[Snickering Hound]

“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.

Yup the lesson since Beirut 83' is hit the US with enough casualties and they formulate an exit strategy.

And there are not nearly enough escorts to go around now for carrier battle groups.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Yup the lesson since Beirut 83’ is hit the US with enough casualties and they formulate an exit strategy.

As for China, they don’t care how many casualties they have. They have more than enough people to spare.

[Clutch Martin]

“Yup the lesson since Beirut 83’...”

My take on Beirut 83 was that Ollie North had sold arms in trade for cash to go to the contra which became known later as the Iran-Contra Affair, but what essentially happened was he sold arms and ordnance to Iran... And Iran backed the perpetrators (i.e Islamic Jihad Organization) that drove their car bombs into the Beirut barracks The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French peacekeepers, 6 civilian, and the 2 attackers.

So my take away from Beirut ‘83 is that Ollie North still has a lot to answer for.

[luvbach1]

“What the United States fears the most is taking casualties,” Admiral Lou declared.

I think that's what Japan thought. Of course we tried to spare out troops to a much greater extent than Japan did with its troops.

[prophetic]

Yeah, we now jokingly have those floating Pepsi cans that are called Littoral Ships for brown water missions.

I guess since the admirals top brass knows that it takes more time to build real ships (destroyers, etc) and these littorals can be churned out much faster. In the end the admirals are happy to see the ship numbers are UP, notwithstanding that they are useless for long tours at sea.

While we are on the subject of navy ships, I think the problem with all of the new 'stealth' ships is that they are basically totally blind to anyone as there are no windows to lookout or stand watch.