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Handsome Ralph posted:The moral of the story is, don't read youtube comments. Youtube comments about aviation are even stupider than the average Youtube comments, which are to say the genuine bottom of the barrel worst of the worst. It's all completely ignorant morons spouting bullshit direct from the ninth circle of hell via the Eye of Sauron based solely on nation of origin. I would wholeheartedly recommend, to everyone, one of the many options to block Youtube comments from even showing in the first place.
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Aug 7, 2013 23:53
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In this case, though, the commentor is right. Saab propaganda notwithstanding, the Gripen was built to a severe price point. The F-35 really is better in virtually every important way. Except coolness. Gripen is a fantastic looking aircraft.  
grover fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 7, 2013 23:59
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grover posted:In this case, though, the commentor is right. Saab propaganda notwithstanding, the Gripen was built to a severe price point. The F-35 really is better in virtually every important way. Since when does cost not count as important? 3-4 Gripens for the cost of one F-35 sounds like a drat good deal.
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Aug 8, 2013 00:07
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hepatizon posted:Since when does cost not count as important? 3-4 Gripens for the cost of one F-35 sounds like a drat good deal. It would seem the Gripen NG is pretty expensive actually. http://www.cdainstitute.ca/en/blog/entry/replacing-the-cf18-part-ii-the-gripen-ng
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Aug 8, 2013 00:10
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grover posted:The F-35 really is better in virtually every important way. - Realistic and attainable lifecycle/upgrade goals - Technology transfer - Short field performance - Price in pretty much every dimension
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Aug 8, 2013 00:20
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Dead Reckoning posted:- Cost per flying hour And short field performance better than an F-35? Is there a VTOL Gripen? grover fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 00:25
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Swedish government's fixed cost is $105M apiece and operations costs around $21,000 per hour? Every "cheap" alternative out there seems to be trying to get into F-22 territory cost-wise.
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Aug 8, 2013 00:31
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Who has to retire before Drone Air Force activates?
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Aug 8, 2013 00:39
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grover posted:Since when is mediocrity a virtue? If you're measuring by cost, Piper Cub with a pistol is the best fighter ever made. Besides, cost per hr comparisons aren't really fair here, as F-22 and F-35 maint costs are largely driven up by the stealth coating. Yeah, shooting for the stars with our acquisition requirements has been working out super loving well for the DoD. Maintenance costs are driven up by proprietary Lockheed Martin LO Coatings, unforeseen problems, etc. which is my whole point. This may blow your mind, but most countries don't cross-shop upgrades to mature platforms and not-yet-operational wunderplanes. If you're a country with the GDP of California that only really needs to tee off on your belligerent neighbors' 1960s era IADS and contribute to the occasional NATO mission, cost, and being able to anticipate and control future costs, is going to be a fairly loving significant deal. A better comparison is with new build F-16s, which offer benefits in total payload and U.S. handjobs, but have disadvantages of their own.
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Aug 8, 2013 00:42
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Bobcats posted:Who has to retire before Drone Air Force activates?
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Aug 8, 2013 00:43
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Godholio posted:Swedish government's fixed cost is $105M apiece and operations costs around $21,000 per hour? It's almost like we should just buy F-22s...
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Aug 8, 2013 01:18
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Godholio posted:Swedish government's fixed cost is $105M apiece and operations costs around $21,000 per hour? Inflation's a bitch
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Aug 8, 2013 01:24
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Yeah, Gripen was "only" like $68M a pop when production models first started rolling off the assembly line nearly two decades ago. Hard to believe it's been that long. It's the oldest and least capable of the 4.5th gen fighters. Gripen NG updates it with a better engine, better radar and I'm guessing ditches the 80s-vintage everything else for more modern stuff?
grover fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 01:53
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Snowdens Secret posted:Inflation's a bitch Yeah inflation in the past 5 years is to blame. 
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Aug 8, 2013 02:13
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grover posted:In this case, though, the commentor is right. Saab propaganda notwithstanding, the Gripen was built to a severe price point. The F-35 really is better in virtually every important way. If the F-35 does everything it is supposed to do as well as it is supposed to do, yes. Of course what are the chances of that not happening with the Department of Defense's record on acquisition projects right
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Aug 8, 2013 02:17
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Godholio posted:Yeah inflation in the past 5 years is to blame. Godholio posted:Swedish government's fixed cost is $105M apiece and operations costs around $21,000 per hour? grover posted:Yeah, Gripen was "only" like $68M a pop when production models first started rolling off the assembly line nearly two decades ago. Hard to believe it's been that long. It's the oldest and least capable of the 4.5th gen fighters. Gripen NG updates it with a better engine, better radar and I'm guessing ditches the 80s-vintage everything else for more modern stuff?  Looks like a bargain!
