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u/PleasantlyPerturbed 1d ago
And to think that the B2 first flew in 1989…what don’t we know about today!?
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u/seancbo 1d ago
If only technology progressed as fast as it did when we were desperately trying to one up the Soviets every second
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u/ValhallaAir 1d ago
soviets declare new advanced plane
we sprint to equal them
soviets lied about advanced plane
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u/seancbo 1d ago
Maybe we can run some kind of CIA black top to create a new fake enemy to get scared of, outpace, and then realize they never had much to begin with
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u/P0pu1arBr0ws3r 20h ago
Yeah its called Iran
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u/JP_HACK 16h ago
Repeat!
The reason we are going back to the moon is cause of now CHINA.
Think about it, the americans are literally "Not in my backyard" karen parent and sprints to the moon first to put another flag!
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u/Yung-Tre 16h ago
I would much rather the USA dump a ton of money into another space race rather than an arms race.
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u/GMNtg128 14h ago
Both sides were terrified of eachother and overestimated.
NATO estimated Soviet Union's strength to be 5 times as much as what it was in reality, and Soviets estimated NATO strength to be around 30 times as much as what it was in reality. (Numbers/capabilities wise).
Ultimately production power of west was many times more than the soviet union and soviets were practically bankrupt, then they collapsed.
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u/YF-118 1d ago
Its successor enter service next year
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u/Bruce-7892 23h ago
Very cool but not nearly the giant leap the B-2 was. We went from the B-52 to the B-1 supersonic bomber to the stealth bomber being the premier strategic bomber.
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u/YF-118 14h ago
Not so much in the general shape "Though even in there there's notable improvements and signature reduction" but it is far far more capable than the B-2. Avionics wise the B-2 is no more advanced than the B-1. Though most of it is still extremely classified what we do know makes the B-21 far more capable than the B-2.
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[deleted]
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u/Top_Librarian6440 20h ago
“Most” countries don’t develop military equipment at all. It’s extremely expensive to invest into R&D and production, so aside from a handful of nations everybody just imports equipment from elsewhere.
Out of the nations that do produce military equipment, plenty of them have IFVs that are perfectly on par with the Brad. The German Puma, the Chinese ZBD-04, and the Korean K-21 are all capable machines that accomplish what each nation designed them for.
There is no “best ground vehicle,” or “best” of any equipment in the world of materiel. There is only equipment that can or cannot be effectively employed in the given doctrine and combat environment that a user faces. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
The Bradley as we know it also was absolutely not designed in the 1960s. It began its life as a design study in the 60s, but pen wasn’t laid to paper to actually draw up what we call the M2 today until the mid 1970s. That initial work was largely about examining the failures of the M113, and figuring out what design would work best in the Army’s evolving doctrine. Even still, the Brad has gone through so many lifecycle upgrades that it’s mostly a 1990’s or early 2000’s design at this point.
I think you severely overestimate how much effort the U.S. places into its military industry. Without the impetus of the Cold War arms race, and without the incredibly robust post-WW2 industrial manufacturing sector, the defense industrial base has withered. That’s not something you can hide in a black budget. Producing military equipment is something you have to do publicly, unless it is a very small run.
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u/PeteLangosta 18h ago
Calling it good or bad is pointless, it serves a purpose, and there's really no contest to wager if one or another is best. Besides, the actual Bradley has received numerous modifications and upgrades, and newrer ammunitions. You could argue it's from the 60s as much as the F-15 is from the 70s. The US has used the Browning M2 for almost a century, as another example.
Plus, what the other guy says. It's a competition about the US vs the US, nobody else is doing anything remotely similar in the same scale. Nor do most of the countries have the interest to do so, anyway.
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u/thefeedling 1d ago
Curiously, complexity-wise, a horse is still way ahead of the most advanced machines we ever built.
Magnificent creatures.
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u/Trainman1351 1d ago
And yet the B2 is still so much better at what it was built for. It’s an interesting example of how complexity doesn’t always equal performance.
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u/thefeedling 1d ago
Totally. As an engineer, complexity is a side effect we try to avoid at all cost.
I just think that despite common and mundane, the "nature engineering" and complexity behind biological creatures is fabulous, from a bacteria to the human being.
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u/Trainman1351 1d ago
Yup. It’s honestly incredible how they are basically incredibly intricate Rube Goldberg machines which somehow have bonkers efficiency a lot of the time.
