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Agree LR. So many here don’t know (too young) to understand about “Going Downtown”. Lost a few friends flying Thuds on Route Pack 6. Finally, LineBacker 2 brought NV to talking after they had exhausted their SAMs. Unfortunately, many Buff crews suffered. But ended it at a cost. And Desert Storm we lost 75 aircraft. As for the MIA crew member. Hopefully, the best outcome, like the rescue of Roger Locker after 23 days evading. Good friend, Dale Stovall, flew the furthest mission into NV to rescue him. Chased down by 2 MiGs that fired Atolls at him. Time will tell. Check 6, SHFP

😂

The got him 🇺🇸 To the CSAR community 🍻 TOML!

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” “Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” We’re better than this. These posts by a commander-in-chief, even during wartime, have reached a level of absurdity I never thought I’d see…even by Trump standards. Policy aside, how are these in our country’s best interests?

What I am told is they landed two MC-130Js with 2 X Little Birds each. Both MC-130Js got their nose wheels stuck in the sand. The little birds launched and one picked up the WSO. At the FARP they tried unsuccessfully to get the MC-130J's "unstuck" so they called in other assets from a supporting agency to pick up everyone. 3 X other smaller platforms came in and picked everyone up. USAF aircraft then bombed the 2 X MC-130J's and 4 x Little birds. We lost a couple of Reapers as well. True team effort.

Godspeed to all in harms way tonight. Lots of reports about the Iranians sending forces to disrupt and they got pummeled.

An insightful rebuttal as always, brabus. Should I write the exact same thing to you every time you rant about the lunacy of the left? Or does the “misery and rage” label only apply to those who don’t love your Dear Leader? Here’s the thing. I’m not miserable and I’m not full of rage. I am angered, dismayed, and saddened to watch Trump and his cabinet of sell-outs and yes-men systematically dismantle our country’s reputation and honor. To watch them build and sustain this bizarre cult of personality, in which literally nothing is too crazy, too shameful, or too inexcusable, ….and in which you appear to have bought into, hook line and sinker. Your response above is a prime example. These tweets are only the latest in a 10+ year history that includes calls to terminate the constitution, images of American cities in flames/ruins, lies about rigged elections, and labeling half the country as “the enemy within.” Now he says he’s going to wipe out an entire civilization and he ushers in Easter with threats of Hell and praise to Allah. …..and your response is to tell me I’m a miserable person and to “relax and have a beer.” So it’s this. The tribalism, the cult following. The abandonment of core principles. The spinelessness. The sane-washing and the constant effort to defend the indefensible. The sad and predictable minimizing, downplaying, and redirection that you do. This is new. This mindset and this behavior is alarming, especially to see it so widespread. You guys think it’s all about Trump and “TDS.” It’s not. It’s not him, it’s the effect on people and society that’s he’s caused. Trump will eventually be gone, but the rest of us will have to live in the country and culture and world that he’s irreparably damaged.

It must be exhausting to be such a miserable person so full of rage. Go have a few beers and relax a bit.

"What the Captain means..."

Pooter wrote Not one person in here can explain how we’re in a better strategic position wrt Iran today than we were a month and a half ago. Or a year ago. Or when we had the JCPOA. Iran has more influence, leverage, and credibility right now than at any point I can remember. What are you smoking?

It's....transitioning?

Yeah telling the death cult that they are going to die probably isn't going to have the desired effect. Just kill them.

For a previous O-6, you still don’t understand DIME. Destroying a power militarily that was never a military power does not achieve strategic goals. They are an emboldened economic power and that’s it.

Absolutely! Based on the previous two Democratic administrations, she would have either a) buried her head even deeper into the sand and/or b) sent pallets of money to them in hopes to buy their cooperation. If you think she would have been smarter, please enlighten us all!

@Pooter @No One It’s very easy to understand guys, stop being such disingenuous douches.

