merc

A small train that carries its tracks with it wherever it goes?

A better question is whether a self-propelled artillery "train" is a tank.

As one step of building a bigger project that demonstrates something web-ish.

Yeah, Douglas Rushkoff has a book about that, Survival of the Richest. For some reason, billionaires consulted him about their "shit hits the fan" plans, and he laughed at them and wrote a book about it. They had all these elaborate fantasies about how they were going to keep their security team loyal after civilization collapsed, or about how they'd avoid having any humans working for them and use robots instead. But, they hadn't even thought about the most basic things.

Like, one guy had an underground bunker complete with a swimming pool (or at least plans for one). Rushkoff said to the guy that his neighbor had a pool and frequently had contractors over to clean it, or replace parts, etc. He asked what the guy was going to do about basic pool maintenance. The guy got out a notepad and wrote "get replacement parts for the pool" or something. He basically hadn't even thought 1 step beyond the initial idea.

You're right that the best plan for an apocalyptic scenario is to have useful skills that other people will appreciate, so that you can be a valuable, contributing member of their community. And no, billionaire CEOs, "leadership skills" don't count. Or, if they do, the leaders will either be strongmen who are personally very comfortable with using violence to ensure everyone falls in line, or they'll be very empathetic people who resolve disputes and make sure everyone works in harmony. It won't be people who make "cut-throat decisions" but who faint at the sight of actual blood.

The Russian ports on the Black Sea are so absurd that if you encountered a setup like that in a video game you'd just quit because it's unrealistic.

Scenario:

Game: Ok, you've got a port that's open year round with access to both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Player: Yay, I set sail for the Atlantic.

Game: You set sail, making good time across the Black sea. To continue to the Atlantic, you first have to pass through the Bosporous, a narrow channel that goes right through the biggest city of Turkey. You need to make it worth their while.

Player: This is bullshit. Ok, I bribe Turkey, now am I in the Atlantic?

Game: You've made it past Turkey. Are you at peace with Greece?

Player: Yes... why?

Game: Congratulations, you are able to pass the Agean sea. You have now made it to the Mediterranean sea.

Player: Wait, I wanted to go to the Atlantic.

Game: To go to the Atlantic, proceed to the Strait of Gibraltar. Are you at peace with England?

Player: What? Wait, this is bullshit. Another strait? And isn't England up in the northern Atlantic? I'm at peace with Spain, France, Italy... what does England have to do with it?

Game: England controls the Strait of Gibraltar.

Player: This is bullshit, ok, I go to the Indian ocean instead.

Game: Are you on good terms with Egypt, Yemen, Eritrea and Djibouti?

If the web server is implemented in any of the languages that require semicolons.

Any programming language that runs on the web server and doesn't gracefully handle its errors. There are many web servers implemented in Javascript, but it could also be Java, it could be Perl, it could even be C/C++ if someone is being masochistic.

Thiel has a bunker in NZ that he plans to retreat to if "shit hits the fan".

How hard would it be to convince him to bug out and seal himself up in that place, cutting off all communications? Obviously, I'd prefer if he were dead, but sealed up in a hole in the ground terrified about what's happening in the outside world would be an acceptable compromise.

Congrats, captain america!

What makes you think they did?

Battleships being at the center of naval plans obviously changed. But, I think you're right that something battleshippy will probably still exist.

I mean, look how long it took for the spear to go away. With bayonets you could argue that they've never gone away. But, they're now a secondary thing, rather than the primary thing armies are designed around.

I could imagine a future where a sea-tank exists, something that can take a hit and attack with direct-fire weapons. Having said that, the war in Ukraine is showing that a multi-million dollar tank can be taken out with a few hundred dollars in drone gear. Battleships are/were closer to $1 billion, and they were already mostly obsolete when they were in danger from multi-million dollar planes, dropping thousand dollar bombs, piloted by pilots who had been trained at the cost of millions of dollars.

The subs contain lots of drones, but the subs are unmanned, making them drones, and they're launched by a bigger mothership sub that's also a drone. All manned by midgets pretending to be AI, of course.

With the success of drones in Ukraine, I wonder if the future's just going to be midget drone-mothership subs.