do many things that the force doesn't allow.