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monkeytennis
Apr 26, 2007


Toilet Rascal
That's just about the most metal thing I have ever seen.

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Vincent Van Goatse
Nov 8, 2006

Enjoy every sandwich.

Smellrose

priznat posted:

This is awesome. I wish my dumps would ignite and fly away too.

Remind me never to share a bathroom with you.

Seizure Meat
Jul 23, 2008

by Smythe

monkeytennis posted:

That's just about the most metal thing I have ever seen.

I thought I knew a bit about C-5's due to living so close to a base of them, but jesus loving christ was I wrong.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

WEREWAIF posted:



Here's a video of the c-5 dropping a minuteman missile that ignites and flies away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96A0wb1Ov9k
I hope no one's posted it already

Yep, I posted it several pages back, but there's always room for one more showing of the Air Force's biggest "hold my beer and watch this" moment.

Naramyth
Jan 22, 2009

Australia cares about cunts. Including this one.

NosmoKing posted:

the Air Force's biggest "hold my beer and watch this" moment.

That is exactly what that is. :golfclap:

Ridgewell
Apr 29, 2009

Ai tolja tahitta ferlip inbaul intada oh'l! Andatdohn meenis ferlip ineer oh'l!

SopWATh posted:

Go watch Threads. I'd probably get up on the roof and watch the bombs come in rather than stick around for the aftermath.

I followed that advice today and watched it on a long train ride. Holy poo poo this was intense. It's a good movie, so I'm seconding this, too!

Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy

VikingSkull posted:

I thought I knew a bit about C-5's due to living so close to a base of them

I'm sorry.

Seizure Meat
Jul 23, 2008

by Smythe

Propagandalf posted:

I'm sorry.

Don't be, they are amazing aircraft. They are transferring them out in favor of C-17's and I am bummed about it. The noise goes past annoying and becomes awesome.

I've seen them for 30 years now and I still stop to watch when they go over.

e- if you've never seen one do a combat drop in person you're missing out

Acebuckeye13
Nov 2, 2010
Ultra Carp
I've seen Red Storm Rising mentioned a couple times throughout this thread, and I have to ask: How accurate were the Cold-War era Clancy novels?

KYOON GRIFFEY JR
Apr 12, 2010



Runner-up, TRP Sack Race 2021/22

Acebuckeye13 posted:

I've seen Red Storm Rising mentioned a couple times throughout this thread, and I have to ask: How accurate were the Cold-War era Clancy novels?

Considering that Red Storm Rising doesn't go nuclear real fast and the NATO response would have been tactical nukes, it's sort of fundamentally flawed.

That airmobile ICBM thing seems insane and also strangely logical, what got it shitcanned?

Smiling Jack
Dec 2, 2001

I sucked a dick for bus fare and then I walked home.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

Considering that Red Storm Rising doesn't go nuclear real fast and the NATO response would have been tactical nukes, it's sort of fundamentally flawed.

That airmobile ICBM thing seems insane and also strangely logical, what got it shitcanned?

They handwave the tac-nuke thing away by giving NATO air supremacy on the first day along with a few other things- hitting some major river bridges in the first five minutes and so on. The East Germans also forbid use of CBW as a condition of their cooperation.

Frozen Horse
Aug 6, 2007
Just a humble wandering street philosopher.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

Considering that Red Storm Rising doesn't go nuclear real fast and the NATO response would have been tactical nukes, it's sort of fundamentally flawed.

I think one of the hypotheticals of Red Storm Rising was that the AirLand doctrine happened to work flawlessly enough for the Soviet forces to run out of diesel before the NATO forces decided to end civilisation. Of course, this neglects the number of cowboys driving F-106s that could be flinging off Genies at incoming aircraft.

quote:

That airmobile ICBM thing seems insane and also strangely logical, what got it shitcanned?

