Evolving Combined Arms From The Industrial To Modern Age
Outlining the natural eras of modern warfare, 1800-2100. An addendum to previous discussions of the design for Unite the World
Sorry to go radio silent over the holidays, but there’s been quite a bit to handle on the home front of late, and to avoid overstretching I let the posting schedule on Broken Wagon Simulations slide. I’m afraid posts will continue to be more sporadic than I’d hoped through much of this year, but I’ll aim for monthly, sometimes even bi-weekly updates.
Broadly speaking, my professional objectives at the moment are:
Land a book deal related to my ongoing work on Rogue Systems Recon;
Write another science fiction novel in the Bivrost series and find a publisher for that, since Amazon has completed its transformation into Admazon and actively exploits indie publishers;
Keep slowly laying a foundation for the digital simulations I aim to produce when I can get hold of the budget to do them right.
I suppose that’s a lot, but I just keep on working anyway. Realized some time ago that stuff takes as long as it takes. I’m very fortunate to have an incredibly supportive family that for some mad reason doesn’t expect me to earn a lot more income than I presently do despite all my years in school.
To my surprise, this blog isn’t getting totally lost in the noise, despite Substack not exactly being big in the game and simulation industry (yet?). So I’ll keep fleshing out ideas, and also get a little more into the deeper aspects of building better worlds that motivate my work in this area.
With that, onto a new year of blogging about digital simulations!
Tracing the Evolution of Combined Arms - Supporting Content for Unite the World
In grad school, one of the research projects I enjoyed the most I did under the guidance of my eventual co-author on The Impact of Rural Electric Access on Deforestation Rates, Alison Johnston. I’m generally pretty harsh on academia as an institution, but there are some gems, and I had the honor of working with a few. Just, not in the doctoral program I got recruited into.
Do your due diligence before joining a doctoral program. Important lesson. Academia is strange.
Anyway, when you delve into the world of political economy, statistical analysis, and international development for any length of time, you gain a great appreciation for how much the world is driven by the availability of capital. I don’t mean that in any particular ideological sense - though steeped in Marxist logic and even finding much of it useful, the object “capitalism” doesn’t have any real scientific meaning. It isn’t an ideology or state of history, it’s just a word to describe people being people.
But the type and amount of capital available to both individuals and society as a whole shapes our lives to an extreme degree. Military affairs are no different, and the ability of organizations to amass and wield power over the past two centuries has been closely related to the quality of capital at their disposal. The ratio of a country or region’s gross domestic product to population, GDP/c, serves as an excellent indicator of its ability to wield capital to some end.
Consider this handy chart from the Federal Reserve:
Real GDP corrects for inflation, in this case chaining all values to 2017 dollars. This chart shows that not only has the USA become substantially richer in a gross sense, but the average American has too. Of course, the benefits of all this economic productivity are not evenly distributed, nor could they ever be. They could be more equal, however. To minimize the number of CEOs who get murdered by an angry citizen out for vengeance over dump corporate policy, rich folks ought to embrace more equality for their own sake. The killer drone with Elon Musk’s name on it may have already been made.
Anyway, after the end of the Second World War, real GDP/c was about$15,000, but is now over $70,000 in 2017 dollars. Nominal values are higher, of course, because inflation means the Dollar is worth less heading into 2025. Correcting for inflation though, the past eighty years have seen average wealth double, then more than double again. Average isn’t everyone, of course - a flip side is that those on the wrong side of the wealth curve now have an even taller hill to climb.
Just as the increase in wealth has made it possible for the average consumer to purchase all manner of nifty devices, many that save time and others good at wasting it, military technology was impacted too. There’s a reason that, despite a tank from 1945 and one from 2025 both using the same principles to produce mayhem, nobody uses even the vaunted German Tiger in battle any more. Though Moscow might soon be fielding T-34s in Ukraine at this rate…
For a visual, here’s an image of a common US tank in service the late 1940s, the M4A3E8 “Easy Eight” Sherman, and one standard eighty years later, the M1A2 Abrams:
Many features remain unchanged, despite glaring capability differences. In the 1930s tank designs mostly settled on having a single turret and main gun set above the vehicle’s hull. The US was a late-comer to this game, its immediate predecessor to the Sherman being the rather hilarious M3 Lee - Grant in UK service, because the Brits naturally wondered why you’d name a tank after a general from the losing side of a civil war instead of, say, a lady named Matilda - which featured a hull-mounted main gun in the World War one style:
In many respects, the M4 is closer in an evolutionary sense to the Abrams - originally produced in the 1970s - than it is the M3, But not without justification did the main US tank designations go through M26, M46, M47, M48, and the venerable M60 before reverting to M1 with the Abrams. The M60 marked the culmination of the Sherman lineage, with same the large rounded turret and simple design intended to suit a conscript-based army. Kinda surprised nobody has found some to send to Ukraine. Turkey has hundreds. So to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I guess similarly old German-made Leopard 1s are better.