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Aug 8, 2013 02:21
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The Gripen might not be the best plane and we should probably have bought an American plane instead of developing it but I still think it's pretty cool that Sweden with a population of 9 million have a 4.5 generation fighter jet at all  .
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Aug 8, 2013 03:03
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Psion posted:Youtube comments about aviation are even stupider than the average Youtube comments, which are to say the genuine bottom of the barrel worst of the worst. It's all completely ignorant morons spouting bullshit direct from the ninth circle of hell via the Eye of Sauron based solely on nation of origin. I have that chrome extension that blocks comments out but I am a glutton for punishment so I sometimes read them anyways. I really hate myself a little more each time I do so. DesperateDan posted:RSR 2: Electric Boogaloo I enjoyed this as well! More! Handsome Ralph fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 03:05
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DesperateDan posted:
Good stuff, keep going!
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Aug 8, 2013 09:39
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Speaking of RSR reduxes, the first and so far only part of Harvey Black's WW3 trilogy, Red Effect, is only 6 bucks on Kindle. Since the author is a retired British intelligence officer there are a lot of neat technical details sprinkled into a middling storyline that reads like a series of loosely connected vignettes. Regrettably it ends right after the first shots get fired, and there's almost no characterisation or motive for actions to be found, but if you love reading about BRIXMIS dudes stealing ERA blocks off of T-64s on railcars, stay-behind forces, and Soviet artillery battalions being cascaded into a massive opening barrage, this is just the book for you!
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Aug 8, 2013 10:15
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Did someone say Gripen?  Truly a shame this paint scheme isn't used anymore  (The aircraft in question was the last Gripen A to be operated anywhere and was painted this way to celebrate its last flight.) TheFluff fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 12:29
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grover posted:Since when is mediocrity a virtue? If you're measuring by cost, Piper Cub with a pistol is the best fighter ever made. uh this isn't "post your best youtube comment impersonation"
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Aug 8, 2013 16:48
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Sweden's three crowns roundel is probably the coolest of any airforce, with the possible exception of New Zealand.
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Aug 8, 2013 16:56
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RNZAF is the only air force in the world with a flightless bird for a logo, and it's quite fitting actually considering that it has no fighters anymore.
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Aug 8, 2013 17:28
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Mortabis posted:RNZAF is the only air force in the world with a flightless bird for a logo, and it's quite fitting actually considering that it has no fighters anymore. The RNZAF: the only flying Kiwis.
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Aug 8, 2013 17:39
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Psion posted:uh this isn't "post your best youtube comment impersonation" It is when your favorite fighter starves you of oxygen.
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Aug 8, 2013 17:41
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Grover isn't a mod anymore guys, you can put him on ignore now.
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Aug 8, 2013 17:45
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LP97S posted:It is when your favorite fighter starves you of oxygen. That would explain the bad posting.
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Aug 8, 2013 18:37
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Snowdens Secret posted:
Yes, and the same thing happened to the F-22. What are you even trying to argue? I should compare early 90s Grippen prices to 2000s F-22 prices? What?
