Where does engineering war go in the next five years?

[0707]

Being more chirurgical, more urban, more psychological or more based in economic sanctions?

 

[PSE]

Yes, whichever works the best.

 

[ScottyUK]

Probably mushroom-shaped if the lunatics in the Middle East continue on their course of mutual annihilation.


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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[ziggi]

The loons in the mid-east have been hacking each other to pieces since the dawn of time. But then again so have the loons in Europe, they only just stopped lately

 

[ivymike]

what is the working definition of a "chirurgical war?"

 

[HVACctrl]

OK, maybe I'm uninformed, but what the heck are you talking about?

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[ScottyUK]

'Surgical' perhaps? God knows how the earlier spelling was arrived at.


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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[jmw]

From the German?

Key issues will include the environment (avoiding GW, see another thread) but I guess everyone will be spending more and more money on taking care of their own environmental impact in order to do business.
Doing normal business will be tougher because some governments will regard the environment taxes as just another revenue stream (no hypothecation).
There will be a continuing rise in environmental engineering companies, consultancies etc.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[btrueblood]

I believe the topic is "the engineering {of} war", i.e. weapons developments. My $.02: more focus on non-lethal methods, aka "policemen's weapons", and continuing development & use of robotic devices to avoid putting troops into potentially lethal situations.

 

[KENAT]

If they've got any sense it will be on how to do it cheaper.

Where's the sense in using a $100,000 + weapon to take out a $10000 truck or $100 tent etc....

There's been a lot of talk about it and some progress but I'm yet to be convinced.

Plus the whole low collateral damage thing is a double edged weapon.

 

[btrueblood]

I didn't say how it should go, just where the development money seems to be getting spent lately, and probably for the near future. The reason for those expenditures lies with our elected congress-people and their political aversion to "collateral damage".

 

[ScottyUK]

There's a slightly more disturbing side to that: the 'logic' which runs along the lines of 'Lets not fly tens of thousands of troops to the Middle East and place them in harm's way when we can fly a couple of ICBM's over there and settle the problem more cheaply and quickly'.

I wonder how many times a day that thought passes through ol' GW's otherwise empty head? I also wonder how often it occurs to our lying scuzzball Prime Minister who is more concerned with securing a place in history than he is in honesty, integrity, the future of our nation, or any of the other trivia which he was elected to uphold.


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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[MadMango]

They know they cannot win from the air only, hence all the troops and equipment on the ground today.

Cheap on the fly weapons of the future will be simple GPS/satellite guided kinetic weapons (bowling balls with fins) fired from positional autonomous satellites in orbit.

[green]"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."[/green]
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[ScottyUK]

They know they cannot win from the air only

Japan, 1945?

Horrific? Absolutely. Effective at ending the war? Undoubtedly. Justifiable? I'm not sure. It is easy to look back and judge with the benefit of sixty years of collective hindsight, but I'm sure the decision was not taken without huge deliberation at the time. I hope our descendants will not have to sit in a similar discussion sixty years into the future pondering the rights and wrongs of whatever may be unfolding today.

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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[SomeYahoo]

I didn't say how it should go, just where the development money seems to be getting spent lately, and probably for the near future. The reason for those expenditures lies with our elected congress-people and their political aversion to "collateral damage".

Check out FCS (Future Combat Systems). This is where the money is spent.

http://www.army.mil/fcs/index.html

 

[JoeTank]

btrueblood,
One does not need to be an elected official to really dislike collateral damage.

Steve Braune
Tank Industry Consultants

http://www.tankindustry.com

 

[kontiki99]

The only way to win a war is to avoid fighting it.

Hopefully we start expanding technologies that help us obtain the security we need while avoiding them.

 

[btrueblood]

Steve,

You make my point - that the dislike of collateral damage is politcally driven; i.e. that you would complain to your congressperson if you saw senseless killing, and he (regardless of his own feelings) must consider your (and the consensus of millions like you) views if he wishes to remain in office.

 

[ewh]

Let's not go there...