DirkDiggler
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Posts posted by DirkDiggler
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3 hours ago, budderbar said:
Does anyone know what is provided to selectees in the order of merit debrief? Is it like your #X of X and need more wing/AF level awards along with what job experiences you will need in the future etc...
If you want a (hopefully, a little dependent on the person) no shit read out of your record and where you stand get on your SR's calendar. Ideally him/her should've gone through it prior to the board but honestly time and numbers play into this. (They)'re leadership; part of their job is honest feedback on records.
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2 hours ago, BashiChuni said:
good point. before going we need absolutely clear, achievable, worthwhile political objectives.
i'm having a hard time thinking back in history and finding "limited wars" that were successful. The most successful warfare is total. it's an uncomfortable thing to ponder, but the proof is in the pudding.
The above is not an accurate statement.
Most wars in history have not been "total" wars ie the entire population of a state/tribe/group completely mobilized and waging war for the purpose of complete destruction or subjugation of an enemy. Its just not that common in history statistically. Sure, there are wars that were "total" (3rd Punic War, some of the Mongol campaigns, I'm sure there's others I can't think of off the top of my head). The most recent example would probably be the USSR and Nazi Germany in WWII (Richard Overy's "Russia's War: A History of the Soviet Effort" is a great read that articulates just how total the Soviet effort in WWII was).
There are countless (far too many to list here) examples throughout history of limited wars that permanently settled the issues that provoked the conflict.
The US has fought several "limited" wars that were successful. The Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and Desert Storm are all good examples of limited US wars that were very limited in scope with successful outcomes. The revisionist arguments about Desert Storm being an "unfinished war" ignore the original goals of the war and conflate the muddled reasoning behind the ONW and OSW efforts. Prior to 1990, Hussein provided a useful cudgel to bleed the Iranians, and we didn't really care what he did to the Kurds and Shiites inside Iraq's borders.
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/22/us-in-talks-with-qatar-over-supplying-lng-to-eu-reports
If Russia's leverage over the EU's energy security is much diminished, the calculus for could change for Mr. Putin. Russia's economy is heavily reliant on the petroleum sector; sharply diminished exports, isolation from the SWIFT system, and cutting off Russia's largest banks from the Western market would make for an extremely turbulent and difficult time in Russia. This would be further exacerbated if a Russian invasion of Ukraine bogs down and/or is beset with heavy casualties.
History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme. The Russia civil war happened only 100 years ago and while the political and military situation is very different, there are some parallels. If a Ukrainian invasion goes poorly, or ends in a brutal stalemate disaffecting the Russian people, and more importantly, the military, things could get tense in Russia.
The ultimate irony of this is that while Russia (really Putin) plays the long game quite well in many instances, an all-out invasion of Ukraine will probably have an opposite effect of what he's trying gain (security and spheres of influence). Eastern European countries like Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic could conceivably start rapid military buildups/rearmament programs (Poland is already there in some respects). The have recent memories of what its like being under the Russian thumb. The Baltic States already contribute more than the obligatory 2% NATO requires on defense (a fact my Estonian friend was always very proud of); a further increase would be very likely as would an increase in invasion preparations like arms stockpiling for guerilla warfare, mining of LOCs, fortifications etc. Sweden and Finland would very likely apply for NATO membership. Even some of the Western European states might start an arms buildup (I see this as less likely for some though). BLUF is that for as strong as Russia is in some respects, they're far from invincible and actually quite vulnerable in many aspects. Russia has few allies and the ones it does have either aren't strong and/or don't trust Putin much more than we do (see Belarus and several of the Stans). Russia's military, while its made some significant advances in the last 15 years, isn't the Soviet military juggernaut of 1945 or 1980.
M2's Baseops signature block still holds some truth today.
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21 minutes ago, bfargin said:
This seems as bad as the frogs during/after Desert Storm, making us fly around their airspace going to and from the UK.
