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Psychotic Russians are rolling a lot harder than they were back when the A-10 was designed.
Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 07:12
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I know the A-10 is built tough but it seems the separatists are like rear end deep in SAMs, because an air force is about the only thing the Russians can't plausibly-deny giving them.
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Feb 11, 2015 07:18
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Jesus christ why didn't the Joint Staff just tell whatever staffer at EUCOM requested those to gently caress off, for the sole purpose of keeping McCain, Ayotte, and the rest of the "save the A-10" brigade quiet We're never going to hear the end of it now Why couldn't EUCOM be like every other CCMD and just request more Pred/Reaper CAPs from now until the end of time
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Feb 11, 2015 07:49
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I adore the A-10 but sometimes I suspect the only reason there's a hue and cry about saving it is that it's the only plane most people can match to its name.
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Feb 11, 2015 07:53
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hailthefish posted:I adore the A-10 but sometimes I suspect the only reason there's a hue and cry about saving it is that it's the only plane most people can match to its name. It's about equal parts nerds jerking off about ZOMG THAT GUN and people whose concept of CAS is stuck in 1985. e: There's a big part of me that wishes the AF would just go "you know what, gently caress it. You win, we quit. The A-10 will stay in service from now until the end of time, now if you'll excuse us we'll be axing the entire KC-10 fleet, also all the Guard units flying any Vipers older than the Block 50/52s are being shut-down immediately. If you've got a problem with that Congress take it up with your buddies McCain and Ayotte." And then when in 3 months our entire worldwide tanking operation completely falls apart because we just removed the biggest capacity gas-passer from the fleet, just shrug our shoulders and go "well at least you can still have sweet looking but completely irrelevant gun-run videos." iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 08:16
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Or even 1975, since lots of current iteration Russian AA systems had their first version come out well before 1985.
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Feb 11, 2015 08:24
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B4Ctom1 posted:Welp.. Didn't we JUST move them out of Spang a couple of years ago? iyaayas01 posted:It's about equal parts nerds jerking off about ZOMG THAT GUN and people whose concept of CAS is stuck in 1985. Or, 2005. Or 2012. To be blunt, the A-10 is effective right now, in the wars that we seem to like fighting. It's replacement isn't. We're flying the wings off (engines out?) of the F-16s when what we should continue doing is burning hours on the A-10 for the next 5 years, since the Vipers need to keep flying for another 15-20 while the F-35 is rolling out of Ft Worth and filling out the squadrons. I don't know that I'd have put it into this mess though. I'm not at all sure what this move is about. I'm right with you guys on survivability against loving Russia. Godholio fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 08:28
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There are places the A-10 could still be useful, but Eastern Europe isn't really one of them. Unless the idea is to sprinkle the skies with so many tempting targets that Russia decides they need to go collect up the SAMs they gave the separatists before an international incident happens, but... somehow I don't think 'level-headed deescalation' is really Putin's style.
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Feb 11, 2015 08:45
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Did other countries have an equivalent of the British Royal Observer Corps to plot/measure and report nukes going off ? Up until the 1991 the UK still had around 1500 manned bunkers/observation posts. Though given the small size of the UK and number of high value targets, plotting was going to be pretty pointless when fusion bombs came along.
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Feb 11, 2015 10:28
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The Dutch Bescherming Bevolking was IIRC closely modeled after the ROC but started only in 1952, got ridiculed from the early 1960s onwards, and was closed down in stages during the 80s, so it never really left a big impression.
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Feb 11, 2015 10:37
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hailthefish posted:...somehow I don't think 'level-headed deescalation' is really Putin's style. Ask the Chechens. Specifically, ask the ones who survived Grozny. If you ever wanted to see what would happen to a city that was hit by an EF5 tornado that just kind of stalled, grew to be a few miles wide, and kept going for a year, you'd pretty much have an idea of what it looked like once the shooting stopped. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 11:49
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B4Ctom1 posted:Welp.. This is great news. Bring all the A-10s you don't want to Eastern Europe. We welcome them with open arms. You can keep a hundred of those if you want, to blow up some turrists in the Middle-East. We'll have the rest. hailthefish posted:There are places the A-10 could still be useful, but Eastern Europe isn't really one of them. See that's where you're wrong. Eastern Europe countries are small and for example in case of Estonia that country is mostly covered with forests, rivers, lakes and swamps. The only way an invasion force can move is by the larger highways, which means you might as well be invading another country on rails. The defending force always knows where you are, and you can't spread out/flank anyone if you are coming with heavy equipment.
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Feb 11, 2015 12:42
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It also means your AA assets will know exactly what to expect.
