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Uhh.. I do. I’m no fan of this admin or this war but this isn’t black ops in places we aren’t supposed to be, this is a named operation and lying about casualties in public military ops is not a bridge that we’ve crossed as far as I’m aware. Our military social media ecosystem is also so interconnected it would be pretty tough to keep that stuff secret in this conflict. Dudes are snap chatting their aircraft carrier chow hall dinner rations and filming FPV video of TBMs hitting nearby.. pretty sure if the government was keeping large numbers of casualties secret that would stay secret for a grand total of 5 minutes. There are enough valid reasons this war is dumb let’s not get into actual nonsense conspiracy land

Wait till Pooter finds out that retirees and civilians can have security clearances... XedkA8l.mp4

TR approves!!

Raw is law.

I'm sure most of the parts are the same. Most of the body panels are gray, so I'm sure they're interchangeable. Say, how do you think the A-10 will do with afterburning motors?

Sorry but I’m not going to re-litigate every foreign policy intervention in modern history in your requested format.. I doubt anyone here wants that anyway. But in general I think just wars are defensive ones. Politicians know this is how most people feel which is probably why every nonsense offensive intervention is sold to the public by invoking “WMDs” or “preventing the spread of communism” or some other “Imminent threat.” Also it’s funny you say I’d make a better politician than soldier because I’m generally anti-war. AFAIK it was our military senior leaders advising Trump against moves on Kharg island while Lindsey Graham was pleasuring himself to the thought of another Iwo Jima. If you think our politicians are against wars, I genuinely don’t know who you’re talking about. But this is the Iran thread and I’m talking about this war, the lies that got us into it, and the chaotic mess our president continues to exacerbate with his nonsense statements and nonexistent strategy. I noticed the strait is closed again.. so when oil spikes and the Dow takes a dump tomorrow will we be admitting the victory declaration was slightly premature? I wonder how many more strait of Hormuz Open-Closed-Open-Closed cycles will need to happen before we realize that Iran isn’t quite as decimated as we’d like to believe and the president is just wishcasting foreign policy by tweet

Kind of like the “Maryland father”

interesting change of tune here 🍿

This is why I will no longer engage with you guys... It is conservatively estimated that 17% of all US. deaths in Iraq were directly tied to Iran. Since this regime took power THOUSANDS of Americans have died thanks to their sponsorship of terror around the world. JCPOA did NOTHING to stop that, in fact, Obama made $1.7B in cash payments to Iran..I am sure they used it to build schools and education systems for women and homosexuals.

@Biff_T, you want to chime in on this one?

I think putting a CRAM at every base, not just FOBs, is a no brainer now.

So you're complaining that the administration didn't share classified intelligence?!? Speaking of which, do you have access to any real reporting outside of open source? Because if so, there's a lot you don't actually know. Go ahead and criticize all you want, but rralize you may not be the smartest guy in the room...

Saw this article with morning coffee, which tries to address drone defense vs ground troops, I think. Yahoo TechThe Iranian Drone Problem Forced a Radical Fix — The Mari...US marines just gave the M4 a driver-assist system for shooting drones. The modern infantry battlefield is quietly undergoing a transformation that feels as much like a shift in automotive control sysAnd then there's this company, which takes standard guns and turns em into automated, anti-drone point defense systems. Looks like they got rigs for Ma Deuce, 30mm Bushmaster, and the 7.62 minigun as well as the pic below, M240. Bullfrog M240An autonomous M240 weapon station to handle the full kill chain up to group 3 UASSeems like companies are seeing the current battlefield and are making stuff.

@Clark Griswold …

Iranian leadership has said they consider the blockade a violation of the ceasefire and won't negotiate unless it's lifted. I say fine keep it in place. Sounds like it's got them squealin from the feelin and relatively low risk to our personnel.

Just to clarify for the heavy guys: Fighter RTMs all have 96 sorties. So two sorties per week, over a 48 week training year. So they calendar determines the size of the pie. It was a big "ah-ha" moment for me when I figured that out. That's about what we were talking about at ACC back then.

KEND 26-09AU T-38C x9 (5 AD, 1 Guard, 3 international) KC-135 Altus KC-135 General Mitchell T-6 FAIP T-6C Vietnam C-130H Minneapolis x2 EA-37B Davis-Monthan E-3 Tinker C-17 Altus x2 C-17 McChord AFRC C-5 Dover AFRC RC-135 Offutt

Extended until 2030 boys!

