Is "military tech is 10 years more advanced than what they show the public" just a psy-op? - No major power wants the public to think they're falling behind.

[Penis Drager]

When discussing the military capabilities of the world's superpowers (ei. US, Russia, and China), someone almost inevitably is going to repeat the line nearly verbatim. We take it as axiom that X ,Y, or Z nation is capable of shit well beyond what we are told. It's also something of a cop-out so no party in the discussion has to make any concessions in the "who would win in a fight?" debate.
To that latter point: It's awfully convenient how this talking point can be used to pretty much handwave away a competing nation unveiling weaponry that we don't have.
What if it's all just bullshit and we're basically fielding everything we have available?

 

[Knight of the Rope]

It is.

And while we're on the subject, "academia/cutting-edge research is always decades ahead of what the public sees!" is also bullshit, for the same reasons.

 

[CAPTAIN HAPPY]

The military already has secret robot waifus.

 

[Grub]

I think it used to be true before corporations became more advanced and capable than governments. These days no.

 

[Penis Drager]

It is.

And while we're on the subject, "academia/cutting-edge research is always decades ahead of what the public sees!" is also bullshit, for the same reasons.

Now I don't doubt research is going into some futury stuff and they're being a bit coy about how close they are to making some of this shit fieldable. There's secret projects going on. The military isn't going to outright say "we're working on teleporters, it's going pretty shitty so far but some progress is being made" just as "cutting edge science" is being done in the R&D departments of various companies which they aren't disclosing for fear of someone beating them to the punch.
But at this point, based on all the clickbait articles about how we've made some huge leap in some field you can find fucking everywhere, it seems everyone just blows their load and show cases the damn thing the moment they have a halfway presentable proof of concept.

 

[Knight of the Rope]

Now I don't doubt research is going into some futury stuff and they're being a bit coy about how close they are to making some of this shit fieldable.

Prepare for disappointment would be my advice, friend.

But at this point, based on all the clickbait articles about how we've made some huge leap in some field you can find fucking everywhere, it seems everyone just blows their load and show cases the damn thing the moment they have a halfway presentable proof of concept.

They kind of have to. You aren't going to get grant money (or, for the private-sector version, an allocated project budget) unless you're absolutely upfront about what it is that you're trying to achieve and there's consistent, trackable progress towards milestones. There is no "decades ahead" shit going on at all anywhere, to be honest. If you want to know what the current state of some specific technology is you can make a pretty educated guess just by Googling for patents or research papers about the technology, seeing what comes up, and then extrapolating maybe a year out, absolute tops.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

It could be true for agencies like the NSA. For example, a GCHQ researcher described a similar algorithm to RSA a few years before the RSA researchers published it. Will the NSA get a quantum computer a few years before everyone else and start breaking lots of encryption? They want to. We know they have been throwing funding at it for some time. They are also hoarding and using software vulnerabilities up to years before they become "zero-days".

For real hardware and weapons, it's hard to say. There are visible huge failures like the F-35, and mostly invisible successes like the X-37. Is the US behind or ahead of other countries in hypersonic missiles? Russia supposedly used one in Ukraine, but the US had a secret test in March. The first-generation hypersonic technologies are shittier and may be worth skipping for better designs.

AREA 51 LMAO

 

[Penis Drager]

Prepare for disappointment would be my advice, friend.

On the military end: you're probably right. Any "secret" project only stays a secret for as long as it takes for them to make something resembling progress.
I mean what actually got me thinking about this was having a chat about hypersonic missiles. While the US invested tons of money in shit to counter missiles like the Iron Dome, Russia and China responded by making missiles that effectively can't be shot down. Our response was to start making our own hypersonic missiles which we still (publicly) are unable to produce. Someone said the magic words this thread is about and the conversation basically ended. Yet if we did have this sort of shit, why would we be dumping money in R&D to Lockheed and Dynetics and showcasing our failures and having the Airforce outright drop out of the program and all this other shit that ostensibly screams "WE DON'T HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!"?
Perhaps we just don't have the technology and they do because we were focusing on one thing and they were focusing on its counter.

On the private sector: I'm not talking about university projects and shit like that. Every major company has an R&D department with salaried employees tasked with creating "the next big thing." They have no need for grants and are under NDA. They have a vested interest in keeping their research under wraps until they are certain enough that the shit works in principle to shell out the money for a patent.

If you want to know what the current state of some specific technology is you can make a pretty educated guess just by Googling for patents or research papers about the technology, seeing what comes up, and then extrapolating maybe a year out, absolute tops.

