what if the perceivedeffectiveness of a weapon system can be altered?Take, for example, the Vikings. They were not really the best with war. They were good fighters, but raiders primarily and easily annihilated by organised armies. Yet they were effective, amazingly so; why? Certainly it has to do in large part with their ability to hit fast enough that the defending locals could not mount an effective resistance, but I believe a great deal of their effectiveness was born of their frightening reputation. Tales of men turning into wolves and ravaging the enemy, stories of brutality and conquest and terror. These things helped make these people a fighting force to be reckoned with, even though their actual ability was less than advertised.Look, too, at pirates of the 17th-19th centuries. These guys didn't want to fire on their prizes, of course not, but rather wanted them to surrender without a fight. How did they do this? Fear. Reputation. Blackbeard hiding slow-burning match in his beard to seem more like a daemon than a man.Certainly the immediate look, the immediate aesthetic, of a weapon or army or any military asset is not necessarily carrying a psychological impact. Even if it does it still risks the loss of this advantage through reliable intelligence and observation. The fact remains, however, that perceptions and psychological effects of military assets are not, by any means, grounded solely in their actual effectiveness.
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I think that you've just strengthen my point, people didn't feared the longaxe or the canons on the pirates galeons, they feared the vikings and the pirates themselves, and don't forget them man of war in the age of sail hunted pirates as part of theier standing orders.
Certainly the immediate look, the immediate aesthetic, of a weapon or army or any military asset is not necessarily carrying a psychological impact. Even if it does it still risks the loss of this advantage through reliable intelligence and observation. The fact remains, however, that perceptions and psychological effects of military assets are not, by any means, grounded solely in their actual effectiveness.
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Agreed, weapon systems reputation can be more fearsome than thier real effectivness, you achive this by proparly used propoganda and selective use of the weapon in situations where it will cause total victory, OTOH when war do break out and the weapon is in wide use than the true effectivness of the weapon can be assessed so the perceived psycological effecet diminished.
Which would frighten trained soldiers more? A combat robot designed to look and move like the Alien, or a pink box with flowers on treads with a gun which can rip up a tank in half in an eyeblink?
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it all depened on a large number of variables, the first one will be is the robot a known weapon system? if it is than you can write a combat doctrine to fight it and train your soldiers accordingly.
If not than it will be freaking scary when you first encounter it because we fear most that which we don't know.
I'll sum my opinions:
Form derived from purpose in weapon systems since any conceived psycological effect due to esthetics will diminish or be non-exist.
Fear and awe is somthing that can only be achive by actions in war and not by building this fearsome looking tank.
a pink box with flowers on treads with a gun which can rip up a tank in half in an eyeblink.
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We allready have somthing like that, it's called a Main Battle Tank that was painted in pink (i've seen somthing like this once, when i was in tanker school we accidantly spilled 4 litters of red paont on the front of our tank, took us 2 days to clean it up :NOTSURE: )
Cheers
Warder
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