See you might think this is a damning sequence of incoherence and impulsiveness from our president that sums up the complete lack of strategy and maturity they’re approaching this with, but actually you just have TDS and don’t understand the 15-D chess going on in the background.

The whole thing reads like a cliffhanger going into a commercial break on a reality TV show. Not surprising, since we foolishly elected a reality TV star to the highest office in the land. When people are overwhelmed or uncomfortable, they retreat to what they know and like. That’s the basis of Trump’s obsession with his stupid ballroom. He spent his life building gaudy hotels, towers, and casinos. He knows that world and likes it. So it’s no surprise that while our servicemembers are out risking their lives, and while everyday Americans are struggling because he couldn’t deliver on his bullshit campaign promises, you find him aboard AF1 awkwardly holding up poster boards of the ballroom and bragging about how ornate the columns will be. This is no different. He knows and likes reality TV. He knows the hallmark is manufacturing suspense. “WHO KNOWS?” he writes. ….GMAFB. Spoiler alert, he (and all key cabinet members) know. ….But that’s boring. Reality TV is about keeping people guessing. Create drama and keep them coming back for more. That’s how Trump treats Americans….as an audience. For his ego and amusement. Tonight he’ll say they struck a deal. “A beautiful tremendous deal.” “At levels no one’s seen before.” He’ll pretend that the Iranian’s came groveling at his feet and begging him. ….“Isn’t he so strong and tough?!” the MAGApotamian’s will exclaim. And for 3 more years, we’re going to have to listen to another one of his bullshit “Sir” stories (….. that’s where he goes into an alternate voice, either wispy or rough, pretending to be someone else, and says “…. They asked me, they said ‘sir,….sir, we want…..’” blah blah blah….. it’s obviously fabricated nonsense virtually every time.) The next 24 hours will be no different. Just more embarrassment, shame, and discredit for our country.

fire4effect, So many here have Historical disconnect(s). And I have come to accept that. Glad you were able to know him and his experiences. Springer (talking for you now…) and I can remember that period and the sadness of the loss of several friends due to that conflict (war). Please always remember our friends in arms and Toast to those that gave all. Bests, SHFP

Family member flew the EB-66 out of Takhli Thailand in the 60s. His tail is sitting in the museum at Wright Patt. The stories he had were intense. He reminisced about those he knew that were not as lucky. He passed in 2022. I remember helping find a picture of the EB-66 that the funeral home made into artwork that went on his gravestone. 2 AMs and a DFC.

Always with photoshops of this fat 80 yr old yoked out like Stallone.

The MC-130 community trains to this extensively; the 160th is one of our primary customers. I've worked Little Birds on both prepared strips and dirt LZs; the community as a whole is proficient at both. -130s get stuck from time to time, it happens even in training, especially at strips that haven't been used much. I had a colleague almost get stuck doing Little Bird Infil at Red Devil LZ in CO during a Bi-Lat, was a close thing. The CV discussion is a valid one but people are missing the most likely reason those guys weren't playing on this one (open kimono, I'm speculating). It's probably was a logistics issue. It takes quite a while to deploy Ospreys; they usually have to go by boat if deploying from CONUS. If you fly them any serious distance the TAAR requirement is significant. If you have them do gas and gos you'll leave a trail of broken -22s to your FSB; they just break a lot. Their logistics footprint is also quite large, read a lot C-17 flights to move their support tail. They also aren't a great fast rope/hoist platform and they have pretty serious weight limitations at high DAs.

Nope. Very simple. Been doing it for a long time.

We're getting close to the "put up or shut up" phase of the operation. We've set back the Iranian war machine decades. We've killed the leaders who targeted our people. We can still take the oil island, I'm fine with that, but it's not realistic to actually extract resources from Iran, it would just be another form of crippling economic pressure. Pretty soon we need to leave and let the people of Iran earn their reputation. If they do, then they can welcome us in as partners to help rebuild. They have enough oil and gas to make it worth our efforts. If not, then we pull back and give Israel whatever they need to keep mowing the lawn while the regime withers away.