The M1 went with a larger and flatter turret designed to be able to withstand hits from anything a Soviet tank could throw at it - from the front and maybe sides, at least. Overall the size of the tank grew substantially, requiring a new kind of powerplant. And once you’ve invested in a robust platform designed to be crewed by professionals, it makes sense to add lots of electronic gizmos to make it even more lethal. A stabilization system to allow accurate shots on the move, night and thermal optics, and fancy armor with depleted uranium inserts - or whatever the British use in Chobham.
The original M1 debuted when US GDP/c had doubled in a quarter of a century. The increasing capital intensity and productivity of the American economy allowed for the deployment of a new generation of gear with capabilities that, if used correctly, offered an important quality advantage. This kept a lot of American (now Ukrainian) tankers alive in future conflicts, where the Sherman and its successors gained a reputation for burning when hit.
Of course, nothing burns quite like anything of Soviet make. Even if you use the more generous purchasing power conversion terms, instead of going with nominal GDP/c numbers, Moscow’s empire remains where the US was in the 1970s. All but the most modern T-90M variant is little changed from the Soviet T-34 in many respects, save for reducing the number of crewmembers from four to three back when the T-55 was built for the atomic battlefield of the Cold War. American designs did the same, going from five in the Sherman to four in later tanks.
Even Moscow’s most modern T-90 family is merely an update of the Soviet T-72, which US Abrams and other kit chewed apart in Iraq back in 1991. Though Muscovite troops get better sights and probably armor than the Iraqis did, it makes little difference when the weapons they face come from an economy with substantially greater capital intensity.
It’s worth recalling the venerable T34-85, which in 1947 was probably superior in most respects to the Sherman Easy Eight. Note again how little Moscow’s tank designs have really changed. Another dead Soviet tank shot, this one from the Korean War - and Ukraine, soon? Got to be a few of the classics in working order, right?
The Soviet Union also became far more sophisticated between Stalin and Gorbachev, and the T34 to T72 jump is analogous to the American leap through the Patton model range to the M60. But the T90 is barely up to the standard of the older Abrams models that tore through its T72 ancestors in 1991. The latest M1A2 variant rolled out when US per capita GDP was about 40% lower than it is today, and still twice as high as Moscow’s when the latest T90M emerged.
Obviously, the quality of the kit isn’t everything. Saudi and Turkish troops have lost a lot of Abrams and Leopard 2s thanks to the poor standard of leadership common in both armies. No offense intended, it’s just a function of clientelist regimes. America’s military has its own self-destructive hangups too.
But when dealing with a simulation - or science - numbers always an impact. And to give a sense how military evolution is shaped by policy, chaining the quality of forces to the capital intensity offers a neat solution to an intrinsically wiggly problem.
Each of the big three domains of warfare - land, sea, and air - has seen the same technological escalation in line with GDP/c growth. Even over the past two centuries, for all the changes in technology, the name of the game has been steady evolution, not revolution. Single-wing airplanes complemented then replaced ones with two or more; in turn they were slowly supplanted by jets in most roles, which are now in their turn losing jobs to drones. At sea, coal-fired boilers gave way to oil, and the primary means of delivering firepower to a target went from guns fired within visual range to radar directed guns and long-range torpedoes all the way to vessels firing missiles that are basically killer robots.
Of course, precisely bounding historical eras is fraught: even my general rule of using doublings of GDP/c to divide them is an imperfect solution. It isn’t as if crossing a magic threshold unlocks a new level of military power in the real world. Unite the World will employ several tricks to balance the impact of technology and organization. But some level of predictable, tangible architecture is required, speaking from a simulation perspective. That’s just how computer programming works.
