Posted on 09/11/2008 6:24:33 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Maybe you could post a fake but accurate MENSA certificate on your personal page to prove you are so clever.
The debate over who “owned” the RMA is one that you started by purporting to correct me with the claim that Sprey and Boyd invented the RMA.
This assertion has been shown to be incorrect, and so now the debate you started is a useless exercise.
Well, ok.
Except that if Sprey’s analysis of what constitutes optimal military systems in the 1970’s and 1980’s has been thoroughly repudiated by events, then that is relevant to determining the validity of his current arguments against the F-35. His current arguments proceed from the same premises as the previous arguments that were previously repudiated, and he does not account for the developments which refuted him.
Regards,
A number of technological breakthroughs make our underwater warfare dominance possible. They included advanced acoustic surveillance techniques, on-board both surface and submerged ships, listening buoys, both fixed and free-floating, the sinusoidal equations that make the towed arrays viable even when not entirely straight in their deployment, the Greenland-Iceland-UK line, the acoustic emissions of our nuclear power plants, particularly the cooling pumps were so much lower than the Sov boats, the work of Drs Sheppard, Leventhal and Kowalsky, our Neuman-based computers that made US acoustic analysis so much more advanced their their, the sound-deadining tiles applied to the submarine hulls, the understanding of the critical speeds of the turning of Sov subs due to their sail design, and of course the pre-deployment information available from the UW taps at Murmansk and in the Sea of Okhotsk, and other items you are not cleared for.
More than anything else, however, it was the failure of the Soviet economic model to produce the financial foundation upon which to build a quality submarine force and the failure of Marxism-Leninism in general to produce a people educated enough and willing enough to crew such submarines on a career basis.
Of course the Soviet “Port Call” in Jacksonville late in the 20th Century and the defection-based intelligence learned from that was critically important, too.
Was there something else you wanted instruction in, Captain (HA!)
This is the 3d request for you to show me, and the world where I called you a Communist. I know memory is often the first thing to go, but could you please just do us all a favor and answer than one little question........
Captain! (ha!)
Typically, you take an ideological approach to everything, however, actually towards the end of the cold war, the quality of Russian Submarines was pretty high, and their nuclear propulsion and hull technology may have been superior to ours.
But up to the collapse of their economic system, our real advantage was the ability to implement real time digital signal processing on silicone integrated circuits because of rapid developments in integrated circuit technology. That is pretty much our principal technoligical advantage across the warfare spectrum even today, which is not irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
And to get back to basics you both called me a communist, even though you are trying the Obama defense, and you called me a phony.
PS, a lot of your list has nothing to do with ASW dominance.
>>>> you both called me a communist,
For the 4th time, when and where.
As for the other comment, someone who makes such a false claim is a phony.
Good night.
Just for the record, you are a first class BSer. I am pretty impressed.
Instead of discussing the points pro and con, a number of folks tried to discredit the article because of where it was published on the claim that CDI is a "communist" publication especially because of its association with the the now long retired Gene La Rocque.
However, Sprey, and another author of numerous publications on this cite, Chuck Spinney, have rock solid credentials, and so that line of attack is not legitimate, if it ever were, both being very much advocates and developers of many of the systems, concepts and doctrines that underpin modern defense strategy, whether or not those who think they are guardians of the RMA flame would accept them as full fledge members of the RMA crowd.
Thus, my argument, instead of the ad hominems, ad communismums, ad intelligentium extremum, ad phonia and other kinds of ad hocos pocos is that the JSF should be debated on its merits, as it should in any case, and not by efforts to smear, as somehow dishonerable, the individuals who have taken a stand against it.
So in your logic a couple of ‘guys’ equals the entire US Air Force being ‘arrogant’ and incompetent’? - (your words).
I think you you USAF veterans putting their lives on the line for your liberty an apology for you crass over generalization.
I presume you, from your comments, are not a USAF veteran and so presume to know how the average serviceman feels about his service - by which I mean the branch that he served in.