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Feb 11, 2015 13:12
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Godholio posted:This is why ABM should be a warrant officer position, but the USAF doesn't do WOs. AWACS controllers used to be enlisted, and could do that job their entire careers. Now it's officers. By the time you finish training you're almost certainly a 1Lt (I've only ever met ONE 2Lt at a line squadron, and he got there about a week before his promotion). Due to mandatory career progression, you're unlikely to spend more than 18-24 months as a controller before upgrading to the controllers' supervisor (SD), the surveillance section supervisor (ASO) or the closest thing AWACS has to an ELINT operator (ECO). Or an instructor controller. Then you've got at most 18-24 months in that job before becoming an instructor in that position or a mission crew commander. It's loving stupid, and the handful of sharp people end up carrying the rest of them just to avoid incompetence loving everything up. 4 years flying, and if you're a major, you're gonna be an MCC. Contrast that with some of my enlisted instructors (right before they were all forced out of the AF or crosstrained if they weren't qualified to retire)...I think the "newest" of them had 10 years in the job. Non-leadership pilot billets should probably be open to Warrant Officers, too.  More seriously, one of my FAA Academy instructors was a ~20 year enlisted ABM, and seemed to have rather dim view of where the AWACS field was headed in general, when he got out.
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Feb 11, 2015 13:35
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http://www.platinumfighters.com/#!draken/c1v8j Want your own Draken? $425k and it's yours. Fuel presumably not included, though. The internal tank capacity is 2865 liters of JP-4 (just over 5000 lbs at 68 F), and at full afterburner it burns over 19000 liters/hour. If you skip the afterburner and restrict yourself to full dry thrust, that's "just" 7000 liters/hour. A clean aircraft can still easily break the sound barrier with just dry thrust in level flight though, so you're free to annoy everyone within miles even without the afterburner. I cringe at what they've done to the cockpit though, but I guess the FAA didn't look kindly on instrumentation graded in metric and labelled in Swedish... TheFluff fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 15:26
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Is it just me or did the Drakens look fantastically futuristic for their time?
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Feb 11, 2015 15:34
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Re. the nuclear Nike-Hercs, it seems to me like there's a lot of misinformation about what the effects of those warheads would have been. I think people think of it as firing lots of mini-ICBMs with giant warheads designed to take out cities or hardened underground facilities into the upper atmosphere, which isn't really accurate. They were low yield weapons detonating at high altitude; the issues from such a detonation are pretty minimal for stuff on the ground under it. The only fallout would be bits of missile/plane that were not incinerated, the serious thermal radiation radius is only around 2km (intercept altitude is ~12km) so it isn't reaching the ground. The EMP radius could have potentially damaged things on the ground but not in a wide area, and during that period there weren't a gazillion satellites above to worry about. The biggest side-effect issue almost certainly would have been nuclear material left over from the bombs the planes were carrying crashing into the ground and then getting spread around by the conventional explosion/energy released by the crashing plane/bomb.
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Feb 11, 2015 15:35
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OhYeah posted:Is it just me or did the Drakens look fantastically futuristic for their time? All of the 50's supersonic interceptors look fantastically futuristic considering that the previous generation was things like the F-86, MiG-15 and J 29 Tunnan, which look like pretty conventional aircraft in comparison. The Draken is obviously the coolest of these though, because the cranked arrow wing just looks amazing.  The Mirage III is also a tailless delta but it looks much less exciting, and the MiG-21 has a conventional tail in addition to the delta. The Starfighter just looks weird. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 15:45
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bewbies posted:Re. the nuclear Nike-Hercs, it seems to me like there's a lot of misinformation about what the effects of those warheads would have been. I think people think of it as firing lots of mini-ICBMs with giant warheads designed to take out cities or hardened underground facilities into the upper atmosphere, which isn't really accurate. They were low yield weapons detonating at high altitude; the issues from such a detonation are pretty minimal for stuff on the ground under it. The only fallout would be bits of missile/plane that were not incinerated, the serious thermal radiation radius is only around 2km (intercept altitude is ~12km) so it isn't reaching the ground. The EMP radius could have potentially damaged things on the ground but not in a wide area, and during that period there weren't a gazillion satellites above to worry about. The biggest side-effect issue almost certainly would have been nuclear material left over from the bombs the planes were carrying crashing into the ground and then getting spread around by the conventional explosion/energy released by the crashing plane/bomb. All the negative effects of anti-air nuclear weapons pale in comparison to the effects of allowing a bomber through.
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Feb 11, 2015 15:47
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TheFluff posted:The Mirage III is also a tailless delta but it looks much less exciting, and the MiG-21 has a conventional T-tail in addition to the Delta. The Starfighter just looks weird. And handled like garbage, going by the Luftwaffe. F-8 Crusaders forever! Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 15:48
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Ummmmmmmmmm
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Feb 11, 2015 15:50
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evil_bunnY posted:It also means your AA assets will know exactly what to expect. Yes, a possible attack from every direction (both ground and air), while you can only move slowly forward because you have to clear the highways of massive granite blocks, or retreat back to the border.
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Feb 11, 2015 16:07
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Koesj posted:Ummmmmmmmmm Steel Pipes with Wings do have a certain rustic charm.