Say what you will about missile silos, but if you are an ICBM inside one, you know exactly where you are and how fast you're going. In contrast, flying around and then getting subjected to multiple parachute opening shocks before falling backwards for a while while drifting with the wind and then igniting the motors is a bit rougher on the inertial guidance system. Also, would you want your nuclear deterrent under less control than a submarine and in an aircraft whose fault-detection circuitry alone had a worse failure rate than the entire avionics package of other contemporary aircraft? Now imagine Palomares or Thule with an ICBM's fuel load to spread the contamination.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

Considering that Red Storm Rising doesn't go nuclear real fast and the NATO response would have been tactical nukes, it's sort of fundamentally flawed.

Like I've said earlier in the thread, that was true until the 1980s when AirLand Battle came out. At that point NATO started to think in terms of fighting a conventional war without immediately resorting to nukes. The scenario in Red Storm Rising is possible, just improbable. I think something that hasn't been mentioned is that in the book there are a bunch of Spetznaz teams in place in Western Europe to hit various NATO C3I facilities on the opening night of the war. One of them gets compromised (if I remember correctly the team leader gets hit by a bus or something and spills his guts after being interrogated while still drugged up from treatment) and NATO has about 48 hours notice to begin mobilization and planning.

So it's not like the first I&W NATO has of the invasion is Soviet tanks massing at the Fulda Gap and rolling through a few hours later, in which case things probably would have gone nuclear immediately. Just having 48 hours notice allows you to recall personnel and ensure all units are fully manned, disperse mechanized units into the field, and begin the REFORGER flow of personnel from CONUS to mate up with the prepo'd vehicles, equipment, and munitions. Since they had the limited advanced warning, the success of the initial air campaign also isn't impossible, given the use of stealth aircraft and PGMs to take out the bridges.

Yes, the scenario is an unlikely one, but then again the whole idea of an unprovoked Soviet invasion of Western Europe is pretty unlikely. Given that they wanted to write a novel where the war stays conventional, the way they plotted it out is about the most realistic way to do it and to be fair, tracks pretty well with the AirLand Battle doctrine which was standard NATO doctrine at the time the book was written.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

That airmobile ICBM thing seems insane and also strangely logical, what got it shitcanned?

The Minuteman test was just a proof of concept test. There are some pretty serious security and employment issues which is why it never progressed past that stage. For starters, any ICBM needs to know three things: where starts from, where it is, and where it needs to go. Without a fixed location for the first one, you introduce a lot of uncertainty into the system. This may not seem like a big deal for a nuclear weapon, but remember that land based ICBMs are primarily a counterforce weapon, capable of launching a first strike (meaning they need to be capable of pinpoint accuracy to have a reasonable chance of taking out the other guy's silos). Your SLBMs are generally the countervalue/second strike weapon, with increased survivability traded off for decreased inherent accuracy (less true now but was true until the D5/Trident II's came online in 1990...we're talking an entire order of magnitude difference in CEP). If your land based ICBMs have degraded accuracy, they lose some of their utility.

Additionally, you get the worst of both worlds from a security/loading perspective: it takes much longer to transport/load an ICBM onto a transport than it does to load up a bomber with cruise missiles, the weapon is out of the secure WSA for a longer period of time, and instead of loading and forgetting about it in a secure silo, the aircraft can only fly around for a set amount of time before it has to return to base and is again vulnerable.

Basically the only realistic employment would be loading up a bunch of C-5s in a time of increased tension as an additional deterrent. The problem here is that it doesn't really add anything to the triad. The point of land based ICBMs is to serve as a first strike/counterforce weapon (air launched can't do that); the point of SLBMs is to serve as a survivable second strike/countervalue (air launched can only do that for very limited periods of time before it has to land); and the point of bombers carrying cruise missiles is to serve as a flexible sign of resolve, flying closer to the enemy's airspace to send a signal (air launched ICBMs don't need to do this, and to be honest can't since they lack the survivability of the bombers...no ECM/jamming and limited performance, particularly at low level). Also, this raises an additional problem in that in any period of increased tensions chances are that the requirements for strategic airlift have increased significantly, so deploying C-5s with ICBMs on board would stress an already stretched platform in a time of crisis.