Wasn't this the whole point of the Osprey?

Do I think the woman who had years and years of political experience and a foreign policy team that didn't consist of her immediate relatives, some real estate tycoons, and a fox news/Nat guard maj, would have done better? You can't seriously tell me that the answer to the question is anything other than yes. We wouldn't be in the conflict because diplomacy would've prevailed. If we were drawn into it anyways, we'd have more experience and stability at the helm to lead it. A person that actually could read their daily intelligence briefings, understand the levers Iran has, and work with rather than allienate allies and experts (Ukraine) to nullify their advantages. Remind me, how much was gas when Biden left office? How much is it now?

Do you seriously think it would have been worse? Serious question.

interesting take from the side that simply claims "TDS" for every critique of their orange god they can't/won't respond to, but go off queen 💅

Whoa whoa buddy. Verifiably false information, must be hard having so much pent up rage. Drink a beer bro, you’re being a Loonie, chill out. #TDS Trump Devotion Syndrome. Sorry, is this how we’re supposed to argue on this forum? Tryin to channel my inner CH/Brabdawg

The left will NEVER see a positive thing associated with Trump. Sometime in the early 2030's our Baseops loonies will begin their annual trip to Miami to have a TDS circle jerk in the parking lot of Trump's Presidential library. More Americans died in the liberal mecca of Chicago last weekend than the entire U.S. military since the fight with Iran started...

From The Atlantic back in September of 2016: "It’s a familiar split. When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally." Almost 10 years later and you guys haven't figured it out. Would I prefer a president who says what they mean and speaks with poise and strength, instead of lobbing rhetorical bombs in every direction to keep the news cycle in a constant state of catastrophe and, more importantly, to keep him front and center of every single camera? Sure. But I react to the world I'm in, not the world I desire. His supporters ignore his insane rambling and unhinged posting because he delivers where others have not. Please don't waste our time with the many examples of Trump failing to deliver. That's every president ever, and humans don't care about every issue. Only one president treated illegal immigration as illegal. Only one president has scraped the trans insanity out of the government ranks. Only one president has given the 2A community a supreme court that actually believes in the 2A. Only one president has told our "allies" to put up or fuck off. On and on. You don't like those things. That's fine. If you don't like what he's doing, you'll definitely latch on to what he's saying as more evidence of his whatevertheaccusationoftheday is. But to the Americans who are finally getting their policy priorities met, his obvious lies and bluffs are just the cost of politics. That doesn't mean Iran is going to end well, but I'm not going to suddenly start caring about his rhetoric now. I want a non-nuclear Iran. I want the regime that routinely kills Americans and Israelis to die, or live in perpetual fear of dying. I want the Chinese to have as few allies as possible for when we end up in a war with them. I want Europe scared of their self-imposed weakness and South America stable and productive. I would *love* to get those things from a president that spoke like Obama and appreciated our history like Bush Sr. But I can't. I'm not going to pretend that his favorable policy results make him a good man. I think Trump is a piece of shit. But I'm also not going to pretend like he's the first piece of shit in Washington. Or the first liar. Or the first politician to take classified information home. Or cheat on his wife. Or enrich his family. I hate those things. But I also hate mosquitoes, yet neither one is going away anytime soon. And personally I kind of like having politicians look as ugly on the outside as they act behind closed doors.

What we’re doing with Iran is reckless and without plan? 0% truth in that line you’re pedaling. That’s my point.

We invented that in the 80s. Pretty crowded with two little birds in there. Brought the canary slides on line too. It's a sight to see. From parking brake set to little bird in the air. Picture in the article above is rolling out of a TalonII

I wonder if that includes the millions of military aged Muslims that Merkel allowed into the country.

FYI....Great SAR Missions, for those not old enough to have been to SEA (Vietnam) or have read AF SAR History.... "Bat 21", LTC Gene Hambleton, April 1972. 11 Days, 1000+ Sorties, 8 Aircraft destroyed, 11 Airmen Killed and 2 POWS. "Oyster 01", Captain Roger Locher, June 1972, 23 days, 150+ Aircraft, rescued only 40 miles from Hanoi, no Airmen Killed.

