[anikan_vader]

It’s disingenuous to claim without citation that the US does not anticipate using artillery as one (of many) primary weapons in a land conflict against a near-peer adversary. The fact that thr US hasn’t had such a conflict since at least Vietnam (and arguably Korea) not withstanding.

Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years. Sure, hopefully air supremacy would overwhelm your opponent and prevent a static conflict, but no air force has ever established supremacy in a conflict with saturated strategic air defenses. Perhaps the US air forces could, but this capability is untested. Sadam and Yugoslavia were limited to tactical air defenses in relatively small numbers compared with modern day Russia or China.

In short, artillery remains important, which is why US artillery shell production is up an order of magnitude over the last 3 years, and will continue to rise.

[John23832]

> It’s disingenuous to claim without citation that the US does not anticipate using artillery as one (of many) primary weapons in a land conflict against a near-peer adversary.

It's not disingenuous at all. It's pretty apparent if you even take a cursory look at modern American military doctrine/spending. The plan is always to park a carrier close by (maybe two), conduct an air campaign, then send in the troops. Artillery wars just chew up people which the the American public has not had an appetite for since Vietnam.

>The fact that thr US hasn’t had such a conflict since at least Vietnam (and arguably Korea) not withstanding.

It think that is a caveat as big as the Pacific. Vietnam was literally 60 years ago. You don't think top brass have rethought how wars are fought since then? For context, that's 10 Presidencies since LBJ (36th).

> Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years.

Again, modern American doctrine has focused on the layering of power projection and troop mobility specifically to NOT fight in static positions.

> Artillery has proved decisive in every conflict with static lines in the last 100 years. Sure, hopefully air supremacy would overwhelm your opponent and prevent a static conflict, but no air force has ever established supremacy in a conflict with saturated strategic air defenses. Perhaps the US air forces could, but this capability is untested. Sadam and Yugoslavia were limited to tactical air defenses in relatively small numbers compared with modern day Russia or China.

Again caveats. Also a war with China will be fought exactly opposite to Ukraine (with missiles not artillery, and with dynamic naval fronts, not trench warfare).

[_xnmw]

> The plan is always to park a carrier close by (maybe two)

It's an open secret in military circles that aircraft carriers are useless against a peer adversary like Russia or China, which both have the ability to sink carriers and shoot down planes easily. Carriers are only good against unsophisticated terrorists.

But it is pointless to talk about a war with Russia, which would very quickly turn into nuclear Armageddon.

[1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navys-aircraft-car...

[John23832]

It funny I actually read that article earlier this month. I don't have articles to rebutt, but there are people in military circles who think diametrically to the that article (including me).

> It's an open secret in military circles that aircraft carriers are useless against a peer adversary like Russia or China, which both have the ability to sink carriers and shoot down planes easily.

This is not true. How else do you expect to fight an adversary in their home turf without a platform for air superiority? If anything, aircraft carriers would have more survivability (they move) than our supporting airbases in Korea, Japan, and the Philippines (which will almost immediately be hit with ballistic missiles at the start of a conflict). Carriers have layered missile defense. Our arguably biggest weakness in our navy is our lack of ability to underway replenish vertical launch missile cells (used for both offense and defense at sea), but there is a huge push to solve this at the moment.

I'd also challenge you to show examples of China actually shooting down a fighter jet. There's also the fact that China just doesn't have the military experience. Half of war fighting is experience (rehearsing isn't the same as active conflict), and logistics.

> Carriers are only good against unsophisticated terrorists.

This is laughably untrue.

> But it is pointless to talk about a war with Russia, which would very quickly turn into nuclear Armageddon.

This is Russia's single schtick.

[CamperBob2]

No reason to think their nuclear arsenal is in any better shape than the rest of their armaments. (Or are they going to buy nukes from the Norks, too?)

[stanford_labrat]

Fighting static positions is what you do when your opponent is literally your neighbor occupying slightly different dirt that touches yours. Which is not the case with China and the US.

When you switch from land to water tooling your military doctrine to things like air superiority, missiles, island hoping make much more sense to me at least.

[anikan_vader]

Well we certainly do agree that artillery will not be the primary weapon of choice in any naval war!

I do appreciate your point of view, but I maintain that in a lengthy land war with a near peer, missile stockpiles would run low and 4th gen fighters would be unable to contest enemy airspace. Of course, the caveat is that the US would very much like to avoid any such conflict via either diplomacy or a decisive first few weeks of combat. And the hope is that 5th gen fighters would evade air defenses. Even so, US doctrine calls for being capable of fighting prolonged land wars on multiple fronts.

[freshpretzels]

> US artillery shell production is up an order of magnitude over the last 3 years, and will continue to rise.

God bless. Let's outperform all the adversaries combined in shell, ammunition, carrier, and fighter production. American military dominance must never be called into question even by the possibility of multi-theater war.