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by Spooky23 27 days ago
Artillery and air power killed fortresses. De-industrialization and technology pretty much killed artillery And sustained air power engagements seem to be difficult for the same reasons.

Drones democratize airpower but have significant limits.

1 comments

Killed artillery?

No, pretty sure every western country is still racing to increase artillery production, though rheinmettal is not up to a million shells per year. The war in Ukraine fully demonstrated that when the enemy is actually at your level and not just some cave dwelling terrorists, it becomes a war of attrition with every weapon system possible.

In Ukraine, that was last year. The persistent drone surveillance and strike capability and fire radars have made them very vulnerable to counter battery/drone fires.

The failure of legacy air power to sustain in a hostile environment led to the WW1 style artillery duels. From what I gather in the public domain, drones have created kilometers deep kill zones where nothing can survive. That’s capability that I think is exclusive to the US sans drone.