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Aug 8, 2013 19:02
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monkeytennis posted:Good stuff, keep going! Ta  Here's the next 36 hours or so: 6th January 0736 All the three hours serves to do is allow every single asset available to be pushed into place, officials and stores into bunkers, every bomb possible loaded on every plane, many dispersed to the smallest runways that will take them. The media is talking about cool heads talking calmly to bring an end to things, but in many cities people are fleeing or looting. Units of soldiers are being moved into factory basements, bank vaults, mine shafts and anywhere else that offers protection. All but the most violent prisoners have been evicted from prisons, Fire and Police units are moving all equipment and personnel they can get out of large cities. In Germany, attempted desertions on both sides have brought prompt summary execution. All over Europe and the US reserve units are being activated, stockpiles of weapons handed out and dispersed, and shipped towards whatever front is closest, or units given orders simply to get as far from civilisation as they can for 2 weeks before reporting back. Old WW2 bunkers are hastily reactivated.  Stairway to moderate blast and excellent fallout protection 6th January 0822 Nearly another hour of relative peace, but it's breaking down. During this time, the Politburo, unsure of the ability of the command and control to survive an attempt at decapitation, issue commands to launch on warning if there is no response, with the hard-line faction ensuring massive retaliation is the option. Reagan is now debating his options on board Air Force One with heavy escort circling over the Atlantic, Thatcher is settling into a command room 150ft underground near Corsham (the newly built, still in use deep bunker, not the old quarry site). The Queen arrived in Canada several days previously, under media secrecy, and is on a remote estate. No civilian flights are running, but many have been pressed into service over the last few days to run troops and cargo. Even those have now tapered off to a minimum. Motorways are now official use only. Radio and TV broadcasts have regular explanations about how siren warnings work, and advise people to stay inside. NATO commanders have been passed battlefield authority on a very limited selection of tactical nuclear weapons. Warsaw pact forces now have the codified responses based on the launch on warning selection, from single kiloton artillery devices, through to full scale nuclear war.  Nice red doors on an RAF radar bunker of love. Morning of 6th January There was no single event to re-trigger, both sides were so scared of being caught off guard that commanders ensured every unit was patrolling aggressively and extensively. A general loose fire-fight with light weapons that was developing down the west/east German border flares up, aerial skirmishes around carrier groups, and several assassinations and more attempts on the lives of several high ranking staff on both sides. Many other small incidents. Press censorship is now heavily in place in all nations, they broadcast what they are told or they become emergency message only. Very few people have shown up for work. Petrol and Diesel is almost entirely rationed, police guards at supermarkets limit people to what they can carry. Places like cinemas, sports stadiums, warehouses and other buildings are closed and requisitioned for official use. Afternoon of 6th January By early afternoon, the Soviet ability to flood in troops is starting to tell, and despite profligate ammunition usage by NATO troops the Soviets start pushing through with weight of numbers and increasing amounts of heavy artillery support. Multiple air strikes are released, and the skies over the iron curtain are thick with aircraft as NATO attempt to flood in as many strike aircraft as they can over the front line and into supply areas, and Warsaw pact aviation attempts to do the same, while large and dedicated air defence systems pound at anything resembling an enemy. Governance in all nations seems to have halted now, all ministers have fled, no more official business, all freedoms already quashed and everything turned over to those in the bunkers.  Fire in the large muddy pit! Evening/Early Morning of 6th January By now, all efforts at peace seem to have fallen away, and the West is unsure of what factions are left within the Kremlin. The Politburo is sure that the attempted decapitation is about to happen, and are deeply dug in under mountains in the Urals, hard to communicate with even if they are listening. On the Western front, fighting is growing more intense, in the air NATO are grinding heavily at Warsaw pact numbers but still do not dominate the skies, and on the ground, under cover of massive artillery and missile strikes Warsaw pact armoured forces have started pushing forwards through NATO lines to better defensive lines. Snow starts to pour down, with heavy fog hampering air strikes. An anti-war demonstration in Bonn is attacked by right wing extremists and several are killed. Martial law is put into effect in West Germany, though they need not have bothered- most people are staying at home.  SR-71 If you didn't know that slap yourself in the damned head 7th January 0722 At dawn the fog has cleared somewhat, and at dawn a SR-71 Blackbird flight tears down the European continent at Mach 3, a good 100 miles past the wrong side of the German border. It records multiple armoured divisions offloading in Eastern Germany, in exactly the places that NATO fear they are going to be pushed. After a night of incredibly bloody combat, the NATO line is ragged, and while supplies and reinforcements are flooding in, the Warsaw pact advance is relentless. The daylight and lifting fog have helped air strikes somewhat, but overnight Warsaw pact forces seem to have flown in all their B rated older units too, and are literally throwing everything in to try and confuse things and let elite units slip through. It works. Many NATO rear areas and command posts are hit hard, though the Warsaw Pact forces take heavy losses. 7th January 1052 The confusion of losing so many local command and control and many reinforcement/reserve units and supplies has had the desired effect on NATO, Warsaw pact forces have pushed nearly 20Km inside Western Germany in places, and have been given the order to dig in while reinforcements are brought off the trains. A large scale NATO raid is being assembled across Europe, while the remnants of the initial Warsaw pact strike are landing. The North Sea carrier group has moved near the English coast, and is receiving new vessels and offloading casualties from the strike that obliterated the Enterprise. Soviet surface forces have fallen right back, but submarine forces are meeting at deep, pre allotted places and organising. In the sea of Japan, Soviet submarines are doing the same, but run across a US task force, with an aggressive submarine screen with lots of P3 Orion support mean that the submarines are found, and with heavy aerial support the US task force starts obliterating the Soviet wolf pack. In war rooms around the world, requests for tactical nuclear weapon release from local commanders grow. High level meetings ensue.  