Edit: Beaten, and that's a good point about the reliability of transport aircraft and/or crashes with an entire ICBM on board. Also, a good point about NATO striking POL...the whole premise of the book/war is that the Soviets are critically short of POL and need to take out NATO in order to be able to grab the Middle East. Once NATO finds this out (I think they interrogate someone they capture while retaking Keflavik) they ratchet up the pressure on Soviet POL facilities which helps drive the Soviets to the bargaining table.

iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Aug 23, 2011

Dejan Bimble
Mar 24, 2008

we're all black friends
Plaster Town Cop

NosmoKing posted:

Yep, I posted it several pages back, but there's always room for one more showing of the Air Force's biggest "hold my beer and watch this" moment.

I realized it just a minute or two after I posted it, oh well

A much more exciting c-5 story: my friend Jon's little sister compulsively hides food around their house and in the yard. Like 15 minutes after groceries arriving at home they're all compulsively hidden away. So once when Jon was looking around for food, which entailed poking long sticks into the vents and moving furniture, he went into the attic and found his old toybox. At the bottom of the toybox was a toy c-5 that was big enough to fill with lots of toy tanks and men. He opened up the nose and found 2 oranges, `1 sleeve of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, one small snickers bar and some chips in a plastic bag. It can carry anything!

Dr. Despair
Nov 4, 2009


39 perfect posts with each roll.

What's this about minutemen?


DSC_0012.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr
This one is on display at the air and space museum outside of Ellsworth, wasn't a great time of day for pictures so everything came out a bit... I dunno. Old looking?

Here's an F-84F.


DSC_0159.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr

This guy was an EC-135, specifically one of the Looking Glass aircraft based out of Ellsworth to act as an airborne CnC point.


DSC_0018.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr

They also had an F-86 that was in the process of being restored. Happy looking guy.

DSC_0088.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr

And they also had one of these tucked away in the back. A B-26K Counter Invader (or A-26K, if you're in Thailand) that was used during Vietnam. Only 40 or so of these were made in the first place.


DSC_0097.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr

This was an EB-57 Canberra.


DSC_0100.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr

And this was a bit older than Cold War, but it happens to be a B-25 that was converted to act as Eisenhower's personal transport. They lowered the bomb bay to make more room inside, and what was left of the bay was fitted with a fuel tank, behind that there were some folding seats and a table as big as they could fit (it folded), and the rear entry hatch was made easier to get in and out of. On top of that the whole thing was insulated and soundproofed to current commercial aircraft standards. Or so the card in front of the plane says.

DSC_0072.jpg by MrDespair, on Flickr

In other news I haven't heard a B-1 take off in a few weeks (the runway is being repaved or something). I'm starting to notice commercial planes flying overhead and other quiet noises. It's starting to weird me out.

thesurlyspringKAA
Jul 8, 2005

Acebuckeye13 posted:

I've seen Red Storm Rising mentioned a couple times throughout this thread, and I have to ask: How accurate were the Cold-War era Clancy novels?

Well the whole story hinges on the super-secret F-117 being a supersonic fighter/bomber capable of total radar invisibility and the ability to carry and employ tons of air to air AND air to surface weapons. That is to say, the whole story hinges on BULLSHIT and was just fantastical dickwaving by a jingoist.

That said, I re-read it (and a few other warporn novels) every year or so.

daskrolator
Sep 11, 2001

sup.
Speaking of the nuclear triad, rumors are about that under the most austere budget cuts the nuclear triad may go to a diad. Which leg gets eliminated? Land-based ICBMs, nuclear bombers, or da boomers?

Flikken
Oct 23, 2009

10,363 snaps and not a playoff win to show for it

daskrolator posted:

Speaking of the nuclear triad, rumors are about that under the most austere budget cuts the nuclear triad may go to a diad. Which leg gets eliminated? Land-based ICBMs, nuclear bombers, or da boomers?

I would vote the bombers

thesurlyspringKAA
Jul 8, 2005
Honestly we dont need bombers OR ICBMs, Sub launched missiles should really be enough.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

thesurlyspringKAA posted:

Honestly we dont need bombers OR ICBMs, Sub launched missiles should really be enough.

The folks in the UK seem to think that a sub based deterrent is enough.

What's the oldest and least effective system?

