Monday, November 9, 2015

billy owns the night


BILLY OWNES THE NIGHT

Every Billy Bad Ass out there wants to Own The Night, and so night vision equipment is de rigueur.  What chaps my ass about that is the reliance on technology which is just mindlessly parroting what our domestic military has been doing for decades.  High tech for the military is actually a good thing as that is replacing men with machines, the only workplace where that is welcome.  It isn’t sustainable long term of course, in the military or in the civilian workplace, since it is just blindly throwing excess energy at a problem to solve it ( the long history of infrastructure build-up with energy and money behind our high tech is fascinating not in its achievement so much, although that is incredible, but in its obvious fact it can’t ever be duplicated once gone ) and once that energy and wealth declines the military is left with a legacy of dependence and rapidly depleting stockpiles.  The M-16 is a great example of that, the pinnacle of high tech in metal cased ammunition firearms which isn’t being replaced because it can’t be improved ( you can’t get a long arm any lighter, firing any faster or being any more accurate ) so the endless tinkering with “improving” its cartridge gives the bejeweled officers something to play at.  Tactically the arm is a mess, but it is what a high tech military would use so it fits strategically.  Night vision is a huge tactical advantage but strategically is worthless, as it is just an enabler to use other high-tech.

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And in itself does not win wars however many battles it might help settle.  If night vision was so critical it would have won us both Vietnam and Iraq.  Of course, I don’t think even nuclear weapons would have won either of those wars even if they could have been deployed.  Because no matter how fearful a weapon is, they never win wars all by themselves despite wishful thinking otherwise by designers, military brass and politicians.  Even the best weapons only make victory inevitable, but not decisive or immediate.  It took almost four hundred years after HUGE body counts ( up to ninety percent initially ) from biological warfare for the Whites to finally take over the North American continent militarily.  No weapon is as powerful as a successful biologic ( one hopes our Powers That Be are unable to remember or duplicate this feat in our near future ) and even then the Whites needed every other weapon from starvation ( wiping out the buffalo, pushing the indigs out of the fertile east ) to a high tech infrastructure ( railroads, telegraph, mass powder production ) to a higher breeding rate ( immigration from Europe ) all working in perfect sync to finally after long last defeat a primitive warrior culture that had mastered their terrain.  Vietnam and the middle east are just a repeat of our fight with the Indians but we can’t get even one ( high tech ) of many components right in that fight and even with a few more decades of occupation nothing would change.

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In war, it is never about just weapons.  In a single fight, tech will win, but when you are fighting a war it is useless at best and frighteningly expensive and induces dependence of too many scarce inputs at worse.  And surviving after the collapse is a war, make no mistake.  Look past weapons and embrace logistics, terrain, culture-all the non material components of winning.

END

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15 comments:

  1. Interesting comparison between the american indians and VN and Iraq, hadn't seen that done before - maybe I need to get out more?

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    1. Nay, I just once in awhile have a profound moment of clarity.

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  2. Almost every high tech device has a lower tech counter part. Even night vision.
    There was a Mythbusters episode where they checked to see if pirates may have used eye patches to allow for superior night vision sight (in the eye covered over the day). The results were significant - the covered eye allowed nearly as good a pitch black navigation as a night vision camera, and regular light exposed eyes were utterly useless.
    My night vision devices are dark sunglasses during the day...

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    1. Never heard that. Very interesting, thanks

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    2. And all this time I thought they wore them patches just to look cool and get all the best wenches....

      I oughta keel haul ya, ye bilge rat.

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    3. The first guy was trolling for wenches and accidentally discovered the night vision thing. What's Latin for "who got laid"?

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    4. I use a similar trick all the time, except I don't use a eye patch. If you can shut one eye evan for as little as one minute before going out in the dark your night vision is significantly better. I would recommend every one giving it a go. Obviously the longer you can keep one eye shut the better your night vision will be.

      Once out in the dark, guard your night vision as best you can, If a flashlight is needed, once again shut one eye while your using it.

      I'm sure others will have a better understanding on the technicalities of night vision, but its got something to do with cones on rods in your eye. One is responsible for precise vision while the other is for peripheral vision. Basically your peripheral vision is more light sensitive so you can actually seeing things better in the dark if you don't focus directly at what ever your looking at, focus a bit of to one side and suddenly what ever your not looking at stands out a little better. Bit hard for a dyslexic retard redneck like myself to describe but I hope you get the idear. Women have a different proportion to rods and cones in there eyes compared to men which means they are usually better at seeing in the dark and is also why generally more women wear sunglasses than men, because the bright light irates womens eyes more.

      It is a very rare night that is so dark that you cant see at all if you try a few of these tricks.

      Aussie

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  3. Make no mistake, once they perfect the caseless ammo, and the brass gets over the idea of rifles needing batteries, the M-16/M4 will become a museum piece, but I agree, unless you are Delta Force, or something like it, leave the night vision to the rich bitches and spend it on things more useful.

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    1. It seems caseless ammo is kind of the same as fusion power-always just years away from perfection, for decades on end.

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  4. If you had the extra dosh to spend, I think that a NV rifle scope would be a useful advantage in the early days of a shtf situation. But once it breaks, or the batteries fail, it's finished. But by that time the initial advantage that it offered would likely no longer be necessary.

    To foil others using night vision, you can possibly rig up some contraption using either strobes, or the flash bulbs from the old Polaroid cameras. I'm pretty sure that intense light burns out the light amplification tube in these units. At the very least, it's going to temporarily blind the user long enough for you to get away or counter. Distance is probably a big factor in this strategy, so your mileage may vary.

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    1. I might be wrong but I think it was only the first generations on NV that burned out with bright light.

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    2. Could be Jim? But I figure at the very least, it would ruin Billy's perfectly fine day. Or in this case, his evening :D

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    3. Its a cheap fix and even if it doesn't work its something, right?

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  5. Billy Tacti-NV-ThermoCam may own the civilian night, but will not get to keep the fancy toys after his first trip through a checkpoint to get water. Money (or promised money) is not even that useful after a few months of collapse. Having your own (fully-supplied, paid-in-gold) militia units to command is useful, but unlikely. Being stuck in an urban siege situation is much more expensive than "going to visit the camping property" with your pre-packed "weekender trailer".

    FerFal has "the suckage of war" series updated with comments:
    http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2015/10/letters-from-survivors-in-ukraine-part-1.html

    read part 2 and 3 also.

    pdxr13

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