My guess (speculating) is that this was intentional on NATO's part. It would be very easy for the Russians to use something like allowing overflight of weapons by the German government as justification/pretext of "Ukraine is sliding further toward neo-nazism (something they've already been hyping to the Russian population), NATO is getting ready to invade, remember what the Germans did in WWII and they're coming again, etc" type stuff. Better for us on the information warfare front left of bang for the Brits to do what they did.
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Pretty comprehensive analysis of the Ukraine crisis with some good recommendations going forward.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukraine
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12 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:
Read this a day ago, she's not pulling any punches. It's time to push back on him.
As to what to do not whether or not to do it, training and equipping Ukrainian forces for guerilla / insurgency replete with the tool and versed in their tactics might give the Russians pause. Keep the conventional support coming but start getting ready for Red Dawn. Mines, IEDs, weapons caches, etc..
I'm starting drift towards her viewpoint (was honestly on the fence for a while, wasn't sure what I thought of the situation). Putin's list of demands for this latest round of "negotiations" read like something from the late 19th century, or maybe 1938-39. Either way most of those demands are non-starters. At a minimum, in addition to what you mentioned above, I think we should start providing additional heavy conventional armaments to Poland and the Baltic states. Army has reactivated its European long range artillery unit I believe. Maybe its time to station an armored division or two in Poland permanently as well. F-35s to Romania. Reactivate a NATO led Baltic Sea flotilla formed around small SAGs. I'm sure there's reasons why all this is a bad idea but letting Putin reestablish a new Russian empire at the expense of our allies and at least a semblance of the international order is horseshit.
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Kinda controversial but interesting article regarding US/European response to Putin's aggression in Ukraine.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/01/us-must-prepare-war-against-russia-over-ukraine/360639/
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On 1/7/2022 at 10:04 PM, arg said:
The charming bride and myself were listening to some of this and actually dancing in the mud room. Pretty romantic if I do say so myself. But alas after a bottle of homemade wine she crashed, so I'm up by my self listening to some more Eagles. I remember hearing their first hit, Take it Easy, during the drive from Elmendorf to GA(dad PCSed from there to MD) Part of the ALCAN was 1300 miles of dirt road back then. It was 1972.
Is an assignment to CVS going to drive me into homemade toilet wine production?
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4 hours ago, ItnStln said:
Which MWS is retiring in 20 months?
MC-130H
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11 minutes ago, nsplayr said:
Any insight into why the career field is getting nixed? Looks like Big Blue honey-potted dudes once again with lots of promises and then cut them all off at the knees 2.69 years later when the Command musical chairs being another round of their endless shuffle.
Solid advice I have received over the years: only leave Ops very cautiously and skeptically, save enough early so have FU Money before you think you’ll need it, and war game our your plans A-E with your family on a semi-regular basis and have a vague idea of acceptable plans F-Z just in case.
No idea honestly. I'll probably have better insight once I get the download from my friend but that won't be for another couple weeks. It seems unfortunate; as an outsider looking in I thought this was a good concept and had potential to be productive.
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1 hour ago, pawnman said:
Will they not just send him back to his previous AFSC/MWS?
He's in a bit of a weird spot; he's a LtCol (so older) and his previous MWS is retiring in 20 months.
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Thread revival (and also maybe termination). A good buddy of mine was in the first 13O training class; he told me this weekend that the AF is terminating the the 13O career field and that he needs a job. Anybody else hear the same?
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22 minutes ago, Smokin said:
Agreed. If you are looking at getting into a flying unit, it might be tough with the relatively bad timing of post-covid, especially if you are picky. Some units are obviously easier to get into than others, but there is also generally a reason for that. Usually either location or squadron reputation/culture or a combination of the two.
There are multiple retirement options in the guard. If you just want a paycheck of the month at some point, you can do a min run non-flying guard job and still retire at 20 years total. But you won't get a paycheck until you hit civilian retirement age and it'll be roughly 75% of what your retirement check would be for active duty. Or you can try to do the airline thing for a year and then go on mil leave and finish out your 20 year active duty retirement, but in the guard. Timeline and paycheck is about the same as if you had stayed, minus the year with the airlines. That being said, many guys are trying to do that now, so that is probably the most difficult path to find.