T80 it's a tank and it shoots things at things 7th January 1213 The NATO high command, deeply concerned with the lack of effect air power and artillery are having on Warsaw pact advances, suggest a small number of Pershing II missiles be released on Airfields, Command centres and the areas Soviet troops are offloading and massing. Thatcher and Reagan decide to wait another few hours, but authorise all available conventional air assets into action, and nuclear units to highest readiness. The Soviet naval forces around the sea of Japan start responding to the US naval task force attacking the submarines with Bears and Backfires. The CAP around the carriers is effective, but Soviet Naval Aviation is still holding back its forces and seems to probe more than strike. light losses on each side, but the submarines are stuck in place. An agent working for what's left of the moderate element of the politburo attempts to assassinate the new chairman and two other hard-liners. He fluffs it, and is promptly killed in the attempt. The politburo are convinced the agent was actually British intelligence launching the start of the decapitation strike. Soviet units around Giessen, West Germany start receiving a strong flow of T-80 and T-72 tanks, with heavy infantry support. They start to push towards Frankfurt. Marine patrol craft operating from Iceland and the UK pick up occasional signals but never anything concrete off the coast of the UK, France and Spain.  Avro Shackleton Maritime Patrol/AEW aircraft, derived from the WW2 Lancaster Bomber, and in service till 1990 because the UK is cheap DesperateDan fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Aug 8, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 19:28
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Yeah no that ground forces scenario doesn't really work Who is on the attack? What's their motive? Your description of the initial phase of operations is something akin to a modern civil war: lots of spontaneous skirmishing. When there's a literal wall between you and the enemy (and two lines of concertina wire, and minefields, and tank traps)...  ...you don't peek over it to randomly shoot into the distance. You come through a number of crossing points in force, after artying the gently caress out of every potential enemy position on the other side. This entails a lot of preparation and camouflage, wouldn't want them to know where, when and how you're going to start attacking.
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Aug 8, 2013 21:38
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I'll also add that the idea of the W. German military responding to attempted desertions with summary executions is really, really questionable at best. In the 80s you would have had a lot of guys in leadership positions who had a living memory of WW2, and pretty much everyone in the BRD agreed that the executions of German soldiers for cowardice during the last stages of the war were loving unforgivable. One of the real ironies of post-war justice was that a lot of no bullshit war criminals were finally brought to justice not for what they did to jews, but for ordering some random private shot for cowardice or desertion in the closing months of the war. W. German officer training leaned way, way heavily on the "we do not do this poo poo" end of that particular issue after the war.
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Aug 8, 2013 21:50
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Cyrano4747 posted:I'll also add that the idea of the W. German military responding to attempted desertions with summary executions is really, really questionable at best. In the 80s you would have had a lot of guys in leadership positions who had a living memory of WW2, and pretty much everyone in the BRD agreed that the executions of German soldiers for cowardice during the last stages of the war were loving unforgivable. One of the real ironies of post-war justice was that a lot of no bullshit war criminals were finally brought to justice not for what they did to jews, but for ordering some random private shot for cowardice or desertion in the closing months of the war. W. German officer training leaned way, way heavily on the "we do not do this poo poo" end of that particular issue after the war. Let's also not forget following the Commando Order....granted that didn't take to long. Anton Dosler learned the hard way about that. 
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Aug 8, 2013 22:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:W. German officer training leaned way, way heavily on the "we do not do this poo poo" end of that particular issue after the war. To me, one of the weirder experiences of reading East German veterans' message boards has always been how every third post or so about the Bundeswehr comes down to "lmao Innere Führung " as if the concept of citizen soldiers fighting not so much for the physical representations of their Germanness, but for the ideals that their clean-slate nation represents, is either: A. a capitalist-revanchist facade or B. not relly German anyway since they had long hair, were 9-to-5, didn't have a definitive model Stahlhelm/Prussian-cut dress uniform, and weren't representing a proper totalitarian regime (lol).e: stupid 1AM typos Koesj fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 8, 2013 22:19
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Koesj posted:Yeah no that ground forces scenario doesn't really work I was generally just going for trouble along the border flaring up, then forces looking for the better position their opponent has and taking it. You are right though, it doesn't make much sense- more of just a diversion while everything slides into poo poo on a much larger scale, which is the stuff I'm doing at the moment Cyrano4747 posted:I'll also add that the idea of the W. German military responding to attempted desertions with summary executions is really, really questionable at best. In the 80s you would have had a lot of guys in leadership positions who had a living memory of WW2, and pretty much everyone in the BRD agreed that the executions of German soldiers for cowardice during the last stages of the war were loving unforgivable. One of the real ironies of post-war justice was that a lot of no bullshit war criminals were finally brought to justice not for what they did to jews, but for ordering some random private shot for cowardice or desertion in the closing months of the war. W. German officer training leaned way, way heavily on the "we do not do this poo poo" end of that particular issue after the war. Also true, should probably have just left it as some soviet units, if that. I have a few days ahead of where I am here that I am finishing up at the moment, hopefully post more of it in the morning if people want.
