A big part of the Zero's reputation came from racking up kills in China against a lot of second-rate planes with poorly-trained pilots. After all, there was a reason that the Republic of China hired the American Volunteer Group to help out during the Second Sino-Japanese War – Chinese pilots had a hard time cutting it.

The Wildcat was deficient in many ways versus the Zero, but it still had superior firepower via ammo loadout. The Zero carried very few 20mm rounds, most of it's ammo was 7.7mm. There are records of Japanese pilots unloading all their 7.7mm ammo on a Wildcat and it was still flyable. On the flip side, the Wildcat had an ample supply of .50 cal.

Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa was able to score seven kills against Japanese planes in one day with a Wildcat.

Yes, the discovery of the Akutan Zero helped the United States beat this plane. But MilitaryFactory.com notes that the Hellcat's first flight was on June 26, 1942 – three weeks after the raid on Dutch Harbor that lead to the fateful crash-landing of the Mitsubishi A6M flown by Tadayoshi Koga.

Marine Captain Kenneth Walsh described how he knew to roll to the right at high speed to lose a Zero on his tail. Walsh would end World War II with 17 kills. The Zero also had trouble in dives, thanks to a bad carburetor.

We were behind in technology for many reasons, but once the Hellcat started replacing the Wildcat, the Japanese Air Superiority was over. Even if they had maintained a lead in technology, as Russia showed in WW2, quantity has a quality all of it's own. We were always going to be able to field more pilots and planes than Japan would be able to.

As far as Soviet rockets, once we were stunned by the launch of Sputnik, we kicked into high gear. You can say what you will of reliability, consistency, and dependability, but exactly how many manned Soviet missions landed on the moon and returned? Other than Buran, which was almost a copy of our Space Shuttle, how many shuttles did the USSR field?

The Soviets did build some things that were very sophisticated and were, for a while, better than what we could field. The Mig-31 is a great example. We briefly lagged behind but have a much superior air capability now. The only advantages the Mig and Sukhoi have is speed, they can fire all their missiles and flee. If they are engaged however, they will lose if pilots are equally skilled.

As @newtboy has said, I am sure that Russia and China are working on military advancements, but the technology simply doesn't exist to make a Hypersonic missile possible at this point.

China is fielding a man portable rifle that can inflict pain, not kill, and there is no hard evidence that it works.

There is no proof that the Chinese have figured out the technology for an operational rail gun on land, let alone the sea. We also have created successful railguns, the problem is POWERING them repeatedly, especially onboard a ship. If they figured out a power source that will pull it off, then it is possible, but there is no concrete proof other than a photo of a weapon attached to a ship. Our experts are guessing they might have it functional by 2025, might...

China has shown that long range QEEC is possible. It has been around but they created the first one capable of doing it from space. The problem is, they had to jury rig it. Photons, or light, can only go through about 100 kilometers of optic fiber before getting too dim to reliably carry data. As a result, the signal needs to be relayed by a node, which decrypts and re-encrypts the data before passing it on. This process makes the nodes susceptible to hacking. There are 32 of these nodes for the Beijing-Shanghai quantum link alone.

The main issue with warfare today is that it really doesn't matter unless the battle is between one of the big 3. Which means that ANY action could provoke Nuclear conflict. Is Russia going to hypersonic missile one of our carriers without Nukes become an option on the table as a retaliation? Is China going to railgun a ship and risk nuclear war?

Hell no, no more than we would expect to blow up some major Russian or Chinese piece of military hardware without severe escalation! Which means we can create all the technological terrors we like, because we WON'T use them unless they somehow provide us a defense against nuclear annihilation.

So just like China and Russia steal stuff from us to build military hardware to counter ours, if they create something that is significantly better, we will began trying to duplicate it. The only thing which would screw this system to hell is if one of us actually did begin developing a successful counter measure to nukes. If that happens, both of the other nations are quite likely to threaten IMMEDIATE thermonuclear war to prevent that country from developing enough of the counter measures to break the tie.

Your video, If You're Watching This, Thermonuclear War Hasn't Wiped Out, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Carnivore;
JesusHitler-Race War-Male Supremacy-and end with Thermonuclear Warrior.
Of course, they would have to resurrect Lord Petrus, but I'm game.

Prove to me that smoking causes cancer.

Also yes, if only the leaders at the time knew that isolated populations would survive thermonuclear war instead of ending humanity with certainty, they would have immediately
abandoned their foolhardy and wasteful attempts at non proliferation and denuclearization!

If you don't realize by now that Trump is literally the worst choice you could ever make for president when you vote, I don't know what to tell you.

He has said FAR more things than just this that should "shock and alarm" you, because all of the statements he made could have the potential threat of causing the U.S. to become worthless, go into Civil War, go into Thermonuclear War, go into War "x", HUGE trade issues, HUGE financial issues, etc...