My own service, the Navy, is hidebound and unimaginative, and I would not take it personally, or even argue, if someone made that statement because it pretty much reflects an institutional culture that prevails independent of the honor or capability of any individual.
When an organization makes as many stunningly bad decisions as the Air Force has recently, and when it gets cross-wise with SECDEF because it refuses to subordinate pork-bareling acquisition imperatives to the national security needs of the time, and when it loses 6 nuclear weapons in the process, and doesn't even seem to mind very much, then it is as an institution arrogant and incompetent.
That statement takes nothing away from the fine pilots flying combat missions or the crews that prepare for the missions. It is just a statement about an organization.
Just like calling Harvard arrogant, leftist, and out of touch. There are brilliant students and brilliant faculty, but when every day they make the news in a way that brings discredit to the institution, it reflects a culture.
Either you are smart enough that you already know all of that, or you aren't and so I actually don't know why I waste my time.
And it isn't my logic. Gates fired the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff - which isn't just two guys, and when you fire THOSE two guys it is because you aren't happy with the entire organization.
And finally, I wasn’t even the one who first said it here (post #28).
Well, if you go back and read my comments, you will see that I have confined my arguments entirely to the merits of the issue, and so as between us your post is an evasion of the point on the merits that I’ve made several times now.
So have at the merits already.
The historical record does not permit you to cast the reformers like Sprey and Spinney as the fathers of the RMA - they were diametrically opposed to the systems and technologies that constitute the RMA.
It is a valid substantive point that events appear to have proven them dead wrong, because if their analysis was deeply erroneous before, then the same analysis presented now with respect to the F-35 is also likely to be wrong and for the same reasons.
None of this ultimately proves the F-35 is a good program, or that the Air Force is in good shape. It is a question of whether Spinney and Sprey got it right this time after getting it wrong so many other times, and when they give no credit to the RMA capabilities of this system. Instead, they analyze it strictly according the criteria of visual range dogfighting with guns, as if that were the entire air combat envelope.
I don't believe that is true. The fighter mafia not only did not invent it, they have in many cases opposed it. If they had their wish, the F-16 wouldn't have a radar, targeting pods, data link, etc - all of which are a crucial part in transforming how a fighter operates.
They never even understood the difference the AMRAAM makes in air-to-air fighting!
You may be pleased to know that, at the end of its life, the F-111 received some MX upgrades (AMP & PACER STRIKE) that fixed the MX problems. During the final 18 months of the F-111F, I never ground aborted and only took off late 1 time - unlike transition training at Mt Home, where I didn’t get a single on time takeoff!
We fixed the F-111 just in time to retire them...
There are plenty of things to criticize the USAF on, but Gates has been a large part of the problem as well. He was presented with options on Predator, made his decision, and then publicly criticized the USAF for doing what he said to do.
Nor is Predator the end-all the Army thinks. Most of the time, the Army uses Predator poorly. Commanders want video, even when they can’t figure out what the video means.
This is the first time I have heard of Gates being criticized as the problem. Any data to back that up or are you just another military pork purveyor trying to trash a man who has spent his life in honorable service to the country?
When I was at Mtn. Home, I just worked in the Automatic Test Station Shop repairing LRUs. As of 1981 when I left, the F-111As used for your training had the Singer-built analog Nav Computer with the 'odometer' readouts for lat/long. We used to clamp weights onto the knobs so we could slew the longitude and latitude position counters for the various bench tests.
When I spoke about a 25% mission capable rate, I remember in 1980, Mtn. Home went on an extended alert, running 12 hour/7 day shifts. (That was almost like real work!)
Then one night about three weeks later, we had a mass launch. Out of just over 100 aircraft, we managed to launch less than 30 aircraft for forward deployment to Turkey. That was our entire inventory of flyable aircraft. Two days later we found out why they deployed. The news showed the aborted hostage rescue operation disaster at Desert One.
You were a WSO and later an EWO, no? I bet you used up a bunch of orange colored pencils drawing predicted radar target views while at Mtn. Home.
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