[HN Gopher] DARPA Completes Underminer Program: New tactical tun...
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       DARPA Completes Underminer Program: New tactical tunneling
       technologies
        
       Author : DocFeind
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2022-04-01 22:27 UTC (32 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.darpa.mil)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.darpa.mil)
        
       | wolverine876 wrote:
       | Asymmetric combatants, including in Vietnam and Gaza, have long
       | used tunnels. I think they were popular in medieval siege warfare
       | (is that right?).
       | 
       | I wonder why advanced militaries don't appear to use them: They
       | have access to technology far superior to asymmetric groups and I
       | would guess that allows much faster tunneling. Maybe it's almost
       | always better ROI to do the same thing via the air - e.g.,
       | distribute supplies via airdrop.
        
         | leereeves wrote:
         | > I think they were popular in medieval siege warfare (is that
         | right?).
         | 
         | Yeah, in fact the term "undermine" comes from their use in
         | siege warfare. Miners (now called "sappers" in French and
         | English) would try to dig under enemy walls to collapse the
         | walls, and the defenders would dig their own tunnels to try to
         | stop the sappers.
         | 
         | And sappers still exist in advanced militaries.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapper
        
       | zkms wrote:
       | This is really interesting; is there somewhere with more detail
       | on the work completed under this program?
        
       | swader999 wrote:
       | There's some rabbit holes to go down with this one.
        
         | sassy_quat wrote:
         | First there's AirLand Battle, then there's AirLandSea Battle,
         | now there is AirLandSeaSpaceUnderground Battle?
         | 
         | I'm not certain about how military strategy is improving with
         | technology.
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-01 23:00 UTC)