What exactly is a cargo cult, when used in the military sense of the word?
it's muh dik
it's that guy's dik
Semantic rot killed the concept.
>>64440239Mindless imitation of something going solely off of apperances with no understanding of the functionality behind it.
Copying the form of something, without understanding its function and expecting the same result. An example would be Afghans partner forces in the mid 2000s putting carry handles on their railed handguards, as they saw Americans doing it but didn't understand the bureaucratic reasoning (ie, you are issued a carry handle and separately to that a new optic, you must take them and both must be returned. as a result, while some buried them in their backpacks, some mounted them to the far side of their RIS) and just thought that it was what cool guys did; and that they would be as capable and effective if they emulated them. Its often misused as though it means copying in any capacity, as /k/ is full of retards.
>>64440239Is there even a military sense of the word? It's an islander religion, part of which involves carrying out rituals in an attempt to receive supernatural rewards. In some of these rituals they imitated military drills and other "white people things". So it's tangentially related to military stuff at best.
a cargo cult is when someone replicates some of the steps of success without understanding how they contribute to a desired outcome or integrate with other steps in the process>when used in the military sense of the word?pretty much any time a third-world military procures or uses advanced equipment. pic related: Saudi Arabian "special operations troops", equipped with seemingly totally random shit
>>64440256could also use them as a ghetto foregrip
>>64440259I figure that using the very same tactics of the Great and Glorious War We Won 500 Years Ago unchanged would be a good example of this. Not drawing inspiration, but quite literally performing the exact same tactics, expecting the exact same results, although ancient tactics also still tend to work quite well
>>64440274cargo cults are specific in that the lessons and techniques are blindly copied from someone else without ever having been understood. actual IRL cargo cults build big wooden radar dishes because they think radar dishes cause airplanes to deliver boxes of material goods.
>>64440281Very well, then mine's indeed not a good example
>>64440239Since all the other anons already gave good definitions, here's an example: China building carriers, a horribly expensive tool for projecting power across the globe, when its immediate geopolitical interests lie in its own backyard. They do this because America has carriers and America has an effective navy, so the assumption is that having carriers makes for an effective navy. This isn't true, they would be better off investing more in submarines and those new dorito regional bombers. Airbases in mainland china can reach Japan and Taiwan easily Same goes for the UK and Italy to some degree, but in their case you can argue the carriers exist to supplement US power projection Captcha: 0 TYS0N
>>64440239>What exactly is a cargo cult, when used in the military sense of the word?You are a nigger from nigger africa fighting some shitty little bush war. You see French vehicles with boxes on them, and these vehicles with boxes seem to magically emerge unscathed from your RPGs. You take some plywood or metal or whatever, make some box shapes and attach them to your vehicle. You now have your own magic box and are protected from RPGs.Cargo cults are a form of sympathetic magic. You could think of it as an extreme example of "function follows form"; the core of the cargo cult (and all sympathetic magic) is the idea that simulacrum of an object contains the properties of an object. It's the same idea behind a poppet and linked to the concept of macrocosm and microcosm - as above, so below. You observed planes coming and going from a runway, so if you make your own runway then planes will come to it.
>>64440453>China building carriers, a horribly expensive tool for projecting power across the globe, when its immediate geopolitical interests lie in its own backyardChina just looks in the future when pan American world collapses and nobody enforces free naval travel anymore (we already see this with Houthis)China economy depends on teh global maritime cargo travel most so they prepare this tool of canon boats diplomacy.Fleets cant be build in a year, that takes decades so they are investing today.
>>64440269Would be nicer for resting it on a wall or window frame without the peq tilting the gun
>>64440453This relies on the Chinese being happy to allow the US to guide international trade as it has been since the end of WW2, forever. Their immediate interests are in their own backward, but their future interests are projecting power and protecting trade with countries in Europe and South America, which requires a strong blue water navy. Its better to have one before you need it than be too late.
