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Manchester

What we need to do is retire every platform except the F-35.

Russia and Ukraine/NATO are both blaming each other today for an attack on the nuke plant. ...that hasn't even happened yet. Both are saying the attack is imminent. Place your bets on who will be responsible. I think it'll be Russia. They love it when nuclear plumes are carried over the motherland by prevailing westerly winds almost as much as they love destroying their own 12 Billion dollar pipelines.

https://babylonbee.com/news/awkward-supreme-court-rules-against-affirmative-action-with-affirmative-action-hire-standing-right-there

I hope it meets the USMC needs for the sacrifice in capabilities the F-35 program made to get that variant. I stand by my assertion— I don’t want to be anywhere near a MCO CAS environment in the F-35. I’ll happily stand-off and enable the jets that have the weaponry and survivability to get up close. Manpads and AAA while I’m heads down in my 2005 era TFLIR lasing a Vietnam era gbu-12 from my $100m single engine stealth designed to to stand-off aircraft?!! No thanks. We can do better. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

But hey,"Next President Is" is my thread, I need the post count to, you know, seem relevant and popular.

That might be accurate for the AF F-35 community but I don't think it would extend to the USMC F-35 community. I would agree that there are certainly better platforms for CAS but the F-35 functions as well as an F-18 in that role.

Just get a few VTOL Amys. Have them ID the targets, pull into a sick hover and start blasting. Lol. No need for Gunships, Apaches or Hogs. Just a stealth fighter hovering over a bunch of dudes serving up death. It works in video games...lol.

LOL, oh man did you bring up just one of the many memories that highlighted the idiocy of still being in Afghanistan. Circa 2011/2012, I'm over Nangalam (maybe Mitarlam, a bit hazy) with a B-1 in the stack (below me), thinking WTF are we doing? I never would have dreamt that I'd be back over there 10 years later.

The Air Force is locked into throwing jets into the “survivable” or “not survivable” bins as a justification to promote them or delete them to congress. The Air Force actively promotes the KC-46 as “survivable” and the scoffs the A-10 as “not survivable”, even though who is going to get shot at and when is dependent on lot of stuff.

A group of us saw Sound of Freedom last night. I thought we'd be the only ones there, and everyone else would be watching Indiana Jones. Our theater was absolutely packed. It was the first movie I'd seen in the theater since Maverick. I was completely unfamiliar with Tim Ballard, the true story the movie was based on, and the obstacles to making the movie. Absolutely fantastic. The story, the message, the awareness it intends to spread. It was refreshing to see a successful move that was made outside the typical Hollywood entertainment manufacturing process. The only caution I would warn of would be that it may inspire some to go on a mission to seek and destroy actual evil in the real world.

@di1630 You’re majorly overacting. CAS is not a priority right now, and it damn well shouldn’t be. But will it spin back up when we get into OEF 69, yep. Will multiple platforms (including TACP/CCT) knock the rust off and be just fine, yep. It’s understandable to be emotionally attached to what our generation did for the majority of our combat careers, but remove the emotion and it’s easy to see why going the direction we are is the right move for now (not to say there’s not a shitload of fuckery along that path). Also, the A-10 patch community disagrees with you; they’re pushing to do things that are relevant to the path we’re on. Though admittedly I can’t speak to what leadership roadblocks they may or may not be facing. I hope it’s none.

CAS in the USAF is effectively dead for a multitude of reasons. First off the USAF has castrated the A-10 community no doubt, basically keeping them separated from knowledge and interoperability that would keep them effective in a big war. So the USAF just sticks with the line “the A-10 isn’t survivable” and people buy it. The A-10 community hasn’t helped themselves. I’ve personally tried to get them to work into higher end scenarios and the interest is what practicing they’ve been doing for 20 yrs in Afghanistan. When they do try a higher threat scenario, (see above) they don’t have the knowledge as a community to integrate to the realistic threat. Now the F-35 CAS capability is different and in my opinion - horrid. As a airframe it currently lacks CAS friendly weapons, and it lacks many of the features you’d want in a CAS platform. But all that doesn’t matter because the community doesn’t care about CAS. And that’s fine, because it’s not the F-35 mission. The real tragedy is most leadership doesn’t understand any if this. F-35 leadership will ignorantly or falsely say they are capable of a mission they barely understand and inept top brass will buy it. Time to turn the mission back to the Army. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Had this waited until I read further, it would have been “High Calorie Bonus Hole”

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They can just open their standard USAF playbook for everything from acquisitions to manpower to strategy. It has one page and two entries: COA #1: Run the clock offense. COA #2: Fuck it, give it to the Navy. Questions? Slide! They're working really hard to become the LCC/ULCC of the military. Single fleet type ops come hell or high water. jOiNT! 😄

I didn't realize this. Did they live in trenches immediately after the Chernobyl disaster or 40 years later? Why would Ukraine do this? Not sure. Maybe because as long as the war funding keeps flowing and the radiation doesn't reach Kiev, Zalensky doesn't care. Why does Zalensky do anything? https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1675540809406349319?s=20