Yeah, A year is probably a good estimate. Less optimistically: fiscal quarter.

 

[Knight of the Rope]

They have no need for grants and are under NDA.

But they still have a need for funding/resources. The NDA doesn't really have anything to do with it.

They have a vested interest in keeping their research under wraps until they are certain enough that the shit works in principle to shell out the money for a patent.

I argue the opposite, actually. Patents are cheap for the kind of company that can even afford R&D. The absolute first thing you'd get (before even allocating a project budget or research personnel) would be a 'big-picture' patent to secure your right to the idea, and then (to encourage further investment) you're going to be showing off all of this fancy schmancy new technology that you're spending precious money and time developing, at every chance you can get. There really isn't all that much difference between academia and private industry in terms of structure (where they differ is incentives, efficiency and competence).

 

[Retink]

It's probably a mix of both. There's probably shit we're not fielding not because it's top secret but because it's still in various stages of development but could be rushed out if shit hits the fan with enough of a success rate that it's worth the risk. The stuff you see being used/promoted is probably what we have in mass production and is actually known to work.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Let's add some stakes to this. Sufficiently advanced missile defense technology could kill MAD doctrine and allow more skirmishes between major powers. I believe that's a plot point in the Enderverse books. But missile defense (against ICBMs) has been considered crap for a long time... is it?

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/02/no-us-missile-defense-system-proven-capable-against-realistic-icbm-threats-study/

 

[Pixy]

And while we're on the subject, "academia/cutting-edge research is always decades ahead of what the public sees!" is also bullshit, for the same reasons.

Not necessarily. Taking a new medical treatment developed in academia and bringing it to the commercial market can take around a decade as it gets tested to determine if it's a viable treatment, then patented, afterwards put through R&D, then increasing degrees of medical trials before receiving approval. That's an overly simplified representation of the process.

Of course, the most prominent exception to the rule are the Covid vaccines, which have received preferential treatment from governments and health authorities, being expedited.

A good number of bleeding edge treatments may be halted at the first step.

 

[Penis Drager]

But they still have a need for funding/resources. The NDA doesn't really have anything to do with it.

Those in R&D petition headquarters for funding. The costs of funding these activities typically comes from "bread and butter" business dealings. Let's say a company makes plastic components and enclosures. They make decent profit doing pretty much just that. R&D may be tasked with the goal of making their plastic cheaper while maintaining the same quality. When is the best time to make this public?
Obviously, such a vague goal as "a material that does everything current materials can do but cheaper" is not something you could patent. So R&D quietly looks into various cost-saving measures while the company is basically business as usual. Quarterly reports will reflect an increase in R&D spending and the most savvy of investors will suspect something big around the corner. They just won't know what.
The company won't actually go about patenting the new process until they have something resembling a proof of concept.

Not necessarily. Taking a new medical treatment developed in academia and bringing it to the commercial market can take around a decade as it gets tested to determine if it's a viable treatment, then patented, afterwards put through R&D, then increasing degrees of medical trials before receiving approval. That's an overly simplified representation of the process.

Of course, the most prominent exception to the rule are the Covid vaccines, which have received preferential treatment from governments and health authorities, being expedited.

A good number of bleeding edge treatments may be halted at the first step.

This guy has a good point too. But all of that shit's public.
see:

Children with deadly immune disorders remain healthy a decade after being treated with gene therapy​

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

I'd say it's a mixed bag in some areas they are a decade or more ahead of civilian use but even then it's only available in limmited quantities and it's likely not to be used in the field assuming it's something like advanced radio tech, night vision, etc and it's use if it's something like super computers or alike technology has to be used intelligently like in WW2 when we cracked Enigma we couldnt let the Nazi's know we cracked it by hunting down every sub and diverting every convoy but used it to mitigate risks and use it to prioritise the safety of certain cargos.

One thing I will say is it's interesting that there are certain areas looking backwards in history to avoid some of the issues encountered by relying soaly on advanced technology, even as a backup meathod or augmenting old tech with new.

 

[CryoRevival #SJ-112]

The Space Military Industrial Complex is a term for a reason. Its all about pork barrelling and there is a giant ecosystem of propaganda to protect it.

For some light hearted chuckles on why this is, please see the shitpost videos below, they are hilarious and contain a few rare kernels of wisdom on why everything you believe about military technology is wrong what they want you to believe.

Honestly I just want to flog this channel, every video is a gem.