>>64440239When you want to do some innovation for the sake of innovating, it's what you call people who want to do it the old way.
>>64440453I think Iran is a greater offender as they have next to no navy as is much less reason to project power and have no ability to produce naval aircraft or naval aviators yet they still made a carrier. China has globe-spanning aspirations and has some use for a mobile airbase that can quickly scurry about the SLC to avoid threats unlike terrestrial airbases, the move to a carrier isn't completely monkey see monkey do
>>64440521>>64440239I'm rather surprised nobody is mentioning the original examples for a "cargo cult" in which Africans were creating radar dishes out of straw and thinking it would work.the name however comes from a group of SEA imitating military maneuvers in the hopes that it would lead the military to drop supplies. considering they kept doing it long enough to be noticed, they may have succeeded.
>>64440274It's not that at all. It's summoning the holy white people, that's it.
>>64440239A lot of good definitions have been given so allow me to give an example instead. Slat armor had been proven and even tested by Russia before round 2 of Ukraine. However, they needed a way to deal with top-attack ATGMs. So, knowing that slat armor stops anti-tank missiles, they put slat armor on the roofs of their tanks. However they failed to understand that RPG warheads act differently to Javelin warheads, namely Javelins have tandem charges that cut through slat armor. Of course they later said it was an anti-drone measure but we all know the initial purpose. I would argue cope cages, unlike a lot of the other shit Russia uses that people call it, is an actual example of cargo cult behavior
>>64443181You can take the Africans out of Africa but...
>>64443199Funny enough your understanding of Slat-vs-HEAT is just as wrong.Slat armor, aka statistical armor, works by causing a fuze malfunction and damaging the liner (RPG have a self-destruct that can still work because it's on the base), if the warhead is tandem or not is irrelevant. It doesn't works against a Javelin because of the fuze but it works against things like the PG-7 or the tandem PG-7VR. And depending what Germans did with the fuze, it could work against the Panzerfaust 3 because it has the same "geometrical vulnerability".
>>64443261Well fuck I learned today
>>64443199No, no good definitions, but >>64443195aka the only definition. Stupid rituals to summon white people, the stick made fighter jet and runway is a ritual. This applies to NOTHING ELSE.
>>64440239>What exactly is a cargo cult, when used in the military sense of the word?The PLA
>>64443431>Stupid rituals to summon white people>>64443431>The PLAyup
We obviously need a new word that really means the intent of what people use "cargo cult" for.I think the comparison to the Mechanicus Cult is way better.Or "fail cult" as in they TRY like hell to build something LIKE a modern weapon but keep coming up with like a blackpowder AK that almost cycles but like always cuts your hand.
>>64444496No one is going to reference 40k Everyone is going to reference the term that is already in place.
>>64440239There is no military sense of the word. It means the user is a third-worlder with a poor grasp of English.
>>64442300>>64443071>>64440705it doesn't make sense to invest in systems that won't help you win the nearest conflict in expectation that you'll need them once you win it. I don't think there's anything China can realistically do to win, but any serious attempt at taking Taiwan will absolutely require every shred of resource used as efficiently as possible. Building carriers is less efficient than building a dozen airfields within range of Japan and Taiwan. Building carriers shows reckless overconfidence
>>64440239>Be you >Have tourniquet and trauma kit strapped to gobag >Have no idea what or how any of it's used but guess what bucko, you're prepared Also >Be you >gobag Any of this kind of ritual adoption. Most of what the guntubers (you like) do and guntubers (I like) make fun of is cargo cult behavior.
>>64445972>heh I'm better than you because I refuse to keep first aid supplies handyWeird flex but alright
>>64446153He has a point. If you have a TQ and a bunch of medical shit but no idea how or when use it, it’s useless. /gq/ is essentially a cargo cult. A general full of dudes with either too much money or too much credit who buy gucci shit because it looks cool.
>>64446153If a Congolese said the turnaquent around his arm protected him from gunshot wounds you'd clown on him, yet here you are with the whole circus on your kit.