Overall, your guard opportunities open up drastically the less picky you are about your job and your status (DSG vs AGR). NGB (the Pentagon for the guard) is almost always short staffed and looking for people. Sounds miserable to me, but if you live near the beltway or can find one that is telecommute-able, that would be a feasible option. Get your foot in the door somewhere and once you do I think you'll be surprised at the variety of random guard jobs there are for someone willing to move or just not fly.
Had a really good buddy take this route. He punched at 13 years for the airlines. He didn't get hired by the flying unit at his airline domicile (tough unit to get into) and he didn't want to commute to a Guard/Reserve job. He ended up taking a non-flying Exec position at a Guard Mx Group (think it was Guard) at his airline domicile location. He said the job/work is boring but it was his insurance in case the airlines went tits up. Low and behold, COVID happens; he was able to pickup a year of orders while waiting the his airline to sort itself out.
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Good article on Putin/Russia's view regarding Russian power, and Ukrainian neutrality.
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11 hours ago, uhhello said:
The female STO pipeline drama is getting good
I hadn't heard about this at all until today. The AFSOC/CC just put out an official statement on Instagram regarding it.
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This info is 14 years old so take it with a grain of salt.
I went to SOS with a Viper driver (previous B-1 WSO, not sure which he was when he was matched) who had been a bone marrow donor. He didn't make any specific comments regarding the AF medical process (at least he didn't say he had any issues with it) itself but he did reinforce that the recovery was pretty rough (they're driving large bore needles into your pelvis/legs I believe). He said he was on crutches for a week and it was a pretty painful recovery.
That said, he was pretty happy he was able to help (rightfully so) and said he was back flying not too long after the procedure. I'd tell you to reach out to your local Flight Doc but given my recent experiences there's a good chance they may not know what bone marrow is. Best of luck!
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57 minutes ago, mp5g said:
Had a bro several years ago get in some slight trouble due to some hijinks. Whenever a spare flight cap was found around the squadron, it was quickly turned into a canvas panel, and a dick was drawn in the cap in permanent marker. All fun and good until it occurred to the WG/CC, who was unaware and took his flight cap to an O-6 meeting in D.C., and then subsequently forgot said cap at the table, only for the SARC representative(no shit) to pick it up, look inside trying to find a name, and was struck by the sheer power of the dick drawing.
Maybe some slight verbal counseling occurred, but the best part was that same guy ended up going and getting a rooster stamp and stamp pad, and that became the new marker for abandoned flight caps.
Thanks for that, I actually lol'd.
Back on my first deployment as a young 1Lt, I had a Nav who, while a good dude, was super loud/brash and would forget his head if it wasn't attached to his body. He kept leaving his shit all over ops and the plane, so by month two of the deployment pretty everything he owned had hogs drawn all over it.
He finally loses his shit one day on the all of us in ops, yelling, unspecified threats towards the next mofo that draws a dick on his stuff, pretty epic rant honestly. After a couple minutes of this he storms out the door in a very angry fashion. Unfortunately for him he forgets his snack banana, left it lying on the table. No one says a word. I picked the banana up and drew a big veiny triumphant bastard on said banana. 5 minutes later he comes back in to get his snack, picks it up and sees this giant cock drawn on the side of it with the whole crew sitting there silently staring at him. Hangs his head in defeat, unpeels it (looking disturbing like very loose foreskin at this point), and walks out the door.
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Very good article on Putin's Ukraine calculus.
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Mosul on Netflix is worth watching if you have some spare time and are looking for a war movie. Pretty good depiction of brutal urban combat against ISIS. Plot was a little thin but was still overall a well done movie.
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Not directly related to the current Russia-Ukrainian tensions, but it will be interesting to see if the situation in Kazakhstan effects or influences Russian (really Putin's) decision making with regards to Ukraine. Russia loathes instability on it's borders, Nazarbayev was solidly in Putin's orbit (one of the last "old school" USSR types besides Lushenko in Belarus), and by all accounts the current instability has caught the Russians off-guard. If the CTSO "peacekeeping force" employs the standard heavy handed repression the Russians are known for things could get messy there.
