In this article, I would like to review the term "Obsolescence" and its applicability to weapons.
Agree, quite often we hear from different people: "Serdyukov: the Kalashnikov assault rifle is morally obsolete"; "Medvedev: 85% of communications in the army are obsolete …"; "Serdyukov: Kalashnikov and SVD assault rifles are obsolete"; "… I mean that the T-90 is obsolete"; "The ship is obsolete"; "The MiG-31 (even in the BM version) is already obsolete"; "the BMP concept is outdated"; "Can you admit that the BTR-80 (82A-b) is outdated morally, but there are no new vehicles?"; "To date, SAU-2S5, of course, is morally outdated."; and so on and so forth.
So what is this "moral old age"? To begin with, I would like to cite several independent, and, in a sense, unprofessional opinions, so to speak, "the voice of the people":
1) "Not impressive anymore.";
2) "Have come up with more sophisticated types of weapons!)";
3) "some are thinking, others are developing new things!";
4) "The weapon does not hit the armed forces, but destroys the civilian population (for example, in Kosovo, 95% of the bombs were activated by local residents). Now there are" humane "mines, which after 3 days of work turn into a creature harmless to nature and man, even in play football.
It can also be interpreted in the context of the effect, for example, bullets with a displaced center of gravity also incapacitated the fighter, like ordinary ones, but did not deliver so much terrible intolerable pain. Therefore, they were banned from use. ;
5) "Something more" fashionable "has appeared";
6) "the weapon is created for specific tactics. A rifle with a bayonet was created to wage trench warfare and go on the attack, for this, both a long (for accuracy) barrel and a bayonet (for example, a needle), and a powerful cartridge. The concept of combat is changing, the war becomes mobile, long-range bulky weapons are no longer needed, but a compact and fast-firing one is needed. That's what they say - the rifle is morally outdated in modern combat conditions, it survived only in its sniper version, but this weapon is of a different, non-mass class and with characteristics different from the previous rifles. The same can be said about heavy machine guns. ";
7) "Like, a dude with a new Kalash won't even scare you with your slingshot !!!";
8) "It does not make sense to use it in skirmishes with a potential enemy, because he already has more perfect models.";
9) "This is what they all mean!"
Those. this weapon, although it has the ability to fire and, perhaps quite effectively, but there are already samples based on this model (or similar), which have higher rates and characteristics ….
For example, they say the same about computers: you can still work on Pentium 1 or 2 and perform many tasks, the same as on modern computers, but still they are morally outdated because new, more powerful ones have appeared!.
The posts have not been corrected, the information is taken here:
And now, I would like to turn to a more competent source - old Ozhegov:
- Obsolescence (special) obsolescence (technology, equipment) due to the emergence of new, more advanced designs.
- Moral obsolescence (special) is the same as obsolescence, as well as obsolescence (scientific works, research) due to the emergence of new, more progressive research and methods.
Now let's try to figure it out.
Weapons are a means to accomplish certain tasks. It is for them that it is developed, for their solution, it is produced and put into service.
In addition, OShS (organizational and staff structures) of units, formations, associations and formations are drawn up, which must be able to successfully solve their own, particular tasks for the successful implementation of the general one. It is at the stage of compiling the OShS that specific types of weapons are consolidated, and, to a large extent, the prerequisites are created for the successful implementation of their combat capabilities (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat_Effectiveness).
Naturally, tasks change from time to time - priorities shift, additional factors appear, etc. But! To successfully solve them, it is often enough to adapt the OShS, in the extreme case, modernize the weapon model and bring its characteristics to the required level.
What does "obsolescence" have to do with it? Yes, despite the fact that this phrase, especially one that sounds from the mouths of the "defense industry", is used as a motivation for the next cuts of the defense budget or serves as a screen to cover the criminal reductions of the armed forces, and, consequently, their combat capabilities. As a rule, the reduction of the Armed Forces is motivated by the fact that "the new weapon will be able to solve problems much better and more than the" obsolete ", and nothing that the new one costs exorbitant prices - we will save on quantity without losing, on the contrary, gaining in quality." And this is a blatant lie - 1 tank, no matter how sophisticated it is, will not be able to solve (in the corresponding period of time) the tasks of 10 tanks, physically it will not! This is just unreal. I strongly recommend those who disagree to read:
And now, back to Ozhegov - "obsolescence (in our case, weapons) due to the emergence of new, more advanced models."
So, let's imagine that we have a tank, which we recently bought for 30 million rubles. But yesterday, neighbor Petya bought a new tank, for example, according to Ozhegov - more advanced, for 60 million rubles. How this perfection manifests itself is unclear, but our tank is already morally obsolete, since Petya already has a new model! Following the logic of the "defense industry", the old tank should be scrapped, having rescued 0.5 million, and a new one should be bought for 45 million! "But the fact that Petya's tank is newer does not mean that it is better than ours, and our tank itself did not become worse from Petya's acquisition." - you say. "Yes, but our tank is obsolete."
Thus, it turns out that commentator # 5 was the closest to understanding this term.
Summing up, I would like to say the following: the currently available weapons and military equipment are not only huge amounts of money, it is human labor, and time, and much more that cannot be described in one article. In any case, this is a tremendous value, and the attitude should be appropriate. In the end, I would very much like that when removing any sample from service, they did it not because they were "morally obsolete" and "ceased to be fashionable", but because they "exhausted their modernization potential" and "are not able to fulfill the assigned tasks. ".
And not to send to junk after decommissioning, but to strategic storage.