But hey, he'll be entertaining, right? Plus, as I've said before, if we DO vote him into office and something terrible happens to us, at this point I think the United States voters and it's people deserve what they get. Far too many idiots that need a HARD lesson (that is if the lesson is served to them...not the other way around where we become like a pre-World War 2 Germany, with those voting in Trump slowly blaming everyone else for our failures and rounding us up...leading to Civil War and an idiotic World War 3, where the U.S. doesn't learn from World War 2...).

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Global thermonuclear war!

Wait, no, chess.

Mach 20 glider, mach 20 thermonuclear missile.
You say potato, I say potato.
Remote control hummingbirds are neato,
Running cheetah-bots are scary.
Let's skynet the whole thing off.

What about reactors that can't melt down? What about Ford Pintos that exploded when you hit them from the rear, that isn't a story of why all cars are dangerous, only Ford Pintos. What about a plane lands on a city and kills thousands, or the super dome and 10s of thousands? What if what if what if. 50 million people is a little showing of being irrationality scared. Even in the worst designed reactor incident in history, it wasn't as bad as that. If you looked closely, as well, the chart shows that nuclear has historically been safer that solar and wind (and hydro if you include the Banqiao Dam incident).

With that said, I do wish to see old light water reactor technology phased out and new, walk away safe reactors phased in. Engineered safety is less preferred than intrinsic safety that many of the new reactors have. Also, lets not forget, most of the navy is nuclear...meaning they feel safe enough to be in war time situations with current reactors, so engineered safety can indeed be very safe.

I have irrational fears as well, I hate to fly even though I know statistically it is safer than driving. I would suggest that your fear of nuclear is of the same nature. The only way you can kill millions of people with current or future nuclear technology is with bombs, not reactors. The only way reactors can "explode" is from a steam explosion or a hydrogen explosion...so about as bad as a fuel plant exploding, most likely several orders of magnitude less. IE, reactors explode chemically, not via fission, making no more or less dangerous that that other kinds of tech, with the exception of the fission byproducts. The good thing about most of the new nuclear tech is the fuel burn up rates are very very high, meaning there is less fuel involved in most cases.

At any rate, don't take my word for it, there is lots of data out there to look over. For my part, I think nuclear is the cleanest, safest bet for energy needs. I submit that nuclear is only scary because of it was first developed as a fearsome weapon. But the even more fearsome weapon are thermonuclear weapons, which are actually fusion/fission hybrid bombs. I would imagine for whatever reason you aren't super scared of fusion, and would wager that if thermonuclear bombs were called fusion bombs, the world at large would have a different mindset towards it...irrationally.

But I leave you with the facts, nuclear has been the leading sources of clean power which has also caused the least amount of deaths than other technologies. There are many factors in that, including massively engineered safety that continues to improve, as well as highly trained crews that watch over them. Coal miners die all the time, pipelines explode, oil platforms explode, people fall off roofs, or fall off wind farm towers, or get electrocuted...but none of these deaths cause the downfall of those technologies. Nuclear still has more drama in our minds, so plays out much differently when something goes wrong, which isn't very often ( 6 fatal occurrences since 1961) .

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html


I'm sorry are you comparing death rates between Coal and Nuclear Reactors? What if there's a meltdown or a terrorist attack and suddenly there's 50,000,000 people dead? It only takes one reactor outside of LA to do catastrophic damage you cannot compare the two NOW when we don't have a Fuckton of Reactors near population centers.
Comparing the two at this point in time is just ridiculous, the numbers are so skewed it's not even funny.

BUT, the thing is we will never fight something harder than Saddam's forces period. Unless it's a nuclear or thermonuclear war. I'm sure you can agree that the F-35 doesn't mean jack-shit then...

That is also why @Payback is right--drones are great.

http://rlv.zcache.com/thumb_war_tshirt-p235440582959814238zvcav_400.jpg

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Thermonuclear Thumb War?
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Nahh. Thumb War is more my style.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How about a game of thermonuclear war? I'll go first.
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Tic-Tac-Toe and I'll go first.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Would you like to play a game?
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
It looks like I'd better wake up and start defending my place as Top Assister.

Thermonuclear Thumb War?
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Nahh. Thumb War is more my style.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How about a game of thermonuclear war? I'll go first.
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Tic-Tac-Toe and I'll go first.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Would you like to play a game?
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
It looks like I'd better wake up and start defending my place as Top Assister.

Nahh. Thumb War is more my style.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
How about a game of thermonuclear war? I'll go first.
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Tic-Tac-Toe and I'll go first.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Would you like to play a game?
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
It looks like I'd better wake up and start defending my place as Top Assister.

How about a game of thermonuclear war? I'll go first.
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
Tic-Tac-Toe and I'll go first.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Would you like to play a game?
In reply to this comment by Boise_Lib:
It looks like I'd better wake up and start defending my place as Top Assister.