Though imperfect, the progression I lay out below is workable I use the Federal Reserve data above to extrapolate a linear curve from 1950 (Nuclear), 1980 (Network), and 2020 (Digital) forward and backward in time. Forward is easier, because the simulation assumes a general slowdown in GDP/c growth as any country exceeds $100,000. But backward is necessary too, to cover the full historical range. This demands shorter eras lasting only twenty or so years by default at first, something forced in the actual simulation by controlling maximum growth rates through inflation penalties.
For each era I’ll focus on what you might call the charismatic kit, eras gaining subdivisions between early and late. This helps smooth out the progression and add some character, so a player doesn’t go from having options standard in 1917 up until, say, 1942. It’s only a partial list, of course, but should offer a better sense of the menu of options available in the wargame.
Agricultural - (GDP/c $1,000)
Land
Combat: infantry with muskets and pikes, cavalry employ hand cannons and sabers. Some specialists. Soldiers often mercenaries. This is pre-Napoleonic warfare.
Support: siege cannons, field guns, engineers. Plus there’s always the supply train and probably camp followers.
Sea
Frigates, clippers, and other floating things with sails. Or galleys with oars, if you have access to cheap labor and easy seas.
Air
Carrier Pigeons. Maybe a huge kite with a child strapped on or something. If physically possible, someone has tried it in a past war.
Early industrial - (GDP/c $2,000)
Land
Combat: riflemen, skirmishers, cavalry, dragoons, marines, and a few others, each with different types of repeating weapons suited to their role. Relatively dense formations. Napoleonic and American Civil War stuff.
Support: artillery, light artillery, engineers, gendarmes. Supply rising in importance, railheads mandatory for sustained operations.
Sea
Ironclads, steamships; all fight within visual range, heavy armor restricted to coastal patrol ships. At sea it’s still the dying days of the Age of Sail.
Air
Balloons. Pigeons still employed, but increasingly replaced by telegrams. A few experiments with attaching engines to constructed wings.
Middle industrial - (GDP/c $4,000)
Early (1910s)
Land
Combat: infantry squads with rifles and grenades backed by machine guns with terrain specialties: mountain, marine. Cavalry still used where trenches don’t yet prevail, armed as light infantry. Early tanks and tankettes appear, as well as mortars.
Support: light, field, heavy, and siege howitzers and guns with distinct roles. Engineers, military police, signals, and numerous other supporting elements appear.
Sea
The Age of the Dreadnought, with naval power a function of the strength of each side’s battle line, armored behemoths at their core. Screened by cruisers and threatened by torpedo boats, creating a need for torpedo boat destroyers, combat submarines enter the scene.
Air
Initial forays at using primitive aircraft for scouting give way to full-on industrial air war, scout, bomber, and fighter specialties soon emerging. Balloons of various forms are widely used in support roles - sometimes long-range strike.
Late (1920s)
Land
Combat: improved tanks and tankettes now regularly support infantry squads, which are now dominated by their machine gun element. Mortars take on a more prominent role. Experiments with infantry mounted on trucks working closely with tanks begin, though cavalry remains present.
Support: the various forms of artillery begin to standardize into field and heavy howitzers, with medium and heavy guns serving in long-range roles. Dedicated air defense teams appear to cope with aerial threats. Most specialties begin to motorize.
Sea
Dreadnoughts become better armored and faster, most mounting two or three large guns of a single caliber in turrets, standardized designs appearing in the most advanced powers. Oil fired boilers rapidly displace coal. Destroyers come into their own as torpedo boat destroyers and sub chasers, protecting larger vessels from this worsening menace. Dedicated aircraft carriers are deployed as scouts for traditional battle lines.
Air
Engines continue to grow more efficient, allowing for diverse designs to proliferate. Bombers threaten to inflict destruction at distances never before imagined, while fighters are built to soar up and intercept them before they can drop their payloads. Naval aircraft improve, seaplanes and other new forms appearing.
Late industrial - (GDP/c $8,000)
Early (1930s)
Land
Combat: standardization into heavy, medium, light tank varieties. Motorized infantry common, build around machine guns and mortars. Some infantry optimized to work in early combined arms teams as grenadiers or combat engineers. Airborne infantry formations appear. Cavalry steadily phased out. Radio communication becomes common.
Support: artillery shifts from being towed by horses and mules to trucks. Anti-tank guns join anti-aircraft weapons, with the two roles sometimes combined. Increasing need for fuel and parts expands logistics sections further. Air resupply a possibility.
