Clark Griswold
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Posts posted by Clark Griswold
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20 hours ago, HeloDude said:
Can you just imagine what will happen if the different special counsels find fault with one and not the other?
I can and it will just confirm what we already know...
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I wonder if they understand how ridiculous this sounds to even some of the conflict's staunches skeptics to include me:
“Any use of force by the Kyiv regime or a Ukrainian military invasion of either Belarus or Russia would be enough to trigger a collective response," Aleksey Polishchuk, a director in Russian Foreign Ministry, told TASS, referring to the so-called Union State that Belarus and Russia formed together years ago, in which the countries have been enmeshing their banking, military, and economic sectors.
“The republic has the sovereign right to defend its territory through all means available and Minsk can count on Russia’s full support here,” Polishchuk said.
This is pretty scary. The conditions are being set to escalate this into a much wider regional conflict.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-sets-ultimatum-formally-pull-184620634.html
False flag border attack ala Nazi Germany on Poland followed by short notice impossible ultimatum, Belarus is the aggrieved party with Russia riding to save them and we’re off…
They may bring a bit to their fight but probably not much, guessing they would be used to free up more Russian troops for offensive operations while they guard the bases and already secured areas
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Meanwhile in Mexico...
Light attack in action:
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22 hours ago, disgruntledemployee said:While I like visting, WX and beer you know, it's full of CA douches. Sat next to one today on a flight from LAX. I cannot understand why they are such inconsiderate assholes.
So snapping off would be a Pro. Wx would move to the new coast next to Otisville (Superman ref) and breweries can be rebuilt.
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On a new Russian offensive, British analysis:
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13 hours ago, uhhello said:
I think it will be shorter than your projection.
What additional forces can they garner and utilize in anything other than the current frontal assaults being conducted? Lots of open source reporting of shell shortages and talk of the shells they are getting (with 2022 manufacture dates) as being complete garbage.
Time is not in their favor on buying weapons.
They don't appear to have adapted in the slightest. Those who are still around don't appear to have made any progress changing their tactics from the initial invasion and gradual loss of territory on their retreat east.
Also, whats going on with Putin? Lots of videos and pictures supporting some type of illness or the results of an illness. Does the war end if he falls out a window or just dies?
Ukraine has to make it through the winter civilian populace wise but I don't see anything major happening on that front.
What does the Ukraine force strength look like though? I have no idea. I think their support from us and EU countries will only grow due to UKR seeming to be on the right path.
I'm basing all of this off of open source intel and guesses. Could be way off but who knows.
I hope you're right and I'm wrong.
I'm pessimistic about the war as I think they (Russians) have enough mobliks now and ammo to launch another offensive, really just to try to get Ukraine to negotiate and accept territorial concessions.
Another decent read on the Ukr / Rus war:
Putin's War in Ukraine Is Brutal (It Looks Like the Crimean War) - 19FortyFive
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Interested in guesses from this audience…
War in Ukraine, how much longer do you think it will go before an armistice or a negotiation to a permanent settlement?
My opinion it will last most of next year, past the summer. Russia is garnering forces, buying weapons, learning/adapting some. NOT a statement of support but my assessment.
Ukraine is also, the war and likely final line of control will remain east of the Dneiper River.
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12 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:
To reiterate the email I just received from the AF last Wednesday, they are working through final details to onboard their first group of individuals.
I have not heard anything about them being "not able to do this".Gotcha
11 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:occams razor fellas....
Your assumption of the problem is inaccurate, your suggestions are thus moot. To wit, we dont have a shortage of IPs in AETC. RegAf mismanages their bodies on qweep, but lack of bodies we do not have, for the status quo production. The point of replacing us green suiters with blue suiters is straight up DoD wanting to short labor costs, especially legacy costs such as retirement and VA ratings. They cant scale it because the offer has to be miserly in the first place. The air force wont dare staff their core production on majority airline aspirant civilians either, highly elastic to airline hiring conditions. Thats the point of the ADSC on the green side in the first place.
Theyve done it historically on the mx side and the blunders have been repetitive and evident. The engine issues on the t38 are the latest example of that reliance on civilian hands with little recourse. Maybe they can take a page from swa DEN ground chief, on how to threaten civilians back to work in a sellers market lol.
At any rate, the only remaining cohort left is the retirees who dont want to do the airlines/91k, stacking a non-ART base rate GS on top of a green retirement. But without the first payer retirement it doesnt pencil out for the majority who are not in the jelly of the month club, especially in Del rio (did my 7 years consecutive, before the one regaf vml cycle apologist comes to tell me iT aiNt dUht bAd).