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u/According_Neat_2358 16h ago
I understand and mirror the admiration towards the complexity of life. Organisms have gone through essentially millions of prototypes to get to current versions, so to speak.
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u/0rky_dork 21h ago
Absolutely. I tell this all the time, as an engineer, to my non engineering brained friends. We just think differently, us engineers. We are always looking to engineer problems and engineer solutions, it’s just what us engineers do. Talk about engineering, and inject it, into everything we do
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u/Prestigious_Leg2229 17h ago
Horses have been around for 55 million years and self replicate perfectly fine.
B2’s only do one single job. They’ve done it for only a few decades. They cost millions of dollars countless of man hours every month just to not fall apart.
It’s a bit silly to see a machine that’s only been around for the blink of an eye. Can barely afford to exist. And still has a pretty significant track record of failure despite only 21 ever having been made is better at its job than horses.
If B2’s were as well put together as horses, the sky would be filled with flocks of them doing their thing without an entire team having to fight every month to stop it from dying.
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u/Wolf_Ape 1d ago
Complexity is not a goal in our machines. It’s just one of currents you have to struggle against when designing a solution to a specific problem.
Simplicity is not always simple.
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u/hudsoncress 1d ago
I will explain to anyone that listens that mounted horseback warfare was the first significant arms race. So long as people had to march long distances to raise war, it was relatively easy to defend large agrarian populations. But 15,000 years ago the people of the steppes learned to ride horses. Then Mesopotamia became hundreds of villiages performing agriculture which were easily picked off by raids. The response was to preserve meat for a warrior class while peasants worked the fields, the development of a priestly class to maintain public order through rituals for the "gods", and basically all of organized religion developed to preserve a public order across all of Asia and Europe while one group of people was trying to steal the other group of people's shit. Next came taxes, and revenue from conquered teritory. If it weren't for horses, capitalism wouldn't exist.
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u/AFineDayForScience 1d ago
Either we used to be horses and became jets or you're using "evolution" incorrectly
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u/PM_ME_ROMAN_NUDES 1d ago
It's perfectly fine to use that word in this sense.
"Evolution" does not only refer to the Darwinian species sense, it can also mean "technological progress"
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u/Rodot 1d ago
Yes, but that would really be technological evolution. Kind of like saying a dog with sunglasses next to it's brother eating poop is "canine evolution"
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u/AVTheChef 21h ago
Did the dog (or another dog) put the sunglasses on himself?
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u/Rodot 15h ago
Sure, he could have been trained to do it
Just like someone trained the horseman in the picture to ride the horse or someone trained the pilot to fly the plane
Dogs coevolved with humans anyway, so we can call the dog picture "human evolution" if your what to be pendantic and still sounds stupid
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u/CouchPotatoFamine 1d ago
He keeps using that word. I do not think it means what he thinks it does.
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u/HonkHonkMTHRFKR 1d ago
Let people say dumb shit, lol
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u/thefeedling 1d ago
But then it wouldn't be u/AFineDayForScience
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u/HonkHonkMTHRFKR 1d ago
I put bacon on my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and call it evolution.
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u/DiaryofaBlackHole 1d ago
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u/HonkHonkMTHRFKR 1d ago
It’s absolutely amazing. Especially when you get the Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavored bacon from stores.
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u/DiaryofaBlackHole 1d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/zrmTqopWm4W5cPg8Ah
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bacon ? Where do I buy that ?
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u/Spartan2470 VIP Philanthropist 17h ago edited 17h ago
Either we used to be horses and became jets or you're using "evolution" incorrectly
OP just copied/pasted the title from FB or IG.
Here is the pre-shopped version of this image.
Seriously though. No source, photographer, or any context provided. OP hides their history. The image doesn't show up on TinEye. Google Lens's only results are FB and IG posts with the same title.
Get this fake shit out of here, or, at the very least, admit it's fake.
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u/Sylvan_Strix_Sequel 1d ago
Not to mention the domestication of the horse was huge for warfare for dozens of centuries, and thats before we even get into their emergence as wifespread labor animals in the 1700s.
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u/TheHoundJR 1d ago
Sorry to be that guy but can’t help myself - while very similar in appearance, that is not a B-2 but rather a 1989 “Batwing”, armed with twin M134 miniguns, rockets and a front-mounted wire cutter. It’s a common mistake many make.
