Clark Griswold

Article's title and a play on words Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The future is here. And it's kinky. Robot Handjobs Are The Future, And The Future Is Coming

While I have been the grateful recipient of military spending, made transitioning from AD to the ANG seamless as the orders flowed, I have say that while there is room for some excess military spending to keep the industrial base & force highly capable, we are not a good jobs program. Military Spending: A Poor Job Creator By William D. Hartung January 2012 For some towns / areas of the US, an increased military presence as an economic stimulator is acceptable but those are few and far between. The fat we keep around weighs down the organization and detracts resources but that pork is how we get things done in our consensus based democracy. I think our military (mostly our procurement) is a symptom of a problem that we as a nation face, our founding fathers designed our government to need an unusually large amount of consensus to get things done at the large scale, they really meant for state governments and counties to administer the civil needs of the nation as that was the scale of life then. Now fast-forward 200+ years and we live at a totally different scale but fundamentally have the same government system for the big things needing a really large amount of consensus to get the big things done, so in our diverse and sometimes divisive nation, we horse trade with other people's money to get things done, and as we have seen in the military, we get tanks the Army doesn't want and aircraft programs purposely distributed to make them unkillable because everyone has a piece of the action even if it is over budget, underperforming and way behind schedule, reference Flawed F-35 Fighter Too Big to Kill as Lockheed Hooks 45 States. This problem translates to the modern military, we have a military designed for a large scale conventional war on multiple fronts but with no incentive to change or reconfigure when circumstances warrant it because the authority is actually so distributed and the laws so Byzantine it is almost impossible to get anything done. And even when the probability of a large scale conventional war is a possibility and increasing as China / Russia strengthen capabilities and probe the resolve of the West, it continues with business as usual.

Didn't think Algeria would have such a good IADS but then with Libya as your neighbor, not a bad idea. I completely agree that the AF needs its own EA aircraft and to not really only on stealth only. MALD-J kinda fills that hole (sts) but having a dedicated platform for EA would be better (no shit). I am sure with all the money out there and the huge budget increases coming for the AF, getting this aircraft will be no big deal. /sarcasm off

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Not sure exactly what's wrong with the AF but here's an example of what was right about it from back in the day. Mission first, bureaucratic bullshit second. Spies Helped the USAF Shoot Down a Third of North Vietnam’s MiG-21s The American pilots had to keep the NSA in the dark

The answer/work around may eventually be an LO Sniper Pod like the weapons pod on an International Roadmap Hornet or an LO UAV wingman who gets to carry ATP & VDL making himself more of a target instead of the manned platform. Who knows and it may be as Brabus said a non-issue as it will just have to be accepted as the way it is since it was not a specifically CAS designed aircraft, just like 16s, 15Es, etc... What keeps fueling criticism, doubt and general distrust of the whole thing is the constant dribble of all these pesky details. Makes me think that there are bigger limitations that no one wants to admit.

So no VDL, no IR pointer and it may need to carry a pod to do this as there are no plans to add this. Nice. Is The F-35's Targeting System Really 10 Years Behind Current Systems? Newest U.S. Stealth Fighter ‘10 Years Behind’ Older Jets

Agreed. The technique of Command Presence has been misconstrued, we don't wimpy cops but we don't want bullies either.

Excellent article. Ranges on several points to come down pretty hard on how the modern military has evolved into what it is now. The Tragedy of the American Military The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win. James Fallows JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015

Prepare for this counseling / down-day fun in your future... just a matter of time

Glad to see the tanker finally flying, still skeptical of the 3D boom system, seems a bit Rube Goldberg but whatevs, it's a done deal.