Sea
The last coal-powered vessels and the global infrastructure needed to sustain them steadily disappear. Sleek, fast warships with substantial power advantages and early radar sets push older oil powered vessels into supporting roles. Aircraft carriers begin to carry heavier models that can pose a threat to warships. Submarines can submerge for longer periods and patrol thousands of nautical miles from their home base.
Air
Single-wing airplanes begin to widely displace biplanes and triplanes, though some of the former remain competitive in certain roles. A split between dive and level bombers emerges, and close air support is much improved. Fighters rapidly become faster and better-armed, posing a serious threat to bombers, which mount more weapons and better engines to cope. Naval aviation scarcely lags land-based technology, and at times exceeds it.
Late (1940s)
Land
Combat: Mechanized infantry appear, riding in half or fully tracked armored vehicles to get close to the battlefield. They begin to wield potent anti-tank weapons, forcing tanks to work even more closely with infantry. Tanks become heavier and their guns more potent. Radios are available down to the squad level to improve coordination. Airborne and marine operations possible on grand scale.
Support: Mechanization extends to artillery, anti-tank, air defense, and other specialties. Rocket launchers are clustered in great masses to provide saturation fire. Logistics and maintenance requirements escalate further. Airborne resupply at scale possible.
Sea
The aircraft carrier comes into its own, classes of all sides covering the airspace around battle fleets. Surface warships move increasingly into supporting roles, anti-aircraft batteries augmented. Submarines become even more dangerous, some using snorkels that let their engines run even while submerged for long periods. Aircraft become the best counter. Radar is indispensable, sonar develops rapidly. Computers appear on warships to develop firing solutions.
Air
Jet aircraft appear, supplanting aircraft with piston engines in the bomber interceptor role. Cruise and ballistic missiles are developed; among the earliest combat robots, along with torpedoes. Heavy bombers capable of crossing oceans are constructed, enabling mass bombardment campaigns, eventually with early nuclear bombs. Radar beings to appear on aircraft; chaff used to block hostile radar.
Nuclear - (GDP/c $16,000)
Early (1950s)
Land
Combat: The threat of nuclear attack drives increasing mechanization of combat units able to protect crews from contaminated battlefields. Lighter infantry using wheeled vehicles handle less intense parts of a front, while heavy mechanized units are the striking force. Combined arms formations in either case.
Support: consolidation of artillery into light and heavy howitzers and field guns, many heavy howitzers on mechanized chassis and designed to support rapid maneuvers. Some guns can fire small atomic shells. Missiles complement guns in air defense roles.
Sea
Nuclear power becomes an option for submarines, later aircraft carriers and some large warships. Missiles begin to supplant guns; large, gun armed large warships less common. Submarines a potent hazard, surface ships divide into escorts that hunt subs and ones that target aircraft. First experiments with jets on aircraft carriers.
Air
Jets rapidly supplant piston engines in most roles. First swing-wing fighters appear with improved aerodynamic performance over straight wings. First air to air missiles are deployed; rockets often the main weapon, interceptors carry large nuclear models to take down bombers. Nuclear bombers become main strategic weapon.
Late (1960s)
Land
Combat: main battle tank fully replaces heavy and medium models; some light models still employed in specialty roles like amphibious or airborne assault. Infantry all combined-arms and role-specialized, can vertically envelop enemy positions using helicopters.
Support: Artillery gains added range and accuracy, substantial standardization of calibers. Surface to air missiles widespread, mostly larger, used to target bombers. Anti-tank guided missiles begin to replace anti-tank guns. Support elements remain configured for nuclear battlefields.
Sea
Guided missiles rapidly replace gun-based armaments in air defense and naval attack roles. Nuclear submarines increasingly common. Aircraft remain primary striking force at sea, jets taking over most combat roles from piston engine aircraft. Delivery of nuclear weapons is seen as a primary role of aircraft carriers and submarines.
Air
The decade of delta wing designs in multiple roles, with jets capable of traveling at twice the speed of sound fielded to intercept bombers presumed to carry nuclear weapons. Air to air missiles replace rockets, though their quality is at times doubtful. Jets remain role specialized. Helicopters become widespread, valued in transport and utility roles.
