Posted on 12/03/2022 4:22:18 AM PST by FRinCanada2
You can see the TU-95 from miles away. Not so with the B-21.
Personally, for a good portion of my life, I have wondered how modern, advanced, 1st world militaries would be able to perform in a contested environment with highly advanced, expensive, and less numerous weaponry.
Especially when you don’t have an industrial base to replace combat losses.
I have tended to believe we would be more like Japan in WWII than the USA, capable of having our supply lines successfully interdicted, and being cut off from critical raw materials needed for production of advanced weaponry.
How would we be able to function, for example, if we were to experience material losses as we incurred in the Schweinfurt Raids, or even the battles around the Solomon Islands? Granted, for a buffer against aviation losses, we have the bone yard out in Davis-Monthan, but that is replacing 4th Gen aircraft with 3rd Gen. And that is just aviation.
Never mind naval losses, or smart weaponry (much of which uses materials from overseas that could be successfully interdicted)
What is going on now in Ukraine, where weaponry is being sucked from the active arsenals like ours, is that it is being used and not replaced, chewed up in combat.
Granted, I don’t put it past them to be doing this in order to justify the purchase of new weaponry and munitions, much like the jettisoning of perfectly good combat aircraft into the ocean in WWII by returning carriers who knew that newer weaponry was awaiting them.
I meant “5th Gen aircraft with 4th Gen”.
I recall when the F-117 came to Jax NAS for display. I had a camera with an auto zoom feature. I tried to take a picture of the plane but the camera wouldn't lock on.
I thought that was kinda cool.
Can stealth be defeated? I'm sure there are countermeasures, but it makes the enemy work to defend against the threat.
In war there is always a counter weapon around. Let's just hope we have the upper hand.
Kinda what I was saying, thanks.
In my opinion, the issue is not directly the cost of the unit.
It is whether, being 40 trillion in debt as a country justifies building weapons systems we can neither afford to operate, nor garner the will to use appropriately.
You really don’t know much, do you?
I’m not saying the initial attack would, or wouldn’t work, but what would the response be?
I’ve been right up, as close as Security Forces allowed, to a F-117 as well.
They are cool. I was surprised by the size of the B-1.
I also keep in mind that it is not just the capability of a given weapon system.
It is the national will to use it as needed, and the training of the personnel who must employ them.
Iraq had a pretty darn good arsenal. Not as good as ours, but pretty good. But is there any doubt that, if they had Israeli military personnel manning that same weaponry in Iraq, that our invasion would have been far more difficult and costly than it was?
The fly in that ointment is...I don’t believe our military is trained as well as they need to be. In the US Navy, when two top end destroyers end up running into cargo ships, and a fire reduces an LPH to a iron shell good only for scrapping, there is something seriously wrong.
And this is just the Navy. The Air Force, Army, and even the Marines are more focused on woke policies than they are on training people to employ doctrine and weapons systems effectively.
I think the first time we go head-to-head with a peer in a contested battle space, we could get our clock cleaned.
And I think that is what the political leadership today wants.
Tabusocial, member since Nov. 19, 2022.
I think we would still win due to technology and enough competent personnel, but we’re clearly going in the wrong direction.
What straight white alpha male wants to join anymore?
Camille Paglia, a feminist lesbian, is even on our side by saying boys aren’t being allowed to be boys anymore.
When Democrat lesbians are on our side, something is really wrong…
We chose, because it was politically expedient, to believe the fairy tale that our weapons would be so super-duper that our wars would only last a few weeks.
Iraq and A-stan dragged on, but they were just fought against 3rd-rate 3rd-world goat-humpers.
Ukraine vs Russia is opening a lot of eyes. Production matters.
If you folks are interested, there is an excellent book about stealth by Ben Rich, who took over for the famous Clarence “Kelly” Johnson (when he retired) at Lockheed named “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed”.
He took over right at the time when the current concept of “stealth” was developed and implemented in Pave Blue and the F-117.
A fascinating book.
Neither one will dare fly over a peer-adversary’s territory. So why spend 2 BILLION per plane for a white elephant that will not be operational for 5-10 years?
It does indeed.
Also, the concept that combat is becoming “push button” warfare, and physical strength and/or prowess is no longer a prime consideration in combat roles, opening those roles up to people who have no business being there.
I believe that is going to be a disaster.
Thanks for the reference.
Just fyi, I think your other ping is incorrect.
Check the initial spelling for eagleone.
No caps…you’ll see.
There was a time when I would freely advise any young man that the military was a wise choice if you needed room to develop. Anyone of any religion or color could advance if they were competent. It was never perfect, anyone who spent time in or around the military knows this, but by and large, if you were good, you could advance.
I don’t believe that any longer in our military.
Thank you. Good on the PJs.
It’s how I got my act together. Then post enlistment I used the GI Bill for schooling. It changed my life forever.
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