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13 hours ago, Smokin said:
I'm glad it hasn't hit heavies as bad, but I have seen it in fighters. While most of the young guys seem to be capable mentally and eager to learn, they just haven't had the reps to get the depth of training that guys of my generation had. Many young pilots are showing up the squadron with literally half the flight hours that I had at the same career point. The training has simply shifted to the CAF, which just hasn't had the time with the ops tempo that most of us approaching retirement have known for our entire career. So you end up with CAF IPs (who generally have less experience and specifically less experience teaching the most basic blocking and tackling) filling in where the B-course has left off. Not a knock on either the students or the IPs, they are just being set up to struggle through it and hopefully not fail. If you have safety access, go look up the Class A from Shaw a year or two ago and tell me that those guys were not set up and it cost the student his life.
Don't mean to derail this thread but this topic is something that interests and affects me.
While I haven't seen a decrease in the quality of the UPT product, our community has gotten much, much younger in all positions, to include IPs (instructors in all crew positions really). In some ways this is a positive, since previously the time to upgrade to IP in AFSOC was sometimes excessive/out of whack with other communities. And honestly there's some high speed dudes that have both benefited from it and had good return on investment to the guys on the line. In other ways I think it's been a negative. In the last 3 years I've heard more incorrect/poorly considered techniques and sometimes downright wrong concepts/tactics than in my previous 15 years. I also think that the ops tempo, as you discussed, has led to a serious reduction in the amount of time IPs have to spend with new copilots. Finally, I think the airline hiring spree is about to crush the MC community. The AF got a reprieve for 18 months in the form of COVID, but now I'm seeing a large chunk of the O-4 IP/EP 2-3,000 hour guys either punching or on the verge of doing so.
I've read/been presented the Shaw Class A. It was a tough read, especially as a senior IP. I wholeheartedly agree with your point about FTU instruction versus line instruction; the two just aren't the same. It's not cosmic, but how a line IP approaches student training versus an FTU IP is just a different mentality (and sometime skill set) that I didn't fully appreciate until I was an FTU IP.
I'm absolutely not against improving/modernizing our UPT syllabus, but I'm of the personal opinion that actual hours in the airplane CANNOT be replicated, regardless of the level of technology present in whatever training device is being used.
Back on topic, think the AF will bump the bonus back up to $35K this year?
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16 hours ago, Bender said:
Have you seen the new primary pilot training syllabus? Hard to say we’re “doubling down on producing”. Taking a good stab at halving it…
Should be a good product for the CAF (which maintains their T-38 training), pretty unclear for the MAF…though I’m sure quality will suffice.
Keep an eye on the primary production numbers. The next few year groups are going to benefit from some Cold War style ops tempos!
~Bendy
Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile appWhat are the big changes in the new syllabus (especially for the T-1 MAF/AFSOC tracked guys)? In the 2.5 years I've been back flying from staff, my community has seemed to win the co-pilot lottery (most of the new guys have been average to above average). We've also gotten more than the average amount of T-38 guys than I've usually seen. A couple folks I know on the AETC side of the house have been foretelling this coming wave of drastically less capable pilots coming out of the pipeline but I haven't personally seen it yet.
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47 minutes ago, Lawman said:
That’s so your land lord can get himself reset before putting the place up for its new rent.
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkThankfully I bought right before things went really crazy in the market where I’m at. Assuming no issues with the inspection/appraisal I’m about to make a stupid amount of money on a house I’ve only owned for 2.5 years.
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My current location went up almost $500….two months before I PCS
Russian Ukraine shenanigans
in General Discussion
Posted
Good side by side analysis, hadn’t seen that website before, thanks for posting.
Unfortunately another area where Ukraine will be severely overmatched is long range fires. I’d hope that if this goes all out that we’ll provide Ukraine real time targeting intelligence which would help to maximize the effectiveness of Ukrainian artillery.