Network - (GDP/c $32,000)
Early (1970s)
Land
Combat: radio communications are joined by primitive networks that allow for data transfer between forces. Precision weapons are introduced, including large numbers of anti-tank guided missiles that prove lethal to most tank designs. Infantry in armored and well-armed troop carriers are needed to clear areas so that tanks can safely operate.
Support: Precision weapons begin to allow for more accurate strikes against critical targets than can be achieved through saturation. Surface to air missiles become small enough to be carried by light vehicles, radically boosting the ability of ground troops to fight aircraft. Spy satellites and early digital networks allow for substantial improvement in tracking friendly and hostile forces.
Sea
Long-range guided missiles begin to replace aircraft in some attack roles. Defense against massed missile strikes becomes a focus of naval aviation along with delivering massed strikes against hostile littoral regions. Nuclear powered aircraft carriers can remain on station for months, and nuclear submarines carrying nuclear missiles threaten guaranteed retaliation in the event of a nuclear strike. Most engagements take place well outside visual range.
Air
The fashion in aviation design shifts in favor of variable swing wings, affording jets with them distinct flight modes. Few combat aircraft lack radar sets Guided missiles become available for ground attack missions, and air to air missiles displace guns except in emergency engagements. Heavily armored ground attack jets appear, as do similarly outfitted helicopters, thanks to the threat posed by air defenses. Delivery of nuclear weapons still a key job for strike jets.
Late (1990s)
Land
Combat: Increasing technological sophistication pushes a shift to forces with smaller numbers of professional soldiers instead of conscripts. Equipment becomes more expensive, but also more survivable on the whole. Combined arms is the rule, close interactions with air power essential.
Support: Precision weapons allow for more accurate and devastating strikes. Rockets, formerly used mainly for area attacks, are made more accurate using global positioning satellite data. Control of information begins to matter as much as terrain.
Sea
Guided missiles have fully replaced guns save for a few very limited jobs, most vessels having only one or two of relatively small size. Cruise missiles give surface ships and submarines incredible striking power, and the precision weapons revolution enhances the lethality of aircraft. The ability to rapidly share sensor data makes approaching a carrier battle group risky, even for nuclear submarines. Vertical launch systems for missiles now standard.
Air
All-weather multirole combat jets are standard for most missions. Airframe designs are optimized, and limited stealth capabilities allow some jets to avoid radar detection in certain situations. Precision guided ordnance is now standard, as are sophisticated electromagnetic warfare suites to protect against enemy weapons.
Digital - (GDP/c $64,000)
Early (2010s)
Land
Combat: Drones, used for decades as artillery spotters and training targets, begin to carry weapons. Eventually they are used as precision weapons in their own right. A new wrinkle is added to classic combined arms warfare, making dense formations vulnerable and rapid operations immensely difficult. Weapons that destroy drones, including other drones, soon emerge.
Support: Maintaining control of the electromagnetic spectrum becomes a matter of survival, as drones require signals to operate and wires break. Networks allow supporting elements to spread out, mitigating the impact to a degree. The name of the game becomes getting support assets where they need to be when they’re required, direct oversight by leaders too unwieldy to serve.
Sea
Drones offer many of the same capabilities as pricey precision strike weapons at a much lower price. Land-based missiles backed by advanced navigation systems force large surface ships away from hostile shores. Satellites make hiding surface vessels very difficult. Submarines continue to be the most survivable and unpredictable naval asset. Surveillance and electronic warfare are now as important as strike and air defense operations.
Air
The power of hostile sensors pushes aircraft to embrace stealth, electronic warfare, or a combination. Drones begin to supplant crewed aircraft in front line and support roles. Airpower becomes democratized, distributed operations the norm as large air base complexes prove vulnerable to drone attacks. Heavy bombers are used in support of tactical operations, their nuclear role secondary.
Late (2030s)
Land
Combat: A great deal of fighting now takes place between drones fighting to secure enough space for small combined arms teams to push in and swiftly clear it. Heavily protected crewed armored vehicles with strong anti-drone defenses work in tandem with smaller drones on the ground and in the sky. Timing and close coordination are of paramount importance in successful attacks: AI assists personnel in managing the chaos.
Support: While heavily augmented by drones, most functions requiring humans begin to fall in the support category. The task remains smooth delivery of resources where they are needed, whether these take the form of fire support or supplies. AI helps with prediction and process optimization, including the planning of operations. The ability to rapidly update and adapt technology becomes as important as leadership and discipline.