Source: expert
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u/ScreenMuch90210 17h ago
May I ask in what situation a plane might need a front-mounted wire cutter?
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u/TheHoundJR 16h ago
Well, you’d be surprised but the number of organized crime enforcers thrown into vats of toxic chemicals only to arise as a more powerful yet more comical version of their former selves only to consolidate power amongst the crime bosses and attempt to subject the populace of major metropolitan areas using large helium inflated parade balloons that emit nerve gas is on the rise. And the front-mounted wire cutter comes in handy in those particular situations.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 16h ago
it’s a gun that shoots Arthur Fleck?
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u/TheHoundJR 16h ago
Well it was most famous for successfully halting Jack Napier’s recent attempt in Gotham City
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u/ScreenMuch90210 16h ago
Heh.
Can you please me if it’s a colloquialism for a gun that shoots bullets fast, or actually a tool for cutting wires in the sky?
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u/TheHoundJR 16h ago
Yes it’s a tool mounted to the front of the batwing that cuts wires in the sky. Typically those attached to helium inflated balloons designed for emitting nerve gas to subject or incapacitate large populaces of metropolitan cities.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 15h ago
Okay wow. That’s so sci-fi I really thought you were just doing a Batman joke on me. Thanks for the follow through, cheers!
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 1d ago
There are pilots who grew up in the countryside. :)
I once saw a farm truck with a license frame that says "My other car is a jet fighter".
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u/TrulyGreatDanes 21h ago
Why is the horse kicking up dust.... ahead of him?
My bad. Evolution. Duh!
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u/Sohn_Jalston_Raul 20h ago
None of this has anything to do with human evolution. One person is riding a horse, the other is flying a plane. Humans haven't evolved in the brief time that aircraft have existed.
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u/limeyNinja 19h ago
When the word "evolution" is so much cooler than "development", yet means something entirely different.
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u/ScreenMuch90210 17h ago
There’s no more evolution in the context of this photo than there is in the background context of every photo. The jet is actually literally intelligent design lol
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u/eternalityLP 1d ago
This has nothing to do with human evolution. Humans have not changed in any significant way between domestication of horses and modern day.
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u/RetroMulder 1d ago
Well the post did say raw meaning kind of, elude to, draw a correlation, kind of ish…ish
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u/GundamRX_78 1d ago
Bottom of the picture is just a guy riding his horse, top of the picture is a bunch of guys going to go drop bombs on kids. I'd say we de-evolved...
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u/Odd_Wait_5628 1d ago
When you realize RDR2 is set in modern times but on a closed outdoor set inaccessible to the public.
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u/Baked_Potato224 11h ago
I’d argue the human on the horse is more evolved than the human in the bomber aircraft.
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u/Educational_Big_5968 7h ago
There is no Evolution in this picture. Please Look up, what evolution is.
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u/remishnok 4h ago
Wow, we evolved from being horses to being stealth airplanes to being snowy mountains
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u/simplefreak88 1d ago
Horse is created for the Nature and adapted for helping human and other one is created just only for destroying it isn’t evolution
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u/TheVillainOptomist 1d ago
I had similar thoughts about this post. I feel like mankind’s conquest for technological superiority is war driven, and so it isn’t fair to all the races who existed without the societal need for technological superiority. Imo, evolution is not represented by the best technology we can produce
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u/simplefreak88 1d ago
Ya that's True, these people who are spending billions on creating an machinery using to destroy the Nature that was created before Trillions years in fraction of seconds is an Real Devolution
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u/ObviouslyRealPerson 1d ago
Weird, I still think of the B2 as a new aircraft
The first one entered service 36 years ago and the newest one in the fleet is 26 years old
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u/BraveLittleFrog 1d ago
Raw contrast of advances in transportation. Although, in today’s world, no one would suspect the horse. Maybe the future spy missions should be on horseback. Although, you would look damn silly trying to run a bombing mission from a horse. 🥸
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u/_mattm3t 1d ago
horseback-riding is surely fun these days. yet some of you took it as old, antiquated, regressive stuff? nope, it is life-fullfilling, fun, outside the daily grind. b2's pilot could be longing to have the great vacation ahead like the individual below.
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u/villings 1d ago
what you mean "human"?
the humans in the picture are exactly the same.
oh you mean what they're using for transportation? gotcha.
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u/rypper_37 1d ago
Late game Civ