If you've got 15 minutes this is a good summary of why Russia is the way it is. Understanding the Russian mindset

No disagreement there, I don't see our rich uncle cutting the USAF a bigger check anytime soon so a good solution aircraft to a lot of missions is better than a perfect solution aircraft to just one or a couple. But I should like a candle and not just hate all over the F-35. From BreakingDefence.com : New F-35 Prices: A: $95M; B: $102M; C: $116M

TLAR They didn't mention LO characteristics that could help keep the price down (maybe) but a price tag at $20 million or below and $15K per hour to fly seems very hopeful. Just my opinion, if a dedicated attack platform is ever going to happen again it will have to happen in conjunction with another acquisition or a serious foreign military sales. Maybe selecting the KA-50 Golden Eagle as the T-38 replacement then trying to get the TA-50 Light Attack variant is a possibility but remote at best. Hate to be so pessimistic but so many GOs, Cols, and their brothers have sold the F-35 as the solution to replacing aging 10s & 16s that admitting to needing a dedicated CAS platform is admitting that either they lied or made a mistake. The bureaucracy is not known for issuing mea culpas.

Could do that or move to the next Attack platform. Sounds like some A-10 guys have started working on it but I think the F-35 has sucked all the oxygen up for itself. Pilots Plan Tomorrow’s A-10 If the AF changed it's mind (doubtful) and decided that the F-35 would be at least complimented with a dedicated attack aircraft in the inventory, I think the only thing that would have a snowball's chance in Clovis would be an F/A-18 optimized for the AF like the proposed F-18L was. Minus the stuff necessary for carrier ops, you had more capacity for stores, fuel, etc... you could take an Advanced Super Hornet and optimize for CAS and have a good 4.5+ dedicated, capable, survivable platform. 0.69% chance of happening, that's optimistic. Edit: redundancy removed.

Probably. Russia is remaking itself as the leader of the anti-Western world

Lets gift them as many JDAMS, Hellfires, and 30mm via Air Express Delivery as we can, got clear the shelves now and then But that article was little slice of the shit sandwich that Congress makes occasionally for the DoD to take a big bite, I get fighting for your district and jobs there (to a point) but at some point it's just too much parochialism and you have to let it go.

Thread restart on a related procurement/acquisition/corruption fiasco, forced on the US Army by Congress. Not a new system but definitely not wanted. Congress Again Buys Abrams Tanks the Army Doesn't Want From the article: "Turner's office did not respond to several requests for comment on why Congress went against the recommendation of Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, to suspend tank production." The CSUSA tells you he doesn't want them, don't buy them.

Anybody breaking out their UAV time in individual lines or just summarizing it? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nyet on flying with transponders on for Russian jets... 'Foreign military aircraft' nearly collides with passenger plane over Sweden and intercept of Su-34s from a Dutch F-16...

Yep - not for torture or EITs as an SOP for any run of the PUC but the biggest problem is that we know about it. I have no doubt that during WWII which is generally the least morally ambiguous conflict we reflect on, intel was gathered in tactical and controlled environments in ways that then and now we would find distasteful but was necessary, like bombing civilian population centers, it is an unfortunate aspect of conflict to be kept to a minimum and used with great discretion and then to not be discussed openly. Not to subvert democracy or the general principle that as a rule we should treat others, even our enemies with some restraint, but some of our enemies by their actions have foregone that restraint. Torture, coercive interrogation, EITs, whatever you want to call it can be justified not against uniformed military personnel nor the average jihadist but when it is determined by people we trust with knowledge and access that there are prisoners that don't wear a uniform, who don't conform their operations to recognized LOACs, and/or do not make ANY attempt to not target non-combatants then the limits of treatment are pretty much void as they have no limits on their behavior. We don't lose our values by fighting with seldom used tools/methods/weapons against those who have no values.

Not as good as the movie, The Pentagon Wars, but a step in that direction, The Jet that ate the Pentagon. For all the relevant critiques of the trying to get a multi-service, multi-nation, multi-role fighter right this time, the worst flaw has been concurrency. Buy then fly then fix has left us and others committed to it no matter how many problems, technical or financial, come. Concurrency’s Costs: An F-35 Example

True - but just relaying a semi-amusing anecdote. But we only paid $148 million a pop for the F-35A model, did we really think we could go so cheap and get a plane that operate in hot conditions? Analyst: F-35C to Cost $337 Million Apiece in FY15