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[TacticalHotdog]

Do they still make bazookas?

If by Bazooka, you mean hand held recoilless rifle, then yes. The most popular one in service with many countries is the Carl Gustaf. Though the original version of it was put into service with the Swedish Army in 1948, it's been constantly updated throughout the decades with lighter materials and better optics.

Since it's been around for so many years, a large amount of ammo types have been developed for it. Aside from your standard High Exposive Anti-Tank rounds, you have Smoke, Illumination, Airburst, Flechette, Tandem Charge, Anti-Structure, and HE-DP rounds. Since the ammunition is also being constantly updated, it's not going to be considered obsolete anytime soon. In fact, the US Army just standardized it a few years ago

 

[Thug Waffle]

If you have the engine to move like in the shows then you can make tanks/ spaceship that will just zip around them.

you'd just have both...

 

[CyclopsRock]

Whilst aircraft carriers have weaknesses, they remain the only way to project power effectively in places where you don't have a runway nearby. Technically Typhoons could just about launch an attack on (a hypothetically invaded) Falklands from Ascension, but literally just enough to go there, drop their shit and bounce. That means no close air support, no ground attack, no helicopter evac or deployment, not much flexibility after a mission has launched. And even this would require you to get a lot of assets over to Ascension. Ok, so this is a bit of an edge case, but it's not exactly one without precedence: The fact of the matter is that the UK would not have retaken the Falklands without aircraft carriers (and even with them it was a close run thing).

 

[katsubento]

Do revolvers fit into this discussion at all? Their load method and propensity to misfire way more often than self-loaded weapons makes them sound obsolete.

Revolvers are generally way more reliable than any automatic.

 

[MikeOfAllTrades]

Any issues with any semi autos you've had are likely also due to bad ammo. Unless you've exclusively shot garbage guns (like Taurus or ring of fire manufacturer guns), the "revolvers are 10000000 times more reliable than any of those fandangled youropeein' auto loaders!" gat fact is extremely high on the bullshit rating. That's the kind of Fudd lore that needs to hurry up and die already, 1900, when it was not a total nonsense statement, was a century ago.

Way to unnecessarily escalate that. I'm just saying, have had jams in Glocks and 1911s with good quality target ammo, but a revolver will happily eat snake shot. Not saying I'd go to war with one.

 

[Seductivpancakes]

Pretty sure the colonial marines still use sharp sticks.

 

[redcrayon]

Pretty sure the colonial marines still use sharp sticks.

And harsh language.

 

[KDR_11k]

There are often attempts to declare a weapon system obsolete because in theory it's not needed and some doctrine change could make up for its loss (see e.g. the attempt to replace MBTs with the mobile gun system, a much lighter vehicle with the same firepower). But that tends to go wrong. Look at e.g. designers declaring that fighter jets don't need guns anymore because missiles are so awesome. Yet in practice the air forces ended up sticking external gun pods onto planes that don't come with internal guns and gun systems are still part of the latest fighters (even if some won't get gun functionality patched into their software until years after release...).

Battleships got obsoleted because they got torn up by air and sub attacks, not because someone said that on paper they're not needed.

I'm still holding hope for railgun Battleships

Battleship is a size descriptor, modern warships simply aren't that large anymore (or the size limits have increased?). Even cruisers are a rarity, the largest combat ships most countries operate nowadays are destroyers. Even with useful railgun and laser weapons we'd see those placed on destroyers instead of battleships. I suppose one part is that we shoot more accurately now and no longer need like 20 barrels to spray enough shells to maybe hit something and another is that modern weapons are so powerful that armor on a ship isn't really worth it anymore.

 

[kmfdmpig]

There are often attempts to declare a weapon system obsolete because in theory it's not needed and some doctrine change could make up for its loss (see e.g. the attempt to replace MBTs with the mobile gun system, a much lighter vehicle with the same firepower). But that tends to go wrong. Look at e.g. designers declaring that fighter jets don't need guns anymore because missiles are so awesome. Yet in practice the air forces ended up sticking external gun pods onto planes that don't come with internal guns and gun systems are still part of the latest fighters (even if some won't get gun functionality patched into their software until years after release...).

Battleships got obsoleted because they got torn up by air and sub attacks, not because someone said that on paper they're not needed.



Battleship is a size descriptor, modern warships simply aren't that large anymore (or the size limits have increased?). Even cruisers are a rarity, the largest combat ships most countries operate nowadays are destroyers. Even with useful railgun and laser weapons we'd see those placed on destroyers instead of battleships. I suppose one part is that we shoot more accurately now and no longer need like 20 barrels to spray enough shells to maybe hit something and another is that modern weapons are so powerful that armor on a ship isn't really worth it anymore.

In WW2 a USN light cruiser weighed a bit more than the DDG-51 ships do now and a bit less than the DD-21 ships, so modern destroyers are roughly the same size as the smaller cruisers from WW2. Large cruisers from WWII, however, were quite a bit bigger (roughly 3 times).

 

[Kin5290]

Well, the thing with the US and tanks currently, IIRC, isn't that the tank is useless as a weapon of modern warfare. Rather it's that the US is continually buying tanks that are redundant when it has thousands just already sitting there waiting to be used. The Daily Show dug into this a wild back - as in, when Jon Stewart was still hosting, so may be out of date - and it was basically the case that Senators for States that have tank manufacturing refuse to let the military not order and buy those tanks, as it would otherwise kill the jobs of the manufacturers.

As an actual answer to the topic question, the cannon. Strictly speaking you could still use one, but it's been thoroughly superseded by modern artillery and aerial capabilities. The ability to be able to aim and effectively hit a target at more than three miles away - whether because of sheer range or not having to deal with the horizon - is a plus.

The reason why the military industrial complex continues to make tanks that the US Army does not need is not because of politics, or pork (although the politically important jobs are a nice fringe benefit), but because if the manufacturing lines that produce Abrams are repurposed it would be extremely difficult to restart Abrams production should the Army need it. The manufacturing lines would be retooled to produce other things, and the institutional knowledge lost. It's not like Command and Conquer where one factory can make any number of military vehicles on the fly.

Revolvers are generally way more reliable than any automatic.

If you're a novice who has no idea how to care for your guns, maybe. That's a largely nonsense statement with modern pistols.

 

[Strain]

Strategic bombers to some degree, since carpet bombing isn't really a thing anymore. Granted they can carry more precision bombs than smaller planes.