The ICBM force is all Minuteman missiles that, while updated, are older than me.

If we had neato "hit the minivan in the driveway" accurate single warhead ICBM's like the Midgetman was supposed to be, I'd say eliminate something other than the ICBM's.

Bombers get you bombs, neato cruise missiles, and stuff like that.

The SLBM's are (supposedly) counterforce accurate and have really short flight times and are hard to find.

Minuteman missiles are the guy who's trying to be cool, but is really too old to be in the club.

adskip
Jan 27, 2009
Interesting stuff on Red Storm Rising. I'd be curious to know your opinions on other Cold War WWIII books like Team Yankee. I remember how I loved to read Harold Coyle as a kid but never really read him as an adult and I wonder how well his stuff stands up.

Seizure Meat
Jul 23, 2008

by Smythe
The WWIII series by Ian Slater is loving hilarious.

Koesj
Aug 3, 2003

adskip posted:

Interesting stuff on Red Storm Rising. I'd be curious to know your opinions on other Cold War WWIII books like Team Yankee. I remember how I loved to read Harold Coyle as a kid but never really read him as an adult and I wonder how well his stuff stands up.

It's decent at the tactical level but his operational scenario is based on Hackett's WWIII book which has a pretty dumb political edge to it.

Red Army by Ralph Peters is better than any of the titles mentioned above.

daskrolator
Sep 11, 2001

sup.
If the nuclear triad is cut to a diad in the name of austerity, which of the three systems is the most costly relative the capabilities they provide?

When adding in cost of O&M, military personnel, basing, and procurement/RDT&E, within a rough order of magnitude how expensive are each?

Seizure Meat
Jul 23, 2008

by Smythe

daskrolator posted:

If the nuclear triad is cut to a diad in the name of austerity, which of the three systems is the most costly relative the capabilities they provide?

When adding in cost of O&M, military personnel, basing, and procurement/RDT&E, within a rough order of magnitude how expensive are each?

It also depends on what they can be used for. Subs and bombers get dual value because we can use them for conventional things as well, ICBM's not so much.

thesurlyspringKAA
Jul 8, 2005

VikingSkull posted:

It also depends on what they can be used for. Subs and bombers get dual value because we can use them for conventional things as well, ICBM's not so much.

Though I do think that subs are the most expensive, they are also the most survivable by far. Worth it in my opinion.

Flikken
Oct 23, 2009

10,363 snaps and not a playoff win to show for it

thesurlyspringKAA posted:

Though I do think that subs are the most expensive, they are also the most survivable by far. Worth it in my opinion.

I don't know what all goes into converting a bomber from nuclear to conventional and then back but I imagine it would be cheaper than doing the same on a sub or deactivating and reactivating a missile force.

That's why I vote the bombers should go

McNally
Sep 13, 2007

Ask me about Proposition 305


Do you like muskets?

Flikken posted:

I don't know what all goes into converting a bomber from nuclear to conventional and then back

"Put the nukes in today, Tony. But next week we're loading conventional bombs."

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Flikken posted:

I don't know what all goes into converting a bomber from nuclear to conventional and then back but I imagine it would be cheaper than doing the same on a sub or deactivating and reactivating a missile force.

That's why I vote the bombers should go

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that as far as today's arsenals go the same bombers which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons are the exact same ones that currently deploy our conventional munitions.

In other words, what you are arguing for is scrapping large bombers, period, and I think there's still a need for B2s and B52s in our conventional arsenal.

thesurlyspringKAA
Jul 8, 2005

Cyrano4747 posted:

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that as far as today's arsenals go the same bombers which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons are the exact same ones that currently deploy our conventional munitions.

In other words, what you are arguing for is scrapping large bombers, period, and I think there's still a need for B2s and B52s in our conventional arsenal.

Why do you think we still need huge intercontinental bombers?

EDIT: and its so easy to load a bomber with nukes that they do it on accident sometimes!

Flikken
Oct 23, 2009

10,363 snaps and not a playoff win to show for it

Cyrano4747 posted:

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that as far as today's arsenals go the same bombers which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons are the exact same ones that currently deploy our conventional munitions.