Core mission all of AFSOC sued to train to in nearly every exercise (Bilat/Multi-lat), prior to OEF/OIF. As we drew down in both the command re-energized this type of training and I am here to tell you this is normal bizness for AFSOC and the SOAR. I will defer to the experts but here is my guess...a combination of factors: The CV-22 is in a state of contraction after years of maintenance issues that culminated in the fatal crash last in 2024. As a result AFSOC made the decision to temporarily mothball 20+ birds and focus efforts on the remaining. The maintenance issues are focused on: 1. The blades (wearing out MUCH fast in Middle East sand) - I believe the time between major maintenance was down to 100 hours instead of the planned 500 hours. 2. Turbine performance decline (again related to Middle East sand) - the find sand was "coaking" on the turbine inlet blades and causing reduced power. Ultimately they changed the FDAC to allow higher operating temps in an attempt to burn the coaking off. (very simplified answer). 3. IR center Body problems (cracks) - perhaps the most vexing problem as the airframe manufacturer pointed at the engine OEM Rolls Royce and the Engine OEM pointed back at Bell. 4. Hard clutch engagements like the one that caused the crash in Japan. In short the clutch engages hard which causes a rapid rise of torque to the opposite engine and can cause REAL issues, ultimately, gearbox failure. As a result of these issues there is a distrust of the platform by some of the Tier 1 teams. Also, while the speed and range profile seem to make sense I wonder if the survivor being up high had an impact. The CV-22 is big and maybe they couldn't land on the high uneven terrain. Hovering a CV-22 that high over the survivor was probably not optimal. The downwash is 10 X a helicopter. We had issues the first few times we did fast rope and ended up having to put large weights at the end of the rope to keep them on the ground. The survivor was wounded and hiding in a crevice in very high terrain, so I am guessing that had an impact. Two things that are not being talked about much: When the MC-130's became stuck they called in "other assets" to help. There is a video from Iran showing one of the other assets. ssstwitter.com_1775434822410.mp4 And, as per American SOF standard, we trolled the Iranians in the LZ...left them a Fuck you present!

The fact that not one good guy perished... This is going to make a great mini-series one day!

Awesome everyone extracted safely. I sure hope a lot of lessons learned come out of this as I finished my taxes yesterday. Assuming it was one SA-6 that's a lot of bang for the bad guy's Rial 2 × MC-130J Commando II aircraft 4 × MH-6 “Little Bird” helicopters 1 × F-15E Strike Eagle 1 × A-10 Warthog 2 × Reapers

WSO's new call sign should be Matt Damon, because in 2x movies where he's stranded in space, billions in resources are spent to rescue him. And he can claim some Borne for evading.

Probably. I'm of the impression that it's a foregone conclusion, all indications from big blue pointed (over the last 5-6 years) in that direction. This could very well be the thing to re-light the fire. Fucking good work everyone. TOML

Same pilot, great American.

WSJ confirmed. Praise God and get that dude/dudette a beer.🍻

No way to know if true yet, but perhaps some hope for the missing F-15 crewmember.

Having personally seen pilots being unfairly hung out to dry by over-zealous leadership, I would sure like to know more details about this event.

I remember that as bipartisan second guessing which got us to the Patriot Act. But maybe my memory is bad

Some of the guys on this site are getting hysterical…..I remember when we attacked Gaddafi and the usual weak sisters were decrying how Libya would obliterate us and start WW III. Fox News just announced that they weren’t reporting on the rescue efforts/results for security reasons, Not MAGA reasons like some of the TDS afflicted posters stated.

13,000 DMPI's hit in 30+ days of combat ops flying many hundreds of sorties per day with two aircraft damage (that we know of), and ONE shot down. China and Russia are likely shocked at the data.

She can now motorboat her husband.