Reminds me a lot of when I was helping Hannako out with Pin Hell - while obviously a different format, every question, it was just a big chunk of information completely extemporaneously. I could 100% give a 45-minute lecture on pins and merch right now - after we sorted out why you’re in my house at quarter to one in the morning wanting to know about pins and put a brew on because I’m a good host - straight off my head. Your Q’s for Q&A better be actual questions or I will be cross.
Edit - Also Buy Pin Hell and Pin Hell 2. Hannako drew me in the latter, It was the first time anyone drew me, it was very exciting. I helped out a little, but don’t get a kickback or owt, except for getting to see a good friend succeed.
I think it also helps to have someone you’re very familiar with in terms of attitude, cadence, and speach patterns. I could improvise a panel with Will in a way I very much couldn’t with say, Rym or Churba.
You want to talk about a ship in harbor? This is something I think about a lot, mostly in the context of war, history, and games.
First, I know I talk a lot randomly about the idea of a “fleet in being.” I mention it casually in wargames and such. It’s a naval concept with a rich and complex history.
A ship could, and in many cases was, built to remain safe in harbor. Its existence and the possibility of its use, without actually using it, was a valid military strategy.
It evolved to rely heavily on the concept of “defeat in detail,” which, abstracted heavily, basically means “hold your assets in safety and only engage under favorable conditions.” (Military planners talk more about it in terms of proximity, support, etc…, but in abstraction it’s a great general concept).
But the idea of a “ship built for harbor” was more or less valid depending on technological advances over the centuries.
Early ships were lost to the Ocean moreso than enemy ships, so any use of a ship was a risk, but having ships was a powerful deterrent.
Harbors became less safe when things like fire ships or sabotage were developed to remove or reduce that safety.
In the Napoleonic Wars the risk of a concentrated French force being able to strike forth required a massive English undertaking to be ready for such an event, causing a deep asymmetry in naval spending.
But, as the wars dragged on, the realities of disease and society overall meant that a fleet in harbor was not actually that safe. There was a natural attrition rate of just existing at all. This implied that being at sea or taking a risk could indeed have been more valuable later in the war than the maintenance of the threat to do so.
The concept probably should have ended with the Battle of Taranto, which spurred Italy to actually use its remaining fleet. Air power changed the dynamic.
But outside of naval aviation, there are still areas where something is built to never be used, and it makes sense to do so.
During WWII the British Navy was very cautious about deploying its battleships because if they couldn’t guarantee with a high degree of confidence they would win the engagement they were better to have as a deterrent to strategies of the German Navy and thus restrict their actions than if they went out, got surprised by a fog bank and were snuck up on and destroyed by enemy ships. The loss both in warfighting capability, cost and build time, and strategic deterrent value would be very high. So, the most powerful items in the British Navy saw very little action in WWII.
Nuclear weapon proliferation/readiness, and MAD could probably be seen as an extension of the Fleets of Being concept extended into a new realm (but I’m not up on all the the technical and strategic concepts that might directly address that)
Sure nuclear weapons have been used in the past and could be used in the future. Same as fleets and battleships have been used. And fleets built to hopefully never be used still were probably occasionally given tours and exercises in order to test capabilities, demonstrate those capabilities, serve political functions, or so-on. But the hope is those fleets never were put into actual combat or at least the sort of true fleet engagements where there is risk.
The hope for the vast majority of the strategic nuclear weapons was that they never actually be launched/dropped/etc in a live engagement. But now it’s less because doing so risks the weapons (they are munitions afterall, and the bombers that were at one point relied on were already more-or-less expendable delivery systems) but because of the risk of their use in general. So it’s not a complete extension of the old concept.
I do wonder where the more direct comparison might be. Something that would ideally not be deployed because of its value, but its ability to simply threaten usage from its hanger/port/garage/etc. is enough that no-one threatens a big enough action that the target would consider risking its valuable heavy weapons.
The best example of something built to exist but never to be used are the sole remaining Australian “Aircraft Carriers.”
They are two ships in a class by themselves. Basically amphibious assault craft with self-carried helicopter support.
They are not part of a significant enough force to engage with any serious conflict in Asia Pacific. Anything less than a serious conflict would not require an amphibious assault. The most likely scenarios for standalone military action by Australia would be a coastal defense, which would be better served by anything other than these two ships. It is very hard to imagine any situation where these ships would actually be used.
In a broader conflict, Australia does not have enough naval or air capacity to protect them, so they could never be used offensively.
They basically exist to give Australia a military capability it could never possibly need. Australia can effectively threaten… New Zealand? With a coastal assault? Great.
The were used in a rescue operation in 2018. Australia does not have the fixed wing or rotary wing lift capability and endurance that the US military has. These helicopter carriers effectively allow the AUS military to operate outside Australian coastal waters with lift capacity. Can they in anyway participate in a direct amphib assault without large US naval backing? No, but the can be used in conjunction with local military and police in nearby SE Asia Pacific rim countries to assist in operations and provide a dedicated, safe offshore operating zone.
I see it invariably taking place in a large scale regional conflict with China which only happens with US involvement anyway. In that event I could see it being used to help deal with militarized reefs/shoal islands or providing combat support, airlift, and medevac to ground troops engaged in combat on the periphery of the theater. Its just 2 helicopter carriers, but its 2 more and materiale and capacity is always constrained in engagements.