Sea
Crewed vessels sit at the heart of much broader formations comprised predominantly of drones of various sizes and functions. Aircraft and missiles supported by dense sensor networks covering a vast area define naval warfare, with submarines controlling semi-autonomous underwater drones a major threat, especially near shorelines. Littoral warfare is almost entirely drone based, and control of the electromagnetic spectrum a persistent objective.
Air
Drones fill most direct combat roles, maintaining a continuous aerial front backed by crewed multirole jets that provide signal redundancy and carry long-range weapons too large for most drones, which are as small and maneuverable as possible, deploying their own missiles or even drones to inflict damage on targets. Aerial formations battle for superiority in the electromagnetic space, however many drones are semi-autonomous.
Exotic - (GDP/c $128,000)
Obviously, once you get to the late 21st century things get speculative. Yet certain trends visible through the past two centuries appear likely to remain powerful shaping factors. Eventually, extremely autonomous AI is inevitable, likely requiring a human operator only to determine the exact conditions under which a robot can open fire. However, scarcity of resources in some dimension will always guarantee some level of surprise, and humans won’t always listen to an AI’s warnings.
So machine-human pairing looks set to define much of the middle 21st century, as will the arrival of economically viable fusion and advanced renewable sources. While this ought to alleviate the slow decline of fossil fuel stocks and the inflation across the global economy this will invariably trigger, there will inevitably be wars. Someone like Putin always gets ideas.
Early (2060s)
Land
Combat: While armored vehicles are still used, and they’ll probably wield missiles and cannons, more and more will be maximally autonomous, blending the line between robot and drone. Humans will remain in the loop and also be primary targets for hostile forces. But a reduction in numbers is probable. And combined arms warfare will remain the rule.
Support: Eventually energy weapons will appear on the battlefield, but due to power requirements and the ease of detecting equipment support roles like air and drone defense appear the most likely beneficiaries. The more technology is relied on, the more raw power will displace fuel and bullets in logistics planning. The shape of things may change, but not the essence. Naturally, anything that can disrupt hostile AIs and other electronics will be widely employed.
Sea
Naval warfare may ultimately become entirely robotic, the risk of sending people on vessels above or below the surface too high in an age where the seas are constantly monitored by satellites. Large submarines in deep water might even become vulnerable to future sensors. Ironically, the littorals might once again become the only viable conflict zone, most battles fought by robots and drones with controllers operating from small submarines able to hide in shallow or cloudy water.
Air
Aviation looks set to be highly roboticized by mid to late century, at least when it comes to actual controls. Pilots already direct computers as much as they manually fly, and that trend may lead to them acting as advisers to autopilots. If energy weapons ever work, crewed aircraft will be at extreme risk.
Late (2080s)
Truth be told, this is really just a reward category, a way to give any player in Unite the World who focuses on rapid technological advancement a leg up concomitant with their achievement. It’s not a mere cop-out to say that nobody knows what the shape of war will be like in fifty years, because there are certain technological developments presently in their infancy that may create totally unexpected opportunities.
Fifty years ago it was possible to correctly project that armored vehicles would still be important and that people would operate them. And I’d be willing to bet that if I’m alive fifty years from now, the same will be true, even if the operators work remotely, giving instructions or even just advice to a robot. Their enemies will still try to kill, disable, or capture them, though.
But what I don’t think anyone saw coming was millions of small drones with just enough explosives to disable an armored vehicle. Partly because anyone predicting this would have to consider the obvious countermeasures: electronic warfare and hard-kill defenses. But it takes time for a proven threat to be systematically countered. And whatever innovation emerges, a counter-innovation soon appears. So the underlying shape of military organization and gear may shift only slowly, yet at times doctrine and practices must rapidly adapt.
Potential advances that make detailed prediction fifty year out include any means of promptly delivering firepower from orbit, the portability of energy sources, and what advanced AI will prove capable of. The generative stuff you see now is mostly hype, a parlor trick limited by the training data available - mostly junk scrubbed from online. Eventually highly autonomous, adaptive, and creative AI may emerge. At that point, it might be that one of the single biggest challenges in war is convincing AIs to fight at all.
So if you’d like to imagine the 2080s as full of mecha and Gundams battling with shape-shifting drones, have at it. But the original Fallout series was right: as much as war’s flavor may shift, in most respects the essence of the thing stays pretty much the same.
Until next time!