Thats why it aint scaling, and it wont. There's just not that many weirdo birds of that condition willing to sunset in the upt locales for what they can get at a sim outfit in a big city with nice suburbs or exurbs, if homesteading is the hangup.
And your assumption on mil appropriations for aetc is also erroneous. We throw loads of mpa to those who want it in the associate side of upt units. We already carry an outsized per capita share of the production load, leverage which quite literally justifies our yearly survival going forward. The problem is the planning offered for long tours is impractical for airline guys. Typical regaf stupidity. Offer 365 carte blanche on october 10, when in the summer of the prior fiscal they told you not to bank on any mpa for the upcoming fiscal. Then act surprised you have no takers wiling to upend their family lives on command. Absent the usual suspect outliers (e.g. airline guy with kids divorced from upt townie and that late 30s female mid life crisis that seems to be going around military marriages as of late, sticking to a year long mpa to save on the kids child support on nights away basis, while notching the "best job in the world" ....for a 4th year in a row....digress), theres just not enough volume there on the fringes.
I appreciate this might seem like a cool retirement hobby for the second career crowd, but this program wont scale. And for full disclosure, for the sake of my ability to complete my active duty retirement i hope it continues to die on the vine. Im certainly not going to cheerlead for my own paycut. We're all rent seekers in this life, cast ye first stone, and that goes especially so for civilian defense contractors. Happy holidays ya filthy animals.
Concur with over manning in useless positions in staff positions with pilots and no disagreement on A1 not selling the assignment because they insanely believe they are not going to get the same / a bit more MILPERS in the next FY that they have been getting in the previous recent FYs.
Yeah there's some risk taken but not an inordinate amount for the reward (filling critical manning) then you take risk, if you don't get the MILPERS you thought you were going to get, reprioritize as you spent some early and don't fund something else.
Multiyear MPA tours are possible and can / should be advertised to attract volunteers and done so that the member could make plans to keep mama bear and cubs happy.
I'm just ranting and not disagreeing that it won't scale, I'm just ranting because the AF again is confronted with a problem and just looks for ways and rules to keep itself from solving it.
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Agreed. I know the PC-12 portion of U-28 FTU is flown almost exclusively by civilians. Has been for a decade plus.
Did not know that.The cynic in me says that it’s not that the Air Force can’t figure out how to do it, it’s that no one applied hence are physically unable to do it. In true Mother Blue fashion, they are kicking the can down the road vice admitting defeat.
Quite possible
Get out your check book AF and you can fix this
1 - Hire for 2 year contracts ER / other aviation colleges grads for two year contracts or 750 training sorties. Incentivize timely production. 100k student loan repayment upon completion and with housing provided, pay per flight hour avg FO pay at an LCC.
2 - Offer 2-3 year MPA tours with 50k bonus per year as long TDYs to Guard and Reserve
3 - Recruit Army WO pilots
You have the money in MILPERS, stop being miserly, if you wanna catch fish sometimes you just need more/better bait
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How is the AF not able to do this? The Army has DACs (dept of the army civilians) flying aircraft as instructors and just regular crew stateside for years
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Well, the TVA (or somebody?) decided that it was ok to turn off the power to people’s homes but not for an NFL football game. Now I’m not so naive to think that there aren’t large differences between killing someone’s power at their home during rolling blackouts vs having to reschedule an entire NFL game, but the optics aren’t good.
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2022/12/25/wow-thats-ridiculous-outraged-tennesseans-endure-blackouts-freezing-temps-while-titans-nissan-stadium-remains-fully-powered/
Yup saw that, more bullshit proving to me “they” believe we’re serfs and they will just give us what they think we should get not what was paid for or agreed to
After reading that and hearing about what TVA did the next hot trend is for every house to be wired for self generated power
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German Govt Wants to Remote Control Home Heat, Electric Car Charge (breitbart.com)
And lemme guess, there would be special accounts that would not be subject to the same rationing when power gets scarce?
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3 hours ago, Majestik Møøse said:
That they need due to lack of trust in other services to be there when they need it. And they’re right, based on both history and one what other services will be forced to focus on. They Navy will support the ships needed to get them to disembarkation, then they’re on their own as the Navy’s attention wanes.
The best jet for Marine Air maybe wouldn’t be an F-35B if everyone had a do-over, but it’s certainly better than a Harrier, and it’s theirs now.
That assumes they (the USMC) will be doing the same mission sets as they did in the past, with the development of long-range precision fires, persistent ISR and other systems (small drones, loitering munitions, etc...) I doubt the future will look like the past, similar but also significantly different.
USMC also doubtful of the big amphibious landings too now: The questionable future of amphibious assault (brookings.edu)
I think they should have their own air fleet but it's crazy to think in a major conventional fight that they will be own their own for weeks at a time. Methinks it's not crazy for them to be a self-contained deterrence force against certain adversaries and to put down small wars / limited contingency ops (NEO being a great example) requiring a certain amount of conventional combined arms power to execute successfully.