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Aug 8, 2013 22:37
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Koesj posted:To me, one of the weirder experiences of reading East German veterans' message boards THis is a thing? poo poo why has this never occurred to me. Give me links, now.
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Aug 9, 2013 00:53
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Cyrano4747 posted:One of the real ironies of post-war justice was that a lot of no bullshit war criminals were finally brought to justice not for what they did to jews, but for ordering some random private shot for cowardice or desertion in the closing months of the war.  I would like to know more.
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Aug 9, 2013 05:57
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After WW2 the Germans spent the first five years or so staggering back and forth and trying to scrape something resembling a civil society together out of whatever they could find in the rubble. After that the two cold war states were officially set up and something resembling a day to day normality ensued. As far as any kind of post-Nuremburg prosecution of war criminals went, things were very much a mixed bag both in the east and the west. Things were totally hosed in the east for their own reasons, but I'll leave that for another time because holy poo poo there's a lot of explaining to even begin to get into why the E. Germans ever did anything. In the West it basically boiled down to people whistling loudly and ignoring the everloving gently caress out of how uneven and irregular the denazification process had been. The short version of that is that it's really goddamned hard to have a functioning country if you just ban everyone from public office who used to be in the last regime. For a recent example of this, see all the similar problems we had in Iraq with old Ba'athists and the ongoing problems in Starting around the late 50s and early 60s and accelerating in the late 60s you start to finally have a judicial reckoning for some of the middle-tier shitheads via the German court system. We're not talking some poor sod who wanted to be an electrician and got forced into the Party, but SS, police, military, etc. guys who did some legitimately horrible stuff. The problem was that W. Germany was actually a functioning democracy by this time with a judicial system that, while it certainly still had some guys with spotty as gently caress pasts sitting on the benches, conducted itself like you would expect from courts in a first world country. Concepts like "burden of proof" and "presumption of innocence" actually had meaning and unfortunately it could be really goddamned hard to actually prove that some of these guys did the things that they did. Most of the victims were dead, frequently key witnesses were either KIA in war or living in E. Germany, etc. There was also a nasty bit of W. German criminal code that held that for an actual charge of murder to be levied they had to have actually been seen to order or commit a specific killing. I'm a little hazy on the details of that last bit, but I do know it created a pretty onerous burden of evidence. There was also the unfortunate fact that these were murders committed against foreign people in other countries that were now politically unfriendly to the west. It was just a bad combination of being difficult prosecutions and politically problematic. Because of this a lot of guys who were broadly known to have ordered or participated in mass shootings of Jews, Roma, etc. were never really held accountable for those crimes. On the other hand a lot of those same perpetrators were military officers with other military duties, and a LOT of them became implicated in late war executions for desertion, cowardice, dereliction of duty, defeatism, and the other sort of bullshit charges that get thrown at some poor SOB who realizes the war is totally and irrevocably hosed and gets caught trying to get out of the way of its inevitable conclusion. There were a LOT of those executions. I forget the number, but it's in the low five figure range. Maybe 15,000? When things were collapsing badly they had roving bands of SS driving around rear areas looking for deserters and hanging them from street lamps as a warning. poo poo was ugly. Those killings, unlike the Jews in Eastern Europe, were frequently very well documented if the court martial papers survived and often had surviving, German witnesses - either soldiers or regular German civilians who saw the proceedings. Remember, a lot of this poo poo is happening on German soil since the majority of them took place in '44 and '45. It was much, much easier to connect the legal dots that were required to get a conviction. As a result you had a lot of very, very bad men who did some really disgusting things in the name of a racially pure German dominion stretching from the Rhine to the Dnieper who finally got locked up because they signed off on or tied the noose for some poor loving 16 year old draftee who tried to gently caress off and walk home in April, 1945. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Aug 9, 2013 |
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Aug 9, 2013 06:34
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Tunsia, Libya same diff
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Aug 9, 2013 06:54
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mikerock posted:Tunsia, Libya same diff I blame the fact that it's 2AM. How I can be this wiped and completely unable to sleep is loving beyond me.
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