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Feb 11, 2015 17:58
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OhYeah posted:Yes, a possible attack from every direction (both ground and air), while you can only move slowly forward because you have to clear the highways of massive granite blocks, or retreat back to the border. I think your really underestimating what Russian SHORAD has developed into in the last 30 years since the A-10. Literally every piece is designed to have a lethal capability against the A-10 or PGMs, they don't use 23mm and lovely IR seekers anymore, these things are the real deal and they still have lots of them. Seriously though, if we really send A-10s to Ukraine, it seems like we're just asking to lose US pilots to SA-18s, Buk-M2s or whatever they decide to sneak over the border once they start actually losing armored vehicles. The political fallout from a Russian shoot down of a U.S. fighter is like opening pandora's box for the media, guaranteed. Talk about useless escalation, just ship them some Javelins and some of the 9000 M1s we have and tell them to do it themselves. Mazz fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 20:04
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Mazz posted:Seriously though, if we really send A-10s to Ukraine, it seems like we're just asking to lose US pilots to SA-18s, Buk-M2s or whatever they decide to sneak over the border once they start actually losing armored vehicles. The political fallout from a Russian shoot down of a U.S. fighter is like opening pandora's box for the media, guaranteed.
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Feb 11, 2015 20:38
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Mazz posted:I think your really underestimating what Russian SHORAD has developed into in the last 30 years since the A-10. Literally every piece is designed to have a lethal capability against the A-10 or PGMs, they don't use 23mm and lovely IR seekers anymore, these things are the real deal and they still have lots of them. No, don't send them to Ukraine, station them in the Baltics and Poland. Also maybe some F-16s to guard the A-10s. I think around 50 would do for a start. Or maybe 100.
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Feb 11, 2015 21:08
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Koesj posted:Ummmmmmmmmm Is that it for the lightning? Just those 2 missiles?
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Feb 11, 2015 21:35
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Rabhadh posted:Is that it for the lightning? Just those 2 missiles? Yes, two Firestreaks or later on, Red Tops, both of which, in true MoD standards, were a bit poo poo. Couldn't fire them in cloudy conditions e.t.c Two cannon though.
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Feb 11, 2015 22:13
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Chase video from an F-18 of a Block IV Tomahawk hitting a moving ship target http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c8e_1423508031 great vid
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Feb 11, 2015 22:22
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OhYeah posted:No, don't send them to Ukraine, station them in the Baltics and Poland. Also maybe some F-16s to guard the A-10s. I think around 50 would do for a start. Or maybe 100. Do you want a war?
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Feb 11, 2015 22:24
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Vahakyla posted:Do you want a war? Oh they would just be on holiday! I hear the area is very popular with soldiers in need of some rest
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Feb 11, 2015 22:32
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Mazz posted:I think your really underestimating what Russian SHORAD has developed into in the last 30 years since the A-10. Literally every piece is designed to have a lethal capability against the A-10 or PGMs, they don't use 23mm and lovely IR seekers anymore, these things are the real deal and they still have lots of them. Yeah, the Russians appear to have thought this far ahead, and may have deployed some very advanced systems across the border:  Image purports to be taken in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. Better shot of the same system, if you don't recognize it from the odd angle:  This particular one is supposedly deployed in Rostov Oblast near the border, with the normal Red Star marking conveniently removed. Pantsir-S1, NATO reporting SA-22. Very mean close-range air defense system, successor to the Tunguska.
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Feb 11, 2015 22:38
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Vahakyla posted:Do you want a war? I want US military personnel to come here on a relaxing vacation. They can leave their insignia behind, it is not necessary to bring them. On a serious note, no, I don't want a war but I would rather see NATO being ready when someone in the Russian elite finally goes stark raving mad and decides that NATO's article V is a bluff.
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Feb 11, 2015 22:39
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TheFluff posted:http://www.platinumfighters.com/#!draken/c1v8j As for fuel, maybe they can buy the big Danish external tanks off Ebay or something.
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Feb 11, 2015 22:44
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OhYeah posted:I want US military personnel to come here on a relaxing vacation. They can leave their insignia behind, it is not necessary to bring them. You don't need A-10s for that though. They might help, but you're a lot better off with Russia knowing NATO is actually committing to these areas in a way they couldn't or won't in Ukraine. http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128120 On a side note, the navy really wants to put that BAE railgun on the third Zumwalt, probably so it actually looks like it accomplished something compared to the DDG-51s. http://news.usni.org/2015/02/05/navy-considering-railgun-third-zumwalt-destroyer Mazz fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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Feb 11, 2015 22:47
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Wonder if NATO has gathered any useful radar intel from those systems, or if they're just sorta... there?
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Feb 11, 2015 23:20
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvHJSIKP0Hg SpaceX Falcon9 launch in about 11 minutes. THey will not be trying to land on the barge this time because of 35 foot waves in the landing zone.
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Feb 11, 2015 23:52
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B4Ctom1 posted:Chase video from an F-18 of a Block IV Tomahawk hitting a moving ship target This is great, everyone watch it.
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Feb 12, 2015 01:10
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The extremely surprised pigeons are the best part.
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Feb 12, 2015 01:21
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How was he guiding it? Was it designating the target via laser?
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Feb 12, 2015 02:26
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