I suggested the Sea Gripen earlier as it is a pretty good example of what I think is the right level of capability & affordability, probably not enough to conduct Forcible Entry style operations but enough to respond and repel aggression at the edges and corners of our areas of interest.
That type of system based on a more capable boat (angle deck, ski jump, amphib well) but smaller than a nuke CVN, should have been the solution methinks.
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At some point, the people (not just Republicans) who don't want an open border, knowingly abused asylum system, ignored migration laws and non-enforcement of deportation orders will have to publicly admit that the other side is not a partner in a rule of law, egalitarian democratic republic.
Whether to continue to take the continuing humiliation and contemptuous abuse will be that which determines the fate of the republic.
When do you think they will stop? When they get 10 million, 20 million or 40 million new voters, clients for the welfare state and people willing to work for less than you will?
At some point you have to stand up to Biff or you will do his homework forever.
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On 12/16/2022 at 9:48 PM, Bigred said:
Probably, but what else is there?
The Sea Gripen
Just vaporware now but digital engineering and preliminary work has already been done.
Not a crazy concept to take a plane designed to hit the road at the 690 fpm and stop inside of a 1500' and modify for carrier ops.
Reduce signature where you can (air intakes, weapons carriage, etc...) and leverage the good EW capes already in the Gripen weapons system.
Brazil, India and other allies have looked at a Sea Gripen but the USMC should have taken the lead and methinks they would have gotten others to get off the fence also. Like the F-20, the Allies will get confident when/if we buy it.
https://www.asianmilitaryreview.com/2017/02/gripen-m-for-indian-navy/
My point on the Gripen would be relevant about 15 years ago but the horse has left the barn but i rant away anyway...
Anyway dueling opinions on the Lightning Carriers for pot stirring:
My two cents, yes to smaller carriers, maybe to B model 35s, no to believing anything is gonna change from the acquisition path we are on.
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The only logical choice for Boeing to develop:
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https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/a-reality-check-on-the-army-picking-v-280-valor-over-sb1-defiant
Worth a read
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They still have a chance in the FARA competition for their advancing blade concept. If it loses that though I expect it to die out like the XC-142 or gyrocopters.
True and probably so
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I don't see how that would be anything other than a handout for sikorsky/Boeing honestly. Have there been any other procurement programs that ended in a split buy? I can't think of any examples.
The defiant concept quite possibly doesn't work at all like it's advertised to. It's very likely plagued with unsolvable vibration and fuel consumption issues, plus it can't actually achieve the agility they keep touting due to the risk of blades intermeshing. It's literally worse in every performance metric and probably would have led to several years of delays and problems like every other Boeing program lately.
Probably an Occam’s Razor decision but I could see some benefit to a split buy in maintaining a healthy industrial base
I would not be opposed to developing a spec ops focused version of the X2 to further the co axial rotor technology #porkbarrel maybe but there is a value in just R&D for seeing where it leads
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It’s too much work for Finance, denied! I’ve never heard of this being done, interesting thought.
They can go the extra mile this last FY
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Has anyone gotten an ETP to perform all AFTPs over 2 quarters but not exceeding the 72 per year?
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The adsc should be linked to the amount of / quality of training
The more they cut in flight hours the less Congress should let them set high adscs
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Russian Ukraine shenanigans
in General Discussion
Posted
I'll agree with most on this thread that helping Ukraine has been a wise decision and continuing to help them is the best COA going forward at some point though there will come a point that it will not be in OUR interest to help them further considering the long game, namely the stabilization and recovery of Ukraine. We as their patron will need to say no more and let's conclude the hostilities like all conflicts end, in some kind of negotiations. We're not there yet but I think we can see an appropriate ending point in the next year.
We may see that time before the Ukrainians do because their government and their relationship to their government is not the same as ours, I always keep in mind my admiration of the Ukranian people is different than the Ukranian government. That's all I want to say about that.
All that said, where do we go from here as to what our enemies / competitors will have seen, learned and therefore will act on in the future?
My suspicion is that the next map of Ukraine will look like this. Many countries will not recognize the territory taken by Russia but they will control them and incorporate them into the Russian Federation. My fear is that this will prove that aggression does to some extent work, albeit at a VERY high cost but if you are willing to pay for it you will get some of what you want. Territory, control of sea lanes, islands, etc.. you can get it if you will attack.
With that in mind, besides making our allies into porcupines in these high tension areas of the work with healthy supplies of missiles, artillery, mines and next gen weapons (DE, tac drones, etc.) what should be our strategy/policy implications?