But they're also not quite as stupid as you would be lead to think by some:

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

The Space Military Industrial Complex is a term for a reason. Its all about pork barrelling and there is a giant ecosystem of propaganda to protect it.

For some light hearted chuckles on why this is, please see the shitpost videos below, they are hilarious and contain a few rare kernels of wisdom on why everything you believe about military technology is wrong what they want you to believe.

Honestly I just want to flog this channel, every video is a gem.

But they're also not quite as stupid as you would be lead to think by some:

LaserPig is fucking awesome.

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

I'm going to repeat the point most other posters made: it's a mixed bag. Look no further than the famous SR-71 Blackbird: an insanely sophisitcated, marvelous feat of engineering that hadn't been surpassed ever since in many respects. It's also a bag of janky shit: it needed two external starter engines and the fuselage panels had gaps between them by design because they thermally expanded into shape in flight.

The same probably applies to the Russian military tech you asked about: the T-14 Armata gave NATO observers many sleepless nights, though for no reason. Russia doesn't have the capability to manufacture its more sophisticated components - targeting, night vision, other advanced electronics - domestically; in fact even they can't even manufacture targeting systems for their current and older generation armour either. Those were all sourced from Ukraine of all places. Same goes for their hypersonic missiles - most analysis I've read on it debates its effectiveness. While Russia publicized its usage it hadn't been proven it was used many times, and suspicion is its best documented launch was against a burned out farm in the middle of nowhere.

The decoy missiles used in the 9K720 Iskander missile system are much more of a concern - cheap, plentiful, readily deployable without requiring years of iteration to fix any issues, and most importantly, proven to be effective.

TL;DR military tech being ahead of consumer tech by 10, 20, or even 50 years doesn't necessarily mean anything if you can't actually apply and field it.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

SR-71 Blackbird: an insanely sophisitcated, marvelous feat of engineering that hadn't been surpassed ever since in many respects. It's also a bag of janky shit: it needed two external starter engines and the fuselage panels had gaps between them by design because they thermally expanded into shape in flight.

It's rumoured that it was still mostly a prototype / experimental airframe that was pressed into production when the U2 Platform became vulnerable to Soviet Air defence but it proved to be good enough and provided a test bed for other tech that has since gone on to become more mainstream.

The same probably applies to the Russian military tech you asked about: the T-14 Armata gave NATO observers many sleepless nights, though for no reason. Russia doesn't have the capability to manufacture its more sophisticated components - targeting, night vision, other advanced electronics - domestically; in fact even they can't even manufacture targeting systems for their current and older generation armour either. Those were all sourced from Ukraine of all places. Same goes for their hypersonic missiles - most analysis I've read on it debates its effectiveness. While Russia publicized its usage it hadn't been proven it was used many times, and suspicion is its best documented launch was against a burned out farm in the middle of nowhere.

Every Military has some showcase tech but Russia suffers from this more than most, they have a good idea or see one and iterate on it but there domestic tech base is lacking seriously in more modern production tech and material science which is odd when you consider the natural resources they are sitting on.

Russia has some problems with technology that are more cultural as well, they have the legacy of communism that gave them a no frills attitude to development, and they industrialised late (in comparison to other nations in the Western / European world) this is because the smart people learned to not stick there head above the parepti and make waves unless they are sure it will work.

There is also a weird knowledge culture as well for example you might be a baker working in a factory but have a interest in electronics so you go to your libary to try and learn more the books are basic you learn what you can and try to get more but people get suspicious and you garner unwanted official attention etc. That's what used to happen in the USSR and even with 30 years of that not being a thing that culture is still there to a greater or lesser extent.

There is also the harsh business culture in Russia where Neoptisim and Crimminal connections talk louder than talent and skill and if you work hard on something you've created and take it to market it's not just the government wanting it's slice of the pie it's the criminal gangs wanting some too.

I'd say most of Russia's problems are cultural at this point and are compounded by technical and scientific restrictions they haven't addressed and wont until they get a grip on there cultural problems.

 

[CryoRevival #SJ-112]

Great example of US military nepotism in R&D.

 

[mate]

10 years is probably the plan, but how often do things go to plan? The F-117 entered service in '83 and was declassified in 1990. That's 7 years of secret use. The U-2 entered service in '56, was declassified (accidentally) 4 years later when one was captured. Nowadays with both the technology to leak and the inclination to leak being commonplace it'll be a very difficult trick to keep stuff secret for 10 years.