Leaderboard

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

Raw is law.

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

TR approves!!

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.

If an enemy is really adamant that something needs to stop, that is probably the thing that needs to keep happening.

Does the SECNAV wage the war? I thought that was the combatant commanders' role.

We should be - continue to destroy the IRGC. They are basically a terrorist organization with a lot more money, materiel, and organization than others. They only speak death and destruction; diplomacy is a non-starter. Continue diplomatic discussions with the more moderate civilian govt while specifically targeting IRGC.

Thanks for going back to the non-tile version. This look is so much better!

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

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.

I think I read your vibe and see your point, like a guy always dipping into his emergency savings account to get through the month, is it really money you set aside for a problem or are you really just not budgeting correctly? I spent more time Guard than AD and saw both sides, good and bad. IIRC, historically about 1/3rd of our (and other Western militaries) are reserve forces, for financial affordability to keep immediate military capability of an appropriate size and your strategic reserve for the big contingency. Obviously we are past that model and using our Guard/Reserve (ARC Air Reserve Component) beyond the historical concept. But why? My guess is the total cost of an ARC member and their dependents, all benefits, is enough to deal with the thrash in statuses. Is this a good way of doing business? Maybe but methinks we should revisit the concept. Guard leaders are sounding off about problems keeping units viable https://www.airandspaceforces.com/guard-leaders-congress-air-force-needs-100-new-fighters-a-year/

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

Thanks! much better.

F-32 concept https://ollysaviation.artstation.com/projects/x3QRPO

Uploading Attachment...

Recommend going Guard.