The Advancing Technology of Weapons Have you noticed the number of super weapons that the Russians are creating, according to the new media. The talk is about weapons such as torpedoes which are nuclear propelled at 100 miles per hour or more and have an unlimited range due to nuclear fuel. They are also said to be able to support a nuclear warhead. Then there are said to be hypersonic missiles which blaze through the sky so fast they would be extremely hard to destroy and not just because of the speed, but also due to the fact they can change course while in flight. These are only two of several advanced weapons systems which are said to exist in Russia. It has also been said the Chinese are building way more navy ships than us and they now have a way of detecting our submarines. Not to forget to mention how much they have built up their armed forces. These countries are building fierce weapons while it seems the Biden administration has let our military slip. We have about 291 ships in the navy, according to one source, but other sources state different numbers. We have a history of letting our ship building lag when we think we are not faced with war. Right now, the largest navy in the world is the Chinese navy, but we are leading in carrier battle groups. Their ship building plans are far more aggressive than ours. This could change under Trump, but we will have to wait and see. Years ago, we shelved a program which had to do with building advanced hyper-powered planes. This was decades ago. Just imagine where we would have been today if we had developed that aircraft back then. I also remember when Australia announced it could detect stealth aircraft. Several years ago, I had read an article about this. I think the detection might have been based on air disruption, but I am not sure. In World War 2, we set records for military production. In the last year of the war, we built 50,000 aircraft. In 1945 we had a navy which had 6,768 ships. During the war we built over 5,000 merchant ships. I am not saying we should meet these numbers again, but also there is no way we could. What I am doing is illustrating a point. Our military has shrunken considerably. I believe the navy should be at around 500 ships to be secure. I think we have enough carrier groups, but we are lagging in other areas, such as submarines, destroyers and frigates. In today’s missile and laser age a cheaper frigate, which is smaller than a destroyer can be deadly. As far as submarines go the new conventional powered submarines are only one third of the price to build of a nuclear submarine, but can stay submerged for weeks. They are also silent; we need some of these. One area we lead in is aircraft. If we add up all the military aircraft from all the military branches the total number of aircraft is over 13,000. China is said to have 3,150 and Russia has about 4,155. Some of our latest fighter aircraft have been a disappointment to some experts and one thing I have noticed is the planes like the F-35 are slower than some planes that came before it. It is supposed to make up for this with stealth. Also, the price is a problem, the planes are very expensive. It was thought the F-35 program would cost 1.1 trillion dollars which was estimated in 2018 but as of 2023 that price has risen by 44 percent. This seems to always be the problem with government contracts. Maybe I shouldn’t say always, and instead say much of the time. Its funny, but I believe one of the weapons which has protected us from an attack is the hydrogen bomb. Even though we have fallen behind in some areas our adversaries know we have a large nuclear deterrent, and no one wants to take the chance this will be used on them. Many experts believe our nuclear deterrent needs to be improved because it is getting old and our adversaries are developing more modern nuclear weapons. They believe we are getting near a crossroads which if we don’t improve our nuclear weapons, we might become vulnerable. Hypersonic nuclear missiles, which many think we have none, are so fast some power might think they can fire them from a submarine before we can detect them. This could be true for submarines just 100 miles off the U.S. coast. Those nuclear torpedoes I talked about before can be exploded off shore causing a tremendous tsunami which could kill hundreds of thousands of people and cause radioactive water to flow all over the land in that area. It has been said the U.S. Army has had a hard time reaching its quotas. This is another area we have to look at and improve. All the services should be able to attract new volunteers. We should look at the incentives and make them more attractive and see how we can encourage our citizens to cut down on obesity so more of them can qualify. One improvement which is already being implemented is a replacement rifle. It is about time to replace the M-16, a rifle which jammed during Vietnam engagements and uses a smaller round than the new rifle which has a much more powerful round. Sometimes, articles which have to do with new technology come out and talk about superior weapons we are developing and then we don’t hear anymore about it. Of course, this makes me wonder if the projects were shifted to secret black projects. Supposedly, a black project can take money from other programs without those agencies being consulted. I admit we don’t know what weapons are being developed secretly. A couple of years ago, it was said a new fighter plane was being developed and it was far in advance of what we have now. It was said one was built and designed in just one year and then the project went silent. Now there are rumors we have the 7th generation fighter jet. It falls under the project of the NGAD project which is said to be creating a plane which will be much easier to upgrade both with software and also hardware. Hopefully we will see the project finish by 2030. Let’s hope it doesn’t get so expensive it gets cancelled or severely cut down. I hate it when programs are planned for x number of planes and then that number gets reduced because of the rise in the cost of the program.
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