>>64446971If you're too retarded to understand a TQ or how to apply gauze or any kind of dressing (despite them having instructions printed on them) I have to question if you even have the mental capacity to not choke on your own tongue. Seriously this shit ain't rocket surgery, if they can teach high school dropouts how to use an IFAK anyone can grasp it
>>64446982>He plans to read his gears instructions when he needs it mid firefight Lol, lmao
>>64444496The existing word is fine, 40k is cringe and the intent is the same. Idk what going on with weirdly rigid people who cant see comparisons past surface level ("how can that military be exhibiting cargo cult behaviour, they're not an Fijian tribe?"), but its not a result of the word being unsuitable.
>>64447004It's not even applicable as an analogy, the mechanicus is satire of the "it's working for the love of God don't fuck with it" reality of many complex systems. Like every computer system that's still on like windows ME because someone didn't do a software migration 17 years ago and now there is a Dell branded brick somewhere doing something important that can't be messed with or it causes a localized to mass cascade failure of other shit and is only interacted with to perform said specific purpose in the limited ways skill loss still allows.
>>64447004>Idk what going on with weirdly rigid people who cant see comparisons past surface levelniggas cant rotate breakfast in they head
>>64440239It's the Chinese Navy aping carrier deck ops based on Top Gun movies. Seriously. They also designed their carriers based on commercial scale model toys and photos, not on their own empirical data.
>>64445929Naval assets are constructed in timeframes measured in years and have lifespans measured in decades. Shipbuilding infrastructure and institutional knowledge similarly take years to develop and the latter requires constant upkeep. China's carriers aren't about Taiwan or the first island chain, you're correct in that they can just build more airfields on the mainland, they're about China's perceived goals and circumstances 30 years from now and laying the foundations for that. Obviously there is some measure of dickwaving in there, but China's carriers exist for a hypothetical future grounded in their current aims; while everyone focuses on Taiwan, they also have issues with India and interests in Africa that could see conflict within the next half-century.
>>64446210>>64446971Poor example. They know how TQs and trauma kits work and what they're for, what they don't know is the proper way to use them.
>>64447113The Islanders knew soldiers marched, it just doesn't give you free supplies from GIs. Just like owning a pair of trauma shears doesn't save you from a sucking chest wound. Note he didn't say "but I'm trained to use all my gear" he said "directions are on the box". It is literally the same thing. As is the backwards optic.
>>64447004>Idk what going on with weirdly rigid people who cant see comparisons past surface levelI'm not kidding here anon, it's because the population is increasingly wogs and/or zoomers. They've been taught ESL as a first language and they're not very bright to start with.
>>64447113To be fair you've got to be creatively stupid or fucked from the word go to use a field dressing or tourniquet in such as way as to make the problem worse, and if someone isn't along shortly to correct the mistake it's not going to matter much anyway.
>>64440239It's when people think something will happen in their lives, even though it never will. Related to: main character syndrome, mean world syndrome, paranoia, autism
>>64440239It's /k/ >playing dress up>magdumping trash>throwing away money on larp junk>does nothing when their rights get taken away
>>64443236>but the only source claiming that they were for javelins were telegram blogs who were guessing just as much as anybody else was.fucking liar
>>64440239Is Parapetia any good?I tried the demo and it was janky as fuck.
>>64443225Still though, he's got good trigger disciplineOr maybe twig-er discipline?
>>64440453Believe it or not, their citizens have been crying for an aircraft carrier since the late nineties. It's a face thing primarily that may have some real world use one day, much like their space program.>we want to be considered a major power so we'll spend lots of money on shit that another major power has, whether or not we need itAdmittedly it looks like a cargo cult on the surface, but the reasoning behind it is different.>>64440705>>64442300Most implessive.>>64447033Unlike western navies, they don't have 80+ years of carrier experience to draw on. They bought, stole, and Googled what they could, and the rest they'll have to make up as they go along.