In other words, what you are arguing for is scrapping large bombers, period, and I think there's still a need for B2s and B52s in our conventional arsenal.

I wasn't arguing for scrapping them, just not keep any in a ready nuke status

Dr. Despair
Nov 4, 2009


39 perfect posts with each roll.

thesurlyspringKAA posted:

Why do you think we still need huge intercontinental bombers?

EDIT: and its so easy to load a bomber with nukes that they do it on accident sometimes!

Because it's quicker to get a B-52 or B-1 or B-2 loaded with cruise missiles in range of some place than it is to move a sub into position.

fake e. Also because B-1's sound awesome taking off and it's weird as gently caress not hearing them.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Mr. Despair posted:

Because it's quicker to get a B-52 or B-1 or B-2 loaded with cruise missiles in range of some place than it is to move a sub into position.

More or less this. It's useful to have the capacity to load a bunch of poo poo up on an aircraft in Missouri and have it go blow poo poo up basically anywhere in the world within the day.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

Cyrano4747 posted:

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that as far as today's arsenals go the same bombers which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons are the exact same ones that currently deploy our conventional munitions.

In other words, what you are arguing for is scrapping large bombers, period, and I think there's still a need for B2s and B52s in our conventional arsenal.

Sort of. Currently the B-2s and B-52s carry nukes (gravity bombs in the case of the B-2s, ALCMs in the case of the B-52s). B-1s do not; we removed the capability in the mid '90s, because keeping bombers nuclear capable is expensive. Not only do you have all the additional more stringent inspection/maintenance requirements on the aircraft itself, you have the infrastructure to support the nuclear mission, which is rather significant: separate WSA for the storage and maintenance of the weapons as well as additional Security Forces dudes, and the additional inspection/maintenance requirements on everything that comes into contact with the weapons...vehicles, maintenance equipment, personnel...nukes are a royal pain in the rear end.

As for what is involved in converting from conventional to nuclear, B-52s and B-2s do this all the time since the fuzing and other assorted equipment is still onboard the aircraft. The problem is twofold: if you stand down from a nuclear capability (like we did with the B-1) you have to reinstall the required equipment, which isn't cheap or easy. Additionally, you have to rebuild/spin up the required infrastructure (basically what I mentioned above) at the base if it doesn't already have it.

thesurlyspringKAA posted:

Why do you think we still need huge intercontinental bombers?

Although it is a stupid argument to make, it is the one most popular these day, so let's apply the "HOW IS THIS USEFUL IN AFGHANISTAN SINCE THOSE ARE THE ONLY KIND OF WARS THE US WILL EVER FIGHT" test...a bomber loaded with JDAMs equipped with a Sniper type targeting pod in contact with a JTAC on the ground is one of the most effective CAS platforms out there. It has lots of loiter time as well as the ability to carry large amounts of ordnance (combat persistence) and the ability to employ that ordnance in an extremely precise manner.

Moving beyond those types of wars, Global Reach Global Power. The ability to load up a bomber with a bellyfull of bombs and fly it halfway around the world to strike somebody on the other side of the world within a matter of hours without having to worry about third country basing agreements is a useful one to have, and one that our current defense posture is predicated on. Now, you can make the argument that our defense posture should change and this ability would be no longer needed, but that is a political argument regarding our national security strategy. If the U.S. government wants the military to maintain our current commitments around the globe and our defense posture, strategic bombers are an essential part of that.

As for which part of the triad to remove, really all you need is boomers. The point of having land based ICBMs is to enable a first strike as part of your deterrence strategy...barring Cold War Part II (which I think it is safe to say is fairly unlikely), this is unnecessary. Additionally, the amount of warheads that is on our land based ICBMs is a very small percentage compared to the boomers (none of our Minutemen are MIRV'd these days, while our SLBMs are). Land based bombers provide flexibility in the nuclear mission (you can load up a bomber with nukes and send it flying towards someone and still recall it; this isn't possible with a ballistic missile), but again, I think this is only necessary in the context of a Cold War environment.

Frozen Horse
Aug 6, 2007
Just a humble wandering street philosopher.

