brabus

They’ll need to do a whole lot more than the protesting that has occurred. Directed violence is the only answer at this point.

Not saying there aren’t Islamic groups who “project power” in a terrorizing/iron fist rule method, but the general populace of the Islamic world will not fight it. They’ll keep their heads down, do what they’re told, etc. The percentage of those people who will stand up and fight evil and tyranny is very small.

The regular citizens should man the fuck up and start fighting back for real. But, their culture’s bedrock is subservience and cowardice. So, they will not; while that doesn’t justify the regime’s actions, it also shouldn’t make any rational westerner feel like the west has to go in and save them. They won’t save themselves, not our problem.

The rest of the flybys have already been covered. But your answer right here demonstrates the D’s base misunderstanding of finances. “But more taxes will fix it!” and never “hey we should stop spending like drunken sailors buying absolutely stupid shit.” Until you guys can understand basic finances my children understand, this is a useless discussion.

There’s what we want to happen in a “perfect world” and then there’s reality. Reality is nobody anywhere on the political spectrum, in large enough numbers, is serious about significantly cutting entitlements. That’s the only rational way we’re going to see meaningful debt reduction and avoid the “fiscal cliff.” Everything else like DOGE-driven savings, reasonable DoD cuts, etc. will not appreciably move the needle. I suppose the other option is massive cuts in areas that completely gut our country and turn it into Venezuela, but I’m not considering that a rational option. So, the BBB is like every federal bill since the “beginning of time:” full of pork and spending too much. If you’re a realist, you understand this and can at least see there’s some good stuff in there (in spite of the stuff you don’t like). If you’re an idealist who doesn’t live in reality and likes to cast stones from your utopian view of what things should be like, without offering actual solutions that are attainable in the real world, well then by all means have fun sport bitching with your buddy Massie.

Found a recent picture of M2 - looks like he can only afford beans for dinner.

Like many things, it’s also one of those capabilities that would have been phenomenal to have FOC 15 years ago, but a late 2020s IOC just makes it a “meh.” The US acquisitions process is horrible.

I agree, and no I don’t have all the answers, never made that claim. I guess I misunderstood your statement of “I know how to get sensors in range” to mean manned, airborne ISR. Perhaps we are on the same page, but just confusing a bit when earlier you seemed to be debating me on the utility of manned, airborne ISR in a peer fight (in the beginning at least).

So do I, but it doesn’t involve E-3, E-2D, E-7, etc. If you think it does, you are unfortunately missing some valuable information, context, experience, and overall understanding gleaned from all of that. That’s not a spear, it’s just a pragmatic “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and I’ll leave it at that. That we agree on. Acquisitions process has been fucked for a long time.

Makes sense they wouldn’t have a releasable AIB for security reasons in some cases.

I hope FL doesn’t end up on the short end of this stick. The last thing any state needs is a bunch of dumbass NYC-ers moving their way.

I think the big hump for many to get over is the significant paradigm shift - peer warfare has rapidly changed and airborne C2, as we know it, is essentially obsolete (at least until we destroy a lot of adversary capabilities). So, we’ve had to look at other means to gain battle space awareness, ITW, data passage, etc. So again, yawn to the E7 getting shitcanned; G550s (or similar) to support the non-peer stuff.

The E2D is great for current day; weird, a senator doesn’t know shit.

Those are all excellent reasons to NOT stick with the E-7 shitshow. E-7 would have been nice about 15 years ago, but obviously we’re well past that and it’s very sensible to drop that hot pile of garbage (from a programatic POV) in favor of better tech.

Yep, by no means does anyone who knows anything think space is uncontested; just stating adversary tech, combined with our emerging tech, has made manned ISR rapidly not relevant in a peer fight. If we’re talking other than peer fight, or day 69 of the peer war, totally a place for it.

WTF, she can go fuck herself. How about SCOTUS just shitcans the entire NFA, considering it’s blatantly unconstitutional.

For sure. I don’t think manned ISR should go away, but for those “non-WW3” situations, something like a G550 (or U2 if available) is a much better option. @StoleIt What does that article have to do with the topic at hand? And yes, in peer war, manned C2ISR is substantially less survivable and capable than several other unmanned technologies, including space.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-cancel-e-7-wedgetail-buy/

@nunya I just know some guys who have beat my numbers decisively, but I’m not interested in going down that road personally. To do so, I think you have to be really into it, have a deep understanding, and some luck. I’m definitely 1/3 at best.

Well my super lazy investing (index funds/target retirement IRAs) are up 12% in the last year and 4% since Trump took office. So yeah, only positive impact on my investments from Trump’s economic policies. And I’m sure people who are far more active/educated/“pros” in their investing are doing much better. Facts over emotions

Great talk by Razin giving an awesome overview of the people and process at the unclass level. It’s awesome he gave a shout out to DTRA. It’s easy to get focused on only the dudes dropping bombs or shooting missiles, but there are a ton of nerds (I mean that in a friendly manner!) out there who love America as much as the warrior does, and they are critical to our success.

The simple answer is because manned ISR assets cannot get the sensors, comms, etc. where we need them to be effective (because they’ll be at the bottom of the ocean well before hitting the effective point). But we can get sensors, comms, etc. where we need them via other means that are far more survivable/robust/expendable, thus actually effective. There’s more nuance than that, but that’s the big picture. Now of course we could sink 100s of Bs into developing a “6th gen” manned ISR platform, but it just doesn’t make sense to do so given emerging technologies and the capabilities we can realize for a lot less (or at least have shitloads more capability for the same price).

@Majestik Møøse I’m very confident in my assessment (and it’s not “mine” per se, but rather I concur with it). Though perhaps we are both thinking of different scenarios/vignettes, which is certainly possible and could drive either position being valid. But, we’re not going to be able to sort that out on the internet. To be clear, I’m not anti-manned ISR, and it will continue to play a role, but there are several scenarios where it has zero game, at least for the foreseeable future (and probably doesn’t make sense to change that vs. putting efforts into UAS, AI, Space, Cyber, etc.)

Props to the targeteers as well - that’s a difficult problem to solve, and they crushed it (pun intended). And to the TWAC dude at WIC (blanking on name right now) - I hope you’ve survived the 30hr erection this brought on!

I do. Fuck Pakistan; they’re right up there with Iran on the list of POS countries that deserve far worse than what they’ve actually received.