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Robert A Mosher (he/him)'s avatar

Okay, as often happens the Maginot story generates confusion, but it does remain relevant to the conversation. The complete concept was to build the Maginot line fortifications which could then be manned by fewer troops than would have been required if there were no such fortifications. The manpower thus saved would be combined with the field armies that would then fight in the traditional invasion areas as the Germans came (as expected) through Belgium and Holland (and Luxembourg). The problem was that having spent so much money on the Maginot Line fortifications and faced with a depression, the French governments of the day failed to create the field armies and given them the numbers and capabilities that would be necessary to fight the invading German armies in the open. Additionally, much of the French High Command (veterans of the 'victorious' French armies of the Great War, calculated that the next war would be pretty much like the last war - especially the 1918 part - so that's what they trained, equipped, and practiced for. Not all of the French missed the signs about modern mechanized warfare and Charles DeGaulle even wrote a pretty good book about how mechanized armies would be equipped and how they would fight. "Hurrying" Heinz Guderian would even read that book, which was widely printed and sold in Germany, before he sat down to write his own book and eventually German army doctrine for mechanized warfare. So Guderian in 1940 is commanding a Corps while DeGaulle will only get to command a newly formed, incompletely equipped light armored division late in the campaign.

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David Garvey's avatar

I suggest that Golden Dome is Lockheed's consolation prize for what Elon wants to do their current Golden Goose of F-35 that has been laying shareholder dividends for 19 years since the F-35A first flight. Boeing got their consolation prize(s), LM gets theirs. Fairness (spreading the largesse). The physics hasn't changed much since the 80s. That's 1680's, Isaac Newton, but certainly the 1980's produced a mountain of https://fas.org/ articles showing the math, physics, and cost of BMD. Your statement of the game theory logic is impeccable as usual. And as this admin hasn't produced an original idea yet, sure, use Ron's masterpiece. Ron had Caspar Weinberger, Don has..... Major Warrior Ethos.

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