VikingSkull posted:

It also depends on what they can be used for. Subs and bombers get dual value because we can use them for conventional things as well, ICBM's not so much.

In fact, ICBMs have a high positive scrapping value as satellite launch platforms. Bombers are worth their weight in aluminum. Subs... Would you like some irradiated scrap steel?

daskrolator
Sep 11, 2001

sup.

Cyrano4747 posted:

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure that as far as today's arsenals go the same bombers which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons are the exact same ones that currently deploy our conventional munitions.

I'm sure iyaayas01 will chime in on this but there is a portion of our B-52 fleet which deploy conventional munitions that do not have the capability to deploy nuclear weapons. This was the result of the last few arms reduction treaties.


The real issue with nuclear bombers is to what extend do you continue to modernize the B-52 fleet, sustain the B-1B and B-2 fleets, and capitalize for a potentially nuclear capable family of long range strike systems (formerly next gen bomber).

EDIT: I actually didn't know B-1Bs were not nuclear capable, color me surprised.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

daskrolator posted:

I'm sure iyaayas01 will chime in on this but there is a portion of our B-52 fleet which deploy conventional munitions that do not have the capability to deploy nuclear weapons. This was the result of the last few arms reduction treaties.


The real issue with nuclear bombers is to what extend do you continue to modernize the B-52 fleet, sustain the B-1B and B-2 fleets, and capitalize for a potentially nuclear capable family of long range strike systems (formerly next gen bomber).

Dammit, you're right, I forgot about that when I was writing my post above. As part of New START we removed some (I can't remember the exact number) of the B-52 fleet from nuke capable status, similar to what we did with the B-1s.

And yup, that is the question. B-52s are old and getting older. B-2s are high maintenance because of the whole '80s stealth tech thing, and B-1s are probably even higher maintenance :v: (seriously, the B-1 is a maintenance pig). We have a limited pot of money that's getting smaller, and we've gone over the 2018 bomber/NGB/whatever we're calling it these days discussion before.

If it was my call, mothball the B-1s (the AF has tried to do this before but was stymied by the South Dakota and Texas Congressional delegations) because they are a maintenance pig and the capabilities they bring, while nice, aren't unique enough to justify spending the money. The only problem is that we have dumped a fair amount of money into upgrading them recently, which is why this would never happen (in addition to the Congress issue), but there's no reason to throw good money after bad. Keep the B-2s around because that is an extremely unique capability that keeps a lot of defended airspace open to us that would otherwise be closed. B-52s are old, but less of a maintenance pig than the B-1 (which isn't saying much I guess, but for their age they are in good shape), and they are capable. The only problem with the BUFFs is the age/size of the cruise missile fleet, since that is their primary nuclear mission. All the ALCMs will be out of service by 2020, leaving the BUFF without a nuclear mission. It will still be able to carry conventional cruise missiles like the AGM-158. Finally, get a realistic program with achievable parameters for the long range strike mission and start serious development.

Of course, asking a military aerospace project to have realistic estimates with modest achievable parameters is apparently asking too much these days, so I'm fully expecting a repeat of the JSF clusterfuck, with a little bit of the B-2 thrown in.

daskrolator posted:

EDIT: I actually didn't know B-1Bs were not nuclear capable, color me surprised.

Yeah, they went from one end of the spectrum to the other...it was originally intended to blow holes through Soviet air defenses with SRAMs and then striking the main target with gravity bombs; now it's equipped with Sniper pods to loiter over a counterinsurgency dropping a few JDAMs here and there.

iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Aug 24, 2011

thesurlyspringKAA
Jul 8, 2005

iyaayas01 posted:


Although it is a stupid argument to make, it is the one most popular these day, so let's apply the "HOW IS THIS USEFUL IN AFGHANISTAN SINCE THOSE ARE THE ONLY KIND OF WARS THE US WILL EVER FIGHT" test...a bomber loaded with JDAMs equipped with a Sniper type targeting pod in contact with a JTAC on the ground is one of the most effective CAS platforms out there. It has lots of loiter time as well as the ability to carry large amounts of ordnance (combat persistence) and the ability to employ that ordnance in an extremely precise manner.

