[HN Gopher] Global Firepower Index
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       Global Firepower Index
        
       Author : smartmic
       Score  : 12 points
       Date   : 2024-04-16 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.globalfirepower.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.globalfirepower.com)
        
       | WesleyLivesay wrote:
       | I feel like there is one more level of detail that is needed in
       | many categories of "firepower" and that is the relative age of
       | the platforms. The groupings are just a bit too high level with
       | something like "tanks" or "fighter aircraft" not really being
       | sufficient for any kind of understanding of capabilities. Even if
       | the deeper numbers were even more estimations for some nations,
       | it would still make this more useful.
        
       | zorlack wrote:
       | I hope the advertising revenue is meaningful, because boy does it
       | detract from the user experience.
        
         | yaseer wrote:
         | Unfortunately the advertising was so awful I just navigated
         | away.
         | 
         | This site was close to spam on a mobile device.
        
       | nozzlegear wrote:
       | The data here is somewhat interesting if you're curious about
       | where a country might stack up outside of the three usual
       | suspects at the top. But I question how some of the data is
       | ranked and weighted. For example, I randomly clicked on `United
       | States vs Iran` under flashpoints. One would expect the United
       | States to dominate Iran in all of the categories, given the US is
       | the world's military mac daddy. Not so, though.
       | 
       | According to this page, Iran bests the US in the following
       | categories:
       | 
       | 1. Manpower. I guess because Iran has 220k "paramilitary forces"
       | and the US has 0.
       | 
       | 2. Financials. This is the really bizarre one. Iran wins because
       | it has less external debt than the US. Which, okay. I don't think
       | ignoring the US economy (or any country's economy) is the best
       | way to compare financials.
       | 
       | 3. Geography. Iran wins because it has less coastline and less
       | shared borders. I thought this would be more of a "we know the
       | land" kind of thing but it's just a measurement of raw
       | kilometers.
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _Iran wins because it has less coastline and less shared
         | borders. I thought this would be more of a "we know the land"
         | kind of thing but it's just a measurement of raw kilometers_
         | 
         | Yeah, the lack of consideration of strategic depth makes this
         | approximately useless as an index. (But great as a data
         | source.)
        
       | while_true_ wrote:
       | Russia, #2? Not buying that, not after Russia's poor performance
       | in Ukraine and the large losses they took in personnel and
       | equipment.
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-16 23:02 UTC)