Knowledge vs Equipment

[Bontazor]

The random stranger isn't going to fare well with only a bulletproof vest. The subject is still suspect to injury to the lower body parts and more importantly, the head.

 

I choose experience, based on how the equipments are distributed in terms of the body parts.

 

Also, a person in a metal frame will stand out... Quite clear out in the open.

[Surenas]

There's no such option, for the rookie will quite automatically raise his head when he hears somethin' new and loud - and that's already the moment when he takes the bullet in his brain. Warfare one has to learn first, i.e. gathering experience and surviving events - or one is fish food of week one. So it's for example a high adventure of its own to fight against light-armed Afghan mujaheddin whose war experience is often equal to their age minus six... ^^

[Vindekarr]

And besides that, the specified rifle, if Im thinking of the same M14, is not a bad rifle for long range shooting. I really do think that whatever equipment you have is, up to a point, useless compared to experience. an M14 CAN kill you, any gun with a metal round can, its just a matter of the skill of the man or woman wielding it. Because if they're a veteran sharpshooter with an accurate and deadly military firearm like the M14, then the rookie would be mincemeat, it would just be a matter of ambushing.

[Vagrant0]

And more to the point, a veteran would be more experienced in dealing with a combat situation, so would not only be less likely to piss himself the moment fighting actually broke out, but would also be able to make use of features in the terrain to overcome any system. Furthermore, the veteran would probably have been fully debriefed on the system being used by the rookie, may have even used it himself, and would therefore have some idea of how to disable most, if not all of its advantages. The more technology someone has, the more reliant that person becomes on it, the easier it is to undermine both the technology and the user. Most imaging devices tend to be rather useless in smoke or fog. Most electronic components are sensitive to extremes of vibration, shock, or moisture. Meaning that something as simple as lighting part of the area ablaze, or rigging a flashbang trap could make even more advanced systems little more than dead weight.

[Vindekarr]

If the veteran was sneaky enough, he could take the rookie out with a stick to the head.

 

But yes, no amount of armor, scanning equiment, and so forth is better than experience. All machines have a weakness. For example, SWORDS, a self driving, self operating combat robot can hunt and kill targets with extreme proficiency, and wield a wide variety of extremely lethal high tech weaponry... ...but if someone was to push SWORDS over onto its side, because SWORDS doesnt have arms, it would be rendered utterly helpless, super ultra high tech deathbot or not.

 

Nothing is infallible, usualy the more hightech something is the greater its weaknesses. My mother always said that every advantage caused an equal and opposite malfunction. And in my experience thats usualy true.

 

I also just saw your comment VIleTouch, you might find this link interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton

 

Its VERY crysis. In particular, they're looking at fibres that contract when exposed to electrical current. I might post a debate on robots/Asimov later, but basicaly nanofibres like thats are impact resistant carbon fibre like substances, that when given an apropriate electrical jolt, clench, which is exactly how our muscles work.

 

The brain sends out an electrical impulse along the nerves, this reaches the muscle, a clump of biological fibres, which clenches, along with several others to produce the desired motion.

[Surenas]

In war the chief incalculable is the human will.

_ E. H. Liddell Hart

 

Should be clear that a rookie (suicide activists are an exception) usually has no own will except one:

 

To reverse and to run away in the terror of battle, offering his back, a tempting mark for the spear from behind.

_ Tyrtaios 11.17-18

 

The skin of the coward changes colour one way and another

and the heart inside him has no control to make him sit steady,

but he shifts his weight from one foot to another, then settles firmly

on both feet, and the heart inside his chest pounds violent

as he thinks of the death spirits, and his teeth chatter together.

_ Homer, Iliad 13.279-83

 

Not to have been a coward in the past, to be still alive, that's one of the criteria that makes out a veteran.

A certain weapon might be a fetish at the homefront, but that's absolutely no guarantee for survival at war.

 

 

Take your protein pills, boys

http://www.abload.de/img/anne9hol.gif

[Vagrant0]

Not to have been a coward in the past, to be still alive, that's one of the criteria that makes out a veteran.

A certain weapon might be a fetish at the homefront, but that's absolutely no guarantee for survival at war.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying since you have a habit of never talking straigh; but I'm tempted to think that the suggestion that in order to be a veteran you need to still be alive, and usually by means of running away, is an insult to anyone who is in the armed forces. They did not remain alive because of cowardice, they remained alive because they went though the best military training in the world, and made it through a tour without being killed in the service of their country. To even suggest that some of the soldiers out there are not able to keep their head together in a fight is an insult. A soldier, even a green one, does not run away or allow fear to take control of them. There is a huge difference in both the mentality and ability between some bronze-age conscript given no training, and armed with whatever was on hand, and a soldier who was trained for battle and armed with weapons that they are experienced and proficient at using.

[SilverDNA]

Not to have been a coward in the past, to be still alive, that's one of the criteria that makes out a veteran.

A certain weapon might be a fetish at the homefront, but that's absolutely no guarantee for survival at war.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying since you have a habit of never talking straigh; but I'm tempted to think that the suggestion that in order to be a veteran you need to still be alive, and usually by means of running away, is an insult to anyone who is in the armed forces. They did not remain alive because of cowardice, they remained alive because they went though the best military training in the world, and made it through a tour without being killed in the service of their country. To even suggest that some of the soldiers out there are not able to keep their head together in a fight is an insult. A soldier, even a green one, does not run away or allow fear to take control of them. There is a huge difference in both the mentality and ability between some bronze-age conscript given no training, and armed with whatever was on hand, and a soldier who was trained for battle and armed with weapons that they are experienced and proficient at using.

 

I think she's meaning that you can make the experience of death only once but the experience of battle can be made again by an orderly retreat.

It is acceptable to retreat to fight again tomorrow. And in gaining thus experience form battle. It is the way survivors or wounded of a battle may come again to the fight.

Edited July 30, 2010 by SilverDNA

[Surenas]

Personal habits are open to debate elsewhere, as you might remember, Vagrant0

 

Thus I'm surprised, thought it would be an easy-to-understand message; however, I'll offer the reverse:

Cowardice of rookies in battle is one of the typical causes of their death aready in the baptism of fire.

 

NB The greatest losses in battle those units have to face that are on the run.

 

All this is e.g. clearly stated by all ancient tacticians (two of them I've quoted), who btw had a life long war experience. To reject their fundamental knowledge for modern military history by means of whatever, especially if one has no own combat experience at all, is thus not to be taken seriously; actually it's a bad joke.

 

So, if I'd have to choose with whom I have to share a fresh shell-hole I'd always vote for a veteran. A rookie is a heavy, often deadly load.

 

 

Take your protein pills, boys

http://www.abload.de/img/anne9hol.gif

[Aurielius]

A "life long war experience" implies that you are a veteran of many conflicts, I am aware of your dual citizenship Surenas but are you not currently residing in Holland? The Dutch have not been at war since 1940 and it must be difficult to conduct middle eastern operations from such a removed distance.

Having fought three wars I still would hesitate to advance my credentials to that level. The point of service is to get home alive, sometimes that means knowing when to run and when to stand and fight. A veteran is someone who knows the difference. There have been times when I knew that it was time "to get the hell out of Dodge " before I ended up in tiny pieces.