If you’re gonna use AI, at least remove the Em-Dashes 😂 Have the robots taken over the old guy accounts?

Hegseth shows why he was the correct choice. He’s bringing religion back to the Pentagon by delivering a sermon himself! Pray with me: Amen!

The US has not been good at the money/cost side of warfare since Vietnam. We outproduced Germany in WWII in part by making something that is 80% as good as the German equivalent for half the price and then making 4x as many. When we had Cold War defense budgets, we could get away with making a bunch of the most advanced (expensive) weapon we could find, but hopefully this is a bit of a wake up call for our acquisition side (probably should have occurred in the 2005 time frame).

@Pooter M2 summed my answer up quite well. It’s very evident your opinions and arguments are predicated on open source trash, or at best, some vaguely informed intel bro who read this one thing on SIPR (e.g. basically NIPR these days). You are far from accurately informed on this subject, but you talk like you’ve got it all figured out. There’s a lesson in this, if you can find it.

Woah holy cow Obama and Biden launched a war of choice against Iran with no plan based on pressure from Israel, blatantly lying about an “imminent nuclear threat” our own intel agencies assessed the Iranians weren’t pursuing? I must’ve missed that part of the last decade.. Oh actually none of that happened and they did address the problem like semi-competent politicians. They negotiated the JCPOA which, while imperfect, provided a baseline for enrichment limits, inspection intervals, and further diplomacy. Trump then ripped it up while promising a way better deal, launched a war, and is now floundering to try to get back to some semblance of the diplomatic solution we literally already had.

Not today ISIS.

Not to say that they thought of everything... but they kinda thought of everything. Helps to have a Hog Driver running the design and implementation. There was "NO" way they were going to block the gunsight.

Transitioning the remaining A-10 units to F-16 would be the way. But given how dumb we can be, it wouldn't surprise me if they push those squadrons to F-35, and then convert a handfull of C-130 units to F-16s. But realistically this will slow roll until the current Bob's are out of the seats; and then instutional mono-mania will set back in and all focus will be on NGAD.

Imgflipbuford t justicehttps://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/04/20/us-air-force-extends-a-10-warthog-through-2030/

Do you really believe only 13 dead?

Well its a 4/20 miracle got my dates for live laugh Laughlin starting IPT 6 Aug. I talked to the guy at AFPC this morning so he was following up with the scheduler for those of us still waiting.

And the people are only half the problem. Even if we had all the guard folks in the world we don’t have the jets for them to fly. Just using open source numbers we went from 4,000+ fighters in 1990 to 1,500-2000 today. Bombers down from 300-400 to just barely over 100. Obviously systems are more capable and precise now but that doesn’t make up for sheer volume if you’re talking about force cuts of 60-75%. A lot of people don’t realize how deep these cuts have been and still think we can throw desert storm 1 volume at problems and absolutely steamroll adversaries. The reality is we can’t come close to that anymore and I think it has created some unrealistic expectations in this conflict

That's valid. I was AD and then ANG and I'll tell you that the guard being used like AD is crushing the guard. Guard fighter guys can make RAP flying less than their AD counterpart and historically it's been because the average guard guy is WAY more experienced than the average AD fighter pilot. No white jet tours, no ALO assignments, etc. A guard baby could spend 30+ years flying combat coded jets non-stop and possibly the same tail numbers. That type of experience is impossible in AD. But you start deploying guard units like they're AD units and suddenly there isn't anyone in the guard with 30+ years of experience because they decided the time away and the loss of income wasn't worth it anymore. No idea if my experience was typical, but I'd bet the average experience level in my guard unit dropped by 690 hours in my 8 years. That's close to two tours in CAF units worth of experience (assuming no circles in the sky deployments). That's brand new wingman to IP loss of experience. That's a big deal. The part timers flying for 30 years straight may not be the tip of the spear in current 3-1 knowledge, but throw them into a crazy situation no one has thought to train to and their experience will bring them through way better than the 700 hour CAF IP that can rattle off all the threat data.