Moving beyond those types of wars, Global Reach Global Power. The ability to load up a bomber with a bellyfull of bombs and fly it halfway around the world to strike somebody on the other side of the world within a matter of hours without having to worry about third country basing agreements is a useful one to have, and one that our current defense posture is predicated on. Now, you can make the argument that our defense posture should change and this ability would be no longer needed, but that is a political argument regarding our national security strategy. If the U.S. government wants the military to maintain our current commitments around the globe and our defense posture, strategic bombers are an essential part of that.



First off, I never said we'd only fight COIN from now on. Don't put stupid words in my mouth. Second, I take it you're someone who has never worked with a JTAC, or at least doesn't with any regularity? I have seen thousands of hours of OEF COIN, and from my experience, JTACs rate CAS assets like this:

-AC-130/Organic
-Hogs
-MQ-9s
-(Everything else)

The Bone, which is the only big bomber we use in OEF, has to take off outside of Afghanistan from an oppressive dictatorship, fly over whatever third world nations that agree with our presence (so we DO still have to rely on those shitholes), refuel multiple times from costly, inefficient, ANCIENT refueling assets (they burn like 30 thousand pounds an hour or something retarded like that) and end up looking around for a couple hours at over 20kft until they burn the rest of our tax money and fly off, or end up finding something and dropping the same GBU-38 that any other jet in theater carries. There is nothing it does that cant be done cheaper and saner by other poo poo.

Sure I get the whole WOO LOUD NOISE BRING THE RAIN aspect, but you have to admit that just about everything else makes more sense. The AC 130 brings more accurate fire, quicker, quieter, and lower (so you don't have to clear as much airspace), the Hogs are loving CAS experts-period-, unlike the Bone pilots who are generally trained to put cruise missiles on point targets in some nonsensical future war with China, not look for some sneaky goat herder setting an IED. MQ-9s loiter silently forever and deliver low CDE weapons with pinpoint accuracy, perfect for the down-time when there aren't a lot of TICs popping off. Also, there are dozens of other fighter assets in country that base IN COUNTRY, burn less gas, break down less often, and carry the same weapons that the bone does.

Now that we've established that the Bone is a moronic CAS asset, lets move to the mission it was designed to do, fly into Russia at supersonic speeds and nuke the poo poo out of it ... sorry I guess I mean put cruise missiles on targets in [insert boogeyman here]. I don't think Bones can even carry nukes anymore, correct me if I'm wrong. Why send giant supersonic bombers to throw cruise missiles at China at all? Why not just use Naval assets? We have the worlds largest loving Navy by far, you'd think they could handle it. What about drones? Next gen stealth UCAVs can get in closer and put more accurate bombs on Chinese targets than the glass-cannon Bones. What if the Chinese sortie a hundred Mig-21s to intercept them? Would we need fighter escorts? How many assets are we going to have to use to put cruise missiles into China? The Bone is a huge useless waste at every mission we could conceivably have to do. I'm sure it would have been really great at nuking the soviets, but we just don't need that anymore! The B-52 has the same drawbacks as well, really. Stealth fighters and PAC-3s can take care of the air war, stealth UCAVs get SEAD, and maybe B2s for the deep-strike stuff that cruise missiles can't handle.

The Bone and the Buff are cold-war relics that have NO use in modern combat, and in this climate of austerity and budget cuts, how can you justify their continued existence?

Anyway I'm loving tired, so sorry if that wall o text isn't the easiest to read, but I'm sure you get my drift... I might try to clean it up tomorrow.

EDIT: I guess in the process of typing all that crap, I missed you saying we should mothball the Bone and Buff. Whoops. Anyway the Bone is a lovely CAS asset, and I guess thats the only point I'm making that you didn't already admit.

thesurlyspringKAA fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Aug 24, 2011

Alaan
May 24, 2005

I think he was saying thats more how the higher ups are viewing it than anything else.

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Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy

Alaan posted:

I think he was saying thats more how the higher ups are viewing it than anything else.

Also the taxpaying public.

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