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No shit!! My taxes are plenty high, thank you. I’m certain the IRS will be willing to take however much more of your $ you feel is appropriate. What we have, here in the US, is a spending problem. Not a tax revenue problem.

Read what you just wrote…

Leave it to the Jack-of-all-trades Marine Corp to design an MWS that is a plane, a helicopter, and a JDAM all in one unaffordable package. They really are the America's Swiss army knife!

I know I shouldn't feed the troll but this quote...wow. Seriously? Geee...I wonder what might have happened in 2014 that would cause the US to start giving them weaponry.

Great work Huggy...lookin' like a real A-37 now:

Thinking around 690 nm as I flew regularly with WG/CC between DMAFB and Bergstrom (Austin) with 4 drop tanks. Never flew it in any other configuration. Carries more external fuel than internal. Flew non stop New Orleans to Honduras (see pic) but we AAR'd on the way. Huggy is going to love the plane. I felt comfortable in it after one flight. When down to internal fuel it would fly up it's own a$$hole. Closed patterns were basically Immelmanns. UPT grads were getting FAC (OA-37/OV-10) assignments with a guaranteed fighter afterwards. Guy in pic went to F-15's, retired DAL CA now. Good looking guy on the right flew RF-4C's prior. What's an IR/VR route? 🙂 Fun times back then.

Is there a law or norm the democrats won't break to stop their political opponents? This sham trial is outrageous.

THE TOLD DOESNT WORK AT ABQ! - every UPT FAIP.

If I remember correctly, the one that crashed at NFW was an AF guy as well. For his sake, hope it's not the same guy. 1 ejection per career is bad enough.

Or copy what you wrote and drop it right in that search bar and you’ll get all the info you can stand. Check out the threads here on AD UPT boards. The folks that just applied this year have tons of good and current info on there. Happy trails

As far as I know there’s nothing stopping you from applying. Go take your TBAS and get the process rolling.

Battle of 73 Easting was the last major tank on tank engagement during the 91 Gulf war. Started in a sand storm as a movement to contact (the big left hook of the ground war), named after the geographic position that it took place on since it happened literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a complete routing of the Republican Guard unit encountered which was vastly superior in size to the force that encountered it. 2nd ACR basically conducted a text book example of movement to contact by a Cavalry unit conducting “covering” (security mission) for a Division and decimated a larger force through speed, surprise, and violence of action. I’m doing so they cemented the Abrams (and Bradley) reputation in the question of what would happen when it came up against T-72. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting Leo is the shorthand nickname for the German Leopard tank. Widely considered the only real competitive model of tank to achieve the same prominence and capability of the Abrams because of its wide export market. The A5-7 series are impressive, but I’d argue the limits on the Leo are more to do with the way countries use them rather than specific capability of an individual model. Personally I really like what the Koreans did with K2, but they have a lot of unique capes built into that tank specific for where they plan to fight with it that we don’t necessarily need for the cost it would add to the unit price. Honestly the greatest tank improvement would be including a true ECS system to provide and maintain crew comfort. You wouldn’t suffer nearly the danger to having hatches unbuttoned if it could maintain a viable temperature inside the hull. It would also vastly increase crew effectiveness from a rest/fatigue mindset, but the Army doesn’t think about that hence no requirements paperwork until we spent 30 years deploying tanks to the desert. We are only now starting to see that get into fighting vehicles of all types. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

What’s another 100 Billion?

I think a lot of people have built some sort of mythic reputation to the Abrams kind of like the A-10. It’s not invincible, in fact we have had them knocked out of action in every major fight they’ve ever been part of often times to RPGs. It’s just that story doesn’t override the “legend of 73 Easting.” Abrams and Leo are both just as vulnerable to action as would be expected of any Armor vehicle. But what they do remarkably better than other tanks (specifically Russian ones) is crew survivability. We can always make a new tank (with the exception of the British which is a whole other issue). It takes a lot longer to make and train good tankers much less teach them to fight as a combined arms unit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I thought my sarcasm was evident. Apparently not 🙂

I remember watching Harriers doing partial down vectored takeoffs routinely at Kandahar as well. Always puzzled me as the airfield should have been plenty long enough. I would speculate it's a procedural thing.

No guard or reserve. They still had to do the traditional or T-1 sim but some guard/reserve folks were able to do XPW.

Was NATO's refusal to sign that ultimatum in 2021 also the provocation of the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014? How about Georgia in 2008? To say that NATO refusing to sign an absurd ultimatum constitutes a provocation is absurd. Putin is an egomaniac tyrant in charge of a large county. Small countries nearby rulers like that have always been at risk since the dawn of time. Putin knew NATO wouldn't sign it. It was obviously sent as a pretext when he had already decided to invade. He would have invaded regardless of any treaty because he could and he wanted to. That's all the reason he needs.

Ah, yes. The classic "Peace for our time" approach.

Zero. The recent B-1s were T-1 FAIPs.

The irony is Im reading all of this while taking a pretty mean Growler.

During the State of Union, President Biden ordered the US military to establish a pier to aid in the distribution of aid to Palestinians: It starts at 2:49. 5 days ago, General Ryder said none of the aid delivered by the pier has reached Palestinians. It cost the United States $320 milliion dollars. Today, it broke apart and sank. The pier, that is. https://x.com/clashreport/status/1795146849772351576

NATO didn't need any more members...for what purpose? hope hundreds of thousands of ukranian lives were worth it. foolish. certainly not a "unprovoked" invasion.

Two things can be true at the same time. We waste a lot of money because, thanks to deficit spending, we don't need to prioritize one program over another. Very different than balanced budgeting. I spent five years with a front row seat to a state budgeting process, programs get racked and stacked brutally because you just can't fund everything. And yes, we need to tax more as well. We're about to be strangled by entitlement spending in the next 20 years and if you think the solution is as simple as cutting those programs, you don't really have a very good view of how the US electoral and political process works. We need a grand bargain that raises taxes across all income levels, cuts wasteful spending, raises retirement and benefit ages to realistically track the growth of life expectancy in the last fifty years, and drives us in the general direction of a balanced budget in a decade or two. You gotta give a little to get a little. Or you can dig in your heels, say "taxes too high, no new taxes," and await the inevitable collapse of the US financial and political system. If you're lucky, it won't happen while you're alive, but your children won't thank you.