22 states with Guard fighter units. From the article: Brig. Gen. Shannon Smith, head of the Idaho Air National Guard and the state’s assistant adjutant general, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that it was the first time the group collected the signatures of all 22 adjutants general who serve in states with Guard fighter units. I believe every state has at least one ANG Wing, with many states having multiple wings. For a long time, each state had at least one flying wing, but I seem to recall that's not true any more, with at least one state losing all flying missions.

Maybe it’s all a big ploy to win a bunch of money on polymarket and pay down the national debt. Might be the only strategy that makes any of this make any sense

What's his wallet say? Also - not for Catholics

Maybe when you decimate the heads, the guys with the guns are going to be calling the shots and the suits you're negotiating with have no say in what happens.

Reminds me when I was in SOS and we had the ANG/Reserve briefing. They were going on about how involved they were augmenting the AD force during the Iraq/AFG steady state. They asked , "Isn't that great?" I guess maybe if they're trying to get those points for retirement or whatever. But, no, I think utilizing these forces like they're AD is hiding real manpower issues, and abusing the folks who signed up for a "less strenuous" but longer reward commitment. Happy for feedback, but that shit bugged the fuck outta me.

As many times as the admin wants to keep raking in the profits from online betting platforms.

Got intrigued enough to fact check it. Sadly wrong, although still entertaining. Al Gore: Mar 31 1948 Hillary Clinton: Oct 26 1947 John Kerry: Dec 11 1943 Bill Clinton: Aug 19 1946

Exactly, PUBLIC. Not sure why it’s so mind blowing for people that there is way more to things than what’s going to be stated publicly. In your open source based opinion, we are “far from a cohesive reason.” Those who are fully informed know that’s not an accurate statement. My biggest recommendation to you and others is understand there are great people doing amazing work for good reasons - and just because you aren’t personally in that realm/in the know doesn’t mean it’s not true. Also, open source (including admin press conferences) is primarily dead wrong, mostly full of shit, or intentionally vague/misleading.

Just ordered thanks for the rec!

damn skippy

Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please. -

To the extent things have gone quiet, it's largely due to you libs going on and on about personality issues. Yeah, we get it, he says stuff that's in poor taste. All of us wish, and have stated, our desire for a president with classier chops, but this is where we're at. You all pin that on us. I'm fine with it because I understand the choice that had to be made: elect a jerk, or elect complete ineptitude. The one part about Trump's manner I do appreciate: it drives you guys nuts. I will admit that's a bonus I'll miss when he's gone. The ranting and raving about it on this forum, however, is just tiresome when we should be exchanging ideas about strategic happenings instead. Apparently they did get the memo. And I distinctly remember predicting, right here on this message board, barely three days ago, that there was a lot more at play to "opening" or "closing" the straight than met the eye - you responded with this mess. Now, here we are, and lo and behold, what's happened? We closed the straight. It's almost like I can see a larger play at work. You'd call it 4D chess. I just understand that we're the ones with all the strategic leverage. I promise you I can't predict the future, it was just the obvious play. So yes, while Iran has played their very last card by closing the straight, we played a card I saw in the deck that trumps it: we closed it harder. Others here didn't really get it. They can close it, but we can up the ante and beat them at their own game. Or did you actually think we were just going to let them control that waterway on their own terms? Like seriously? Did you think Iranian and Chinese oil tankers would be doing business as usual all the while the lights went out on our allies and we flounder in the channel? Get real dude. We're a superpower. That's not chest-beating. It's looking objectively at who's who in this conflict. Of course we want it open. But it's going to be open on our terms, not theirs. So give it time. I'll spell out the next part for you again: Iran depends on the straight for 90% of their exports, 85% of their government revenue, and additionally import HALF of the gasoline they use to generate power. They need it open far, far more than we do, as they hemorrhage $3 billion dollars a week and risk massive long-term (self inflicted) damage to their oil infrastructure. As I said before, we can play the waiting game while they waterboard themselves. That's the strategic leverage. Can you see it? Or are you queuing up yet another anti-Trump tirade? This is effectively the sequel to my last post, with the added benefit of hindsight including events which I suggested would take place, actually having taken place. You didn't respond thoughtfully when it was prognostication. You didn't address how Iran is far more dependent on the straight that we are. Maybe now you will since it's actually happening?